I like the dreamy atmosphere at the beginning and the nostalgic tone of the vocals. The vocal delivery is great - conversational in tone, but also captures the introspective lyrics well. I like the crisp drums and airy pads too, although the drums could’ve been a tad stronger in the mix at times. Writing-wise, the instrumentals here could’ve been a tad bolder at times - the solo at 2:06 is catchy and blends in with the atmosphere well, but it also could’ve had a bit more range to really sell the emotional appeal of this piece. The chord progression and aspects of the arrangement are a tad cliche, and I would’ve liked to see you create a more climactic section in the second half of the piece. Despite these nitpicks, I still really like the sound design, vocals, and atmosphere of this one. I think “the embers might not glow” is my favorite lyric in the piece. Thanks for coming out to the NGUAC, AveragePhoe! ^_^

Mixing, mastering, and balance
1.75/2
Structure, transitions, phrasing, and variety
1/1.5
Melody, tonality, harmony, and texture
1.75/2
Instrumentation and sound design
1/1
Emotion, atmosphere, and catchiness
1.5/1.5
Originality and uniqueness
.5/1
Overall (how do the elements above interact?)
1/1
Composite score
8.5/10

Great writing -- I think your piano might be a bit too wet in your intro. It feels quite spaced out, and not in a dreamy way. Check your tail lengths, your low frequencies, and so on. The shoe-gaze feel is hard to nail down; I hear the same issue with your pads and keys throughout.

The vocal is a bit boomy and plosive. This may have to do with distance to the mic, too high of a volume going into the interface, or saturation and compression in post. Experiment with pulling back from the mic a bit -- or singing at lower volume, particularly for such a laid back piece, and putting a filter or two between the mic and your mouth. Recording at a 45 degree angle from the mic is also an option.

It may simply be that the EQ is tilted toward the low mids as well, leading to the PA-system feeling I'm getting.

I also recommend a little less aggressive autotune. The attack on some more variable notes was noticeable.

Your breaths are not too distracting, but your S and T's across the board are quite loud. I recommend opening your vocal in another editor and manually de-essing, OR hand-ducking the volume. Once that is done, you can safely use an EQ like EZQ to gently shape the tone of the vocal to be a little tinnier, brighter, warmer -- whatever it is you feel is balanced.

There are some issues before the master. I think I hear clipping at 1:34, on though, show, find my, home, sure, fire, find my, oh, promise, strong, find, and so on. Take a look at your lyrics and follow along, keeping an eye out for these downbeats.

If you are not mixing in 32-bit floating point and the highest sample rates your PC will stand, I recommend switching to it.

If this causes latency issues for you as it did for me, a solution is to print your track to mp3, load up in audacity, and punch in your recordings on a new audio track. Mute newly recorded tracks as you go. After you have normalized the resulting takes and edited as you please, you can then export all your takes separately using Audacity's native functions. Life hack right there.

The master itself is also somewhat quiet and could theoretically be pushed harder, but I think the track was too hot going into the compressor.

Moving onto the instrument balance, the vocals are a bit loud relative to the rest of the track. Perhaps consider taking down by .3 dB. The hi-hats could stand to come down similarly, and the snare up by the same amount. I would reduce the volume of all wet FX by around 25% and shorten reverb and delay tails, hi-passing the wet signals up to 170 hz; you have a perfectly pleasant soft bass in the bottom register, which is hard to hear under the wash!

That's really all I have to say technically for this piece, mix and master being the primary things I look for critically.

As far as songwriting, it's intimate, warm, and there is not one single element I dislike. Your chords are good, your structure is very strong. Your transitions are simple and even abrupt, but they suit the composition totally.

I know I wrote a LOT of critique, but overall, I really enjoyed it and think you did a great job!

This sounds really sweet! The intro reminds me very much of the chorus of Laura Shigihara's "Everything's Alright" from To the Moon (specifically 0:50-1:27 of her song). The lyrics are really tastefully written and the song feels really nostalgic in general. You have a lovely singing voice too. I wish you the very best of luck with the finals of the NGUAC!! :)

I loved this pop song, especially the tag “I’ll find my way back home”

Keep up the good work!

This is some beautiful lofi music. I love how catchy the melodies in-between the verses are. Very memorable track! Not to mention the great vocals as well; for some reason they remind me a lot of Fox Stevenson, but it could just be me.

Really pretty piece of work!