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Title: kipparikallejaville Filename: kipkal.xm |
Posted Thu 19th Aug 2004
Rated 5 / 10 |
| Interesting little chip tune, vaguely reminiscent of the MC6 song "Biohazard," but with fewer channels. This chip song is bursting at the seams to be something a bit more, shall we say, advanced. As it is, the song isn't particularly memorable. It has an okay melody, but little beyond that. There are many directions the author could have taken this song in, but I guess the author chose to go with none of them. Needs work. Fairly typical sound for chip samples, although some of them are much larger than I would expect to find in a chip song. Four channels used, as expected, and it has a typical minimalist tracking style. Decent use of chords. It barely sounds like chip though - it almost sounds like a demo tune with fairly poor samples. The author should have either gone for high quality samples to make it sound like a demo song, or low quality chip samples to make it sound like chip. The song is really in the unsatisfying middle ground. | |
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Title: kims Filename: kims.mod |
Posted Tue 10th Aug 2004
Rated 5 / 10 |
| This is a fairly generic chip tune. It has a fairly nice, listenable melody, and follows the typical conventions of the chip style. That's the chief problem I have with it - I like chip songs that do things that have never been done before. This one sounds like a retread of every other chip song in existence. That isn't to say it's a bad song, of course, but it certainly does not stand out in the crowd. Limited sample set, and the samples are all very short - in other words, a fairly typical chip sample set. The song itself is not terribly complex in its tracking style. Like many other chip songs, it uses an arpeggio effect to simulate the use of a chord sample. It works, but it's not very creative - which can be said of the whole song overall. | |
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Title: Kirppusirkus Filename: kirppusirkus.it |
Posted Tue 10th Aug 2004
Rated 6 / 10 |
| Kirppusirkus is a good song, with a fairly nice melody, but a couple of issues I had with it brought the score down. Overall, this song is a pretty good listen. The tune seems very well constructed, and it all makes sense musically. It's not very long (only about 150 seconds), but what's there is interesting to listen to, to say the least. And it never bored me by becoming excessively repetetive, an acchiles heel in many mods. The technical front is where we start to see a few issues - particularly, I disagree with the use of the note cut on the organ. There is a volume envelope just waiting to be used - and it is used, but only with an NNA. When stopping the organ completely, the author used a note cut, which just sounds awkward. Also, at the end of the song, one of the samples is still playing, albeit faintly, and needs to be silenced. Otherwise, this song is very solid in the technical area. My original score for this song was 7.0, but the issues I mentioned brought it down a notch. | |
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Title: KIKAPOO Filename: kikapoo.mod |
Posted Mon 2nd Aug 2004
Rated 5 / 10 |
| This is a short 4-channel mod, with a fairly strange style to it. It almost sounds like an Eastern European folk song, just done with electronic instruments. I can't say it's the best thing I've ever heard, as it's less than a minute long, and ultimately, it's forgettable. The melody is fine when it lasts, but there's nothing to this song. Sample quality is average. Simple musical construction to this song, limited use of effects. There's not really a whole lot that I can comment on. This song is overall pretty unremarkable in the technical way of things. | |
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Title: sisaso Filename: kikapoo.xm |
Posted Mon 2nd Aug 2004
Rated 5 / 10 |
| I don't think anybody was screaming for a remix of "Kikapoo," but DJ Jole made not one, but two of them. This is the first I reviewed. The idea behind remixing a song is to make it better, or more interesting. If a song is already good, it shouldn't be remixed (like that dreadful Stardust Memories re-edit I've heard). Since the original Kikapoo ain't exactly a perfect song, I guess that would make it a candidate for remixing, but this version is neither better nor more interesting. It's essentially a carbon copy of the original with different samples. That's it! Why didn't the author use some creativity? It's just as boring and uninspired as the original! That's all I can really say about this. The patterns themselves have changed slightly - this has twice the channels as kikapoo.mod, but they're not put to very good use. The sound is just as effective in the original. The author took a very unsubtle approach to tracking this music out, very few effects or volume changes take place. | |
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Title: KIKAPOO Filename: kikapos.xm |
Posted Mon 2nd Aug 2004
Rated 5 / 10 |
