I love the chord progression, melodic playing, and style of this piece, but PLEASE, change that panning! Unless something is wrong with my headphones, the guitar melody is panned entirely to the left. This sounds terribly off balance. I'd recommend putting your main melodic instrument or voice panned dead center. That panning ruined this for me, and I love it otherwise. Please reupload... :(
I'll definitely check out more of your stuff.
Sorry for the late response..
I had some crappy hadphones at the time i noticed later my left headphone was fading out.. I'll try to reupload the full one replacing this one.
Still Thanks for checking it out man :)
Beautiful nocturne! Your harmonic progressions are lovely and sound fresh among other pieces in the audio portal. The various instances of augmented sixth chords made me smile really big, as few people in the classical section here take advantage of them. In terms of the right hand, nice use scales and trills. :)
My main critique is that this piece does not sound melodically driven for a Chopin-inspired nocturne. The nocturne form, at least viewed through the lens of Chopin and John Field, tends to be characterized by a song-like melody over the top of a steady, rhythmic accompaniment. While this piece has pleasant harmonies and ornaments, I can't recall a main melodic idea after listening. The structure seems much more free than that of a Chopin nocturne, meandering from one progression to the next without repetition to build a solid framework or clear melodic material to be developed throughout the piece.
I would have liked a slight transition to the section starting at 2:11. It was a nice change of pace, but the silent transition didn't do much for me. And perhaps this is nit-picking, but I thought the trills were slightly overused and lost their effectiveness by the end of the work.
Listening to this piece was enjoyable, but it sounded more like an improvisation in the nocturne style than a fleshed out and developed composition. I'll have to check out more of your work, but this piece makes me think that more consideration to melodic material and structure would help propel your music to the next level.
Can't wait to hear more of your work. Happy Thanksgiving! :D
Thanks for the feedback! It's a pretty old piece of mine (more than one and a half years at least!) - if you want to check out something a little more structurally and melodically refined, I can recommend the more recent Dark Enigma.
What you say about the melodic framework is certainly true (most of it was indeed improvised), though I'd argue that the larger structure as a whole, with a rough A-B-A', is pretty in line with many of Chopin's nocturnes (no. 20, C# minor, for example). The silent transition was actually changed to be just that, though I'm not sure how I would've handled that place today.
A few thoughts.
Mix: It is important to balance the volume of instruments. To make a great sounding track, you've got to consider depth. What elements are most important and should therefore be louder to be more clearly heard? Louder sounds will come to the front of the mix. What elements play a supporting role and can hang in the background? If everything is the same volume, the track will often sound crowded. In this piece, you've got the synth so loud that it really pushes everything else. I'd turn that sucker down some. I also think the kick (bass) drum could come down at some points.
Variety and Shape: Aside from the introduction of the vocal line, the piece is pretty much a whole lot of the same material. The chords pattern you use in the guitar line just keeps doing the same thing for three minutes. Nothing new or fresh really happens. When you have so little variety, a piece of music becomes boring and grating on the ears of the listener. It comes across as bland and people will begin to tune out. This isn't to say that you need to be loud or upbeat but that variety would make this song exponentially better. This brings me to the subject of shape. Most songs have an arch to them. They ebb and flow, going from loud to soft, rising and falling in intensity. They build up to a climax maybe 2/3 of the way through and then come down in energy a bit. It's much like a story. A song needs some conflict and resolution to be interesting. The main point is that music needs to have a sense of forward motion and direction in order to take listeners on any kind of interesting journey.
You have some potential material to work with here. The guitar part sounds good and I like the chords you use. Learn about mixing and think about shape in the composition. Master those and you'll become a formidable songwriter.
Exactly what I wanted! Thank you!
Bosa, this is beautiful...The swelling strings and haunting oboe paint such a smooth, lovely picture. The piece is very simple but manages to fulfill with colorful orchestration and fantastic chord voicings.
It is a bit hard for me to swallow the chord change at 1:20 due to its jarring nature. After listening to this a few times it will seem normal, but it jumped out at me on first hearing. I was a bit sad about the ending. I know this is not finished, but a temporary ending would have been nice. That's what I ended up doing for my submission.
I must add that despite the jarring chord change at 1:20, I love the rising line the follows. It sets up a lovely climax from which the remainder of the piece descends.
What orchestral samples are you using?
Love this. Can't wait to hear it finished.
Yes, I was very disappointed with the ending as well. But I was literally racing against time and had about twenty minutes to submit this song for the contest. I wish I had been in better circumstances. I may move on, but more than likely I'll come back and finish this song if I am motivated appropriately.
I didn't notice the instability you mentioned at 1:20. I know you are more experienced than I am, so it doesn't surprise me that your expertise found the flaw at that point. I really do thank you, and I hope that you will come again and check out my future releases!
Hey! Nice work on this piece. It's very energetic and captivating.
Suggestions
-at :22, I really wanted to here a huge orchestral bass drum hit that would resonate for a little bit. What you have now just doesn't seem to have a lot of presence or cut through much. Something with some more attack and sustaining power would be epic.
-After :22, a flute-sounding instrument comes into the background. I personally want to hear more of that on the foreground. Try boosting the volume and taking a little reverb off of it.
