BlazingDragon's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Chemicals [NGADM]]

Fantastic mixing, playing, everything. The piece is dynamic, contrasting, and full of great transitions. This is great material.

I LOVE the progressions you use. The chromatically descending bassline at 1:36 is super catchy. I love the minor dominant 3:39. The chord after that was totally unexpected but worked very well. You really make great use of altered chords.

And the vocal work is awesome. I don't find that much on NG.

I don't have much to say except that I love this piece. I feel so swept away as I listen to it. The jazz influence is what makes it so incredible for me. It's so fresh. So...not cliche. Fantastic craftsmanship here.

Do you know much music theory or are you just doing this by ear?

Kor-Rune responds:

Thanks for the review! I updated the track, it sounds better and has a few more vocal parts. But it's the same idea.

THANK YOU for recognizing theory! Yeah, my rule is: when in doubt, go chromatic LOL. The minor dominant is my favorite modulation, I'm afraid to waste it because I think I have two or three other songs where I do it. It's such a good feeling in the stomach to hear. I have to cut it out and not spoil the magic.

I know chord theory and enough scales to move around in chords, but I can't sightread super fast. I have to sit down with sheet music for a long time to get it right. I appreciate the detail in your review,, thank you! I need to hear what you have in store. :>

Thanks again!

[Floating Through Reality]

I love the pulsating electric piano(?) sound. This piece has a very organic quality due to the breath noises and such. I also dig the effect at the end around 1:52.

This piece is very floaty and ethereal, but it feels undeveloped. It seems awfully short for an ambient track. I'd be more inclined to give it a full five stars if it spent more time evolving. It just feels incomplete as is. Pretty cool overall though.

td6d responds:

Thanks man, I might make it longer one day.

[This is where it ends]

I do love organ. Where did you get that sound? I love how percussive it is.

Anywho, nice little tune you have here. I like the string line at :26 and the organ riffs throughout. The chord progression is okay but not particularly interesting. If this was longer and had more development to it, I'd be able to critique more.

Catchy.

FairSquare responds:

The organ thingy is a slighty altered Nexus preset :3
Thanks for the review!

[Masq - The Finale]

Man, this is dark, gritty stuff. I love the soundscape! Fantastic mixing, transitions, etc.

I'm normally a fan of really melodic music, but this held my attention with all its subtleties. Nice. And the end thirty seconds was pretty sick.

jpbear responds:

really happy the atmospheric parts kept your attention, really my sole goal when making stuff like this.

thankxs for your thoughts, best of luck in the ngadm :)

[BurnThisPlaceToTheGround]

Cool use of borrowed chords. I love the I v iv v progression and the asymmetrical meter. It seems more like 7/4 than 7/8 to me, though.

Some (hopefully) constructive critiques:
-For a piece that is almost 4 minutes, the soundscape is pretty stagnant. To keep listeners interested, I'd try adding a contrasting section to the song structure. As of now, It's like the whole piece is one long A section that keeps repeating. Perhaps you could try an ABA structure, where the middle section has different chords, varied instrumentation, dynamics, etc.
-The vocals sound very underwater. I've never recorded vocals and thus do not have specific advice, but try bringing them more to the front of the mix.
-From a singer's perspective, the voice sounds a bit nasally. How to improve that? Not quite sure. Also, try not to scoop into notes, but have the pitch in your head and your vocal muscles prepared so that you can come in right on pitch at the attack of a note.
-i like the alternating panning on the cymbals, but the percussion could use some work. Try changing the velocities on each cymbal hit to make it sound more organic and natural. Also, maybe EQ the kick so it comes through the mix with more clarity and presence.
-Vocally, don't interrupt a phrase with a misplaced breath. At 2:26 for example, the breath totally disrupts the flow of the line. Take a deeper breath before coming in to help avoid this. Also, don't roughly cut off the end of phrases by making the last word uber short. Hold out the last note of a phrase a bit longer. Imagine you were speaking the words to someone as if in a conversation. You typically wouldn't breath in the middle of a sentence and cut words really short.

