drumania.txt (drumania_txt.mod)

Overall Impression (8/10)

In my opinion, this song is great, but it could use more of the part from the beginning (the first 22 seconds of the sountrack) in addition to other parts of the melody. Strongest points go to the first part, because it has the best represented part: the whistle, which is truly realistic, and the strongest beats. The weakest points go to the ending (from 2:33 onwards), where that part should be totally removed or replaced with anything else, bad ending for a bouncy song.

Technique, Arrangement, Composition (8/10)

The structure is pretty simple, which seems to look like it was really easy to create, but that's definitely wrong. For example, the channels are not "crowded", giving you the easiest way to find the searched sounds on the searched rows . Another thing is that the samples are really good developed, but there are problems with the arrangement of them, reffering to their order.

Development (6/10)

The samples are between noisy and clean, balanced, but the piece is not too well mixed as there are a few distinctive parts, allthough they use the same melodic line but not reffering to the content, such as the part next after beginning (0:22-0:36, this shouldn't be removed, just replaced or placed elsewhere), the middle part (1:03-1:15, this should be removed or replaced) and the ending part (from 2:33 onwards, this should totally be removed and replaced with more of the part from 2:23-2:26, repeating itself at least 4 times, or the part from 2:27-2:32 and add more whistle for it). I believe that these are all the observations related to arrangement and mix; the use of panning, also, works for the piece, not against it, which gives the song a truly special feature: the jungle drum'n'bells party.

Creativity (7/10)

The song is very original, I like the ideal, the jungle whistle, the drums and the beats. I don't think it uses "nifty creative techniques" because every sample looks normal, half of them like being drawn with the pencil option. As I've said before, the most active part is in the beginning, I really like it. I'm not in the matter to judge or to talk in someone's name without permission, but I don't really think the song had an exact purpose, I believe it was made just for fun. Reffering to the instruments that make the song attractive, can be mentioned the variety of bells and the penny trumpet, even not in contrast with the whole melody. There are problems with the progression of the song, as I sometimes see progression, then suddenly degression, due to a wrong order of the samples and this leads to the pointless part, the end of the soundtrack, which I really think is totally unrelated to the content (excepting the screaming girl, that could be a good ending). Yet, the song still inspires and impresses me for its originality, but that's not enough if I'm not pleased by the melody itself.

Enjoyment (8/10)

As a piece of music, the soundtrack is really catchy and bright, that's why I still kept it in my collection. Also, it is not repetitive, every part uses maximum of 2 to 4 repetitive sequences, often as in ordinary songs, of course, the longer sequences repeat twice while the shorter ones repeat four times, which is a good thing from this point of view, because the listener won't get bored this way. And the elements that really hit the spot are all included in the beginning: the jungle whistle, the screaming girl, the strong beat and the melody itself makes you feel as in "Welcome to the jungle", with a bit of untz-untz into it. Unsatisfying is that this part that goes only to the first 22 seconds of the song has almost no other similar continuation with another part. I mean, the "bouncy spirit" from the beginning gets lost throughout the entire song and this makes it unequal, in my opinion.

Additional Comment

I comment all this just to express my opinion, not to offend anyone by telling how great or how dumb the song is, I just want to help improving and promoting it, there's no need to put in mind everything I've told about it, I still like the song as it is. No offense, but this is my first review, which means there's always going to be better, both for me and for everyone else.

Peace! :D