-The choir sample sounds a little cheesy to me. It was thin and had an awful lot of attack for a choir. I'd try finding something with a little more warmth and legato. Maybe check sound soundfonts on hammersound?
-Also, choirs are naturally very dynamic. They don't just sing one note after another...No, they sing each note in connection, in a line. They crescendo to the top of that line and come down from there. They even swell in the middle of a single sustained note. Try attaching the choir main volume (In MIDI, the CC#7 parameter) to an automation clip and getting the choir to crescendo to the top of a phrase and come back down from it. It will sound way more organic, flowing, and generally awesome. I'm refering to the high voices doing melody around 1:15 BTW, not the basses that sing quietly throughout the piece.
-You have a cool piece here. The drums, synths, and other instruments create a nice soundscape. The piece sounds like background music though because it doesn't have a strong sense of melody. The choir in the middle helps a little bit, but your piece would be much more memorable if you had a developed melodic idea.
Good work on this, Criminal. It could use a little more refining and development, but I like what you've got.
Thanks for the review!
Now, that suggestion at 0:22, it's gonna be hard, lol. I can imagine what it sounds like, so I'll see what the after-effect will be.
That 'flute-sounding' instrument is actually a pad. I thought the pattern it plays isn't significant enough to be with the main pattern, and I wanted background sound, thus I kept it like that. I'll see what difference it will make with higher volume and/or reduced reverb.
This song is the first song that I used a choir on. I don't know much about how it works, actually. I'll try to do that choir in connection mode, though. ._.
We'll see how my laggy laptop will handle the changes I will make! =P
At first, I thought this would just be a plucky, light-hearted affair. The beginning reminded me of Fial Fantasy Tactics Advance for some reason. Like a character select screen before a battle or something. Then came insanity with the 11/8 section around 1:25 and I was convinced that there was depth to this piece.
The section starting at 2:08 was foreboding and yet regal. I like the harp arpeggios and the constantly adding layers of instruments, though some of the piano work in there seems a bit eh to me for a second. I love the percussion though. :)
I love the harmonic changes starting at 4:08. You took me places I didn't expect and then brought me back to the beginning beautifully. It's cool how you start by bringing back the timbre from the beginning as a transition before bringing back any of the melodic material. It was a more subtle transition than most people use around here. The ending didn't sit well with me. I really wanted to hear a perfect authentic cadence after all of that regal, majestic stuff.
This is a quality piece. You spent your time well. Awesome work!
11/8
Thanks man, glad you enjoyed!
Yeah, the first part was meant to represent a light-hearted crowning ceremony, before suddenly, out of nowhere, all hell breaks loose. Glad you like that transition in mood! :)
As for the piano in the second/third section, it mostly got pushed down to background, as I didn't need it in the foreground, yet didn't want it to idle for the duration of the segment. One important thing to note is that it actually plays the harp's arpeggios as well as the part you hear, but because I'm still new to the setup I made this in, I didn't manage to make it pop out as much as I would've.
I'm really glad you like the modulations in the last segment, it took me a whole night to perfect it, as I wasn't too sure where I wanted to take the song.
As for the ending, I didn't want to write anything on the subject to prevent bias when listening, but I absolutely hate the finale too, but because of time restraints that's all I could afford. Perhaps one day I'll revisit this song and give it a proper ending, but for now I'm completely extenuated, so it'll have to wait.
In any case, thanks again for the amazing review, and I'm glad you enjoyed!
Cheers,
Samuel Hebert
You've got a great gasp on melodic writing. Beautiful progressions too. :)
I would love to hear this with the bass and keys you mentioned in response to Kor-Rune.
Thank you!
As soon as I get a chance, I plan to listen to everybody's submissions and leave some reviews myself.
From what I've heard so far, there's some awesome talent in this contest.
Ahhh, so relaxing...I love it! Just wish it was longer. This would be a great piece to start my morning drive to college with.
Thanks, and I wish it were longer too!
I totally ran out of time on this one, had to finish it before I left town.
Pretty cool. I really like the chord progression and piano riffs. I'm kind of bothered by how mechanical the piano sounds though. Especially when you have repeating chords like at the beginning, changing the velocity of each chord would breath so much fresh air into the phrase. Those parts sound a little like a record skipping at the moment.
I like this piece, but that super-quantized piano with the lack of varying velocities is really bugging me. :(
Well version 2 is not made :) I wont change this sub now though but I think you'll find some of these issues are fixed or at least working towards it! It's really hard to get fake piano to sounds real :(
The main chord progression of VI, VII, i is somewhat cliche, but it is also the one that I use the most. So I can't very well complain about that, as it is one that I love. :p
My main gripe is how mechanical the piano sounds. It seems overly quantized to me. I think it'd sound better if loosened up just a bit.
I like the synth part at 3:39. For the most part, I like the synths throughout.
I like the atmosphere of this piece, but it is a bit too repetitive for me. It's mostly the same chord progression, and it looses some of its power after six minutes.
Nice work on this though.
Thank you! I agree that it loses its power. It's kinda what I intended but at the same time I didn't mean for it to become so non-powerful that it became boring.
Thanks again for the great review.
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