Wow, great epic song man! Got a nice use of synths in this. Also, I really like the mood changes throughout as well as the tempo changes which also sound quite nice. Funnily enough, I've also been experimenting with tempo changes a bit heh. Anyways great job on this man!
Reviews for "Come to Reality"
Metallica1136 responds:
Haha, thanks man! Tempo changing really comes in handy.
kewl bananas. forgot to leave a review, though i gave it a listen earlier. a good song, no doubt. really nice riffage, and the mix sounds fine. that intro is interesting as well. while i have absolutely no idea of what's going on in it, it sounds really cool haha.
the only real issue is the length. while the riffs are good, there's nothing keeping the song together, it feels more like a bunch of random (though sweet) riffs. i would have loved a strong and present theme in the melodies, or some well placed vocals to drive the song forward.
this is something i feel you should keep practicing - creating riffs is one thing. delivering them well through a well structured song is where things often get tricky. longer is (usually) not better. making a long song is easy to any musician. making a song that actually needs to be long is what's hard. try getting a solid idea of what it is you want to deliver.
what do i want with this song? what do i want to convey with it? what's the point of this section? this is a good riff, but is this really a good place to use it?
keeping variation is a good thing, but without a sense of direction or actual purpose, it can easily feel confusing, random, or outright pointless to the listener, even if the content in itself is good.
again, there is nothing wrong with the song. gave it my full attention from beginning to end, and i really like it. but i feel this is the main area where you can improve your music. hope at least some of that made sense. best of luck in the NGADM!
Metallica1136 responds:
Haha, the intro is basically some strings, and some synth in the background. Yeah the length is the worst part of the song. Haha, vocals? No way. Not from me. :P Though I did practice growling a bit. I definitely do need to work on my structure a bit. Some parts aren't really necessary. But I'm glad you like it! And thanks! Hope I make it! :)
song fuckin bops
Love the first section, it absolutely sets a great mood, the synths used work great in this kind of song.
When the metal guitars enter the song the first thing that pops to mind is how they are awesomely mixed. The song precedes through with great playing and great mixing, i really cant get over how freaking awesome the metal guitars sound xD Double tracking with opposite panning?
Overall its really easy to see the work you put into this, the mixing is very clean and there are sometimes quite a lot of things happening at the same time, the playing is also really awesome and heavy.
I cant however ignore that this song is over 9 minutes and since people are criticized for submitting a 2 minute song i thing the opposite is also doable!
It is really hard for me to keep interest in a song without vocals that spans over 5 minutes and in my opinion 9 minutes is too long and seems a bit more focused into making your song more intimidating for your opponent and maybe give the judges a second thought because making 9 minutes of music is not easy at all instead of serving the purpose of enhancing the song itself, you did however a great job through the 9 minutes, still doesn't justify the length thought.
Awesome work Metallica!
Metallica1136 responds:
Woke up feeling pretty awful this morning, but this review put me in a better mood! I'm really glad you like the mixing! You got it man! Double tracked guitars, panned 100% to each channel! Big Monster for left, Slip Note Wide for right (Guitar Rig 5) Used to never double track. I realize now, double tracking is exactly what makes a tone heavy. THAT's the whole secret of getting a kick ass tone :)
But yeah man, I realize though, the biggest flaw in this song is it's length. I've got a habit of writing songs over 8 minutes. Yeah my goal was to make the song challenging to beat, though the length wasn't the reason (main reason at least) Hopefully the judges like this song as well.
But thanks for your review man! If I ever need some constructive criticism, I know who to message! :D
This is an NGADM Round 1 review.
--
Definitely one of the longest submissions we've ever had on the NGADM (if not the longest). The sheer effort, ambition and length of it all is already something to admire. What I like is that even though its length can be an almost irresistable temptation to just churn out riff after riff without any kind of decent structure, but you make controlled but effective use of repetition to keep things sounding sensible. The synth and orchestra works really well too. You've got some standout things in this track like how you introduce and progress the riff at 2:13, already managing to highlight the importance of that riff by giving it such hefty focus when it's introduced. Guitar-playing is solid too.
I have two pretty major problems with this. First off, I feel that there aren't many impressive melodies in here, with a large portion of the track focusing on simply chugging or ripping out quick solos that seem to focus more on marketing your skill with the guitar and less on sounding memorable. This consequently makes this track sound ultimately forgettable at times. The parts that are more memorable are in fact the slower parts, which involve more instrumentation than just a guitar and drums, and showcase your compositional skill far more. The other issue is that the production isn't quite up to par. The drums in particular are suitably varied, but weak in sound. The track in general just lacks oomph, with there being a pretty large amount of unused headroom in the waveform. This obviously isn't me asking for some brickwalled crap, but considering that the track retains a very consistent dynamic level, it would have been far more impressive had that headroom been used to create more dynamic variety (and increase the power of those drums).
I'm giving this a 7.7 for being such a long, content-filled and mostly enjoyable listening experience, with some great ideas and guitar-playing. Work on the issues I mentioned though!
Score: 7.7/10
Metallica1136 responds:
Yeah man. I completely agree, what I should learn to do is write songs that contain memorable parts, without making the song overly long. It's a bad habit I'm trying to break. I'm really glad you dig the synth and orchestra though! I knew that since this was for a competition, I had to try something very diverse, and at the same time, impressive.
Yeah man, I know you definitely expected more melody in this. Rising Power is the song that got me into this awesome competition, and that song was almost entirely melodic. I can definitely promise my next submission will focus more on melody and less on heaviness/chugging. And yeah man, it's hard to get a good drum sound when you're using VST's. My friend Seth is just a fucking MINDBLOWINGLY amazing drummer. I jammed with him today for like 7 hours, and he made my guitar playing really come to life. Of course, I'm definitely not implying I couldn't improve the sound of the drums. I've actaully been working on tweaking my drums to make them sound better. I will be sure to pay more attention to the drums for my next submission. But yeah man, I definitely hear you! I will be sure to tweak the sound and make it cut through the mix better with my next submission.
But thanks for the review man! I'm really glad that you liked the song! I'll be sure to pay attention to, and correct every flaw you mentioned. :)