I would say that in my brutally honest opinion, the sounds that you are using (and your technical abilities) are actually better than the tunes that you are coming up with. I actually really like a lot of the sounds that you've used in Pulse and in Basic, but I just think that although the basic ideas of the energy and the mood and the sounds are all there, the melodies are just not quite catchy enough.
I only say this because I've recently had a bit of an epiphany regarding music. And that is that all of the criticisms that people give are usually not about the actual thing that they are criticising, but more that they just didn't feel the music. Because music is an art form, and almost entirely subjective in nature, it only ever comes down to a question of, did the music convey the message and emotions that the composer intended and was the tune memorable and pleasant.
I would say that your technical abilities are already really good, and I found all of the sound choices that you made very nice indeed. But then it was undone because I just didn't feel those melodies at all. The Gotye mix is almost the ultimate symbol of this issue. Technically it actually wasn't that bad, but it just didn't work musically so it just invalidates any good technical things about the track.
Anyway, I was really having to decide about whether to write this post or just keep quiet. But I decided that harsh criticism will probably motivate you to go further than just telling you that it's ok. I've had more than my fair share of criticism so I know, and I really haven't been doing this whole music thing for very long either, only 2 years now in fact. So I'm still a real beginner as well, but I feel like that gives me inside knowledge of exactly what you need to hear, and what you need to hear is, "there's only 2 kinds of music, good and bad." So keep the awesome sounds and everything, but just focus on writing some more catchy tunes. I look forward to hearing your next track!
post edited by logan86 - 2012/06/17 08:19:16