Leaderboard

well, i submitted eight songs to the queue for judging! don't worry, i cleared it with larry before slamming the queue with them =)

The sample sounds.

Arrangement-wise, this seems pretty solid, so that's at least a non-issue. There's a weird property with the string sustains in particular that does expose the samples; there's a warbly effect that sounds more like a fuzzyness than bow movement. Around 2:40, the bowed string samples are also pretty exposed & mechanical there; it's something that pervades the whole arrangement, so it'd be nice to have a musician who can speak to how to address that chime in. Around 3:30, the volume seemed too low, though I get the dynamic contrast involved. The shift to brass & woodwinds around 4:50 had good power behind the writing; the samples continued to strain credibility during some big flourishes (e.g. 5:27-5:33 in particular). There's a lack of richness & tone in the samples that puts them in uncanny valley territory, though this is a strong base for the arrangement. If you could make the instrumentation sound fuller, it may help obscure some of the more exposed moments; I'd ask around in the Music Composition & Production area for advice, since I'm not saying that has to involve spending $ on other samples, but rather maximizing what you already have. [This is an automatically generated message] I've reviewed your remix and have returned it to Work-in-Progress status, indicating that I think there are some things you still need to work on. After you work on your track and feel that you'd like some more feedback, please change the prefix back to Ready for Review and I'll review it again! Good luck!

All right, time for another deadline: Saturday, March 31 I have three entries that are complete or nearly complete, and they're all pretty fantastic. It would be a grave injustice to not get them into an album. @ThePlasma, @ibeginwiththeendinmind, @Steele, please send an update my way or be cut. @Chernabogue you know where you stand and what I'm waiting for. I'll see if I can do some more recruiting.

I don't think it's THAT far, actually. It may not be what I'm used to identify as a contemporary Carnaval parade samba-enredo (which was the source of inspiration for one of my mixes) and the bass drum beat could probably highlight just a bit more of the track rhythmic presence at times, but I can hear the samba here. I've already heard many orchestral arrangements of traditional samba music which sounded pretty similar to this.