Awesome! I was wondering how long we'd have to wait to hear something new from you :D
I actually really like the transition where the tempo increases; it's refreshing. Despite the piece being outside of your comfort zone, it's a great listen. A bit simplistic perhaps, but there's something nice about that approach as well :)
It's nice to hear from you ^____^
Reviews for "Project: Reflex"
Step responds:
Man, no matter how long I'm gone for I can always expect an awesome review from you haha. Thanks a lot!
It's definitely simplistic, which is actually a 180 from what I usually do. Most songs of mine have like 20 different things going on at once and over here it's comparatively a lot more stripped down. It was a nice exercise in a "less is more" philosophy that I wish I had the chops to incorporate in my tracks more often without hiding behind layers of complexity haha.
Thanks for the review.
Reflexes are associated with brain activity. Faster tempi increase brain activity due to the higher frequency of the beat change, this requiring system 2 thinking enabled more actively. When used as a background for any other action, this affects the overall brain performance in the background, leading to inconsistency of performance between the start and the end of any action.
This piece is more appropriate for this kind of situation, as it's not too repetitive to bore the brain out, nor too complex to tire it. As a result, the brain is being affected in the background from a noticeable adjustment that doesn't require too many resources for processing. And that concludes us to the variance in reflex performance.
Also, nice track. Glad to see you alive, hope your research goes well.
Step responds:
Thanks for the insight! Our research results currently seem to show a definite decrease in reflex time for faster tempos.
And thanks for the review. I found it pretty tough to hit that balance between "not too intrusive" and "not too boring". As a musician I also tend to gravitate more towards catchy riffs and in-your-face-style music too so a lot of this song is me exercising as much restraint as I can!
Thanks again!
Fun :) Made for good background music as I wrote my emails this morning...
Step responds:
Glad I could provide the soundtrack to your morning bureaucracy! :p
Thanks for the review!
Groovy instrumentation and nice sense of suspense in the first minute. The frantic melodies at 1:02 are a good fit, and I love the grouchy bass. If I had to complain about one thing, it might be that the underlying rhythm of the piece is pretty square for most of the piece. That said, you did a good job of keeping it interesting with all of the automations and secondary melodies. I would've liked to hear another climactic moment towards the end of the piece, but I'm sure it fit the premise of the project well. Kinda reminds me of "Imminence" in that it doesn't quite max out on emotional highs. Anyway, glad to see you post on the Grounds again, Step! ^^
Step responds:
Thanks for another review! Nice to see you still around :).
You're right about the rhythm being pretty monotonous. In general I kinda toned things down in this track compared to my usual more bombastic tracks. Using subtlety as a way of maintaining interest instead of resorting to climactic, in-your-face stuff is something I continue to struggle with!
Thanks again.
I am not one of the people who really like this genre, but I must admit that this is very well done, I hope better things :3