MadTracker - "------Sea to Sea - By: CamBomb-------" by CamBomb

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------Sea to Sea - By: CamBomb-------

by CamBomb

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Ogg Vorbis version

Sunbuster

Originality:	2/10	Technical:	3/10
Theme:	4/10	Quality:	4/10
Arrangement:	3/10	Global:	3/10

Yep, pretty basic trance again. What bugs me most about this track though is the hectic sence it creates. It feels as if nothing get's time to evolve completely before the next thing is thrown in. To be honest, after a short kick-bass-submelody intro the whole tracks sounds like one long climax, no breaks from the wall of sound that emerges. Would this be playing in the club I'd get tired and move to the bar since the track constantly wants you to have your hands in the air.

The mixing is not that good. Things sound squashed and messy, the instruments don't have space. Come to think of it, the whole thing sounds a bit over-compressed. The only thing getting the space it needs is the kick and the bassline, maybe the hihats. The snare lacks any power. Maybe not the intention for it to have power, but it does make the track sound low in quality.

What you as the artist should concentrate on is getting the mix right and perhaps letting things evolve a bit longer. The potential is there to create some real club smashers.

TNK / ATK project

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

Originality: 7 <-- Within the genre
Theme: 9
Arrangement: 8
Technical: 7
Quality: 8
Global: 8

Cambomb drops us a trance bomb right in our faces, showing by the same occasion that even if Trance is basically an european genre, it's borderless and fans of that genre exist on every continent. Get ready to invade Europe's clubs with such tracks ! Great trancer, great review !

Originality : How to be original in commercial trance ? The very few niches that are within that style and that haven't been explored yet are definitely hard to find. That's why it's a 7 : Not that original but not that unoriginal within the genre. Hint : explore your softsynths : It's only by getting weird sounds out of them that you'll get some more originality points (hint 2 : Daichi's synth 1 is great for this). The strange evolving pad you've done with Crystal (instrument F) is however great and adds some originality to the track.

Theme : The big point of this entry. Almost flawless commercial trance melody ! Grabs you and provides you with it's power. The only drawback (but I know I'm niggeling by writing this) is some parts of the strings/lead alike synth (instrument 1c, superwave p8 #5) that could be more catchy & original towards the end. I tried some "alternate" melodies and indeed, that's a point you could improve, but really, consider this more as a the_reviewer_having_to_say_something_here_to_justify_why_it_is_no_10 comment than as a real flaw (even if what I wrote here is - to my ears at least - true)

Arrangement : Works very well within the genre. 3 things to improve however :
- Get us a stronger bass & Bassdrum
- Snare (instrument #8) is really too high pitched.
- The hi-hats have too many high frequencies : Get yourself a better drumset.
Besides this, it's allright for me.

Technical : Good use of VST softsynths & the new (since the last compo) features of MT like the track EQs, overall sound OK, but could have been better if some more creative settings would have been used within the synths and/or if more FXs were applied within MT. Strange all those tracks with almost no use of the FX column... And of course, there's this high frequency on the drumset issue I already addressed in the Arrangement section.

Quality & global : 8. Not the best, but by far not the worst. A really nice track I'ld like to have improved (or to improve myself with Cambomb's approval), changing the drumset and playing a bit with the knobs on the softsynths, so that it'll land on my main playlist, and maybe even in some local clubs :-)

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 :)