Quarl AIM 2022 Review
Composition/Structure (0-10), Production (0-10), Emotion (0-10), Relevance to Artwork (0-10)
Aterum, Techardia: 10,10,10,9 (39/40)
Thank you for mentioning some of your intentions. I can respect that you aimed to evoke cogs and heartbeats. Many users didn't take advantage of the author's comments to direct our attention. I took a very similar approach during a "photo inspired music contest" back in 2008 with a song called Aeronautics. My exact words were "I really wanted to do an IDM track to replicate the complexity of the airplanes inner workings combined with the fluidity of the ideal of flight." So I get it, I understand the connections you were aiming to make with your comments. I'm not certain I understand the "irregular heart beat," I assume a machine would be able to perfectly time the pulse of a synthetic heart but the music managed to convey the idea better than the statement.
Since I'm going to nit-pick that heartbeat idea, you could easily have used a bass drum and filter with reverb units to engineer a realistic sounding heart beat. It almost sounds like you were doing exactly that at 2:19. It's not very difficult to do and the idea isn't "original" but originality isn't necessarily a metric that we are judging for. I just wanted it to stand out a little more if that's what you were doing. Since robots are a theme and we're not heavily policing samples, I'd have recommended looking up some power tool videos on YouTube and grabbing some industrial sounds. Personally, I love the sound of hydraulics. You can also engineer all sorts of sounds from synthesizers, one competitor managed to replicate a revving race car engine beautifully. I like to use hi-hats to emulate the sound of a peddle bike's drive chain slowing down as it clicks from fast to slow. Though the music you wrote was inspired and musically on point, I feel that you missed a small opportunity to get a little more creative with sounds in that respect.
Still driving my tiny "atmospheric sounds" criticism home, I'm noticing what looks like pools of oil leaking into a small environment. There's a crab and some coral reef at the bottom of the heart, a flower is growing haphazardly from the bottom of a ledge. There's a fair amount of room for organic sounds in a very mechanical illustration. The robot in the middle of the heart looks like it's crying. You could use a simple sinewave synth to emulate water droplets with some quick pitch bending and a little reverb. You might have been able to track down some atmospheric samples on YouTube of pressured steam releasing or water boiling to emulate the bubbling oil vats leaking into an organic environment. Many users were able to make smart use of atmospheric samples and you're obviously a strong enough writer to have used these ideas.
Despite how much I have to say about it, this was a very small criticism. You wrote a very strong piece of work and I felt like it honorably reflected the art. You made excellent use of panning to create space which was another common issue I mentioned while judging other competitors. I feel like I have no choice but to give you high scores on production and composition/structure. The song stayed very interesting throughout with solid transitions and change ups. I'm giving you an almost perfect score. I'm probably the only judge to go all in on the review process like this, giving everyone the feedback they deserve but I really want people to understand why they're getting the scores that they're getting. This is a very difficult contest to judge since we have to take so many possibilities into account in regards to subjectivity or taste.
You have a wonderful day Aterum, hopefully this review is helpful and I hear more from you in the future <3