I love this so much. Like holy sh!t, the composition is done so well.

Arrangement is nice here. My critique could probably be reduced to mostly mix.

That hihat in the right on the intro, I would probably take it back over to 40% right. The sax could also come up a half dB. Snare could also stand to come up in the mix. It sounds like we may be having some clipping on 0:22 seconds when the kick hits.

I think those leads on the sides are too loud relative to percussion. It seems to be throughout the piece as a whole as I'm listening, with sidechain used to bring it back through. I find myself wanting a crunchier kick.

That said, your rhythms are blazing and the melodic content is tasty.

I would take down the lead piano before 1:40 by about a quarter dB to a whole dB, apply more compression.

Percussion throughout really is so quiet in the mix and sounds tinny by 2:26. Overall, the track tends to be tinny whenever those trappy stabs come in.

I really like the WHAT THE F- sample. Very tonal and has a lot of character to it.

Writing of your growls is good. I found myself wanting the droning bass under it to be an octave lower and maybe grittier on drops -- like a trap 808, distorted.

It sounds like you have a lot of reverb on your sustained synths and stabs. I would cut that down by quite a bit and make sure to lop off 0-250 hz on the wets to leave room for your bass. I feel that contributed somewhat, especially with such heavy compression, to the lack of oomph from the sub.

Overall, without your wonderful writing, I'd have a lot less nice things to say, but this is a solid and cohesive piece. I can really see where you put a lot of your effort, and it does shine through. The rest of my critique would fall in line somewhere around trunotfals, maybe a little less compression, and it would sound cleaner and less high-end heavy. Make sure you're mixing with your master FX off, or a lot of these issues become more or less impossible to fix, especially tinny-ness. Speaking from experience.

But anyway great piece. Will be stuck in my head a while yet. Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

Well first off, i love this song! great sound design, great samples, great presets, its very cohesive! you have great transitions and a very effective structure! Great little catchy sax part and it sits in the mix like it was recorded back in the day, loved that. Over all very great piece here. the only huge complaints that i have are i feel like your kick could punch a little more, and i can barely hear the sub, that being said, your whole mix is super compresssed on the master, look at your waveform, tahts not BAD, its loud, its good, but sometimes things dont have room to shine. Id love to hear it before effects on the master, but alas, this is the point of the judging haha.

I love the voices youve chosen, the sound design on your drops i just, feel like the whole song is a little top end heavy, and Im missing sub. theres a fine balance sometimes.

Not a ton to say about this one and thats neither good nor bad!

Great submission!

holy heck this is so rad! maybe there's a little too much low end in some parts? idk, its just a great song with so many cool ideas <3

There it is! Awesome job here :)