| What is the freaking point of this remix? This author's other remix of Kikapoo is almost exactly like this one. The patterns aren't even different, just a sample or two. At any rate, if you've heard the original Kikapoo, you've heard this one. I don't see why this author felt the need to remix it twice. Especially when virtually nothing is changed, and the song remains short and lifeless. Remixes are supposed to make a known song different, this one is practically the same exact thing as the original. I don't think that the lead sample that was used in this case was appropriate for the song. It didn't sound like it belonged as a lead - far too low. The rest of the song is pretty much a bunch of samples all playing at the same time - nothing really coordinated between them. | |
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Title: Klik Entertainment System Filename: kes.it |
Posted Fri 30th Jul 2004
Rated 7 / 10 |
| I liked this song. It has a very listenable melody, and it's a very solid all-around track. One of the better chip songs that I've heard recently. It probably could have been longer, but this could very well be a tune made for an intro or other such thing. I particularly like what was done with patterns 5 and 6, as it added just enough variety to the song. It's not a masterpiece of epic proportions, but it's a fun little listen. Simple, but effective. Everything sounds pretty authentic to the chip style. The percussion was done as well as can be expected for this style of music. Effects are used sparingly, but they're used, and to the benefit of the song. Arpeggios sounded fine enough for the song. The author did a good job of using the first instrument, for both the "chords" and the lead. Good use of resources there. | |
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Title: kievarinkierukka Filename: kievarin.s3m |
Posted Fri 30th Jul 2004
Rated 7 / 10 |
| This is a very short clavinet piece of music, using a mere two samples (the clavinet and a wood block). It was written in May 1996, coincidentally, about the time I started tracking. I liked the tune on this one, regardless of how short it is. It's very a very well written piece of music, and pleasant to listen to. The music has just enough complexity to keep this song interesting throughout its short musical life cycle. This song won't blow you away, but it's worth giving a shot. The author clearly knows what he's doing. The panning is very simplistic - this is, after all, an s3m - but it's not really a distraction. Effects are well used when they're used, and volume levels seem appropriate. This is one of the few songs where the lack of a wide array of samples doesn't hurt the song, I think the simplicity of its style really helps the sound overall. | |
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Title: kasakkalaulu Filename: kasakka.mod |
Posted Wed 28th Jul 2004
Rated 4 / 10 |
| It's very short, even for chip. I'm guessing this was made for an intro, or as accompanying music to some kind of software - it's not something for general listening. I enjoy a good chip song, but where's the beef? There's nothing to this one. For what it's worth, the lead is listenable, and if you don't like the tune, it's a mere 24 seconds before it ends. Sometimes I tire of the use of arpeggios in chip music, but I suppose that's the only way to get chords sometimes. Average, at best. The author doesn't seem to know how to handle percussion with Chip music. The samples were poor selections to handle the percussion, and the percussion itself sounded about a few halftones higher than it needed to be. Also, in the introduction, it switched from the right speaker to the left speaker between patterns, never a good idea. It was rather jarring. The author does demonstrate good knowledge of getting the leads to sound right, however. This makes me a bit torn as to how I rate this song, as the percussion is bad, but the leads are decent. I'd say it's a bit mediocre technically. | |
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Title: fat cat :) Filename: kathy.xm |
Posted Wed 28th Jul 2004
Rated 1 / 10 |
| Sometimes, I get tired of reviewing the seemingly endless number of chip songs that inhabit the "K" directory, and so I download a song that has a large file size so I can get a breath of fresh air with another style. But sometimes I download something like "Fat Cat" which makes me want to go back to the chip music. This song is worthless. It's a mixture of loud percussion samples and vocals and annoying synth effects. With vocals that say things like "biggus tittus maximus," you know that this can't be a particularly classy song, either. I can't really elaborate further on this song. Don't download it if you know what's good for you. There's no music in this song. To take a look at it technically, I'll start by talking about the samples. The vocal samples are a poor substitute for what should be something I can listen to. Particularly the extra long sample #2, which sounds terrible, and doesn't really add anything to the song aside from file size. This song seems to focus on just using volume to make its point, instead of carefully tracking out its melody. It's no better technically than it is musically, and that should say a lot. | |
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Title: kaukasus_karosseri Filename: kaukasus.mod |
Posted Wed 28th Jul 2004
Rated 7 / 10 |
