About the review

Title: Into the Jungle
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Artist: TiLT
Genre: World: Other
Reviewed by: roncli on July 17, 2008 (All reviews by roncli)

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1Overall Description
A soundtrack-type, atmospheric piece that sounds as though it solely exist to generate a relaxing mood. While the piece succeeds at providing a good atmosphere, it also comes across terribly flat in terms of dynamics, relying on layering to raise and lower the energy in the song. While this does work, more focus on dynamics and variation within the individual instruments would give this song even more life than it has now. Recommended for a good atmospheric listen.
 
2Creativity Description
I felt that the creativity here was the lowest point of the piece. The artist layers in bits and pieces throughout the song, which helps extend the interest in this one, but for the most part there's little new that's introduced into the song until the ending. Mainly, you'd be listening to this for the atmosphere.
 
3Artistic License Description
As for what the artist did with the song, the atmosphere is very real. The mood is heavy and cannot be ignored, relaxing with a little bit of tension. In a game, I could see this as being great for a puzzle game in a round that lasts for several minutes. There's enough changes going on to not get too terribly boring, especially when you're focusing on something else. I do think that this could be pushed quite a bit further, though, especially with some dynamics in the individual instruments, and more obvious variations in the repeating lines.
 
4Arrangement Description
The arrangement itself is very spot on. The artist does a good job of defining the mood early, builds up to a climax, and then works up a fantastic ending, which flares the atmosphere even more. There are no complaints here.
 
5Sound Quality Description
Sound quality is also well done, all of the instruments are crisp, clean, and tuned, the sound is very well-balanced, and there is no audible noise or pops. Top notch production job.
 
6Does it work as a piece of music Description
Simply put, it works well. The atmosphere it gives off is even more validation to this fact.
 
Comments
Jul 29 2008 12:17 pm
by roncli
I can seriously see myself doing Sudoku or something to this. :)



Jul 29 2008 6:16 am
by bvanoudtshoorn
I agree with 95% of what is said in this review, particularly about dynamic variance. (It's something that I also have trouble with in some of my tracks.) I disagree about its use in a puzzle game, though - I'd find it too distracting, because it's too rhythmically complex.



Jul 21 2008 4:32 pm
by clones
I did not mean to start up a hornet's nest here, just what I thought was a valid question. I'm going to take this to PMs to Ron. TiLT it is a pain to discuss with multiple people on the TiS message system. If you PM me your email I will include you from my Gmail account - Ron wrote the review so my observations are really with him.



Jul 21 2008 3:54 pm
by TiLT
While I'm not exactly an impartial person here, I must say I agree with what roncli is saying. This is about sound quality, not sample quality. There's more the sound than just how good the basic samples are. Of course, having high quality samples helps a lot, but you can't rely on that alone.



Jul 21 2008 3:39 pm
by roncli replying to clones
And for the record, this question was not in the initial review format of the site. It was I that suggested to Saurin it be added, not as "sample quality" but as "sound quality". Now, sound quality does include the quality of the instruments used, like you suggest, but it also includes things like recording quality in songs that were recorded (fuzz in a recording would score badly here), the EQ balance of the mix (too much or not enough bass or treble would score badly here), and the post production quality (too much compression would score badly here, at least from me).



Jul 21 2008 3:30 pm
by roncli
I hope it wasn't you who ticked the "disagree" box over half of a sentence, because it sounds like you're not disagreeing with me. Rather, you are disagreeing with the reviewing process, which is independent of me, TiLT, this song, or this review. The question was posed. I answered it, and I don't think I answered it wrong.



Jul 20 2008 1:31 pm
by clones
Guys, I don't understand this :"all of the instruments are crisp, clean, and tuned, " - after all the money TiLT invested in his samples I would think this should be expected. This question in my mind is so far removed from what I believe its intent - does the *module* have good samples. TiLT is a good composer, I'm not knocking that... if I were a newb I might think I need thousands of dollars of samples.... or P2P and Swedish pirates.