NGAUC Review
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First off, my apologies for the EXTREMELY late review -- but, better late than never!

What worked well:
- Great beat -- it kept me moving from start to finish!
- Nice audio details scattered throughout.
- Awesome introduction, sets the pace perfectly.
- Very energetic!

This track definitely had me moving the whole time. My head was bopping the whole 5:04. Love it! The mix is quite good, and as a result, everything is clear and easy to listen to. The general atmosphere that the track gives off is fantastic, I think you implemented it wonderfully.

What to consider:
- Could use more transitions or changes in order to change mood.
- Lack of a direct melody (but still remained catchy despite this)!
- Underwhelming outro.

As others have said, this piece lacks the use of transitions. Transitions are a fantastic way to alter mood, but that being said, dance/trance music is usually 'set in place' to keep people moving without rests or breaks. THAT being said, some form of change would work wonders here, which ties in to my next point: the lack of a true melody. I think that if you worked a nice hook into the track, starting perhaps at 0:30, and built it up to a rising melody -- that would be awesome! Since your general sound design here is good, a melody and harmonic content would really shine.

The ending was, as mentioned above, a little underwhelming. It started to slow down in a really cool way, and I was expecting you to disassemble each instrument accordingly until everything was silent...but it kind of just ended with a few notes.

This was fun to listen to, and I think that if you implemented some more melodic and harmonic content here, things would sound that much better. Keep it up man!

Score: 7.5/10

So, you've made it to the final round. You've clearly proven yourself. Time to judge by NGADM standards - scoring will be harsher as a result. In any case, here are some pointers for improvement.

The Good:
-Very nice pad at the intro. Drums are really interesting and fairly unique compared to standard trance that I've heard.
-Cool panning effect in the open high hats.
-Really cool overall sound and great atmosphere.
-Great pad comping and rhythmic stuff going on around 4:28.

The Not-so-good:
-Not too much of a melody. In fact, not much here other than sound design. Don't get me wrong, I *love* sound design, but this is basically the same kind of sound design without much change in mood throughout.

Final score: 8.8/10. Basically, this is excellent for all the content that it has. It just needs more than chord progression and trance sound design. Melodic and harmonic lines as well as some more clear rises and falls in tension would make this piece absolutely fantastic.

I really liked everything up until about the 3:00 mark, right around there your percussion's drop in and are out of sync with everything else in the song. The hi-hats are fine it's some of those other samples that sound off-beat. The rest of the song including the slow down at the end are perfect, good job on your final submission!

I like the atmospheric beginning. The reverb helped enhance the atmospheric vibe, too. The drums are pretty cool, almost breakbeat-style. The sub-bass at :21 is a little too loud. Sounded a bit too in-your-face in my headphones, especially given the somewhat relaxed vibe of the rest of this piece. I liked a lot of the instruments here, but this piece progresses really slowly and probably should not have been this long. You have a good sense of rhythm and harmony, yet there are long sections of this piece that are simply minimalistic to the point of being underwhelming. I wanted to see some more dominant melodic content during the first couple of minutes of this piece. You have some cool arpeggios going at 2:10, but they're also pretty far back in the mix. I really liked the arrival point at around the 3-minute mark. That section probably should've been expanded upon and/or repeated (with slight variations) more often, as it clearly would function well as a refrain/chorus except for the fact that it only plays once 3/5 of the way through the piece. The ending also seemed a bit rushed IMO. I would suggest seriously condensing the first 2.5 minutes of this piece as well as the last 1.5 minutes. You might even be able to squeeze another refrain into the first couple of minutes of the piece if you condense the intro enough. Having one main climax in a piece this long just doesn't work for me to be honest. As it is now, the piece develops too slowly for the arrival point to be as effective as it could be in stimulating the listener's emotions. Still, I liked the instruments, moods, and harmonies. Some moderate structural changes, and this piece would be seriously awesome. I'd encourage you to keep working on it (after the competition, of course), because I think it has a lot of potential. Keep up the good work, PolarTrance. ;)

7.5/10