| Now this is the kind of chip music that I enjoy. Nice, simple and to the point, without any excessive noise, a good melody, and professionally done. Kaukasus Karosseri is a 1 minute chip tune done for an intro. I don't know how old it is, but regardless of its age, it's a listenable piece. It has a pretty good "Mega Man" vibe going for it. I like that it used real chords instead of arpeggios, which is something I've grown a little tired of in chip music. This isn't an earth shattering song, but it's a good listen, and probably worth the download. The author did some good work with the percussion for this song. It sounds nice and clean in spite of the samples, which are of typical chip quality. The author also did a nice job with the effects, they really added a level of interest to this song that otherwise would have been absent. The lead was particularly well tracked. There's even an echo effect in there, and all done in the same channel to boot. Pretty good work for a worthwhile song. | |
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Title: karjala.xm Filename: karjala.xm |
Posted Tue 27th Jul 2004
Rated 4 / 10 |
| This short chip tune has a pretty decent melody, but a pretty big flaw. The flaw is that there's just too much noise going on in this song. Once you hit play, the music just blares out at you, and it's not very pleasant to the ear. The composer obviously knows what he's doing with the melody, and made a very listenable tune - you might even call it catchy. Alas, the pros of this song aren't quite able to overcome the cons, and as such I can't rate this one as highly as I would have liked. As I mentioned before, this song is excessively loud, and the blame for that rests squarely on the choice of samples. Better sample selection can be made without sacrificing the style of this song - I've heard plenty of chip songs that don't grate at the ear because they use softer samples. The use of effects worked pretty well for this song, and did increase the sound that came out of this. I would have rated this song more highly had the volume been under control. | |
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Title: Kampen av Voloter Filename: kampenav.it |
Posted Tue 20th Jul 2004
Rated 7 / 10 |
| I will say this much, this song is an interesting contrast. The melody is fairly simple, but engaging. The song suffers a bit from being longer than it should be, I think between four and five minutes would have worked better for this song than a full six minutes. The orchestral sound turned out very well, I really like what the author did a good job with the horn instruments. Pretty good chords from the choir instruments. In ModPlug player, I noticed that a lot of the instruments would cut off instead of having a new note action. I don't know if this was intentional or not, but it was jarring. Most of this song uses way too many virtual channels, well over 100 in Modplug Tracker: this is far too many, and causes problems with the sound output. Please don't go overboard with the channels in the future. The choir samples did not sound in tune with each other, some fine tuning would have improved this. Sample quality was very good overall. | |
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Title: Nunnaluostarin wc-pönttö.. Filename: kansi.it |
Posted Tue 20th Jul 2004
Rated 7 / 10 |
| Now this is new: a song, claiming to be metal, that actually sounds like metal. I particularly like what was done with the percussion. Just about everything with regards to the sound itself was pretty true-to-life. I can't say I'm a huge fan of the music itself, however. It's a well made song, and it's interesting enough, but I don't see myself listening to it very often. It's just that the musical style for this song doesn't really excite me. I must compliment the author's technical skills here. This song genuinely sounds like metal. And good grief, that's a lot of guitar samples. Half of the guitar samples could have been eliminated and the other half have their default panning set for the center and it would have made little difference to the song. The samples are all of high quality, they all sounded very clear, and were implemented well in the song. | |
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Title: karine.xm Filename: karine.xm |
Posted Tue 20th Jul 2004
Rated 7 / 10 |
| This song has a good sound to it. One of the few songs you'll hear that has no percussion. The song doesn't go to too many places, but the places it does go are at least interesting - it's a very short song, at any rate, and doesn't get tedious. I'm not too crazy about forgoing endings in favor of looping back to an earlier point, which this song does, but it's not too bad. Fairly nice chord progression. If there were any stereo effects, I didn't notice them. Could have added some depth to the song. The loop on the guitar sample doesn't sound so good (now I know why very few guitar notes in this song lingered for too long). Considering that only three samples were used, the author was able to make pretty good use of them and develop a reasonably interesting ballad. Nothing I'm going to write home about, but pretty good work. | |
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Title: Kalling for deaTh Filename: kallingfordeath.xm |
Posted Tue 13th Jul 2004
Rated 5 / 10 |
