Leaderboard

Ah, another portion of synthwave-y goodness from Jorito - these can never hurt Perfect soundscape as always, definitely has that "going into the sunset" kind of vibe to it. Really fun and engaging all the way thorugout - super strong groove overall, expressive synth solos, tight guitar work (good job on that, HeavenWraith!), and the vocoded bits worked really neatly as a sort of break. If I had to guess, they say "Wanderers from Ys" and "Sunset Heroes", but I'm not entirely sure. Anyways, love this track, amazing work!

Just beuatiful. Despite all the glitchiness going on, this piece feels really cozy and comforting. There's definitely something nostalgic about the atmosphere. It really feels like a little tale of the old days The item jingle at around 1-minute mark is a nice touch and the piano at 1:43 nearly broke me... In a good way, haha. Once again, exceptional work, Michael!

right off the bat, the lagging guitars caught me off guard too. i like the idea, but it's significant and notably distracting. the rest of the build is pretty nice. 0:54 is a significant change, and it sounded pretty good. rexy's right that everything's pretty vanilla, but it's put together in a fun way that is better than the sum of its parts. i loved the build from ~1:40ish to 2:15, but the payoff wasn't near as good as i'd hoped. the backing synths (notably the mid-range synths and some pads) were quite loud, the kick and snare weren't nearly loud/EQed properly enough, and so overall it lost a lot of power. there's a nice little breakdown and build back to another big presentation of the melody, but the same issues persist - quiet/muffled drums, mid-synth domination, etc. a lot of those big synths need some serious EQ to keep them grouped together and not overlapping each other. the delayed guitar in the build needs to be fixed again as well. around 4:30ish, i started feeling that this song had told me what it was trying to say, and it started to get repetitive. i think the last quarter or so is pretty much saying the same as the beginning, and so it got stale. trimming it down to mayba just under 5 minutes would do some wonders with keeping it moving. the ending was nice if abrupt, calling back to the opening. i liked the chord changes and the shutdown motif with detuning down. overall this is a track that's pretty close and just needs some cleanup before it's ready for primetime. an EQ pass to notch in most of your synths and allow the kick and snare room to do their thing is desperately needed. a volumization pass that tones back most of those mid synths doing harmony and focuses each section on what's most important will really help as well. finally, correcting the delayed guitar parts will tie those two sections together a lot more cohesively. good work! it's almost there. NO

I agree the guitar backing is out a bit, which is quite distracting. The initial build-up is otherwise interesting. The change to a minimal squelchy synth-scape worked well, with different parts coming in over time. Production is mixed. Synths sound good when there isn't too many at once, piano is basic but decent enough. The drums were quite muffled across the mix. The track is a bit low-end heavy as well — parts that don't need it could have their low end dialled back a bit to allow the bass and drums breathe some more (similar to what Rexy has mentioned already). This would also brighten the track, which is needed. The biggest strength of this track is the arrangement — you cover a lot of ground and unpack a number of ideas throughout the duration, with a lot of variation which is a great achievement. Production just needs another pass on this one. NO

Hey, glad to hear you've been re-inspired! And I promise we collectively will be more considerate than at your last sub. I feel your confidence in the source's presentation, handled so that no section repeats ideas aside from the bookends, making the scope significantly ambitious. You've got: Bars 3 and 4 of melody B getting brought into half-time on the piano at 0:29 and 5:49 Using melody A as a repeating arpeggio pattern throughout with the core component from 1:08 and its last bar from 1:45 Use of melody B's defining hook at 2:29 both for the high energy segment and into the piano wind-down not long after 3:15 having the first bar of melody B getting used on an arp And culminating at 3:43 with the transformation of the source's riffs onto an original 4-bar chord pattern, which sticks as the core idea for the following two minutes with textural variations. You've brought the energy up and down at appropriate places to maintain momentum as well, so it's mostly a solid concept you've got down. However, one part of your writing that you really should watch out for is how delayed your backing guitar is. I heard it at 0:09, and again at 3:19 - it sounds like it's lagging a fraction of a beat behind. If that wasn't intentional, it should be no problem to check out the stem and sync it back in. The production aspect isn't too bad here. The synths chosen have more of a vanilla quality, with rarely any articulations or expressions involved on individual notes. But the EQ sweeps / slow envelope movements more than compromise it - with the pitch-bend ending taking me by surprise. But I feel too much emphasis on your pads and harmonies for your mixdown that they're cluttering up the low-mids and not letting the kick and snare cut through. My suggestion is to try making cuts around the tonal frequency for where your kicks and snare are and apply them onto your pads and low-mid rhythm parts, seeing if they get more room. Similarly, you've also got them bleeding into the melodies as well when they hit a similar tonal sequence - 4:29 being a clear-cut example of this. There are ways to prevent bleeding from two separate groups like this. My suggestions include either transposing one of the groups to a different octave, modifying their EQ separately to get the part you want de-emphasizing held back, bringing the volume up for the leads and down for the backing section, or a combination of the three. I like your ambitious approach to a source with so little to utilize, and you've come a long way since you've last submitted. But right now, the mixdown needs to get another pass to ease off on the low-mid congestion, and your backing guitar needs its timing fixed. The latter part should be an easy remedy, and the former point is crucial if I am to sign off on this. Keep at it, Tobias! NO (resubmit)