I like the blissful mood at the beginning and the quirky synths. The drums don’t quite pop in the mix enough for my tastes, but the wonky atmosphere and occasionally jazzy harmonies help keep me engaged. The piece doesn’t really progress too much beyond the initial energy level and instrumental palette, but you’re clearly really good at constructing a compelling ambiance. I think this would make a great loop for a videogame. As a stand-alone piece, I might’ve liked to see a little more ebb-and-flow in the composition, but maybe that’s being too picky. Overall, this is an enjoyable track with a fun mood and neat sound design. Keep at it, CassArtzz! :)

Mixing, mastering, and balance
1.5/2
Structure, transitions, phrasing, and variety
.75/1.5
Melody, tonality, harmony, and texture
1.5/2
Instrumentation and sound design
1/1
Emotion, atmosphere, and catchiness
1.25/1.5
Originality and uniqueness
1/1
Overall (how do the elements above interact?)
.75/1
Composite score
7.75/10

It's a bit hard for me to make out the percussion with the compression and reverb so high, as well as the arpeggios supporting the main melody so loud relative to the drums and bass.

I'm not able to pick out a main melody really. Instead it seems to be a lot of, granted quite pleasant, chords. I do like the way your bass sounds and your writing of short pulses on 1 and 3.

Strong points, chords and bass writing. Weak points, structure -- I can't tell one section from another either by sight on the waveform or by listening through. It doesn't seem to develop much if at all. There is a LOT of reverb on each instrument. If you want to do this I would suggest cleaning your lower frequencies up and shortening the tails. Alternatively you can do a nice ping pong reverb on a lower setting and achieve the same effect -- increased perception of space.

I'm not sure what the high pitched percussion heard throughout is but occasionally it is off beat. I believe it is bit crushed. Sounds like a clave or something. It hurts my ears a little and I think I would like to hear more clarity on it. As crushed as it is, it's peaking I think somewhere around 8k if I'm not mistaken. It has been some time since I looked at frequencies by number. May even be 5khz.

The piece itself is not very short but I feel there isn't a lot for me to differentiate so I suppose my biggest recommendation is to study song structure -- there are plenty of online resources for this -- and use what knowledge you gain to take great ideas like this and parse them out into full compositions.

Also, there is a cut off at 2:20. Did you mean to do that?

Anyway, please don't take what I said too harshly. All in all, I enjoyed your work, and I think you have vast potential, if you just break through this wall of disorganization. Many of my own projects, truth be told, are at this stage, where I have a wonderful idea I have no idea what to do with. What you have here I would have probably relegated to an outro, as it's so full, and pulled other elements from it to make choruses, then written an intro based on your outro, some verses and bridges and called it a day. Making music is hard. So frustrating, not knowing what to add or take away. I feel that when I listen to this piece, great elements, and confusion.

But anyway, keep doing what you do, and don't let anyone stop you, least of all me. Happy to see whatever you come up with next!

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!