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Title:Il Ritorno
Author:Francesco Romano
Genre:Trance
Comment:
Size:1033 KB
File:Ritorno.zip
Date:2002-08-11

Sunbuster:   Bad

The good:

When all the drum samples play at the same time (@pattern 23 for instance), there's a pretty cool beat going. The track effects are used visely, meaning they're link whenever possible/needed, and that IMO is good policy. The mix is also pretty good (except for the drums->panning needed). Sample quality sounds good also. The climax of the song is pretty good also, allthough it's a pretty typical trance climax where you simply shift the lead one octave up. The note-combination you use for the main melody is pretty interesting also, at first I didn't think the notes fit togheter, but then after listening to the track a couple of times it grew on to me. Nice :)

The bad

Unfortunately, every song has it's bad sides, and even more unfortunately, this one has several pretty serious one IMO.
The track sounds empty somehow. I can think of two things that cause this.

1. There's simply not enough going on in the low frequencies of the song. You have the baseline, yes, but then there's a huge gap in the frequency range before the lead instruments kick in. On some parts of the song this is covered by a submelody getting a dose of the low-pass filter, but in most parts of the song, it's only the simple baseline that plays in the lower frequencies. Sometimes it is called for, but most of the time it's not.

2. The drums, allthough good at some points, need more variation. You could try to add a bit more depth by simply panning the drums a bit more also. The breakbeat a bit into the song could use more variation also, especially on the bassdrum.

One huge letdown in this tune is that the same elements are used over and over again. In a trance tune, some degree of repetition is of course allowed, but not to the extent that it's used here. It's almost as if some recipe was followed:
two patterns, short break from drums, ended by that one fx sound, introduce something new on the next two patterns, short break from drums, ended by that one fx sound, introduce something new, maybe remove something else for the next two patterns, short break from drums ended by that one fx sound... see a pattern here?

Conclusion: the foundation of the tune is ok, but it needs more variation. And on some parts of the song, it needs more in the low frequencies. Your musical ear is good, you seem to know what fits togheter and what doesn't, but you need to spend more time on the final finish of the track. And remember, it's the little things that make a good track great. Sadly, this time I don't see any other alternative but to rate the song "Can do better". It's not the worst song I've ever heard, not even close, but there are simply so many other misses that if I was to rate it higher, I'd only be fooling everybody.
But I hope you won't let this keep you from tracking. As I said, the talent is there, it just needs developing :)

-Sunbuster


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