BlazingDragon's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Winter's Embrace]

So lovely! The beginning reminded me of a track from Maple Story. So pure, comforting, diatonic. I didn’t expect the wonderful harmonic twists ahead! I’m a sucker for chromatically descending lines. The sort of darkness there just makes the return to the original material even more joyful. And I love that you change the register at 1:38. Gorgeous ending, too, like a warm hug.

Everratic responds:

Thank you for the review!!!

[Woven Tapestry]

You have a beautiful grasp of harmony. I love the chord progressions in the handful of pieces I’ve heard so far.

My recommendation is to experiment with form and coming up with clear melodies. I’m not saying you should change your style - just that I think you would benefit from exploring these areas as a compositional exercise. The pieces I’ve heard sound very improvisational, like you’re “noodling” with cool chord progressions. You could level up your music by learning to focus it a little more.

For example, you could try to compose a piece with this form: Intro, A, A1, B, A, Outro.

That means you have a short intro to set the mood, but it’s standalone and doesn’t necessary show up again. Then you have the main theme, A. Then you repeat it but with some variation, which is A1. Then you make a contrasting section to keep things interesting, which is B. Then you go back to A before wrapping up the piece with a little outro.

It might seem robotic thinking of music in terms like this, but it’s a great way to push your creativity within some set boundaries. And if you’re the improvising type, you can even practice making up stuff on the fly within a structure like this.

Just an idea, take it or leave it. You have lovely sonic worlds, and I’m looking forward into exploring more of them.

[Within These Castle Walls]

Absolutely gorgeous. Parts of it remind me of the Tristram theme from Diablo, which is one of my favorite pieces of video game music.

I think it would be cool if you experimented with delay effects on this. You could also master the track to bring the overall volume up without losing the dynamic range. You have a decent amount of headroom leftover in the waveform. You could also let the final chord ring out longer, since it cuts off a little abruptly.

Flamadour responds:

Thanks for the review, I thought about using delay but I didn't want to oversaturate the composition. And thankfully I have Wavelab Elements now, so all my tracks will be mastered from now on.

[AIM - Bellowers of Grief]

Gorgeous track! I'm a sucker for the Dorian mode (minor with the sixth note in the scale raised a half step), which you use at the beginning. This piece feels somewhere between Jeremy Soule's Skyrim soundtrack and Harry Gregson-Williams' Narnia score.

My only advice is to master the track. You have plenty of room to maximize the volume without losing the dynamic range. If this appeared in a playlist, listeners would have to turn their speakers up to clearly hear.

And congrats on this being Frontpaged today!

Everratic responds:

Thanks for the review! It's nice to hear from you again :D I'm also a sucker for Dorian! I definitely took some inspiration from Jeremy Soule and will check out the Narnia score.

I get that the track could theoretically be louder, and that in the waveform above it appears that it can simply be raised, however, I did carefully master the track and chose this specific volume level. Although it's quiet by NG standards, the truth is that the peaks of this song are louder than many orchestral and film mixes, including many Skyrim songs. This kind of orchestral music is extremely dynamically sensitive so I wanted a clean, non-limited sound. I'm not a professional, so if you feel I'm wrong or missing something, please feel free to follow up :)

[A True Hero]

Great track! I loved the key change at :48. This piece starts with anime vibes but briefly has more of a Disney feel at :53 with the triumphant brass.

Also, I want to hear about this adventure of yours!

Bosa responds:

thank you so much! i’m going to try and get the full version released by this weekend if i can, i would like to submit this to the AIM contest going on rn. I plan on adding more of a heroic theme — which is the direction i think i want to go with this, so something you could hear in Captain America haha.

[Sweet Street]

Such good vibes. Loved it!

The electric guitar at 1:36 was so unexpected, but in a fun way. Same with the ending. Lots of playfulness and ear candy to enjoy!

supermelon-creations responds:

(sorry for late response) but thankss!! exactly the vibe we were going for ;p

[Forged by the Sea - Concert Band]

This is incredible! How have I not heard of you until now, and how does this not have more listens? I love this piece and am very envious of your orchestration skills. I could learn a lot from your woodwind runs, use of percussion, and tasteful balancing between sections. Can't wait to dig into your other tracks.

Also, I especially love the middle section where the ensemble gets quiet and passes eliding triplet figures between instruments. Lovely!

