TaintedLogic's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Fusion]

I like the wistful mood at the beginning and the cutesy melodies. The crisp beats at :25 are nice too, although the snare might be a tad heavy given the mellow vibes during the first 45 seconds or so of the piece. The refrain at :51 was also a pleasant experience, and I’m thoroughly convinced that your melody-writing skills are quite strong now. The breakdown at 1:42 was good for some structural contrast, but a bit minimal and uninspired. I also think a lot of the synths here are a bit cheesy, but I enjoyed the build-up into 2:55 and the more melodic flair the second drop takes on. The texture has a great languid feel to it, which fits the nostalgic melodies really well. Stripping away the beat for the outro was also a good idea; it really sold the emotional quality of the piece. Overall, I really like the composition and production quality here! The instrumentation, while a tad corny, seems fitting in context. The arrangement was a tad generic too, but the progression was also effective at giving this piece a strong sense of narrative. A memorable piece for sure! Keep at it, Zephpopli. ^_^

Mixing, mastering, and balance
1.75/2
Structure, transitions, phrasing, and variety
1.25/1.5
Melody, tonality, harmony, and texture
2/2
Instrumentation and sound design
.5/1
Emotion, atmosphere, and catchiness
1.5/1.5
Originality and uniqueness
.5/1
Overall (how do the elements above interact?)
1/1
Composite score
8.5/10

[Z3rky - 4019]

I like the catchy beats and quirky synth riffs at the beginning. The mix is loud and clear, if maybe a tad over-compressed. The rhythmic content here is fantastic, but I would’ve liked to hear some more variety in the harmonic content over time - structural contrast, dynamic melodies, etc. You’re clearly a talented producer, though. The mixing effects, sound design, production quality, and defiant mood of the whole piece are really compelling. Keep at it, Z3RKON! :)

Mixing, mastering, and balance
1.75/2
Structure, transitions, phrasing, and variety
.5/1.5
Melody, tonality, harmony, and texture
1.25/2
Instrumentation and sound design
1/1
Emotion, atmosphere, and catchiness
1.25/1.5
Originality and uniqueness
.75/1
Overall (how do the elements above interact?)
.25/1
Composite score
6.75/10

[Ye Olde Potion Seller]

I like the tranquil mood and medieval theme at the beginning. The hip-hop beat pairs really nicely with the majestic strings and harps. The bass might be a tad loud, but overall the mixing and mastering is really strong here. I like the flute solo at 1:14 a lot too, and the string solo at the end hits the piece home nicely. I also like how the piece comes full circle by the end with the distinguished-sounding harpsichord - makes the piece more loopable that way. :) The composition here could’ve been a tad bolder and more dynamic in places, but overall this is really strong work, Young-Kingler! Keep it up. ^_^

Mixing, mastering, and balance
1.75/2
Structure, transitions, phrasing, and variety
1/1.5
Melody, tonality, harmony, and texture
1.75/2
Instrumentation and sound design
1/1
Emotion, atmosphere, and catchiness
1.25/1.5
Originality and uniqueness
.75/1
Overall (how do the elements above interact?)
1/1
Composite score
8.5/10

[SuperCynical]

You have some really creative rhythmic ideas in this piece, and the instruments are cute and feel fitting for a video game. It is a bit hard to follow some of the rhythms before the rest of the texture fills in, and the composition feels pretty disjointed here. You have a lot of different riffs that play one after the other without much interconnectivity between them, from :07 to :11 to :17 to :30 (which was an especially rough transition) to :38, etc. There’s some repetition later on, but the content is still pretty minimal and choppy. I think one of the most difficult aspects of writing music is layering different harmonies on top of each other, but I think until you find a way to either make that layering work or transition more gradually between these different harmonic ideas, this piece will be a bit jarring to listen to. I’d suggest trying to consolidate your ideas and working on having multiple harmonies playing at once, rather than creating variety by lining up all your harmonic riffs back-to-back. When you feel like you’ve done that, PM me and I’ll leave you another review. And to be clear, a lot of the isolated ideas here are good. The organ-sounding synth at :48 is really catchy and fun, for example. It’s just that the transitions between the ideas are a bit abrupt. Keep at it, YingYong215! :)

Mixing, mastering, and balance
1/2
Structure, transitions, phrasing, and variety
.5/1.5
Melody, tonality, harmony, and texture
.5/2
Instrumentation and sound design
.25/1
Emotion, atmosphere, and catchiness
.5/1.5
Originality and uniqueness
.25/1
Overall (how do the elements above interact?)
0/1
Composite score
3/10

[rotting.]

