Update! 12/20/09

This song won the competition! I thank you all graciously for your votes and your support! If there is *any* songwriting work that you would like to be done by me, please get in contact with me! Message me in the forums! No request is too much or too absurd to be talked about! :)

-Jon

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My entry for Composition Combat. I focused on the setting of the game for the song, to compliment the mood that would be given. The song focuses on the futuristic holocaust caused by the dependacy and failure of the 'paradise machines*.' The song is written as a videogame title theme would be - it's written in a cinematic fashion, where it's listenable on its own and it wouldn't distract as background music. Along with standard cinematic orchestration, there are a few other instruments thrown into the mix to add the tone of the game. The song evolves, but is cohesive and sounds like a single song rather than a mix of parts. Anyway, before I tell you how the whole song goes, why don't you just listen and see for yourself?

*I almost want to rename my song to "Paradise Machine" now.

There's nothing to really point out as being weak in this song.  A typical style for the type of theme.  I give it 5.9 out of 7 stars.

And thanks for giving me a new word to add to my vocabulary.

Very impressive. Seems to me like best if not only entry that elaborates on story line. 

KiddCabbage,

     Your piece sounds complete; and by that I mean it's very put together and has elements that compliment each other nicely.  The problem is, though, that it's too clean for me; too predictable.  You seem to have all of the right elements, but nothing that strikes me as original.  Instead, the elements, while sounding strong and somewhat "epic", lose their effect when compared to other works in the genre, and even to some of the other entries in this competition.  That being said, though, I'm eager to hear what you do for your next piece.  Good luck!

First off, I like this song...there's really nothing "wrong" with it per se and the sounds you used for the most part are just great.

I don't hear a whole lot of originality in the song and it seems like you played safe on this. I was completely expecting you to bust out some guitar and when I heard the track... it just seemed a little lacking.

The main theme that continues throughout doesn't seem to fit quite right for me. It sounds almost like some guy jumping aboard a pirate ship with a sword in his hand to save the girl...

I guess we all have our own takes on the story, what emotion should be conveyed and in what way, which is why this competition has been rather varied and interesting to watch. Hopefully this will be a fair competition, which acurate scores and reviews, so I'd like to be fair in my reviews too.

I think this track has a lot going for it. There's a good strong melody, good mixing, good instrumentation. The darkness of the theme does actually fit with the story and the epicness is certainly present. The track does also keep in the background too, could imagine it sitting behind a game, but I feel that somewhere in attempting to combine all these things, you confused the track a little. As WarpToken said, it does sound a little like a piratey adventure theme, which is fine if that's the way you saw the game, can't really argue with that. But it sort've builds up and then just ends, which is a tad disappointing, so maybe make it a bit longer. I feel the intro is a little out of place on this track too... it's like it's starting out being a happy-ish Imogen Heap song, (Imogen Heap's awesome, but...) it just doesn't seem to replicate the suffering and ultimate tragic ending. I can see how it could represent the happiness of the world in the beginning, but, if you just cleared the game and had a downbeat ending, it's kind've awkward to suddenly throw that in to start the track. It wasn't actually an easy game idea to write for though, I'm sure we all made decisions that seem out of place to the other competitors.

All in all a pretty good track and I look forward to hearing more.