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arcturus's Comments

Download: Title: the zen garden Filename: zengardn.s3m	Posted Wed 29th Jun 2022 Rated 9 / 10
I'm a big fan of this one, always have been - it's maybe a bit too long, but otherwise does a great job evoking a mood. Makes good use of percussion to drive the sound without letting it get too slow. Good use of the arpeggio effect as more of a background sound rather than the lead.

Download: Title: k_f-hop.xm Filename: k_f-hop.xm	Posted Tue 27th Jul 2021 Rated 5 / 10
If you like endless house percussion, then boy oh boy, do I have a treat for you, because that's mostly what this song is. As a techno/house/EDM tune, I suppose it achieves its goal, but it's not something that I particularly enjoy. The song is basically all percussion with a rez sequence that builds up. At the end, it just repeats the final pattern over and over - this was done without effects, so I'm guessing this is just some Fast Tracker feature that I'm unfamiliar with (I was an Impulse Tracker guy back in the day). This song doesn't have much going for it musically, but if you like percussion-oriented EDM it might be your cup of tea.

Download: Title: k.f.t.f.ii Filename: k_f_t_f_ii.mod	Posted Tue 27th Jul 2021 Rated 6 / 10
Not bad. Decent work within the usual limitations of the 4-channel Protracker mod format. Not much to make it stand out, but it has a pleasant melody and uses the samples that it has well enough.

Download: Title: k_e_b_a_b.xm Filename: k_e_b_a_b.xm	Posted Mon 26th Jul 2021 Rated 3 / 10
This was kind of rough to listen to. It's a fast-moving hardcore gabber tune, based primarily on two samples: One is a beatloop with mixed-in singing vocals that sound like they could be from the middle east or Turkey, and a quick stab synth that provides the melody. They don't blend particularly well, since the tune played on the synth seems to be in a different key from the vocals. The mixing was also not particularly great, as the audio was dominated by the kick drum sample that plays throughout. It was way too loud. Overall, I'd suggest skipping this one.

Download: Title: delicious Filename: k_delic.xm	Posted Fri 16th Jul 2021 Rated 7 / 10
Solid tune with a heavy bass register and a "nighttime in the big city" flair to it. Some samples are good, but some of the samples have the noise that's typical of 8-bit audio. Appealing bassline and good use of the keys and string samples. The percussion is pretty well-done, too.

Download: Title: k.d.buch Filename: k_d_buch.mod	Posted Fri 16th Jul 2021 Rated 4 / 10
This feels like the mod equivalent of a doodle. It's small, not particularly interesting, and feels like it was just put together as an afterthought, or when somebody just had a few minutes to kill. The song is built around a set of distorted guitar samples, which have an oscillating filter to create a "wah" effect. There also is a lead sequence played on a lofi sine-like waveform (it's not exactly a sine, it's labeled as "harmonica" and sounds vaguely like one). The guitars play in a set, and the lead theme is built around the sound that the guitar sequence plays. The tempo varies a bit, but it's not enough to make the song interesting. On the whole, a forgettable song.

Download: Title: The Corridors of Time Filename: k_corrid.it	Posted Thu 15th Jul 2021 Rated 9 / 10
Really great work by Daedalus. I thought the chord progression at the start worked really well at drawing me into the song. The overall theme sounds very pleasant and the melody has enough variety to keep the song interesting from start to finish. I really like the sound of this song overall, very atmospheric and airy. Good mix of instruments based on square and sawtooth waves. Sample set was also really good. Samples were all 16-bit, very crisp and clear-sounding. They worked very well together overall. Only complaint is that I think the bass could have been brought out a bit more. On the whole, a really great song that I will probably put into my playlists.

