Here it is:

https://soundcloud.com/jed-crouch/ode

Nice piece. First impression is that it has a lot of personality; it evokes a very mischievous feeling. It almost has a bit of Russian sound to the melody, especially with the rhythm being a waltz.

A couple of critiques I would have are that as purely a piece of music (not accompanying video or a game), the beginning is a little odd for me. It starts in a bit of a weird place and only makes a little more sense for me after hearing it come back to this part later on in the piece. Also, it sounds as if a few of the mallet percussion notes are being cut short or something (?) around the 1 minute mark.

Overall its a nice piece, very thematic.

I like the composition. There's some small issues with the mix/balance that could be worked on. Some of the instruments are kind of dark and distant sounding compared to others. The bass end is also pretty inconsistent, sometimes it's boomy and a little overwhelming, but other times it's a bit buried- maybe it was intentional, dynamics can be a good thing, but might be too much in this case.

Thanks for the critique guys, I 100% agree with your points! I'm not too sure what the piece could be used for, but as you said the intro isn't suitable at all for a video game. Also the low end probably does need a bit of work, the low end can sometimes be hard to get right! I guess I should try and cut it out more in other areas to create contrast.

If you both have any work I can look at feel free to reply it here :)

I guess I should clarify and say that the intro could work for a video, I would just need more context. Without having anything on screen to sync the sound too, its hard to say whether the music fits something or not.

You can check out my current musical project here:

https://www.gamedev.net/topic/686960-opensource-rpg-maker-soundtrack-feedback-welcome/

Thanks

The actual composition is nice. You could make a lot more out of it by balancing things better.

- I think the panning is a little bit too wide at least for the strings which makes me distracted.

- Check some of the lines once more so that they play better together. For example 0:23 the lines are not accurate.

- Strings sound distant compared to everything else. Have you tweaked the volume or are you using just velocity to make things quiet or strong? Velocity is always the way to go after every track is balanced roughly with the volume. (Different libraries might have different volume levels)

- In the crescendo I would take more instruments in. At least all the string groups for a while to make it sound lusher and more balanced. You can double and triple things.

- Instruments sound like they're from different libraries. Some are close mic'd and some further away. Use some shared reverbs to make them glue more together.

Thanks for the critique guys, I 100% agree with your points! I'm not too sure what the piece could be used for, but as you said the intro isn't suitable at all for a video game. Also the low end probably does need a bit of work, the low end can sometimes be hard to get right! I guess I should try and cut it out more in other areas to create contrast.

If you both have any work I can look at feel free to reply it here :)

Hi Jed. Great track.

Not sure what your background and experience are, or what your mixing rig is like...do you have pretty good handle on how to make the adjustments to the forward/distant parameters in the mix, and how to get the low end tuned in better? If so, cool...if you need some pointers I'd be happy to throw some ideas out there. Let us know!

...not a game guy but I have a lot of experience with audio and mixing. Trying to make myself useful as a newcomer to this forum :D