This is an Official NGUAC '18 Knockout Round Review

Beginning Comments: It has a good start. I like the dark tones you have but it was a tad short.

Production / Mixing: The balancing was fine. For what you had you did a decent job I think. Nothing stuck out with being too far forward, and I didn't feel anything was lost in the background either. It was nothing particularly awe inspiring though I felt.

Composition / Structure: The intro had great presence. I loved the tone it set. I could see it going in a lot of different directions, and most of them were as dark as you were leading on. Once it got going I felt it was a little shallow. You found a couple of dark ghoulish chords that sounded great, but there wasn't much development I felt. Good concept but lacking in execution I think.

Sound Design: I was happy with the intro, but the instruments felt…off. It started off great. The instruments have a good blending and sounds mostly realistic, that is until the drums came in. Not only did they sound cheap, but the general sound quality of the song felt diminished like I was listening to a Youtube video with low quality. Similar issue with the choir. Aside from that I like you instrument choices. The piano was dark and menacing, the strings were emotional, and the drums you picked do provide good emphasis.

Ending Comments: A little rough. Again the concept you have is a neat start but there's a wanting for more development and surrounding structure.

Score:

Production - 0.5

Composition - 0.5

Structure - 0.5

Sound Design - 0.5

Replay - 0.5

Total - 5

*Disclaimer - to make judging consistent with other judges, individual category scores are multiplied by 2 to make a total possible 10 points.

It sucks to be harsh here because I really like the composition, but the audio quality just isn't that great and it really brings the piece down. The lack of dynamics also make this piece sound somewhat stiff and get in the way of what should be a suspenseful or climactic piece. Adding a bit of reverb on the percussion (maybe using deeper sounding drums, too) and playing with the choir fading in would have made the buildup feel a lot more intense. With that out of the way, there's a lot you did RIGHT. Subtract my gripes with the mixing and mastering and this is a really exciting and engaging piece.

nothing to BROOD about