MadTracker - "Sanxion7 - Cyst (Original Mix)" by SaxxonPike

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Sanxion7 - Cyst (Original Mix)

by SaxxonPike

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Inge

Originality:	5/10	Technical:	9/10
Theme:	8/10	Quality:	8/10
Arrangement:	7/10	Global:	7/10

Genre: hard/epic trance
Somewhat similar to 'Seven Days And One Week' (BBE) or 'Loops & Tings' (Jens) due to the main oneshot. The drums and bassline need (far!) more power to really give this track the drive it needs/deserves. Apart from that, the overall composition sounds very professional. Even the piano at the end of the tune is acceptable due to the very clever integration in the overall sound and structure.

Why then is this track so short? 2.44 is way too short for the applied structure and genre. The piano should have filled the bridge, and not denote the end of the tune. It furthermore is somewhat superseded to provide the end-of-90's trance sound, and it doesn't stand out in the crowd of millions of other trance tracks. Create identity, make it longer, work on the low frequencies, and you would pretty much pwn the crowd.

Sunbuster

Originality:	2/10	Technical:	5/10
Theme:	4/10	Quality:	5/10
Arrangement:	4/10	Global:	4/10

This is a typical trance track. End of story. The only rule it doesn't follow is that it isn't 6 minutes long at least. Nevertheless it manages to squeese all elements into the 2:44 run time it has. It has the über trance strings, the buildup, the break, the climax. Also, it seems the compressor was used a bit too much, because this already sounds as if it's playing through radio NRJ, something that is illustrated well by the master level meter not going down much when the quite parts of the tracks hit.

But not to worry, it's not all that bad. The trumpet sample, although following a pretty regular pattern, did remind me of some old kai tracid tracks (which is always good). The overall mix is ok. The kick could perhaps use some more power, but I have a feeling that if you'd ease of the compression a bit it would solve itself. I liked the piano in the end also, it created a nice atmoshpere. In fact, would this track be developed a bit more it could be a club track. I doubt it would raise any eyebrows though...

TNK / ATK project

Originality:	4/10	Technical:	5/10
Theme:	7/10	Quality:	6/10
Arrangement:	7/10	Global:	7/10

Originality: 4/10 <-- within the musical genre.
Theme: 7/10
Arrangement: 7/10
Technical: 5/10
Quality: 6/10
Global: 7/10

Demo sounding Techno/trance/dance here. Indeed A98 *must* be one of your main scene influences. Your track is as good as his ones, but will it be enough to win the compo ?

Originality : H.e.a.r.d. s.u.c.h. t.r.a.c.k.s. h.o.w. m.a.n.y. t.i.m.e.s b.e.4 ?
Well it is standard. Too standard. Even within this (quite overdone) musical style, you could have been much more inovative by using different sounds. You had plenty of VSTs (Superwave, Synth 1 (love it!)) available that can produce trance sounds that go beyond a trance producer's weirdest dreams. And what do we get ? Something that I could have downloaded on Traxinspace 6 years ago...

Theme : A good point is that the theme grabs you immediately. But if only it could change a bit faster and be less repetitive. I know this is some kind of trance music, but every good trance producer will tell you that even within a loop, you have to do slight changes here and there, just make some filter parameters evolve here and there. The song builds up slowly, and it could have become a real must if you had let it evolve longer, as some melodies that show up towards the end are really taking the song to another level. Slowly evolving tracks require some 6-7 minutes to build up, and not 2:40 your song lasts...

Arrangement : Why those old chip (cheap?) Alice Deejay / A98 / TuNeR leads ? Besides this the arrangement is standard of such songs. The piano at the end makes the arrangement note go up a bit.

Technical :
1) Why are all the VST instruments set on track 0 (not master) ? It's not easy to have to change the track number when you want to check how the song is done.
2) The arrangement is quite muddy. Take a look at Pyrozane's entry to see how one can track dance/trance stuff without mudding up the arrangement (hint : The more the frequencies of your different instruments overlap themselves, the more your arrangement gets muddy).
3) You wrote in the info box you were used to track mods... and this is to be felt too much within this track. A few years back, on Impulse tracker, this track would have been a top track, but with MT's possibilities, this becomes much weaker.
4) Besides this, it still sounds cool :-)

Quality :
An average to good song that could have been much better with some more work.

Global :
Of course it's some nice music. But I can't give a 10 to everyone. With more work (a remix maybe ?) you could however make this one a real chartbreaker !