Download: Title: The Confrontation Filename: k_confrn.it	Posted Thu 15th Jul 2021 Rated 7 / 10
This is a pretty good industrial-style track by Daedalus. This song does a good job of building up the tension in the intro, and has a decent sample set (not many 16-bit samples, though). There were definitely a few samples that sounded familiar to me, that may have come from songs like Skaven's ID - Space Deleria and Necros's Ascent of the Cloud Eagle. I was a little worried that the whole song was going to be monotone but it started varying things up partway through, which kept it interesting. Overall, this was a good effort.

Download: Title: +back in the u.k.+ Filename: k_back_in_the_u.mod	Posted Fri 9th Jul 2021 Rated 4 / 10
Well, this was definitely a noisy mod. Under all the static was a fairly straightforward dance mod, which moves pretty quickly. Since this is a 4 channel mod format, it has a lot of limitations, and there's just not a whole lot of creativity employed to work around them. I suppose I can give points for varying the theme up a bit as the song progresses, but there's still too much repetition. Only a small complaint here but the song didn't sound like what the title made me think it might sound like. There was really nothing UK-ish that I could detect in the song.

Download: Title: Autocide Filename: k_auto.mtm	Posted Thu 8th Jul 2021 Rated 5 / 10
Standard EDM tune from Maelcum. I'm going to be perfectly honest, I thought this song was forgettable. There's not really much that makes it stand out. It's a little heavy on the guitars, so perhaps it's a bit heavier than your standard EDM tune, but it hangs on pretty much the same bassline throughout the song and never varies much. It's monotonous. I'm also not a huge fan of throwing in random vocal clips for no particular reason. They don't really fit in thematically with the song, kind of clash with each other, and don't really improve the song in any appreciable way. It's a very 1990's thing to put in audio clips like this, and since this song is from 1997 I guess that's appropriate, but that's an aspect of 1990's techno that I'd prefer be left in the past.

Download: Title: kummalline aparaatti Filename: k_aparaatti.xm	Posted Thu 1st Jul 2021 Rated 3 / 10
I can sum up my thoughts in a single word: Huh? I can't say I enjoyed this song. Intentional dissonance is a thing, but not a thing that I like to listen to. What's strange about this song is how much it relies on incredibly short patterns and repetitions using the loop-back effect. As such, the order list is very long, but the song is short by a comparison, with some patterns only lasting a fraction of a second. Is the song enjoyable? I don't think so. I think the composer likely was at least aware of what they were trying to do, and the effort clearly wasn't amateurish - but it sure didn't sound good.

Download: Title: The Abduction Filename: k_abduct.s3m	Posted Thu 1st Jul 2021 Rated 6 / 10
Not bad. Based on the title, I'm guessing the composer was going for an extra-terrestrial theme, and that comes through pretty clearly. Interesting melody, and good use of the resonatic sample set throughout. I appreciate how the song avoided being repetitive, and at just under 3 minutes is at a length that is pretty easy to digest. Samples are all 8-bit, but depending on when this was composed, that may have still been the norm.

Download: Title: k.a.o.s Filename: k_a_o_s.mod	Posted Thu 1st Jul 2021 Rated 2 / 10
I really can't give this song any high marks at all. The only positive thing I can say about it is that it didn't sound like a total cacophony. There was very little creativity involved in this song: It relies entirely on sequence samples. That's just not interesting, nor is it creative. So I wouldn't bother with this one.

Download: Title: k 560 Filename: k_560.mod	Posted Thu 1st Jul 2021 Rated 2 / 10
Yeah, this one's a little rough. The arpeggio effect is playing throughout this song more or less constantly, and it's not pleasant. Using the arpeggio effect properly takes more skill than is demonstrated here. I guess the melody's kind of original, but that doesn't mean it's nice to listen to. The end has a percussion sample that is disproportionately loud compared to the rest of the song, and then a weird pitch-down effect follows. All-in-all, this song is kind of a mess. There's very little craftsmanship involved in this: there's only rudimentary songwriting skills employed here. There are better chiptunes out there.

