KukoBass: OK, so you turned snare and hi hat down … When I now listen in studio monitors + sub, the first thing I noticed is that the kick IMO is too loud. The snare could be a little louder and the kick should be more quiet. Apart from that levels are OK, IMO, cello included.
The melody played on one single key on the piano from the start till the end gets repetitive after a while, and the piano is treated in a rather mechanical way. I think I would have made the bridge, starting at 1:43:25 only two bars long, or possible four bars, but not eight bars. It would have been much cooler, IMO, although I cannot explain why. And after that some progress/change is needed.
What I like the best is bass guitar/synth bass together with drums. Also the cello, although I haven't analyzed too much, fits in well. D, C, C7 is a rather simple chord progression, but it works well. I'm not sure exactly what instrument it is that has a phaser to it (organ/epiano/synth?), but where you hear it, it fits in in a good way.
becsei_gyorgy: Let's begin with the video, since I somehow feel your submission would be suitable as part of the music for a movie. But not the video you are presenting! When I listened to your entry one first time, I thought it was OK. But then, when I looked at all the beautiful water and waterfalls, the beautiful fountains, the beautiful statues and the beautiful buildings (and beautiful trees and bushes) I got extremely bored; almost felt sick. That video doesn't rhyme with the music.
I have hard to imagine someone would add this kind of musical piece to a playlist of any kind. And it is too short to be able to stand on its own feet. But as a part of the music that accompanies a movie – yes. A movie with much interaction between human beings.
The first bar with the orchestra immediately made me think of Beethoven's third symphony (although it's not ¾). It's a powerful orchestra, but the question is: would a harpsichord without an amplifier be as audible as this? Probably not. A lot of reverberation is surrounding the harpsichord, so it must be a large hall. Only: It does not sound realistic to me at all. Probably because of the strength with which the harpsichord comes through.
I have a little hard to pay attention to the question: does this make me think of water? I do not know, because we all knew in advance water is the theme.
Anyway, this piece of music is tasteful all the way. There is enough variation. Hence relatively high score.
Arelem: I don't know if real life is like the movies, if you hear a ping sound inside a submarine from the hydrophones in hostile ships coming closer. Anyway I got an under water feeling directly, but that could have been due to the fact that I had read the title: Under Water. Anyway: hydrophones, and then the synths behind, almost like noise, could be the submarine's engine. Good.
I really can't comment on your choice of kick and snare. Is it supposed to be looked upon as snare? I don't make this kind of music, so I don't have any expert advice. Don't really have an opinion about extremely rapid hihat-like sound / rhythm instrument.
The lyrics is performed very well, must be difficult to sing that rapidly (verses). There is a lot of water, here! Maybe I would have avoided to use both river and sea, and had instead picked one of those two. Although I understand this is metaphors and not a movement from the river out to the sea. The line “storm comin' on like a hurricane “ uses two words with very similar meaning (even if the hurricane is somewhat stronger). But is it a storm or a hurricane? And do the walls close in, out on the sea, over or under the water? On a ship?
Combining selfish and shellfish is very clever.
Your second, middle chorus is without percussion. A good idea to create variation. Also the vocals is handled in another way here (EQ/filter/FX). Sounds like he's trapped somewhere. Under water? So the girl left him. Too bad.
VCA-089: Since I imported all the tracks to a Reaper-project, I'm able to see your scenes on the screen. (I-1 to I-3, II-1 to II-2, III-1 to III-2 and then the outro.)
I don't have very much more to say than I liked the track. Regarding mixing and EQ, I have nothing to complain about. I have heard it twice now. First time, maybe a week ago, I listened in my earbuds walking around, running some errands. The music got me into a pleasant mode, and the same thing happened now.
The water connection isn't very strong, but personally I like it better, the way you do it, with that remote “noise” in I-1, than being overly clear. On the other hand, in I-2 you can hear a kind of clucking sound that is in fact rather realistic, but the volume is low – exactly the right volume. The synth played in a rather high octave, with lots of pingpong delay, could remind of water drops, maybe, but it's hard to tell whether a person not knowing this is supposed to represent water would understand this.
I think your track works well as relaxation music. Or music that creates a certain mood (I don't really have a name for that mode). But III-2 should be omitted, IMO. It's to “rocky” and powerful to fit together with the other seven scenes, especially from 4:04.
EsteveCorbera: Good atmosphere. Good choices of instruments. Leading instrument seems to vary between different parts. Last section best, from 2:58. Something like an ocean (waves) in the background. But would have been better without the pouring / dripping water.
When I say good atmosphere, I mean that if I just listen and don't pay very much attention to details, I have no objections. But after a closer look, I find some things that make me doubtful. The bass line – even if my first impression was that it is OK – is rather unusual. Seems a bit random. For example: From 2:32 – 2:34, 5 the metallophone/synth/bellpad plays F, G#, A#, G# … It's hard to perceive this than anything else than a broken A#7 chord … At the same time, during this one and a half bar, the bass goes: C, D, A#, F. To me it seems as if the bass and that other instrument plays different songs here.
The strings/synths in the background are low in terms of volume. It seems to me there are not many ordinary plain three tones major or minor chords. But do these chords and the bass line belong together? It's hard to tell because the chords are very quiet. Maybe they belong together, after all.
GamaGama: This whole thing starts rather promising. A beat that makes you want to dance, overall good sound; good sounding brass instruments and brass section.
But the first solo trumpet ”figure” is very simple and consists of only a few tones. In terms of note values, it stays the same for a while with few variations:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zx_RYg ... sp=sharing This is the way it starts from after the intro, then it's transposed down, step by step. Although these recurring “figures” from the trumpet gradually gets changed, one aspect remains: they are short, and the pauses between them are about equally long. To me, this makes the song much too repetitive.
2:21 and a few seconds forward brass section plays something much more reminiscent of the TV series Dallas from the 70s/80s than water.
With a few more percussion and bass line variations (and maybe a more obvious bridge), this could be a hit. If –
if – you let the solo trumpet player play longer figures/phrases as well. P.S. Spanish guitar in intro sounds good. Guess it's a plugin (?) but in that case it is a good plugin.
Olli H: Like the live-feeling. Guess it is live, more or less? First impression of this song = good.
Intro is two bars too long. Cut the last two bars.
From 0:43 – 0:48 I really don't understand the harmonic progression here (”day by day”); the tones from the double bass seems not to fit together with the guitar, the pizzicato violin (if that's what it is) and vocals? It would take too much time for me to figure out exactly which tones the instruments are playing; especially for the guitar it's all little bit hard to tell what it is doing. All this is repeated one more time.
Pizzicato violin could be water drops. I like the maracas, but in terms of awaking water associations, the maracas don't have that influence on me.
1:30 Tremolo guitar (bridge) comes as a surprise. Very striking.
As others have already pointed out: interesting with this minimalistic composition. But I could not understand the lyrics, just listening to the track. Had to read it.
► Show Spoiler
1 (10 pts) VCA-089
2 (9 pts) becsei_gyorgy
3 (8 pts) Arelem
4 (7 pts) Olli H
5 (6 pts) Esteve C
6 (5 pts) KukoBass
7 (4 pts) GamaGama
He has a good organ, especially for rock songs. (But in the future, I would therefore consider whether it is also suitable for songs with saxophone 
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