Reviews for Istishhad

[Step]

This is an NGADM Round 3 Review.

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And for the third time in a row you deliver a creative and new-sounding track unlike anything I've ever heard before in my life. Darn it, man. This is what I call creative.

First thing that I feel I should commend you on would be how GOOD this sounds when you're probably using soundfonts for stuff like the sitar and strings. Everything sounds so polished and well-mixed, and there's literally no indication at all that you're using soundfonts (unless you listen really closely). Really fantastic work; I believe that making generally low-quality samples sound so good is the mark of a fantastic musician. Speaking of which, your mixing is really good. I think some of the snares were a bit too 'penetrating' in the mix, as in they stood out too much and were too snappy, but that's probably personal preference. Fantastic bass, by the way! I can definitely feel the bass in certain parts, and it added a lot to the experience.

Your composition is nice as well. Nothing out of this world but I still enjoyed your melodies, especially those presented by the sitar. And I love that little motif you introduce on the sitar at the very beginning. You even played it one last time at the end. I feel that this was a great way to end the song, as if the song went in a full circle. To add to that, you've got plenty of elements from different styles of music like the string at 2:28 (still loving the sound of those strings, hard to believe they're soundfonts!) and the lead synth that you used. Awesome percussion too; BIG improvement from the percussion of your Round 2 track haha. Interesting usage of the hip-hop snare and the fast-paced tabla beats (or whatever those are), despite being subtle, worked SO well. Additionally the jaw harp was pretty much the most awesome thing I've heard in a fair amount of months.

The biggest issue of this track, I feel, lies in the fact that it gets pretty boring to listen to. There are lots of lengthy buildups and patterns that just repeat themselves without throwing in anything substantial to remain interesting. That, and the song really stays at a pretty low intensity level. I have nothing against tracks that don't have super amazing climaxes or anything but in this case it actually made the track uninteresting. Everything is very laid-back and slow, and I desperately wanted a very powerful and fast-paced part to come in and liven the track up a bit, but it never came.

This is also unfortunate because your mix is very sparse and roomy. You don't really fill it up with that many sounds, and while this can be a good thing because minimalistic music can work very well, here it just makes the song a bit of a drag to listen to. I would've loved it if you threw in stuff like choirs and cellos and more auxiliary percussion like shakers, more layers of bongos, etc... Thinking about it, this would work very well for background music, but since it's pretty empty with slow progressions and a lack of intensity, it does get a bit boring to listen to.

But heck, despite all that, this is still a fantastic submission with a lot of effort put into it. Great production, composition, sounds, etc... I love it.

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SCORE:
7.5/10

RetromanOMG responds:

Thanks for the review. It was really fun making something this different, but, unfortunately, it did get a little hard to keep working on. I ultimately wrapped it up as fast as I could and wound up not putting any of the things I wanted to in it. I suppose I'll go back and put in the changes I wanted it to have at a later date, though.

[SkyeWint]

Here's your round 3 review! It'll be a bit harsher than your previous reviews once more. Harsher the closer to the end we get!

The Good:
-That intro sounds really cool with all the indian instruments.
-Your percussion is much better this time IMO. The way it's sequenced sounds very nice overall.
-0:32 THUMP. Niiiiiiice. Also after that, the bouncing instrument (can't remember the name of it) sounds pretty awesome.
-You have quite a few interesting melodies.
-I still love your violin sound and have been looking for it in BAB's soundfonts for awhile but can't find it. Damn.
-Very unique-sounding. You certainly have your own style.

The Not-So-Good:
-Mixing could still use some work, some instruments are buried under other ones.
-The transitions could also use some work. About 2:10-2:23 seems odd, particularly at 2:23 where everything goes down and it sounds like it's the intro to another song.
-At about 3:54, that transition could use a tiny bit more, there's a lot of empty space in it.
-After 4:06, things get fairly boring. It sounds pretty awesome, but goes on for a long time without much changing. At 4:36, it seems a bit more disconnected from the other parts.

Overall: This is pretty cool and definitely not the kind of thing I would normally hear, but... it's a bit too disconnected and monotonous. The mixing and percussion is a lot better overall. You might want to focus more on melodies and composition overall rather than mainly percussion. I'll give this a 7.5/10.

RetromanOMG responds:

In regards to the mixing, I feel I had the most dificulty mixing the strings in a fashion that kept them all audible. As I mentioned in the previous response, I ran out of time and rushed the production. When I redo this song, I will address the issues that I left unanswered in it's production.