Download: Title: Jungle fever Filename: k_jungle.xm	Posted Wed 30th Jun 2021 Rated 7 / 10
Decent, but maybe not the most engaging song I've heard. This is a very atmospheric song, but I wouldn't go so far as to call it pure ambience. The song goes just about how you might expect with a title of "Jungle Fever," lots of evocative samples that sounds like a jungle soundtrack. There isn't much of a melody, but what melody there is is played on a panflute-type instrument. All-in-all, decent song. Samples are reasonably good quality, it's well-constructed, and if the goal was to sound like a jungle tune, it achieved it.

Download: Title: Napping on a cloud Filename: napping_on_a_cloud.xm	Posted Wed 30th Jun 2021 Rated 8 / 10
Very nice. This song does a whole lot with very little: Only 7 samples, the largest of which is a mere 512 bytes. But the composer made great use of the limitations, packing a whole lot of melody into it. The song progresses very nicely and, as the title suggests, it ends up with a very calming and pleasant tune. I think this song is a great example of what can be achieved with limited resources, and the creativity that can come from lofi sound.

Download: Title: xenon3miniblast Filename: alex_menchi_-_xenon_3_miniblast.mod	Posted Wed 30th Jun 2021 Rated 5 / 10
Decent 4-channel mod. It has a fairly standard set of 8-bit samples, most of which I've heard before in other mods. The melody has a decent idea to it, but never really strays too far from the main theme. Serviceable song, but doesn't really stand out in any meaningful way.

Download: Title: Bleeped Out Filename: k_jose_-_bleeped_out.it	Posted Wed 30th Jun 2021 Rated 6 / 10
Interesting chiptune in several acts. Only makes use of three samples: A square wave, a sine wave, and a noise sample. It definitely sounds like 8-bit NES music, except the NES couldn't do sine waves. I wasn't a huge fan of having the sine wave always playing the same note in the background. I realize this was kind of the idea the song was built around, but I didn't really enjoy it much. Still, the melodies were very well-done and I like how the song would shift between different movements to add some variety. So overall, it's a pretty well-tracked mod.

Download: Title: Bongo Jamming Filename: k_jose_-_bongo_jamming.it	Posted Wed 30th Jun 2021 Rated 8 / 10
I can definitely say that this song is unique. I have heard percussion-only mods before, but I hadn't heard a bongo-only mod until now (I'm sure others exist, I just haven't heard any). First, the good: The samples are very high-quality and the composer clearly knows what he's doing. It's very professionally done, and a casual listener might even be tricked into thinking this is a studio recording. I think the composer certainly achieved the goal he was going for. The less-good: This song is very long. While it would probably be easy to play this in the background, I doubt I would put it into a playlist due to its length. 17+ minutes of bongo drumming is a lot to get through. Still, I have to give this song a high grade due to the good craftsmanship involved in putting it together.

Download: Title: markus6166_-_electronic_2-off.xm Filename: markus6166_-_electronic_2-off.xm	Posted Wed 30th Jun 2021 Rated 2 / 10
I'm going to have to be perfectly honest, I did not enjoy this song at all. It's basically two minutes of bit-crunching and sequence loops. There was no melody in this song. I suppose the composer was able to successfully achieve their vision, but this style of music just isn't for me.

Download: Title: alternate function Filename: k_altern.xm	Posted Wed 30th Jun 2021 Rated 6 / 10
This is a reasonably solid house tune by Maelcum, completed in the summer of 1998. There are some good aspects to this song, others not so good. Overall, it has a pretty good groove to it, with percussion and bass working well. It has a mixture of 8-bit and 16-bit samples, but the sound doesn't seem to suffer too much from it. On the down-side, there's a lot of repetition. I realize that kind of goes with the territory on house tunes, but even when it comes to house I like some variety. Pattern 13 was probably the strongest, but it was immediately followed by 4 repetitions of pattern 17, which introduces a high-pitched sequence on instrument 4 that was grating and whiny. So I can't say it's my favorite but it's not bad.

