Here’s my subjective comments.
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Ryanc - Let You Down Easy
Great song, I enjoyed. But it doesn’t sound so much as a early morning song (”Saturday Morning Breakfast Cartoons”) to a six year old.
Second verse starts nicely with guitar riff, actually so nicely that the opening verse starts to feel a bit weak and wavering in comparison to that.
The role of the drums behind the verse is not clear yet. On the other hand it dominates, but on the other hand the played groove is a bit unclear. If you solo it, does it sound like something played by drummer, or are they just separate hits? Now it sounds to me that drums are the last added element, what other instruments didn’t hear.
Behind the guitar riff drums feel right.
I like how the chorus starts with many prewords. But the first chorus somehow dies away. I had some expectation, but they were not fullfilled. But chorus starting at 1.50 is very good, now it’s clearly different from verse, and it opens the song, and it shows that there’s a great musical idea behind.
That said, I think you have a great song growing here, but it’s not ready yet. It’s something that deserves to have more time from you. (For simple arrangement ideas, listen ”Oasis - Half The World Away”)
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Moses - Up Early
Starts very nicely. Sounds cool and balanced.
Clearly modern stuff to use vocal samples (from YouTube, Splice?) as a part or one’s own composition. But I think it starts to repeat too much. Around 0:20 it begins to feel as a scratch in a vinyl. Maybe you could have added some pitch shifting to it, to make more ”melodic” variations, as in this case it has so dominant role.
Mid part from 0:30-1:10 feels as if the vocal is muted by accident. (Maybe the video content demands the music be more like bg-music.)
Mid-part from 1:10-1:20 very nice.
Verse/outro starting at 1:25 doesn’t bring anything new. I think you should should serve the main idea here with all spices.
Overall: I think your sample based musical idea has a potential to be much bigger than what it is now. Every part as such is nice, but for some reason they don’t build up a song yet, they are more like good loop ideas that you’re testing. You ought to develop that great idea to use vocal samples as a main element, but to make it a song, maybe you should somehow have more focus on the development of song.
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gruskada - Oli The Cat
Excellent short intro. Directly to the content.
Classic ”Hit the road Jack” -chord progression suits fine this genre.
0.46 cool part, horns very nice and well done
Production is a bit chaotic and uneven. Maybe caused by pianos and drums. Two pianos compete with others. And drums create wrong kind of chaos, as if the drummer hasn’t decided yet what he will play, and he’s testing different ideas. And maybe for that reason, other instruments are not listening drums properly. Somehow the band is not playing together best way yet.
But under that chaous there’s very well built song with good and simple melody that delivers it’s message to early morning audience. I can see the video in my mind: a beloved cat that every morning starts a new adventure that ends up to a catastrophe, at least according to his humans who have to clean up the mess.
So in my mind: excellent song about chaos created by a curious cat, but the arrangement should be a chaotic in a different way.
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erictracks - Shellhound
Best production. Clearly.
Nice intro. But around 0.22 I was expecting intro to end. Maybe I am too impatient. Now the intro riff lasts about 1 minute.
1:32- cool
2.00- Nice bass solo
2.20- This part could be before the bass solo. That way the bass solo would have a bigger role as it would grow out of stillness.
2.50 My attention starts to escape
This song challenges the listener. Lot’s of delicate nuances. I like every part as such, but from the song’s point of view to me it feels as if the lead instrument or vocal part is missing. Now it’s something that must be listened with headphones and with full attention. But as a cartoon music for kids it may be too demanding.
Drums are very nice: just what is needed to support the song, nothing else. In that sense very ”Ringo”-style drums.
► Show Spoiler
1: gruskada - Oli The Cat
2: erictracks - Shellhound
3: Ryanc - LetYouDownEasy
4: Moses - Up Early
How do we go from there?
