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Sunbuster:   Bad

overall:

First of, this is not a trance, nor a dance track. It's too slow for that, and the drums are not present enough for it either for it to be trance/dance. 80's disco, ballad or schlager would be a better description.

It's a nice song though, well structured and a pretty good mix.

the good

The melody is nice, tragic somehow, but that's not a minus. Various instruments are used to play this melody also, this way it doesn't get boring, immediately at least. Somehow I hear a sort of Russian feel to this track, that's just a feeling I have though :)

The use of ambient sounds is good, it builds up (for me at least) this picture of a warzone, where all the brave men fought :) The drums at the end add a bit to this picture also. The breakbeat in the end is good, well structured. As I allready said, the overall structure/composition of the song is good.

the bad

This song lacks in depth somehow. Maybe a bit of reverb on some of the channels could change this, try to experiment with that.
The drumbeat (except for the breakbeat in the end) could use a bit more work. As it is now, it has almost no variation, and the same loop is played throughout the song. They could also use a bit more punch. Now, they are only there, a bit in the background.
The song sounds a bit muddy, it could use a bit more in the higher frequencies. Instead of using the instrument synth on the drums, try to use the natural sound of the drumsamples instead.
The melody gets a bit repetive in the end, even though the track is only about 4 minutes long. Using various instruments helps the situation, but it's still the same melody that's looped throughout the song. Giving the listeners a break from this melody somewhere in the middle of the track could be a good idea.

the conclusion

Overall a nice track, with a couple of flaws in the technical/mixing area.
A trance song this is not, so if you (the downloader) are expecting some hard punching 8 minute trance track then this one is a no no. If you, on the other hand, want something more in the ways of schlager/ballad/disco then this one could be worth the download.

to the author

Your melodic ear is good, you just need to put a bit more time on the finish/final mixing. And a bit more creativity in the drums wouldn't hurt. Try listening to how drums are built up in other trance music tracks (if it's trance you're trying to produce). You'll see that there's pretty much variation in those drumsloops, even though it might not seem that way at first.

You might want to check out a bit more about genre definitions, because this track is not a trance track. I know it's hard to draw a line between certain genres, especially in electronic music. But in this case, the line is pretty clear. I don't know if you listen to alot of trance yourself, but my guess would be "no". You might want to check out "http://www.allmusic.com/". They have a good explanation for most of the different music genres on this earth, with examples etc.

I battled hard about what rating I should give this track, but I finally decided on "Can do better". I think what finally tipped it over was that I was expecting to hear a trance tune, but instead got a schlager/disco/ballad mix. It got me confused a bit...

and finally (conclusion 2?)

Don't give up, you have an ear for what fits togheter in music. My suggestion would be to listen to alot of music from the genre that you want to produce, to hear what's common and how a certain type of music sounds like. Maybe even try to recreat some effect or drumloop you hear in another track, and then from there develope your own skills and ways of putting things togheter. Over and out...

(shit, that must have been the longest review by me yet :D )