Long, long ago... (longlongagov2.xm)

Overall Impression (6/10)

I find this piece basic and lacking in areas such as percussion and melodic development, however it isn't all bad, especially for a fledgling artist with this style. I wasn't impressed, though, because this piece hardly does anything magical that a tracker can actually do, so it doesn't push anything out there to go "wow" about. Instead, I'd say this piece is about average for someone new to this genre.

Technique, Arrangement, Composition (5/10)

The tonal arrangements are very simplistic, as are the tracking techniques used, very little in terms of use of tracker realtime manipulation. It is possible to make arppegios in the tracker which could have spiced up some of the texture by adding some depth with arp-chords.

As for the melodic elements, the melodies are often crisscrossed which sometimes make them hard to follow. Mainly because they are all at the same set volume, yet it still seems to work okay but not as well as it could have had there been some dynamics in there.

Also, to avoid the rather static effect I observed, use of some tempo adjustments (F04 F06 alternating) and note cutoffs to make the melody a little more jumpy would have gone some way to improving things.

Development (6/10)

The melody in the beginning is quite loud and sounds rather unrefined having used a very simple chip-style waveforms (By the way, this sounds more like something from an Atari 2600/800XL than say, a Commodore 64 SID-chip, chip sounds non the less but still...).

The piece fills out a little towards the middle of the track filling up with a second melody overlapping the main melody which sounds nice but because of the linearity of the note volumes, it's often getting a little confusing and monotonous if I may say so. The bass line does not change pitch throughout, so this emphasises some of the monotony, again, room for improvement here.

The percussion is very basic, and isn't at all interesting... Too bad really - thowing in a more complex pattern could have spiced it up a bit.

Creativity (6/10)

I'd say the creativity on this piece is founded on the basis that this is potentially an early introduction to chip style music for this artist. There is plenty of room for improvement although I personally would concentrate on a new piece altogether while maybe taking these points onboard. For an early example, this isn't too bad but for an experienced tracker this is a very very basic creation indeed.

Enjoyment (6/10)

Personally, I would probably put this one aside in favour of more advanced pieces. It's not that it's poor, it's just very basic for my taste and after a couple of plays it will begin to grate on the nerves.

Additional Comment

Please take this constructivly! Keep up the good work.