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"Forever" by Dariuz

Forever

by Dariuz

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Inge
Originality: 8/10Technical: 7/10
Theme: 9/10Quality: 9/10
Arrangement: 9/10Global: 8/10

Genre: deephouse / soulful house

A remarkably strong house tune. Great female vocals (let's hope they're real and not ripped), excellent samples (very nice and warm trumpet), excellent sound quality (great bassline and drumsound) and overall vibe (great tune for a early morning or pre-evening beach party somewhere in eastern spain).

But what on earth has Dariuz done with the snare? This completely freaks me out: the snare keeps doing illogical things, programmed to give a shuffle-feeling to the rhythm. Certain hihats seem to suffer from the same problem. Due to that, parts of the relaxed attitude and vibe of the song are removed. Dariuz constantly alters the speed between 163 and 102 bpm, which apparently is a bit too much shuffle. A punchy snare or clap at each second bassdrum would have been nice for a bit more drive in the track.
Sunbuster
Originality: 7/10Technical: 8/10
Theme: 9/10Quality: 7/10
Arrangement: 8/10Global: 8/10

I immediately liked the atmosphere in this track. The track sports a very calm, one could say balearic mood. If you listen to the background arrangement it's all very simple. You have the basic house setup with a kick-hihat arrangement which loops throughout the track, but not much more when it comes to drums. Then you have the background synth melody, which also basically repeats itself all the way through.

What makes this track work the floor is the groove of the bassline. Togheter with the solo playing trumpet it's the most melodic part of the track, everything else is basically just fx. But man does it work!

For some technical details then. I'm having a hard time understanding what the vocals are about. They get messed upp with the rhodes (or whatever) and the other fx swirling around also. A tip that might work would be to cut a bit more from the low ends of the vocal and boost around the 2-5 kHz marker. Try to get a bit more crispness/sharpness into the vocals. The vocal reverb/delay (which is a bit much sometimes) might also be to blame, so perhaps cutting and boosting the same areas there instead of the vocals directly might help.

The stereofield could have been used more also. Now everything seems to be more or less center, unless a delay or reverb kicks it to one of the channels. Trumpets could have been more to the right with vocals more to the left for instance. This could also solve the problem with the vocals being a bit muddy.

This was one of the few tracks that didn't want to play properly on my computer, which in turn left me wondering if there wouldn't have been something that could have been made more efficient (cutting down on reverbs by routing for instance).

I could definetly see (or hear) this track being played in a summer house party as the set closer. It has that feeling of everything being allright.
TNK / ATK project
Originality: 9/10Technical: 8/10
Theme: 7/10Quality: 8/10
Arrangement: 9/10Global: 9/10

Originality: 9/10
Theme: 7/10
Arrangement: 9/10
Technical: 8/10
Quality: 8/10
Global: 9/10

Great ambient disco-house track ! Besides one point (the drumloop) this guy knows how to produce quality music. Excellent moodsetter. A track BTW went straight to the "while working" playlist on my HD.

Originality : It sure sounds original, while the beat is standard for that kind of music. The vocals obviously come from sample collections, the same goes for various sax samples. Typical cut & paste work house lovers will like, therefore, considering the whole house production, I think this one is original, but not extremely. So 9 here.

Theme : Except for the chorus (what does she say ? I understand "Disco lips..." means nothing...) there's no really catchy melody. The mood is very well set, but it's more something to lay back to rather than to get hooked on. Good for afters, but not a party starter. On a Single CD, this would be a typical good B-side.

Arrangement : Dozens of tracks full of various synths, rhodes, bass and beats, all blending together perfectly. If only that drumloop (the one just before the "Disco lips" voice comes in) was synced to the beat... Obviously a track that hasn't been done overnight...

Technical : Flawless besides that unsynced loop. It's the 2nd "10" mark you're missing because of that flaw here...

Quality : Great within it's genre (laid back house), probably among the best works of it's kind within the tracking scene.

Global : One of the best tracks of it's kind could have desserved a 10 here if ... that drumloop problem could have been fixed... (I guess David's gonna hate that loop, hate me... or both !)
bigandymac
Originality: 8/10Technical: 8/10
Theme: 10/10Quality: 8/10
Arrangement: 8/10Global: 9/10

slickly produced soulful house track.

originality - its house, which is a popular genre so hard to be original but the use of fx, the rhodes, some of the percussion and the fantastic vocal and sax (?) make a great sounding track.
theme - excellent from start to finish, all instruments fit perfectly with the mood, the mix is spot on, the bassline also is very well done. the sample selection is perfect for the track.
arrangement - a flowing structure, with nice instrumental breaks. the actual background chords change very little throughout (same with the bass), but having a vocal and sax keeps it varied throughout.
technical - is excellent, the quality of this track is pretty much flawless (apart from one glaring error), the vsts are used in the right places and the right levels (the ambience and the xcita in particular).

summary - there is one track of snares which is a complete disaster and resulted in me deleting the ogg and playing the mt2 with that track (46) muted. but to knock marks off for 1 bad track and 49 great ones seems harsh. so overall a superb track start to finish.

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