Dancing Souls (ds-souls.xm)

Posted by on Tue 23rd Apr 2019, rated 1 / 10.

definitely a rip.
original is "Fad" by Dj DioXine, which was finished on May 1998: https://modarchive.org/module.php?157698

Posted by Beyond on Tue 27th Oct 2015, rated 10 / 10.

This song deserves a higher rating. It's an absolute classic.

Posted by TMA Placeholder Account on Wed 31st Aug 2005, rated 8 / 10.

The song starts off simple in pizzicato strings and what appear to be an ensemble voice, then picks itself up in complexity with dual percussion loops and a distorted saw wave, and the song practically takes off from there. All the sounds fit nicely together, and though with no definitive melody, for just over 7 minutes the song has plenty of variation and it transitions very nicely. Halfway through the track, just when the song seemed like it was about to repeat itself over, the artist breaks it down with the pleasant voice ensemble and piano, creating a very soothing atmosphere. The only real problem is some of the base melodies (1, or 2 at the most) seem *almost* too repetitive before something else takes a stand in front of that melody (which the artist does a good job with; and it works, a great way to keep the song flowing). However, towards the end of the track piano base melody was repeated, and dulled the ending a bit. It felt rushed during the last 30 seconds of the track. Perhaps the distortion sound near the start and middle of the track could have been used to finish it off? Since it was used to help the start of the song take off and near the center to keep the mood up, it wouldn't hurt to have built a little climax at the end. Overall, the tune was nicely done. As for the technique I see absolutely no mistake with the artist's choice of sounds, as he used some fantastic (mostly 8-bit) samples. Some parts to take note of in the track are that in the first half of the track made very good use of portamento, volume, and offset techniques to keep the song interesting, especially the dual drumloops which were kept flowing variantly with just 2 channels. This is obviously a work where the artist knew what he was doing to keep a song flowing for as long as seven minutes, though the most noticeable possible mistake (as mentioned before) was right at the end where it felt like it was just rushed, and that's one of only a few parts I noticed that could've been better. Nice one