+5/5 and +Followed

[Lost Joy]

Wonderful little track! Love that you use several registers of the piano and not just the two octaves in the middle. Nice dynamic contrast. Also textural contrast between the waltz sections and the soft arpeggiated ones. My favorite bit is around :50 where you set up the expectation of a picardy third but then spin out the phrase to end on a dissonance. Is that the leading tone in the bass at :59? Sweet.

I wish it was longer and had more development. Especially considering the entrance of the violin which just begs for more material. I do like how you keep the right and left hands of the piano at the outer registers as to not interfere with the register of the violin. Cool track!

Everratic responds:

Thank you for the review! I'm glad you noticed what I did at :50. I agree this should be longer.

[Fanfare in c minor]

--NGAUC Review—

First off, it’s gutsy to submit a solo piece of any variety to a music composition contest. You don’t have a broad sonic palette to hide behind, and you have to find ways to create contrast outside of timbre. With the organ in particular, you don’t have the potential for dynamic shading that can be had with, say, a piano. So yes, gutsy indeed.

Did you pull it off? Well, sort of. I appreciate several aspects of this composition, first and foremost the melodic and harmonic content. In terms of melody, this piece is full of motifs, sequences, and suspensions. There is an attempt at counterpoint, which most of the pieces in this composition lack. And the piece ends on a Picardy Third, and I tend to be fond of such endings. In essence, this piece receives high marks for ambition, for tackling certain compositional challenges that other submissions didn’t even attempt.

Ambitious as the piece is, I feel the compositional technique was weak. Many of the harmonic progressions sounded clumsy and weak. Maybe it’s due to software restrictions, but the piece didn’t take advantage of the organ’s strongest advantage- the variability of tone color that can be achieved through manipulating stops. Much of the melodic writing broke the traditional rules of contrapuntal composition. This is absolutely fine if it is to achieve a certain end, but in this case, it sounded like it was accidental, done out of ignorance of historical conventions.

Perhaps my biggest problem is that the piece doesn’t sound focused. After about two and a half minutes, I began to lose interest. There were no compelling modulations, no really interesting bass lines or interaction between melodies. The texture and rhythmic stylings were fairly stagnant. The piece didn’t move toward a specific climax, and I didn’t feel like the piece had a very intentional contour to it.

I commend you for taking a chance and submitting something different from other competitors, and there were certain aspects of this piece that I enjoyed. I rated this more highly than over half the other tracks, so I certainly did not think it bad. It just wasn’t great to me.

I think that you might benefit from taking fewer ideas and focusing on developing them exceptionally well. Embellish melodic ideas and pass them between voices and octaves. Try for more interesting rhythms. Change textures more often. Think in terms of compositional shape- does each phrase have an arch to it? Do the phrases themselves form an overall arch with one climax for the piece? Are you sufficiently building tension and release? Also, consider studying chromatic harmony, and also counterpoint writing. J.J. Fux’s Gradus ad Parnassum is a fine place to start, and it was studied by many of the masters of organ writing.

Keep on composing!

Score: 7.2

[Lost Signals]

--NGAUC Review—

Pros:
-I like the minor key tonality. That was a nice contrast to many other submissions I’ve listened to in this round.
-You had some nice transitions. I particularly liked the build from 2:09 to 2:15. It was subtle but effective.
-The first 33 seconds provided a compelling intro. The texture built at just the right pace.
-I liked the contrast between the percussion and piano at 1:30.

Cons:
-I think the piano needs to come up in the mix, especially around 1:31. It’s the most interesting element in the texture, but it sounds completely subdued. I like the heavy reverb, but I think there needs to be more presence.
-Some sections sound needlessly cluttered to me, particularly at 2:15. Maybe it’s the rapid kick drum, or maybe it’s the EQ, but that section sounds muddy to me.
-None of the melodies or harmonies in this piece were particularly compelling to me. The piano section provided a pleasant sonic contrast, but compositionally, it was just okay. Mostly just quarter notes wandering around scale tones without a strong sense of direction. Some of the percussion and sound effects in this track are unique, but the composition is just okay. Not very good, nor very bad.
-I’m going to have to disagree with SkyeWint about the ending. I think the last note faded out way too quickly, and the whole phrase seemed like it was wandering. I know it is quoting a phrase from earlier, but it just didn’t do much for me. I do appreciate the contrast of the ending though.

This piece to me was decent. It had some good qualities about it, but nothing to particularly impress me.

Score: 6.1/10