~~~~This is an official review from an NGUAC judge for the 2020 NGUAC Knock-out round!!~~~~

These guys said it all really. Hard to elaborate more on them but I will try! :D

I like the instrumentation, i love the harpsichord? I think it a harpsichord. and i love the feeling and style and overall atmosphere. However the whole things feels like a big tension build up for a long scene in a movie where the main characters are planning for a grueling and possibly deadly task and all of them are just looking at eachother silently, preparing their gear and realizing they might not make it out alive. and then they all just, very slowly stop preparing and decide they dont want to do the thing. and then they go to sleep.

It creates a great picture! and then the tension you build up just leads to the same amount of tension with no release or climax. This was definitely what made the song lack depth and interest for me. I also wanted to hear a catchy melody or variation in your chord progression. Great overall idea!

Thanks for your submission!

I have to say I agree with @ChrisisD. But it's not that you don't have good ideas going on here at all. You have a pretty solid chord progression. What you're lacking is strong transitions.

I actually found a talk on this the other day you may enjoy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MADvn8apYlQ

It's five minutes, but if you don't have time, it's called the rule of pairs. For every transition, you take out two elements and add or change two elements. That way the song keeps sounding fresh. The reason this sounds like a lot of buildups is because nothing really changes. We build and build, and then we never get to a big chorus, with cymbals and new chords. For instance I would do... and let me just try to write the notes.

G half note, F half note, A half note, C half note. And you could just octave that on your sustained high strings, have a big section, continue with F, E, G, A. That's 8 bars, or 16 in half time. And that be a lead line.

Overall that's what I really feel the piece was lacking. Dynamics between the instruments weren't too wonky -- I especially liked those little plucks. Spicy. Maybe had some loudness issues on entrances, but you can easily learn to tweak those by popping back and forth between reference tracks you like.

Not bad at all for just learning your way around mixing and mastering. Good work!

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

Let's start from the beginning. Your tension building is pretty good! The buildup works for me. But then... It doesn't really build up to anything. The main melody (if there's such a thing) comes in at 1:17 but doesn't really does it for me. The atmosphere you're creating is pretty good, but to my opinion it lacks depth. I don't really like the fadeout ending either. I'd say, get one good melody and stick to it, make it more outspoken. As for your mix, it's kind of flat to my humble opinion. Your waveform says it all, fade in, middle part, fade out. Your dynamics could do a lot better. I'll listen to some of your other tracks after this one.
Then again, great effort! Cheers