Download: Title: industrial Filename: zodiac_-_industrial.mod	Posted Wed 30th Jun 2021 Rated 3 / 10
At only 98kb, this song is very compact - I'm guessing this song was made for a competition of some sort, perhaps in a <100kb category (the "give me a vote" line in the comments also suggests this). So it's a 4-channel mod, all with 8-bit samples, the largest of which is 11kb. The song runs too long. The melody seems pretty rudimentary and I don't think we needed almost 8 minutes of it. I at least appreciated that the there are some attempts to mix things up a little bit by varying the tempo, but I don't think it does enough to make the song interesting. Sample 6 is jarring and grates on the ears. I would have left it out entirely: it adds nothing good to the song. The song is at its strongest at around patterns 13-17, and the section immediately following this is probably where it's weakest (that's when the aforementioned sample 6 plays).

Download: Title: Z2: Pre-Chaos Filename: rm_-_z2prechaos.mod	Posted Tue 29th Jun 2021 Rated 3 / 10
It's hard to know what to make of this song. The main sequence has a reasonably good idea behind it, but the implementation is lacking. Several of the samples are out of tune, which is really grating on the ear. The ending is really weird: it transitions away from the main sequence rather abruptly into a more dissonant piano solo. The piano sample itself was somewhat low quality and so I had a hard time enjoying the ending. I think the main sequence had potential and probably could have been expanded upon, and the composer did reasonably well with the limitations of a 4-channel Protracker mod. But on the whole this song doesn't really hit the mark.

Download: Title: Z1: Post Chaos Filename: rm_-_z1postchaos.xm	Posted Tue 29th Jun 2021 Rated 4 / 10
Very short chiptune with a repeated chord structure. Simple and straightforward, not a whole lot of variety to it. It's not terribly interesting because of that, the melody never really goes anywhere and therefore it gets old quickly. Not a bad attempt, but not memorable.

Download: Title: "second coming" Filename: k_2ndcom.mtm	Posted Tue 29th Jun 2021 Rated 7 / 10
Interesting hook to this song but a bit repetitive. I don't think this needed to be 8 minutes long. Still a decent song with a good tune overall. I liked the air raid siren effect, even though I wasn't entirely sure how it fit into the general theme of the song.

Download: Title: Emerald Visions - Leviathan Filename: K_emerld.s3m	Posted Wed 31st Mar 2021 Rated 10 / 10
The quintessential Leviathan song, and one of the songs he is best known for. Perfect flow and transitions, excellent percussion, and great use of the guitar samples. While the lead takes center stage, the backing guitar is what really makes the song. Never feels repetitive.

Download: Title: Jupiter Filename: JUPITER.S3M	Posted Tue 16th Feb 2021 Rated 10 / 10
This is an absolute classic, and was a huge inspiration for me when I got interested in mod music. The intro is compelling and draws you right into the song. Never feels tiresome or repetitive. Transitions are great, and it has perfect bridge / tension building sections. If there was ever a "greatest hits" album of demoscene music, this would be on it.

Download: Title: Crystalline Tears Filename: crys_klf.s3m	Posted Tue 9th Feb 2021 Rated 8 / 10
This was an early favorite of mine as I started to get into mod music. I'm not sure where I downloaded this initially - probably from the Microsoft Network (there was a section there for mod downloads). This would have been in 1996. For some reason the piano theme really stuck with me when I first heard the theme. I think it reminded me of of piano-centric electronic music that I heard when I was living in Germany (which was only 4 years prior to me hearing this song). I do like the reverberating piano sample and how the airy pads contribute to the overall sound of this tune. This song is a great example of samples that all seem to go very well with each other.

Download: Title: Moonlight pt1 Filename: moonpt1.xm	Posted Sat 30th Jan 2021 Rated 6 / 10
Decent sound, interesting sample choices. Sounds kind of goth-metal. It doesn't really deviate from the main theme - it starts off with a high string note, for example, and to be honest if this string kept on holding the same note throughout the entire song it wouldn't really feel out of place. The synth bit in the middle fits in well. Overall reasonably well-crafted, sounds fine, but not much variety.

