Review of Nathan Griffith's Reason Assignment

This song uses many instruments which sound like synthesized real-world instruments - the bassline sounds as if it has been played with an electric bass guitar, a realistic-sounding drumkit was chosen, and I think I can hear some piano, flutes, and horns in the middle section. The exception would be the pad Nathan uses to start this track, which sounds decidedly synthetic. The song begins with a gradual slow buildup, with drums and a pad in the beginning, starting softly, and some volume of the bass fading in and out. When the main melody comes in, the bass drops out, and slowly re-adds itself. From there, there isn't much of a sharp buildup to the climax so much as a gradual rising that does not sound quite finished by the time the song ends. For this style of song, however, which is rather soft and calm (though I wouldn't call it ambient, as Nathan does, since the drums are too strong), I think this works.
The effects are used well. Nathan makes use of delay, echo, and reverb, which all help to create overlapping layers of sound in the background from few instruments. There are also a few volume swells, and the levels of each instruments are fairly evenly mixed and compressed. Again, these all work well for this slower and softer kind of piece - Nathan creates a big soundscape that still retains simplicity. The one part of this piece I would change is the instrumentation for the main melody line, which somehow seemed to not quite be either artificial or realistic enough and fell in the gap which sounds like artificial sweetener. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the relaxing feel of this track overall.

Assignment 3 - 1-minute Reason song

I started out by creating an 8th-note line at 200BPM using a Minimoog sound (I added a flanger effect to the first four bars of this - effect 1). This loop plays while a distorted (effect 2) hardcore-type drumset comes in shortly afterward with a few beats along with a 4-bar slightly higher melody line. Next, a bass pad (with reverb - effect 3) comes in, along with a full-fledged drum beat. There is a short 2-measure drop phase where the melody line plays alone, a few octaves lower with a unison effect added to thicken the sound there (effect 4). Afterward is a stretch where the drums do not play. The melody line becomes the bass line, while the bass pad is now raised some octaves. Next, another melody line, much faster and higher, layers over the pad and now-bassline. The drums come in again with a different pattern, and several pads play in unison at different octaves to give more background. In the ending section, the two Minimoog synthesizers play in unision, one at a melody octave and one at a bass octave. The bass pads and drums change again. Finally, at the end, there is a short section where only the melody synth plays, and then there is a quick burst from all instruments which is given a delay/echo effect (effect 5).