I like the eerie atmosphere at the beginning. The progression is a bit slow-paced, though, and the start of the busy beat at :47 comes on pretty suddenly. The rhythmic content is really creative here, but I would’ve liked to hear some more harmonic content at some point to make the piece a bit more well-rounded and fill out the texture. There were some creative ideas, like the addition of the squeaky rhythmic synth at 2:00 or so. The section at 2:19 is nice - sounds like an appropriate breakdown for the piece, even though there wasn’t much harmonic content in the preceding 2 minutes. But the transition into 2:19 is pretty rough, as is the transition back into the frantic beat at 3:08. The dark, minimal bridge at 3:45 is also evocative and neat, and I like how it continues to repeat once the beat comes back. The effects at around 5:25 are really cool, and the echo-y vocals shortly thereafter seem really ominous in the context of the dark tone of the rest of the piece. The distortion at the end was quite fitting. Frankly, I think the persistent minimalism of this piece is a big missed opportunity, and the arrangement feels rather choppy at times, but this is still pretty compelling content. The mix is clean and clear, if rather heavily compressed, the sound design is quite evocative, and the rhythmic content and atmosphere are top-notch. Keep at it, xPastelxBloodx! :)

Mixing, mastering, and balance
1.75/2
Structure, transitions, phrasing, and variety
.5/1.5
Melody, tonality, harmony, and texture
.75/2
Instrumentation and sound design
1/1
Emotion, atmosphere, and catchiness
1.5/1.5
Originality and uniqueness
1/1
Overall (how do the elements above interact?)
.75/1
Composite score
7.25/10

[Ys - Mountain Pass (Windman Remix)]

I like the eerie atmosphere at the beginning and the occasional injections of edgy guitar notes. The progression is pretty slow-paced in the first 2 minutes, and I think the gradual fade-out before the beat came in at 1:43 disrupted the flow a bit. It’s a bit jarring how the energy level of the piece changed so suddenly. I like the warm, smooth texture by around 2:15, though, and the climax into 2:54 was nice. I think the drums get a bit buried in the mix at that point, but I appreciate the melodic content and cutesy sound design. The chord progression is a bit cliche, but the rhythmic variations at around 3:30 help keep me engaged, and the guitar solo at 4:00 was a nice touch. The piece feels really conclusive and triumphant by around 5:00, and the organ synth solo at 5:40 was another highlight for me. At some point, I might’ve liked to see a bit more structural contrast from you - a section where you strip away the beat and add some variety to the instrumental palette, that is - especially in such a long piece. The return of the guitar solos at 6:33 was a welcome development, though, and overall you hit the piece home quite well. Something about the atmospheric sections that bookend the piece feel a bit superfluous to me. They’re lovely in and of themselves, but I’m not sure how they contribute to the narrative of the rest of the track. You could try integrating them with each other, but that might be difficult given the very different moods they elicit. Overall, besides the disjointed structure at either end of the piece, I think my biggest problem here is the mixing. The drums could’ve been a lot punchier with some more careful equalizing and a little more compression. The “middle section” between 1:43 and 7:28 could also probably use some more variety and phrasing to keep the listener engaged. That said, I like the sound design, atmosphere, mood, rhythmic elements, and melodic content of the piece a lot. Keep at it, Windman03! :)

Mixing, mastering, and balance
1/2
Structure, transitions, phrasing, and variety
1/1.5
Melody, tonality, harmony, and texture
1.75/2
Instrumentation and sound design
.75/1
Emotion, atmosphere, and catchiness
1.25/1.5
Originality and uniqueness
.75/1
Overall (how do the elements above interact?)
.75/1
Composite score
7.25/10

[ikitai (feat. 初音ミク)]

I like the spacey pads at the beginning. The chord progression is a bit fast-paced considering the large jumps in pitch between them, but by :30 or so the texture is coming together pretty well. The vocaloid section is a bit cheesy, and a lot of the drum samples are pretty generic. At some point, I would’ve liked to see you shake up the harmonic framework a bit. The echo-y vocals at 1:28 were a good idea, but other than that there’s not a ton of novel content in the second half of this piece. Overall, I like the cute mood, progression, and atmosphere of this one, but I think it needs some more variety, tighter mixing and mastering, and better-polished synths. Still, the rhythmic content, upbeat vibes, and creative drum riffs are memorable here. Keep at it, WMTH! :)