Cool idea as far of progression and meter is concerned, but problems in execution really hold this back. Learning about mixing and musical form could go a long way in pushing your work to the next level. Hope that helps.

[Propter Te]

The first three chords made me think that your piece would turn into a remix of the Hyrule Temple Theme from Smash Bros. :p

I love this piece. Catchy melody, rhythmically driving, full of good transitions, structurally sensible, dynamic, and harmonically creative. At 1:39, I like that ascending chromatic bass movement from bVII, V6 to i. The chromatically descending bass a little after 2 minutes is also nice. I LOVE the bVIMaj7 chord at 2:46. Nice way to change things up. I also really like how you go from iidim to v at 2:48. I wish more people would use those tense diminished chords. And bonus points for using v from natural minor instead of V with the leading tone. I love the mellow sound of v...

The instrumentation is very effective. Starting at 2:51, I love the decorative piano lines. I also really like the high pitched bell sounding instrument that plays on the down beats starting around 2:21. Oh yeah, and I knew this piece would be awesome when the bass guitar rolled in at the beginning. >:D

However, I didn't care for how muffled the vocals sounded throughout. Everything else was so clear, but the vocals sounded underwater for most of it. Maybe that was an intentional choice, but it just didn't sit well with me. The panning at 3:11 was very interesting. I'm still not sure whether I like it or not. The vocal part at 3:51...I get what you are trying to do, but it seems to me like it was not as effective as it could have been. I believe you come in there singing on the bII scale degree. There is so much tension there that it feels like the climax of the song. That note usually serves as a sort of downward pointing leading tone to tonic and I want to hear it so much! But the line then meanders around feels like it falls flat. I think it'd work better if you held that bII, dropped out, let the guitar do its thing, and then hit tonic hard when you come back in. That part just put a bad taste in my mouth. My little brother who was casually hanging out in my room inattentively gave me a sudden, confused look at that part.

With the exception of that one part, I really, really dig this. I hope that you eventually redo this piece and clean it up a little, because it is awesome and could stand to be even better.

Keep 'em coming!

Troisnyx responds:

I'm aware. The vocals are the main thing which gash the piece. I have no choice, unfortunately: crappy PC mic. T_T

Thanks for the review! x

[-Watch Me Bleed- (Cover)]

Don't worry about the tempo being too loose! I actually wanted a little more rubato in places as I was listening.

Pretty good as a whole. Some notes struck me as being pounded a bit too harshly, so developing a lighter touch wouldn't hurt. A little more dynamic contrast would also be nice, though that's being picky. It also seemed like some places could have used more pedal, like around the part starting at 4:01.

I'm not familiar with the source material, but this is beautiful stuff. Keep it coming and nice work on the keys! :)

Oh, and I love how you end it in terms of expression.

Back-From-Purgatory responds:

I'm actually still trying to perfect the velocity settings for my MIDI keyboard, at the time of this recording, I had the sensitivity a bit too high, giving it that feeling that I'm kind of pounding on the keys most of the time... I've made tweaks recently that more or less correct this.. but I do still need to practice playing with a lighter touch on top of that.

As for pedal... I actually don't have one, generally, I just set the release for the keys up to let the notes drag out a bit while I play... Depends on the song I'm playing as to how high I set it... but until I get an actual pedal, it'll have to do.

Thanks for the review!

[Discovering the Pieces]

The melancholy in this piece is quite striking and communicates the essence of your poetry quite well. My favorite part is from :30-:37. Around the :32 mark, there is this lush, dense chord that rings out beautifully. Subtle details, such as the light bass drum hits, enhance the atmosphere. The unresolved ending is wonderful. It leaves such a sad sense of self-reflection. The piece is calming and beautiful as a whole but could use some work to become even better. Here are some of the ideas that came to my mind.

