Hi David,
I checked out your tracks and thoroughly enjoyed them, here's some feedback and thoughts, hope it helps!
Things I liked:
- Use of panning was great.
- Took advantage of accurate rhythms and scales for koto.
- Overblown Shakuhachi used for great effect in atmosphere building
- Nice use of rubato in the third piece - the violin really added a lot and was probably my favorite instrument in this mix. Definitely needed more screentime! (oh I just read the description, of course it's a Strad =) nice!)
- Third piece really reminded me of Far Cry Instincts Predator Soundtrack: Lightning on the Sun (Menu Theme) - you might want to check it out if you want more inspiration for this kind of stuff.
- Using high quality VSTs, and also listing the instruments you used, awesome and always appreciated!
Things to consider for next time:
- Echo / Delay with koto at certain points might add to the atmosphere.
- Ending is sometimes a bit abrupt like in the first piece, maybe a fade would be better.
- Second piece took a while to buildup... maybe there was a way to build it up a bit faster.
- Sometimes drums in the second piece didn't sound like they were in the same (reverb) space as the other things, you may need to add a bit more reverb to drums to make them sit better with the mix.