Liontamer Posted October 8, 2013 Share Posted October 8, 2013 (edited) Economy of language - LT Title: Battle Dragon By: Kilobyte -------------------------- Edited October 14, 2013 by Liontamer closed decision Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted October 8, 2013 Author Share Posted October 8, 2013 Texturally, this was pretty plain. The guitar performance at :09 was alright, but it lacked edge. Meanwhile, the drums and backing felt relatively empty; there should be something else going on to flesh this out. Minor things, but there was some sort of weird cutoff for one of the guitars at :38, and definitely some buzziness from :52-:56 that shouldn't have happened; not a huge deal. A bigger deal was the soundscape getting really mudded up by the backing guitars from :52-1:23; definitely needs some EQing adjustments so the different parts aren't crowding one another so much. The soloing section from 1:35-2:17 was admittedly kind of bland; the guitar wasn't poorly performed at all, but the tone again lacked edge again. Then the drum pattern felt too basic & plodding, which was an issue most of the way. And the bass work, while good, was indistinct enough in the back where you couldn't hear the details and it didn't gel with the rest of the instruments. 2:17 went for a strong finish. The soundscape was muddy again for this final section and the resolution at 2:44 was weak and abrupt. I like the arrangement, but it needs some fine tuning to clean up the soundscape a bit; the mud (and slight distortions) need to be cleared out. Meanwhile, the drumwork being a bit more progressive would help, as well as making the guitar work a little more expressive and fashioning a true ending. When you have something short and sweet, it really needs to be firing on all cylinders. NO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonAvenger Posted October 13, 2013 Share Posted October 13, 2013 Larry's a bit harsh, but his crits are all solid. You've got some really good arrangement ideas here, but the soundscape isn't following through and it's taking the edge off how good this could be. I'd definitely like to hear you work more with the drums (the drumming near the end is an improvement, more of that!), and see if you can adjust the balance of the guitars and sounds to get your leads more up front and kickin'! Good luck, definitely want to hear this again. NO (resubmit) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OceansAndrew Posted October 14, 2013 Share Posted October 14, 2013 On the arrangement side, I see where they are coming from, with a lot of very plain textures and parts that are pretty polite in taking turns; there is usually only 1 thing going on at once, with minimal harmony or intertwining parts; while that won't sink this completely, combined with the production issues, it doesn't quite reach the bar. My suggestion on the production are to EQ the rhythm guitars a bit so they have more bite and less mud, bring the drums down a few db, and shape the bass a little as well. It's a lot of seemingly small tweaks that will multiply to make this way more compelling. Your guitar skills are definitely there, and the solo was shredding, if buried. This has some solid promise, I think making the first half of the track as exciting as the second half and cleaning up the sound will get it to where it needs to be. No, please resubmit Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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