Direction. The piece is atmospheric and brooding, but it mostly meanders in a constant ebb and flow with taking me anywhere much different. There is a layering of instruments as the piece progresses, and I like that, but it ultimately falls flat without much of a climax. It grows from the beginning to 1:58, causing me to expect some type of an emotional high point with incredible tension, a peak from which the piece would descend until that unresolved end. After all the growth though, all the energy dropped and it went back to where it started, and that felt more accidental than intentional. I would have loved a true climax to make this piece truly tell a story. The story you wrote in the comments.

I also would have liked a little more dissonance in the strings to show the anxiety and confusion of the protagonist. Putting a delay effect on the piano would have been cool. I think that it would contribute to the ethereal feel that you paint. And this is all subjective, but I would have liked a stronger focus on melody. The long, sustained strings notes create a haunting and yet peaceful feel over the repeating chord progression, but the piece ends up being more forgettable and pleasant than profound and memorable. You've got a nice, flowing atmosphere, but no melodic voice to carry the listener on a journey.

I enjoy this piece. Keep up the composing!

[Travels of Vagabonds ~P~]

I about started laughing when the piece got to :49. Except for that last chord, it is the same as Gerudo Valley from Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and the Spanish feel definitely contributes to that vibe. Why is that funny? I have no idea. :)

Anywho, this is catchy. A little repetitive and melodically sparse, but it serves it's purpose well and sets a nice move. The rhythm had a "horse-galloping" sort of feel that helped with the desert feel. I was slightly bothered by the chord at :58. I REALLY wanted it to be a V chord like in the previous phrase, but it never quite resolved. It just didn't feel quite right in the context you have it since it is isolated and doesn't occur again in the piece.

That's a fairly picky criticism though. Nice work and keep it up! You make some catchy tunes.

[The Portraits]

I love you.

Seriously, this is nice. The way that the bass constantly shifts on the last sixteenth note of each measure paints a sonic picture of the hunter's discomfort in the cabin. Speaking of which, lovely story. It definitely helps contextualize and enhance the composition.

The harmonic progression is my favorite aspect of this piece. Your use of borrowed chords to create a chromatic bass-line is lovely. One of my favorite techniques actually. There is one change that I would love to hear though. The chord on bVI at :31, where the bass plays in ocatves? I really wanted to hear that instead as a french augmented sixth chord. So instead of going from bVI to bVI and octave up in the bass, it would go from bVI up to #IV, which would resolve up to the V in the next chord as the bVI resolves down to the V. It would have put more pressure on the dominant, which seems fitting with the string of pre-dominants you use.

The strings added a further layer of depth to this piece. That part at :38 to :41 in the strings was nice. Oh so very creepy. The piano is also very nice. I'm guessing it was sequenced based? Or was it just heavily quantized to keep with that sixteenth note pattern? If it was sequenced, the velocities were varied nicely.

For extra creepyness, a bowed waterphone sample would contribute significantly. A heavily reverbed, distant-sounding oboe line would also be awesome...Basically, an orchestral version of this would rock my face. :p

Excellent work. Your composition is simple and yet holds enough small harmonic and rhythmic complexities to make it accessibly sophisticated. Make more music. Now.

S3C responds:

hey man! nice hearing from you. we traded off reviews a while back....by that I mean like 4 years ago. Not sure if you remember. Your knowledge in music theory has grown immensely; I'm quite impressed with your sensibilities as your analysis of the bass rhythm and harmonic progression seems to be (almost) spot on.

the chord at :31 is actually in fact a Fr6+...(the #IV is already in an upper voice). It's functionality may be disguised somewhat because of how the chords are structured though.

yep, it's all sequenced based, like all but 3-4 songs I've posted on here.

I like your instrument suggestions. The waterphone was considered for added ambiance but I wanted the piece to have a more traditional approach and the fact that I've already overused waterphone samples a bit :P An oboe or bassoon would work wonders.

glad you like the story and piece. i've been in a music block more or less for 2 years now...not sure where my creativity and drive has gone. but receiving reviews like yours certainly inspires me to submit more content.

thanks a lot for the detailed review; it was helpful and I enjoyed reading it!