Love the birds :)

Just Listens to the First 5s and i have weird feelings inside me (in a really good way)

Very dramatic, very interesting and crispy intro. Love the chords and just the pure drama adding in those super high violins always makes me think of the main character diving off the cliff to sacrifice himself for the love interest. love it.

anyway, great piano add in around :55

1:12 starting to add some edm DnB energy, love it, the moment your sub comes in around 1:25, the whole mix does get very very very distorted just like adr3 said, and then everything seems to go away from distorted noise.

Man your drop is pretty good, very dramatic,k good layering of synths, very reminiscent of Seven Lions (two reviews in a row i mentioned Seven Lions) Just big big stacks of synths and drama. Great drop, however, SUPER over compressed maybe? turned up really loud? you're getting distortion from peaking, I've added intentional distortion with peaking in my track, but everything else in the mix is crisp and clear. in this, you can tell the entire master track is getting clipped and distorted heavily.

I love the overall writing and harmonic content, very strong track and very strong drops. I would sobilly recommend automating those band passes that you put on what sounds like every voice, before some reverb, or in other words dont drop out everything into silence, keep it exactly like you have it but maybe add in some very very slight automation so that the whole mix doesnt dissapear into nothing, and maybe do a full cut of everything once or twice. I feel like im explaining it badly, but on that either band pass or compression automation that you add in those big stacks of synths in your drops, just add something in the spaces so its not 0-100 so suddenly. This is a technique used in a lot of edm where they pull everything out to surprise the listener, but they secretly have some delay or reverb that your mind doesnt really interpret.

Overall GREAT work, and ADR3 said something really great, mixing your whole track to peak at around -6db is a huge tip, leaving that amount of headroom does something MAGICAL to your mix and brings everything out once you master it and add your multiband compressor or whatever you do to master.

Glad to see you in the NGUAC!

Nice intro here. I'm not sure what SFX we have going on at 0:08 -- can't tell if it's pigeon cooing, horse hooves, just some crumpled paper sounds or w/e. If you want that heard, I would bring it up in the mix, or bring everything else down somewhat, like you've done with your cinematic percussion. Otherwise I would just not have it there. My band director always said, even if you make a mistake, make it loudly, and no one will assume you're ashamed of it. The brain will interpret quiet as somehow worse.

Writing wise, I like this.

By 1:20 we're getting distortion from pure loudness, which continues with every transition. The track sounds overly compressed and mixed at absolute red lining headroom levels. I'm also not a fan of such a deep and long sidechain, especially the double drop-outs.

Writing wise, no complaints. Structure is good, works well. You could probably take those stick click cinematic percussions and drop them by .5 dB

I'm amazed on quieter sections such as before 3:45 we're already getting distortion again. Take time when you get the chance and see what is going on here in all your transitions. It sounds like the track itself should come down about 6 dB before it hits the master channel. Without the distortion I'd give a full star higher tbh.

Anyway, despite some shortcomings, I enjoyed the piece. With more practice and keeping in this style, you show a LOT of potential, so don't get yourself down. Once this part of the competition is over, it's as simple as go back, reopen your project, and take the levels down. Then re-render and run your track through mastering (leave -6 dB of headroom is a pretty good rule of thumb) and this track is playlist ready. Great work on the composition itself.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

Damn this is good.