no-ma-designs's Reviews

[Sundans- A Heart Aflame]

Really nice song! The very beginning has a bit too much volume on that low boom; you can hear the limiter trying to cope. I'd watch the same for your kick, but aside from that, the combination of your chordal synth design and the vocals was great! Though the mixing could use some work, I really love this track and I'd definitely like to see more like this.

[Sundans - Bandwidth]

Great song with a nice feel, but I kinda wanna see a bit more variety in how you construct your song. It follows a pretty standard complextro/drumstep pattern that I think could do with some more sudden shifts in volume and instrumentation. There's a lot of the same sections building off of each other, and while it works, it doesn't surprise. Some of this has to do with the lack of much melody (a simple synth pattern could add a lot to just create a recognizable monophonic motif), but a lot also has to do with the sound design. You may try gating the verb to the MIDI to get more sudden transitions between instruments and building some more fills and patterns to provide interruption to your loops. An alternate chord progression could also accomplish a lot, as could some sort of sans-sequence breakdown. There's also a bit much high-end on some channels; a gain reduction in the high shelf on your snare and a few of your synths could open up a lot of space for the hats, noise, and distorted effects, as well as allow you to sneak your master limiter's input up a tad. I also thought a few of your synths could use a bit more verb and that the sequenced pattern you had in the background could use some mangling/effecting/note changes at some point to break it up a little. Overall, though, a great composition with a very appealing neurofunk/complextro/drumstep sound!

[Broken Dream (Original Mix)]

Overall, very good quality, with a nice mixdown, some very cool sound design, and a nice, trancy groove.

Could use a bit more variety in terms of chords, beats, sections 'n stuff, but it also works in that trancy, semi-ambient way. One thing I will say is that, in my opinion, the best trance DJs tend to really micromanage the little bits of their song, such that despite the repetitive pattern, things really sound different from point to point. The reversed cymbals, for instance, were a little overused as they were. However, if you mangled them up or resampled or effected them differently at points, it would provide for some great contrast to the chords and melody.

Hope this helps!