daydown (daydown.mod)

Overall Impression (10/10)

Meticulously planned and masterfully executed, this funky mod is a testament to Virgill's skill as a musician and as a tracker expert, who makes it looks easy and effortless.

Technique, Arrangement, Composition (10/10)

Two things amaze me about this mod.

First, Virgill's conscious usage of the L/R channel dichotomy. Mod musicians have obviously always been conscious of the hard panning of the format and had to make sure that they distribute their instrument in a way that makes sense.

But Virgill does more than that here. He takes advantage of it. In pattern 15 he begins a copy of the sample being played in another channel to move the sound into the center, right before having it go back to where it was, but now compensated by the full arrangement. An incredible fade in effect that adds energy immediately.

The use of a one shot snare in pattern 16 to underscore what's happening in the loop infuses the whole thing with a level of naturalness and groove. It's a small thing, but I find it incredible.

Second, the way longer samples are used.

When people read that "samples or loops were used in this mod", even if the samples are original, the impression is like "Oh, so they just put several notes one after another and no skill was involved".

And in some mod pieces that is, unfortunately, true (which is not to say that uing a tracker for sequencing was bad, just not that interesting for further analysis).

But in many other cases, it's not. Knowing the limitations of a mod, combining one-shot samples with loops is a skill that not many possess.

In fact, here you don't even have full loops. You have bits of vocoded guitar solo, bits of drums along with one-shot samples, and bits of drums mixed with the vocoded voice bits.

Virgill then uses a combination of one-shot samples and offset commands to glue together an incredible lead. Look specifically at channel 1 of pattern 8, how he combines samples 1 and 2 and jumps around them with offsets.

And not to mention the rest of the good stuff, like expert voice leading, portamento, volslides and vibrato, all giving life to the solo.

Development (10/10)

The sampling here is immaculate. Virgill clearly wrote the piece first, probably using hardware, then sampled it.

If I would have heard it in 1998, I would've lost my shit. I rarely hear such impressive sound quality even today, honestly.

Creativity (10/10)

This piece sounds less like something written for a demo and more like a funky standalone song.

I love the restrained energy of the drums, how dynamic everything is, with occasional snares and bass notes suddenly popping out.

A wonderful playful experience, totally love it!

Enjoyment (10/10)

Modarchive's template has this last block called "As a piece of music, does it work?" that I'm always a bit iffy about, because in the majority of cases it forces me to simply repeat everything I had said before. Or write something bland like "Yes, it does work as a piece of music".

Let's instead respond to a couple of questions in the description.

Would you keep this module in your collection? Yes.
Does it get too repetitive? Yes - because I put it on repeat and I am not about to stop it :D

This is awesome, folks. And hats off to Virgill!