| How can I resist a cool alternate spelling of the word "calling?" This song nearly put me to sleep. It's a fairly mellow trance tune that has an okay sound about it, but never goes anywhere. It was just plain uninteresting. The big reason for this was because of the generic techno theme that plays throughout the song, never bothering to change or go to new, interesting places. I probably could add a bass guitar that only plays a D-5 throughout the whole song and it would sound in place. It didn't make my ears bleed, but this song sure bored me. The cymbal loop probably wasn't necessary - that could easily have been tracked out with individual samples. I also have a quibble with sample 1: the sample features a ping-pong loop, but in the song's introduction, the loop hits before a new note plays. This sounds very awkward. The panning on sample 11 hurt my ears, don't see what the point of it was. I did like the panning on the female choir sample, that seemed appropriate. The methods used to write this song seem too conservative - like the author is afraid to take the song in a different direction. | |
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Title: Me ollaan kuninkaita Filename: kala.xm |
Posted Tue 13th Jul 2004
Rated 1 / 10 |
| You know, now that I've finished reviewing Kaizsu's songs, I thought I'd be rid of that guitar sample. No such luck, this author - whoever it is - decided to use it too. Anyway, how's the song? It's of little to no worth. The author just crams way too much noise into this thing, and it ends up sounding like loud metallic mush. The song also didn't have a real conclusion, but that's actually to its advantage: any further seconds of listening to this song would have driven me insane. I'll give this song one thing: it had some interesting time signatures. And that's all I'm going to give it. Beyond that, this song is annoying, loud, and pretty far removed from anything I'd consider good music. There are many dissonant chords and other kinds of irritating noises in this. Dissonance has its place, but only when done right. Here, it isn't. It's pretty clear to me that this is somebody's first attempt at writing a mod - or among somebody's first attempts at writing a mod. And, like most first attempts, it never should have found its way to the Internet in the first place. | |
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Title: kakofonia Filename: kakofoni.mod |
Posted Tue 13th Jul 2004
Rated 4 / 10 |
| In the author's comments, he said that it's one of the worst tunes he's ever made. I'm not sure if I've heard anything else by Heatbeat, so I can't verify that. The tune itself certainly isn't a great tune, but it didn't sound as bad as the author claimed. What I will say is that it doesn't sound like a particularly inspired tune - the melody wasn't very interesting. I enjoy a good chip tune as much as the next guy. However, this one just didn't have enough to really make it enjoyable. It's pretty minimalist, even for chip, and very short. It's not utter crap, but it's probably not worth the time it takes to download and listen. Fairly small sample set. The author exhibits some knowledge of this style of music, using the percussion to as good effect as possible. The author also uses arpeggios to "simulate" a chord, which is a fairly typical convention of chip music. The song didn't has as "full" a sound as other chip tunes I've heard, it was too constrained for its own good. | |
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Title: Kaki XXX Filename: kaki_fly.it |
Posted Sat 10th Jul 2004
Rated 5 / 10 |
| This is a 4 minute dance/house tune written in 1998 by a first-time tracker. I was surprised that this is this tracker's first song - it's better than most other trackers' first songs that I've heard. The song itself is a bit on the boring side, however. It plays the "Grease"-style theme that I've heard in so many mods - specifically, a progression of the bass going F5-D5-A#4-C5. Plus, it stays on the same exact theme with no variation throughout the song. The overall sound to this doesn't have a whole lot of meat on it - there's just not much to this song. It's pretty good for a first shot at tracking, but on its musical merit, it's nothing to get excited about. The fact that there's such a small sample set limits the kind of sound that this song can get. These all sound like basic house samples. There was one sample that was taken from Leviathan's "Wanderlust," and while I don't condemn sample ripping, it had data after the loop back point - it's easy enough to clip this in Impule Tracker, and it should have been done here. Stereo panning is used, but I would recommend not panning only on the extreme left or extreme right. | |
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Title: Juli... Filename: kaizsu_-_yli_da_bitch.xm |
Posted Sat 10th Jul 2004
Rated 1 / 10 |
| I'll be frank: I hated this song. There's a guitar theme that plays four different notes, and that's it. It repeats throughout the entire song. But that's not the problem: the problem is that awful, awful vocal sample that's included in here. The only thing it added to the song was severe annoyance. And, as if to add injury to insult, the very last thing you hear before the song ends is the vocal sample played TWICE AS LOUD. It's like the author is punishing his audience for listening to the whole 77 seconds of this tune. I normally listen to songs twice when I review them - this one I can only stand to hear once. For the love of Hod, don't ever put another vocal sample like that in another song. It's too loud to sound right on any soundcard. Perhaps holding the microphone away further would improve the sound, but really, not putting that in the song at all would make this song much better (read: listenable). Still little variety in the other samples - the guitar is different from the one Kaizsu usually uses, but the percussion isn't. Overly simplistic - the theme is just too simple, probably intentionally: Apparently, the vocal sample is supposed to be the sample that drives this song. And drive the song it does - into a brick wall. | |
