Hello! This is a review for the NGUAC competition.

I've gone over one or two general categories of issues specific to your song, and one section of things I think also deserve complimenting. I prefer being very direct with my critique, none of it is meant to offend. Thank you for your understanding!

Constructive Criticism:

- Okay, I'm legitimately not sure if the headphones you're using to mix have really weak treble or what, but this track is actually physically painful for me to listen to. Please for goodness sake reign in your high treble frequencies. A spectrometer can help quite a bit to make sure you see where overly resonant frequencies are in your instruments. Too resonant and they are painful, especially in the more extremely high and low frequencies, as the human ear isn't tuned to really hear those frequencies well. In general, please remember - sounds that cause physical pain are generally not considered good in music intended for human beings.

- Secondly, the transitions are very rough, and the constant breat of the same kick drum and snare drums tends to reduce the music as it only increases the noise intensity that is painful in the other instruments. Sometimes you do vary the rhythm of the drums, and this actually is very nice when it happens, as the constant four-on-the-floor beat can also be very monotonous.

Compliments to the Composer:

- I think in this case I'd like to identify the section of this track which sounded the absolute best: 2:00 to 2:17. This actually has some interesting intensity when the drums amp up, and the dry synth right afterwards provides some really interesting reprieve.

Final score: 1

I like the vocal samples at the beginning, but the synths sounded a bit harsh, grating, and unpolished. The production quality is pretty good, although there’s a lot of reverb in the texture at times. The filtering at :48 was cool, although the piece was a little slow to progress, and the persistent minimalism doesn’t help alleviate the slow progression. The transition at 1:26 was pretty sudden, and there aren’t a ton of moving notes in the texture for long stretches of this piece. The drums also get a little distorted in the mix at around the 2-minute mark. There are a lot of catchy and fun riffs in here, but they don’t feel like they’re a part of the same story yet. The arrangement of this track is very choppy, with rough transitions everywhere and little sense of direction for most of the piece. I’d suggest working more with automation as a way of transitioning from one section to another. I also think you need to increase the harmonic depth of your tracks by layering on more pads, melodies, or back-up harmonies onto the material you already have here. Unfortunately, this just doesn’t sound like a very coherent piece to me yet. I'd encourage you to keep working at it, though. You certainly have a decent start with the rhythmic content, sound design, mixing effects, and production value. Keep at it, calicrazedbeats! :)

Mixing, mastering, and balance
1.25/2
Structure, transitions, phrasing, and variety
.25/1.5
Melody, tonality, harmony, and texture
.25/2
Instrumentation and sound design
.25/1
Emotion, atmosphere, and catchiness
.5/1.5
Originality and uniqueness
0/1
Overall (how do the elements above interact?)
0/1
Composite score
2.5/10