BlazingDragon's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[The Mare and The Tortoise]

I agree with the below review about the delay at the beginning. You do have a really nice voice and I'd like to be able to hear it without the distraction.

What impresses me about this song is its infectiousness. A huge smile crossed my face without the first thirty seconds. The background vocal "bops" are so playful, and the simple bassline is really groovin'. Everything just clicks nice.

My favorite line is, "And I could conquer nations, be the king of all creation, but I'd still be nothing without you." I wish I could write decent lyrics.

This is great work. It really made me happy. :)

[Flow of Time]

Hey! Nice work on this piece. It's very energetic and captivating.

Suggestions
-at :22, I really wanted to here a huge orchestral bass drum hit that would resonate for a little bit. What you have now just doesn't seem to have a lot of presence or cut through much. Something with some more attack and sustaining power would be epic.
-After :22, a flute-sounding instrument comes into the background. I personally want to hear more of that on the foreground. Try boosting the volume and taking a little reverb off of it.
-The choir sample sounds a little cheesy to me. It was thin and had an awful lot of attack for a choir. I'd try finding something with a little more warmth and legato. Maybe check sound soundfonts on hammersound?
-Also, choirs are naturally very dynamic. They don't just sing one note after another...No, they sing each note in connection, in a line. They crescendo to the top of that line and come down from there. They even swell in the middle of a single sustained note. Try attaching the choir main volume (In MIDI, the CC#7 parameter) to an automation clip and getting the choir to crescendo to the top of a phrase and come back down from it. It will sound way more organic, flowing, and generally awesome. I'm refering to the high voices doing melody around 1:15 BTW, not the basses that sing quietly throughout the piece.
-You have a cool piece here. The drums, synths, and other instruments create a nice soundscape. The piece sounds like background music though because it doesn't have a strong sense of melody. The choir in the middle helps a little bit, but your piece would be much more memorable if you had a developed melodic idea.

Good work on this, Criminal. It could use a little more refining and development, but I like what you've got.

KrisKrosNL responds:

Thanks for the review!

Now, that suggestion at 0:22, it's gonna be hard, lol. I can imagine what it sounds like, so I'll see what the after-effect will be.

That 'flute-sounding' instrument is actually a pad. I thought the pattern it plays isn't significant enough to be with the main pattern, and I wanted background sound, thus I kept it like that. I'll see what difference it will make with higher volume and/or reduced reverb.

This song is the first song that I used a choir on. I don't know much about how it works, actually. I'll try to do that choir in connection mode, though. ._.

We'll see how my laggy laptop will handle the changes I will make! =P

[-*}CaSH{*- King Benjerman]

At first, I thought this would just be a plucky, light-hearted affair. The beginning reminded me of Fial Fantasy Tactics Advance for some reason. Like a character select screen before a battle or something. Then came insanity with the 11/8 section around 1:25 and I was convinced that there was depth to this piece.

The section starting at 2:08 was foreboding and yet regal. I like the harp arpeggios and the constantly adding layers of instruments, though some of the piano work in there seems a bit eh to me for a second. I love the percussion though. :)

I love the harmonic changes starting at 4:08. You took me places I didn't expect and then brought me back to the beginning beautifully. It's cool how you start by bringing back the timbre from the beginning as a transition before bringing back any of the melodic material. It was a more subtle transition than most people use around here. The ending didn't sit well with me. I really wanted to hear a perfect authentic cadence after all of that regal, majestic stuff.

This is a quality piece. You spent your time well. Awesome work!

11/8

camoshark responds:

Thanks man, glad you enjoyed!

Yeah, the first part was meant to represent a light-hearted crowning ceremony, before suddenly, out of nowhere, all hell breaks loose. Glad you like that transition in mood! :)

As for the piano in the second/third section, it mostly got pushed down to background, as I didn't need it in the foreground, yet didn't want it to idle for the duration of the segment. One important thing to note is that it actually plays the harp's arpeggios as well as the part you hear, but because I'm still new to the setup I made this in, I didn't manage to make it pop out as much as I would've.

I'm really glad you like the modulations in the last segment, it took me a whole night to perfect it, as I wasn't too sure where I wanted to take the song.

As for the ending, I didn't want to write anything on the subject to prevent bias when listening, but I absolutely hate the finale too, but because of time restraints that's all I could afford. Perhaps one day I'll revisit this song and give it a proper ending, but for now I'm completely extenuated, so it'll have to wait.

In any case, thanks again for the amazing review, and I'm glad you enjoyed!

Cheers,
Samuel Hebert

[timeslip]

You've got a great gasp on melodic writing. Beautiful progressions too. :)

I would love to hear this with the bass and keys you mentioned in response to Kor-Rune.

acmeDyne responds:

Thank you!
As soon as I get a chance, I plan to listen to everybody's submissions and leave some reviews myself.
From what I've heard so far, there's some awesome talent in this contest.

[Clicky]

Ahhh, so relaxing...I love it! Just wish it was longer. This would be a great piece to start my morning drive to college with.

TheBenjerman responds:

Thanks, and I wish it were longer too!

I totally ran out of time on this one, had to finish it before I left town.

[XS - Leaving (Audio DM 1)]

Pretty cool. I really like the chord progression and piano riffs. I'm kind of bothered by how mechanical the piano sounds though. Especially when you have repeating chords like at the beginning, changing the velocity of each chord would breath so much fresh air into the phrase. Those parts sound a little like a record skipping at the moment.

I like this piece, but that super-quantized piano with the lack of varying velocities is really bugging me. :(

Jimmypig responds:

Well version 2 is not made :) I wont change this sub now though but I think you'll find some of these issues are fixed or at least working towards it! It's really hard to get fake piano to sounds real :(

[Outside the Atmosphere]

The main chord progression of VI, VII, i is somewhat cliche, but it is also the one that I use the most. So I can't very well complain about that, as it is one that I love. :p

My main gripe is how mechanical the piano sounds. It seems overly quantized to me. I think it'd sound better if loosened up just a bit.

I like the synth part at 3:39. For the most part, I like the synths throughout.

I like the atmosphere of this piece, but it is a bit too repetitive for me. It's mostly the same chord progression, and it looses some of its power after six minutes.

Nice work on this though.

OpenLight responds:

Thank you! I agree that it loses its power. It's kinda what I intended but at the same time I didn't mean for it to become so non-powerful that it became boring.

Thanks again for the great review.

[Isis]

Very minimalistic. I like how you shifted the harmonies around subtly while maintaining the same basic riff throughout. This piece didn't evoke any thoughts of Egypt for me, but I did get the feeling of ice. This sounds like background music for a stage in a puzzle game.

Nice.

BenTibbetts responds:

A thought: If you like this track, and you like minimalism, you may like Philip Glass' Aguas de Amazonia. It shares some aesthetic similarities with this music. Here's a Wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aguas_da_Amazonia

[-Rupture-]

This is awesome! I originally wanted to do something dark like this for the first round, but I ended up opting for a piano piece instead. Maybe later on...

Anyway, I love the mixture of orchestra and electronics. The balance is just right. I also like how the piece slowly develops. Amazing work.

[Mass Extinction]

I love the haunting and ethereal sound of the strings. That opening progression is one that I like to improvise on. This piece is a really cool mixture of genres. I enjoy how it takes its time in developing.

Great piece full of interesting tone colors and tons of contrast while maintaining cohesiveness. Very nice.