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Title: Kestohymy Filename: kaizsu_-_kestohymy.xm |
Posted Fri 9th Jul 2004
Rated 2 / 10 |
| This song changes themes completely twice - while I strongly encourage variation, changing themes completely is something that I don't encourage. As such, instead of one mediocre rock song, this has three mediocre rock songs all stuck together. The music is all very underwhelming, nothing really stood out to me or sounded interesting in the least. Good rock music should be able to catch your attention and sound somewhat fresh, but this doesn't. What's with the portamento on the guitar when it gets fast? Playing that sample at that speed with that effect really hurt the overall sound. As usual, this is the same exact sample set that you'll find in every Kaizsu song. For crying out loud, there are archives online where new instruments can be downloaded, use them! Also, nobody can hit the bass drum that fast. Please track the percussion realistically if you're trying to achieve a rock sound - and if you're not going for realism, then go for something that sounds good. | |
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Title: Misanthrophy Filename: kaizsu_-_misanthrophy.xm |
Posted Fri 9th Jul 2004
Rated 1 / 10 |
| It's like the author was trying to cause me a headache. This song goes full blast, and then pauses, offering my ears a bit of respite...and then it suddenly picks up again at full blast. It sounded like the author was reveling in making noise. The lead was just out of control, perhaps intentionally - but, regardless of the intention, it just doesn't sound good. This song is not kind to those wearing headphones, like I was. Suffice to say, this song didn't really convert me to liking death metal. Once again...nobody can beat the bass drum that fast. The pauses in the music were very awkward sounding - they lasted too long before the music picked up again. Same set of instruments as always, I see. Instead of doubling up the vocal sample (or quadrupling it, in this case), it would have been better to just increase the volume of the sample itself. Stereo panning could have improved the sound. | |
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Title: Pässi ON TYHMÄ !!!!! Filename: kaizsu_-_passi_on_tyhma.xm |
Posted Fri 9th Jul 2004
Rated 1 / 10 |
| What a weird way of beginning a song. The vocal samples just freaked me out throughout the song, but not in the good way. The vocals also did not make up for the lack of a decent melody - the main theme consists of a mere three tones, repeated over and over and over. It takes a lot more than that to make an interesting song. Axing the vocals would not break my heart - focusing on improving the overall melody and getting better sound out of this would be time far better spent. Audio quality on the vocal samples is terrible. Sometimes people intentionally distort vocal samples to get a unique kind of sound to them, but they usually don't sound like somebody was speaking too loudly into the microphone. The other samples are...DARE I SAY IT...the exact same ones that Kaizsu uses in every other song! Who woulda thunk it, huh? Also, no noticeable efforts went into stereo panning. Pretty loud, and the tracking style is very simplistic. | |
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Download:
Title: Pässi Smokes Filename: kaizsu_-_passi_smokes.xm |
Posted Fri 9th Jul 2004
Rated 3 / 10 |
| Kaizsu managed to surprise me this time - this song has a different sound from the majority of his works. I swear, I've heard this theme somewhere before. No matter. This has a decent sound to it, but it suffers from the problem of being way too loud (more on that in the technical section). The crowd noise added to the "concert" sound, but it didn't add much. The main theme itself sounds exactly like another song I've heard, so I can't really give any points for originality, but I give it an "E" for effort. The volume gets to be way too much throughout the song - especially towards the end. The volume levels sounded like they were out of control. I really appreciate that the author decided to go with some different samples this time around. The guitar sounds like it comes from "He Has No Face" by Skaven, though that's not necessarily the case. Crowd noise trailed off at the end, with no note cut: bad form. If you're going to end the song, end the whole song. Overall, I'd say the volume problems dragged it down, fixing it could have improved the song dramatically. | |
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Download:
Title: Lullaby Filename: kaizsu_-_lullaby.xm |
Posted Thu 8th Jul 2004
Rated 4 / 10 |
| You could have knocked me over with a feather when I heard this one: A song by Kaizsu that ISN'T hard rock? And using different samples to boot! This appears to be a remix of a song by the Cure, so it isn't an original work. However, it certainly stands out amongst this author's other songs. It's not perfect - very short, and the melody isn't as interesting as it could be - but it's better than just about any other song I've heard from this author. It's overall not the most interesting song I've heard, but it's a step in the right direction. For once, Kaizsu decided to use some different samples. To an extent, it paid off - the song didn't bore me after fifteen seconds. However, there's a lot of work that needs to be done yet. The percussion needs work, it just doesn't sound interesting. I can see evidence that a little more thought is being put into this song than others, with some better percussion, more variety and a little more care in the overall tracking style, this could be a decent song. | |