Download: Title: Armani Showers Filename: armani_showers.s3m	Posted Wed 27th Jan 2021 Rated 7 / 10
This will be a familiar song to many trackers of a certain era: This was the song that came packaged with Scream Tracker 3.20. This a fairly straightforward chiptune with a memorable hook. While it's not very technically complex, it is a fun, short listen.

Download: Title: "Spacegroove"-lev&mickrip Filename: k_sgroov.it	Posted Mon 25th Jan 2021 Rated 10 / 10
I was shocked when I discovered that this classic by Leviathan and Mick Rippon was not on the Mod Archive. How can this website exist for over two decades without having Spacegroove on it? I decided to amend this by uploading it. This one is a favorite of mine. Even though it's on the longer side, I always listen to it in its entirety when it starts playing. I love the flute work in the first half, and how cleanly it transitions between phases. Guaranteed to get your toes tapping.

Download: Title: ANTHEM 4 ARMAGEDDON Filename: anthem_4_armageddon.mod	Posted Fri 22nd Jan 2021 Rated 4 / 10
The basic idea is fine and it's not a bad tune, though it is simplistic and there's not a whole lot of variety to keep the listener's interest.

Download: Title: G-R Dynamite Trance Filename: da_g-rdt.xm	Posted Fri 22nd Jan 2021 Rated 5 / 10
Fairly straightforward dance/trance tune. Not much complexity to it - the melody is very simple and doesn't vary much. Weird key change toward the end.

Download: Title: a -tripp- into the Filename: a_-tripp-_into_the.mod	Posted Thu 21st Jan 2021 Rated 3 / 10
A tripp into the what? Now I'll never know... A short, psychedelic tune without a whole lot of melody, focusing primarily on the percussion and weird sound effects. Accelerates to a higher-tempo, heavier part, and then slows back down again. I suppose it achieves what it sets out to do as well as it could, but it's not particularly enjoyable.

Download: Title: Keufon Filename: keufon.it	Posted Wed 30th Mar 2005 Rated 6 / 10
This song seemed to be more of a practice song than anything else, a doodle that somebody idly created in his spare time. The melody has promise, but the song is so short, it never has the chance to go anywhere interesting. By expouding on some of the ideas presented in this song, it could have easily been four or five minutes long. As it is, there are issues. There are some very messy chords - particularly the one that happens at row 7 of pattern 1. It sounds terrible to the ear. That's the most blatant example, but there are other instances of sloppy chords throughout the song. Overall, I'd say that I was intrigued by this song's musical possibilities, but disappointed that it never went anywhere, and didn't really execute everything as well as it could have. I already mentioned sloppy chord construction. Chords do not sound good when you have two notes that are just a half step from each other. While this style of music can thrive on being unconventional, it didn't work in this case. I was very pleased with the quality of samples in this song. All of them were 16 bit, and sounded very good, with little to no clicking or looping issues audible within the context of the song. Volume levels were handled appropriately, everything sounded just about right. This song was better technically than it was musically.

Download: Title: Khan Tefrati V Filename: khantefr.xm	Posted Wed 23rd Mar 2005 Rated 7 / 10
This was a very good song. The artist did a good job with the introduction, and was very effective in creating the mood. The song was over four minutes long, but there was enough variety in it that it never became tedious. I did have a few issues with it. The song didn't have a very strong melody, and so it never really left much of an impression on me. I also wasn't crazy about the very fast percussion instruments playing in the background throughout most of the song, the hat sample in particular didn't need to play as often as it did. Otherwise, good work. Very interesting sample set. The samples are used effectively, and I didn't notice any samples that were out of place or of poor quality. Patterns flow very nicely and are well constructed, and the volume levels and stereo panning are used to effect. The global volume of the song seems to be a bit too muted, I had to turn up my volume to hear this one properly.

