MadTracker - "Quazen - Progressive Savatron" by Inforse

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Quazen - Progressive Savatron

by Inforse

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QBical

Originality:	5/10	Technical:	1/10
Theme:	5/10	Quality:	5/10
Arrangement:	7/10	Global:	4/10

The first thing I noticed was the rather high volume in wich the track was playing, I had change the gain to 2 to hear the track properly, with that out of the way the track became a lot more dynamic.

Progressive Savatron is a progressive track, with some good samples in it, most of them are cristal clear, but still it lacks some punch at times. Maybe you could have improved the overal rhythm in the beginning by making all the kicks the same volume, now you have about 3 kick samples randomly changing volume, wich gives the track an realy strange vibe, and by strange I mean not good, after a minute or 2 the track realy sets in and then the kicks are alright.

It's to bad that you didn't use any VST plugins, ofcourse you didn't have to use them, but these kind of 'progressive' tracks could realy use some compression on the drum parts to get it pumping properly.

The overal mix of your track is alright, although some parts are a bit to loud.

[b]Conclusion[/b]
I get the impression that this track was a quicky, you could have done so much more with it. The ending isn't a proper ending, try to finish the track in a proper way. Also try out some more effects then just the St.Delay. The volume was WAY to loud!
But the track has a nice melody and compositional it fits quite well.
You're not there yet, but you're on your way!

Sunbuster

Originality:	6/10	Technical:	5/10
Theme:	8/10	Quality:	4/10
Arrangement:	5/10	Global:	6/10

In the beginning, I got a strange feeling I've heard this track before. The intro was so very much like a trance track from the early 90's, I had to go on a hunt for it. Turns out it was Iron Wobbel - Neverending dreams, one of my favourites back then, that I was thinking of. Had that same pad and a very similar melodyline playing. After the intro where the kick and bass work togheter with some percussions this track reminded me a lot of Bedrock - Set in stone.

The track is pushed a bit too much to it limits, over-compressed in other words. I hear a sort of pumping sound every now and then, especially in the beginning when the kick hits.

I like the energy in this track. Even though it's a very very simple bass-kick-perc combo, I'm especially fond of the part from 1:30 up to where the piano starts. The piano takes down my feelings a notch, not because it would be bad, I just think another sample would have done a better job. This piano sounds a bit too lonely and sharp. The bassline togheter with the kick are good. They have that floorshaker character. Perhaps a bit too much bass, but in this case I'd rather have it that way than having too little of it, because the energy of the bassline does so much for this track.

In the end, too bad the track sounded over-compressed (which was the biggest flaw) and too bad it was short. The material had the potential of being a 8 minute prog-trancer. I got a feeling some parts didn't get time to evolve quite enough. The fadeout in the end was a bit dissapointing also. As far as atmoshpere goes this track was amongst the better trance pieces this year.

I think what the artist needs to focus on is improving mixing skills. The potential is definetly there to create some real good tunes.

TNK / ATK project

Originality:	4/10	Technical:	4/10
Theme:	6/10	Quality:	5/10
Arrangement:	6/10	Global:	5/10

Originality: 4 <-- Within the genre
Theme: 6
Arrangement: 6
Technical: 4
Quality: 5
Global: 5

Inforse presents us an ambient trance song that is, to my opinion atleast, quite average. While there are some great points (love that pads - sample # 11), The song lacks of originality and diversity, and could have been much better if it had taken the adventages of the new features of MT, like the VST softsynths. The ones that were allowed in this compo suited perfectly to this style of music... Ah, if you had taken the time to study Synth1 & Superwave a bit more out...

Originality : A.v.e.r.a.g.e. . In fact, I think that within the genre, it's not original at all, but the genre being almost bound to some kind of unorginality, I won't be too harsh on this issue (even if I think people like Qbical or Bin�rpilot could write some original stuff within that genre)

Arrangement : Works within the genre. Could have been more original however.

Technical : Using the standards we were asked to follow during this reviewing process (gain set at 4 for exemple), I'm sorry I must tell you that from pattern A on, your track almost always saturates. "Don't join the loudness race which has no winners!" (Bob Katz), says one of the MT2 tips of the days. I'ld add, "Especially if you acheive loudness only by turning the volume knob up!". Fortunately Yannick provided us with an .ogg output that works a bit better, because else your song is close from being unlistenable because of this saturation.
Besides this, the instrument mixing can be improved a lot : Many frequency overlaps here and there... And of course, in a compo based on MT's new features, not using them for a track that could have gained a lot from them is really a bad point...

Quality & global : A very average song... Could have been really great with more creative FXs & sounds, and with some proper audio engeneering. Hint : As a musician, you're not bad at all, now take some sound engeneering classes.

Also something that I'll probably copy-paste 3 billion times within this reviewing process : NAME YOUR TRACKS ! This would give your audiance and us judges a better view of how your track is built, will help newbies to learn how to use MT and to beat you in next year's compo :)