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Download:
Title: Kasvispitsa Filename: kaizsu_-_kasvispitsa.xm |
Posted Thu 8th Jul 2004
Rated 3 / 10 |
| It's becoming more and more difficult for me to distinguish one song from another by this author. Seriously. This one sounds almost exactly like another song that I reviewed yesterday. At any rate, I must judge it on its own merits, but they are few. The song spends far too much time lingering on the same theme and far too little time expounding upon it. The theme itself isn't particularly catchy, either. There's nothing in this song that makes it stand out from all the other hard rock songs that are available. Don't bother downloading it. The author desperately needs to get some different samples. Almost every one of Kaizsu's songs uses these same samples, and they're not very good. When using the same samples, every song eventually ends up sounding just like the other. Also, the author needs to learn how to track percussion - it never sounds realistic or interesting in anyway. You can't just pound away at the drums and expect them to sound good - they have to be done very carefully to get the right sound. | |
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Title: Karpaasi Filename: kaizsu_-_karpaasi.xm |
Posted Wed 7th Jul 2004
Rated 2 / 10 |
| So, what's new? Another loud guitar song, little melody beyond a very simple theme that repeats ad nauseum, and irritating samples. There are better ways to write hard rock music. A better sample set could help significantly, the sample set here is definitely not professional-sounding. Variety is the key to making a song interesting, there's little to none here. I already knew exactly how this song was going to pan out after the first pattern, that's not a good thing. The author apparently hasn't learned the rules of ending leads: you don't just end the pattern and let the lead fade out on its own, especially when it's on a note that clashes with whatever continues playing as it fades. It just sounds bad. In addition, the samples need to be tuned, the piano is noticeably out of tune with the lead. I think Kaizsu's sample library must consist of about twenty samples in total, because I always hear the same exact ones in every song. | |
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Download:
Title: Juustohöylä Filename: kaizsu_-_juustohoyla.xm |
Posted Wed 7th Jul 2004
Rated 3 / 10 |
| The thing about this author's songs is each one is exactly like the other. This one is no exception, although it's a bit better than Kaizsu's usual fare. The introduction is dreadful, but once it gets to the main theme, there's a decent musical idea. However, the author doesn't ever go anywhere with it. This song lingers on the same theme for far too long, and while the tempo changes do add some variety, the song overall is uninspired and uninteresting. Why was I not surprised at the sample set I found tucked away in this song? It's like opening up your lunch box with anticipation, only to find the same old tuna fish sandwich you get every single day. To say the least, the samples chosen aren't particularly pleasant to hear. The tempo changes in the song actually helped somewhat, and they weren't terribly awkward or out of place. The author needs to focus on keeping the song interesting and improving the sample set. | |
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Download:
Title: kaizsu_-_commando.xm Filename: kaizsu_-_commando.xm |
Posted Sat 3rd Jul 2004
Rated 3 / 10 |
| You know, back in my day, music was music! Not this repetetive metal stuff where you can't tell one song from the other! Commando, a song by Kaizsu, is a short metal song. It's pretty boring, and there's no real draw to its melody. Nothing unique about this one. Seeing as the whole thing is based on a note progression of C to C# (that's notes, not chords), you can't expect it to be interesting. The blatant non-ending also weakened it. Don't bother with this one. It's not excessively noisy or irritating, but not worth listening to. The order list is a palindrome: 0-1-2-3-4-5-6-6-5-4-3-2-1-0. That's the order list, recited from memory, after listening to the song once in Modplug Player and once in Modplug Tracker. This is not a good thing. Each pattern just adds a new layer without changing any of the old ones. So basically, the song adds all these layers, and then takes them off. What's worse, it leaves samples trailing off when it starts winding down. Honestly, could it have been that hard to write some new patterns where you at least end the guitar parts satisfactorily? Mediocre, at best. | |
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Title: Consume the living Filename: kaizsu_-_consume_the_living.xm |
Posted Sat 3rd Jul 2004
Rated 1 / 10 |