Mixing, mastering, and balance
1.25/2
Structure, transitions, phrasing, and variety
.5/1.5
Melody, tonality, harmony, and texture
1.25/2
Instrumentation and sound design
.5/1
Emotion, atmosphere, and catchiness
1.25/1.5
Originality and uniqueness
.5/1
Overall (how do the elements above interact?)
.75/1
Composite score
6/10

[Frozen Industry]

I like the ominous percussion and atmosphere at the beginning. The progression is a bit slow-paced, but the echo effects and heavy percussion help keep things interesting for a while. The rhythmic content is good, too, and the alternating ascending and descending synth lines (like at 1:01) are also pretty neat. By around the 2-minute mark, though, I’m getting a little restless with the persistent minimalism of the piece. The atmosphere feels a bit more saturated by that point, but I still need some harmonic content to grasp onto at some point. There are some creative compositional and rhythmic ideas in here, and the bass at 2:33 helps at least outline the skeleton of a chord progression, but it’s not quite enough to keep me engaged after a while. I could see this piece fitting quite well in a post-apocalyptic-themed video game, but as a stand-alone piece the composition is pretty bland at the end of the day. You’re clearly a talented producer with a knack for creating catchy beats, foreboding moods, and rich textural atmospheres, but I was looking for a bit more harmonic depth here. My favorite aspect of this piece is probably the mood. You do overuse the ascending and descending synth patterns a bit by the end, but in the meantime there’s plenty of great nightmare fuel in here, especially at around 6:10. Keep at it, VictorLincolnPine! :)

Mixing, mastering, and balance
1.75/2
Structure, transitions, phrasing, and variety
.5/1.5
Melody, tonality, harmony, and texture
1/2
Instrumentation and sound design
1/1
Emotion, atmosphere, and catchiness
1.25/1.5
Originality and uniqueness
.75/1
Overall (how do the elements above interact?)
.25/1
Composite score
6.5/10

VictorLincolnPine responds:

The piece was designed for a game where the world is foreboding and deadly at every turn, but eventually the player becomes so powerful that world itself can literally be erased by them if they so choose. I didn't necessarily compose it for engagement, but rather as the background for something the player is already doing (in this case trudging through the very deadly Frozen Vault, where there's explosives literally buried in the snow).

Thank you for your honest criticism. I will keep it in mind for future works. (especially for this knockout round).

Addendum: Just to let you know, there are in fact no chords in this piece. The work is a shaman style piece that uses drums and sound design with sparse synth.

[Memory of a Muse]

I like the cutesy instruments and melodies at the beginning. The chords sound a tad clunky, though - you might want to make sure the notes aren’t too close together in pitch, just to open them up a bit. No need to change the actual chords, just move notes up or down an octave until they sound a bit looser and milder. I like the injection of energy at :39 and the vocals at the transition at :38. The harmonic content here is pretty repetitive, and I also wish the melodies were a bit more prominent in the mix. Otherwise, the mixing here is quite good, and the dreamy solo at 1:42 helps hit the piece home towards the end. Really catchy and cute piece overall, Vater! Keep up the good work. ^_^

Mixing, mastering, and balance
2/2
Structure, transitions, phrasing, and variety
1/1.5
Melody, tonality, harmony, and texture
1.75/2
Instrumentation and sound design
1/1
Emotion, atmosphere, and catchiness
1.25/1.5
Originality and uniqueness
.75/1
Overall (how do the elements above interact?)
.75/1
Composite score
8.5/10

[User 817sd - APAC:3]

I like the atmosphere at the beginning and the echo-y synth line at :10. The reverb is a bit heavy by :19, to the extent that it distorts the texture a bit. Part of the problem may be that the pads and melody synths have too many bass tones left in them in the equalizer (send me a PM if you don’t know what I mean). I also think the chord progression and some of the instruments here are a bit generic, especially the drums. The harmonic content gets pretty repetitive after a while, even if you vary the energy levels and instrumental palette well enough. At some point, it might’ve been advisable to go for even more contrast by stripping away the beat and adding an atmospheric bridge or breakdown. I like the transition with the drum fill at 2:14, although otherwise the rhythmic content here is also a bit bland. You certainly have a good sense of harmony, progression, and atmosphere, but you’ll need some tighter mastering and more variety to boost your score. Keep at it, User! :)

Mixing, mastering, and balance
1/2
Structure, transitions, phrasing, and variety
.75/1.5
Melody, tonality, harmony, and texture
1.5/2
Instrumentation and sound design
.5/1
Emotion, atmosphere, and catchiness
1/1.5
Originality and uniqueness
.5/1
Overall (how do the elements above interact?)
.75/1
Composite score
6/10