Download: Title: Fantasia Filename: kiss.it	Posted Fri 20th Aug 2004 Rated 6 / 10
From the start of the song, it sounded like a fairly good - if somewhat minimalistic - house tune. And then the tempo suddenly shifted and I was listening to a Rondo Veneziano song. And then it shifted back to whatever it was before. This song was obviously based around the long Veneziano sequences, and suffers as a result. A song is made out of its components, the components should not be made out of the song. The problem here is that the Veneziano samples seem to have been put into place, and the other samples simply "fill in the blanks." Good mods don't work that way, and plus, I had to take away points for originality. The sequences sound good, there's no question about that. However, the fact that this song is based on sequences of somebody else's music don't do the song any credit - there's no breathing room where the author can really stretch out his abilities. Some of the samples are duplicated for no apparent reason. The sequence samples are too large for their own good, and the versions of those samples with reverb seem superfluous. Such effects could have been achieved through other methods, without doubling the number of samples in the song. The samples themselves are of very high quality, without any noticeable distortions. The author needs to work on fleshing out the song to a more full extent.

Download: Title: Kiss in the storm Filename: kiss.xm	Posted Fri 20th Aug 2004 Rated 4 / 10
This is a good example of a song that has good intentions, but goes about everything wrong. Something could have been done with the basic melody, but nothing actually was done. It didn't go anywhere. The lack of tracking prowess resulted in this song sounding hollow and empty. The interlude with just the piano playing was just screaming for more than one channel of dinky little piano notes to be there. The ending leaves much to be desired. It doesn't sound like very much time was spent on this song, it's just mediocre all around. I get the impression that there's some spark of life in this tune, but the author chose to dump water all over it instead of lighting the fire. The author committed a tremendous sin: The last sample in the set is a 16 bit sample with over 300,000 hz. That's a big sample. And do you know what? It's never, ever used in this song. I'm not kidding. The whole thing is over 660 kilobytes, which is over half the song's file size! Half of the file is completely wasted! And that, my friends, should tell you plenty about how well this song is tracked.

Download: Title: kislorod-Space war Filename: kis-sw1.xm	Posted Fri 20th Aug 2004 Rated 5 / 10
This song had a nice introduction that was reminiscent of the music heard in Nintendo's classic Metroid. For a second I thought the whole song was going to be like this - the whole nine minutes. Well, I thought, that's a bit long, but maybe it'll be interesting. Unfortunately, I was wrong: the style changed into a noisy garbled concoction of hard-hitting industrial and bizarre ambience. And, of course, it's altogether too long. Cutting the length to under six minutes would have done this song a lot of good. The music itself starts to grate after too long - the excessive repetition of patterns did this one in. At times, there are some very interesting uses of effects and clever utilization of samples in multiple channels. This is to the song's credit, as it adds to the myseterious science fiction feel to this song. Some of the samples - like the piano - sounded out of tune, which hurt the song's overall sound. I did not like the guitar samples at all. The author could have improved the body of the music dramatically with better guitar samples.

Download: Title: kis Sonata Filename: kis-son.xm	Posted Thu 19th Aug 2004 Rated 5 / 10
Weird. Interesting idea, but not extremely well executed. I like the frenetic pace of this song and the progression of the whole thing, but it suffers from being excessively noisy. Some authors can use overdriven noise to their advantage to create an interesting and inventive sound (check out Martian Lovesong by Necros for an example of this), but there's just too much noise and too much of it is repeated for this song to be appealing. The author also didn't finish the ending - it was obvious that this wasn't mean to loop, but the conclusion did not come. This song has the same problem that Devil's Night has, which is by the same author: too much of this song is based on repeating the same patterns over and over. This gets very tiresome and wears out the audience. I definitely will not be revisiting this song. It's got some inventive musical ideas, and a very unique sound to it, but the author just got overambitious with the song's length and resorted to repeating patterns over and over. Fix this in future songs and they can be improved.