| This song was terrible. It just barely had enough musical merit for it to avoid a zero. However, this song was mostly just various noises and a bunch of percussion. At least it's not very long. I can't really say much about this song, other than the fact that it's one of the worst I've downloaded from this archive. Avoid it. The author probably shouldn't have skipped his music lessons. The samples are all of low quality, and they're tracked together in a style that sounds like a bunch of tabliture that has gone through a blender. What can I say? It's pretty bad. I reiterate: avoid this song. | |
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Download:
Title: Enhanced K-Warrior Filename: enhancedkorpiwarrior.xm |
Posted Sat 3rd Jul 2004
Rated 3 / 10 |
| What's so enhanced about this song? It's only marginally better than the original, and it's still only based on the same exact three notes throughout the duration (C, D and D#). Leads only offer a slight bit of variety. The pounding drums were annoying in the first version, and in this, the second version, they're even more so. I don't think anybody was screaming for a new version of Korpi Warrior, so I don't see why this one was necessary. Little to no musical progression in this one. In fact, since the theme never changes, you could argue that there is zero progression in this song, period. Samples are still blaringly loud, particularly the percussion, which pounded away at my eardrums. There wasn't much in this song to build off of, so an enhanced version couldn't enhance it much. | |
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Title: kitara soi korvaan Filename: kitaraso.xm |
Posted Mon 28th Jun 2004
Rated 7 / 10 |
| Okay, the guitar in this song sounds really good. I enjoyed this song, but it was a tad too short. The guitar lead makes a solid lead, the musical progression works very nicely, and the author knows how to handle chords. My only complaint is that the vocal samples ("Die! Die! Die!") sounded kind of dumb. Overall, this is a very good song, and would especially recommend it for those wishing to learn about how to get their guitar samples to sound good. The guitar samples, as mentioned, are very good and authentic-sounding. I recognize the organ from soul-o-matic by Purple Motion. Samples are all 8-bit, as one would expect from a 1995 mod. I think the author got a little too wild with the panning on the organ - I listened on headphones, and hearing the organ shift from extreme left to extreme right and back made my head hurt. | |
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Title: Swimming in Seas... [KM] Filename: kmseas.it |
Posted Mon 28th Jun 2004
Rated 8 / 10 |
| Would-be musicians of ambient or atmospheric music, take notes. This one's a good one. The song seems to be based on the principle of "whalesong sounds cool" (and it does), and most of the music is comprised of piano and pads. It sets the mood very effectively. The song reminds me somewhat of "Freedom at Midnight" by Basehead. Like all good ambient music, this one makes you picture what it's trying to portray. Not much I can say beyond that. Good work! Good work was done here with the stereo panning. The whalesong was placed on several positions on the extreme ends of the spectrum, which produced a "surrounding" effect - since that's probably what one would actually hear when listening to live whalesong, it works. Great sample selections, and they're handled well enough to produce some fine music. Some of them were very long, however - I wonder if looping them could have reduced the file size? Overall, this is very good technical work. | |
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Title: Kaikki imee Filename: kaizsu_-_kaikki_imee.xm |
Posted Mon 28th Jun 2004
Rated 2 / 10 |
| I've reviewed a number of songs by this author, and I have yet to see any significant deviation from the same general set of samples. Seriously, how many times has the author used the same exact guitar samples? Whatever the reason is, the outcome in this case is a short, loud and utterly forgettable song. This song is pretty much just one punkish riff repeated several times, and then it transitions to the same theme played at a slower tempo on the piano. While I applaud the effort to add some variety to this tune, it's not enough to make it worth hearing. The samples are noticeably out of tune. The portamento effects used don't help things, either. The lead sounds flat compared to the main guitar, and the piano is also a few hertz off. It's very annoying to the ear to hear the samples like this. There is zero subtlety in this song (even punk needs to exhibit some control sometimes). It doesn't look like there's any specific technique applied to write this song. | |
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Title: kaizsu_-_no_hope.xm Filename: kaizsu_-_no_hope.xm |
Posted Mon 28th Jun 2004
Rated 1 / 10 |
| If this were real music, I would be amazed that the drummer is able to beat the bass drum as fast as the author has it going in this song - which should give an idea as to how authentic this thing sounds. Aside from the noted bass drum pounding, the percussions sounds okay. Pattern 8 introduces a bizarre lead guitar part that sounds a little out of tune. What was with the complete silence in pattern 10? I guess it was intentional, but such a thing sounds like a mistake. I guess, as far as this song goes, "No Hope" is an appropriate title. Adding a note cut to the lead guitar does not make it sound like a palm mute. Also, the author was having a little too much fun with the stereo panning in pattern 1 - for somebody wearing headphones, it was jarring. The total silence in pattern 13 was odd - it sounded like the author had ended this song, without a proper ending, but then it picked up again. Same old sample set - the snare drum worked pretty well, though. Tracking style is too simplistic for its own good. | |
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Title: ilta kaivopuistossa Filename: kaivari.s3m |
Posted Fri 25th Jun 2004
Rated 7 / 10 |
| This is a neat little song. I was expecting a chip song with this file size, but ended up with a piano / rock organ ballad. It's pretty short, only about ninety seconds, but it's a very nice listen. I kinda wish it were longer - I'm sure the author could have gone places with this melody. The song doesn't have an ending, it loops back to the beginning - it's a clean loop, with no hanging samples. I'm on the record for not caring for this way of ending a song, but it's at least done well enough here. The samples are all small in size and of low quality. However, the author is able to produce some pretty good sound out of them. I like the organ sample - even though when listening to it the loopback point is glaringly obvious, it actually adds to the overall sound in the song itself: it sounds like a rock organ, with the vibrating effect to it and everything. The author really looks like he took a lot of care in tracking this song out, effects are all appropriately used, and the song uses volume levels to its advantage, making the most out of the somewhat limited resources. | |
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Title: Better Days (?) Filename: kaizsu_-_better_days.xm |
Posted Fri 25th Jun 2004
Rated 3 / 10 |
| The introduction to this song is actually somewhat promising - it at least sounded interesting, and did an effective job of drawing me into the song. After that, when the main theme hit, it all fell apart. The song ended up a big train wreck of loud samples. I wonder why the author limited himself to four channels in this one. There is no ending, it loops back to an earlier point in the song. The best songs, in my opinion, have a beginning, middle and ending, rather than looping back to an earlier point. This loop is done seamlessly enough. There is a good number of samples here, but I don't think the author put them to good use. I speak in particular of the piano sample - it just doesn't work in this context, especially the way the author was playing it. Percussion was played way too loud, and it ended up overpowering everything else that was played. The chord samples were so inaudible that they added almost nothing to the song. Overall, after the introduction, the author just couldn't keep the song in control. | |
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Title: Kings and Knights Filename: kingandknights.xm |
Posted Fri 25th Jun 2004
Rated 5 / 10 |
| Boy, did I ever not get what I was expecting. With a song entitled "Kings and Knights," I was expecting a generic orchestral mod, but instead I got a generic synth pop mod. It's not poorly done, to be sure - it's just that this song has nothing that makes it stand out. For starters, it's very short, and it's entirely based on two chords. There's not many places you can go with a mod if that's what you're limited to. I would say it's well tracked overall, and since it appears to be background music for something, probably accomplishes its goal. But it's not something that's really worth listening to on a regular basis. Sample quality is excellent. All samples are 16 bit and stereo. In fact, the author doesn't even need to bother with his own stereo panning, as it's all done by the samples. Depending on your point of view, this may or may not be a good thing - I'm of the opinion that the sound in the end is all that really matters, so the stereo samples aren't a huge deal to me. Overall, the techniques applied to this song don't appear to be anything out of the ordinary, but they get the job done. If only it could have been a more memorable tune. | |
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Title: Halo-Kiss Mix Filename: kissween.mod |
Posted Fri 25th Jun 2004
Rated 2 / 10 |
| I'm pretty sure this is a fairly old song, as it has a BBS advertisement in the song text. The song itself appears to be inspired by horror movies, but the reality of the matter is that I find it slightly less horrifying than the possibility of encountering a rogue nitrogen molecule. It just sounds empty - there's nothing going on that makes the song interesting. It's not built on any foundation. No chords, no strings, no bass, no theme lies underneath the flute lead. Add to that the fact that the flute's notes seem completely ad hoc throughout most of the song - it's like the author doesn't know where it's going. The vocal samples at the end added nothing to the song - it was dead on arrival. Boy, what a waste of channels this song made. Pattern 2 has the flute theme playing, and three channels occupied by percussion. Yes, percussion - and the percussion STILL doesn't sound very good. The author has hopefully learned to economize better since this song was released. Also, the samples sometimes switch which channel they're in between patterns. This ordinarily wouldn't be a big deal, but with a 4-channel mod, the flute ends up switching from the left speaker to the right speaker, an odd shift to say the least. The timing of the pattern skips is terrible - there's no sense of rhythm in this song. | |
Title: Kis- devils night
Filename: 1kis-dev.xm
Rated 5 / 10