TaintedLogic's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Lordant - A Star Like Me]

The Celtic flute at the beginning is absolutely haunting, and the reverberant atmosphere and warm strings help give this an adventuresome and profound aura. I love the string swells, like at :47. The mix is perhaps a tad quiet, but very well-balanced and clean. The contour of the flute melody gets a tad repetitive at around 1:20, so I’m glad you decided to break it up a bit with the piano bridge at 1:33. The texture is pretty minimal for most of the piece, but the reverb and well-balanced frequencies help keep me engaged. The energetic, ascending string line at 2:26 is really nice, and captures the tension of the piece well going into 2:54 nicely. The vocals and the way the piano rejoins there makes for a fairly subtle yet very effective final climax. The callback to the flute and strings works nicely too. The emotional appeal of the string solo during the outro is top-notch. Overall, what can I say? You did it again, Lordant. Despite my nitpicks, this is a fantastic piece all around. Congratulations on your success in this competition. It’s been an absolute pleasure hearing so much of your work these past 5 months. ^_^

Mixing, mastering, and balance
1.75/2
Structure, transitions, phrasing, and variety
1.25/1.5
Melody, tonality, harmony, and texture
1.75/2
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?)
1/1
Composite score
9.25/10

Lordant responds:

It's kinda ironic that every entry of mine that you've favorited got 4.5 stars, and the ones that you didn't, on the contrary, received 5 stars from you :)
Thanks for feedback, as always!

[Anywhere Else]

I like the hip-hop inspired beats and dreamy guitar at the beginning. Love the rich bass and atmosphere too. Similar progression and sound design as the last piece I reviewed, but that's fine. This one sounds much more fleshed-out with the beat and well-balanced frequencies. Could use some vocals or a lead melody to give it a stronger sense of drive, but otherwise I really like it. Cheers, man! ^_^

SensoryDecay responds:

Haha yeah this and Nethermind were made in the same session, didn't really feel like figuring out a way to mesh them together so I just SLICED them apart like a savage. I've been overcoming this darker feeling lately and I've not been in a very good headspace most days and this song kinda reflected that. I would sing on it, but this is one that I just wanted to let meander in my headspace

I've really been trying to work on my drums, I never practiced drums and my rhythm is pretty god awful so anytime I can hone drums is pretty cool. My personal trick is to layer a lot of different styles and find a cool melody between them. I will always default to hip hop sounding beats though, I don't find acoustic drums too satisfying. When played right they are amazing, but usually they sound way too pedestrian to be interesting. I also sound like a total ass using words like pedestrian with a straight face.

*Edit - Deantoni Parks and Jon Theodore come to mind as far as modern great drummers (there are WAY more I know OH John Stanier is another mONster drummer.)

[Nethermind]

I like the relaxed guitar at the beginning and the dreamy organ drone at :16. The piano that came in every 4 beats for 2 notes was a bit loud in the mix, but once the rest of the atmosphere falls together it blends in nicely. Solid work overall! Sounds (fittingly) very pensive and introspective. ^_^

SensoryDecay responds:

Dude, I had no idea what to do with this. It started off as a cool idea and then I was like...EH? I stumped my head on where to go with it, and then Anywhere Else happened. And I was like...well I should marry these two...and then I didn't. Also, everything is too loud haha, not mixed well.

[The Stand]

Ahh, I missed this one. I like the catchy guitar riff and the twangy vocals. The texture is a bit minimal and bottom-heavy sometimes. I definitely wanted some of the compositional details to come through more, like the hi-hat rolls starting at 1:21. I definitely like the spoken vocal clips that pop up occasionally, like at 1:38. The lyrics themselves are also really good here. I think my favorite line is "I've been looking for the devil, I don't see the signs." The layering at 2:36 is a nice way of hitting the piece home towards the end. Solid track overall! Definitely feels bluesy and introspective, which I like. Keep it up, Lil Arm! ^_^

[I Didn't]

Love the sound design and energy here, Connor. I can tell you've gotten a lot better at mixing vocals over the last few years. The composition details here (the screech at :38, hi-hat rolls, etc.) are also top-notch. Really catchy beats and strong production quality all around. Hope you do more like this in the near future! ^_^

ConnorGrail responds:

Thank you friend! Ive definitely been working a lot more on production/vocals/etc so that means a lot! glad you enjoyed the track, I put a lot of me into agonizing over it and I am quite happy with the result

[my grandma (wrote the bible for me)]

Love the distorted vocals and the 1950s rock 'n' roll sound design. Almost thought the vocals were some sort of kazoo at first. XD The solo at 1:32 with the spoken word lyrics is probably my favorite part of the piece. The ending is a bit sudden, and I do want to at least know what the lyrics are despite the distortion sounding really cool. Still, neat track that is, as usual with you, very well-produced. Cheers, Bryce! ^_^

[neural pathways]

Those are some dark lyrics, man. Hope everything is okay. But I love the strong guitar strums and the crisp drums. Mix is really good here too, and the dreamy atmosphere and introspective vocals help round out the sound design nicely. Keep it up! ^_^

[-Censored-]

I like the eerie mood at the beginning. The harsh drones at :17 could use a bit of softening at the high end of the frequency range, but I like the creative beats at :28. The piece is pretty minimal throughout - some more mid-range tones, even a simple pad or atmospheric elements, would help it feel more full. The hi-hats at 2:55 are a tad too loud for my tastes.

The structure of the piece also sounds a bit incoherent. The different lead riffs seem to follow one after another, but don't seem very well-connected to each other. There's the blissful, short-lived mid-range bass riff at :51, grittier bass riff at 1:26 with the prominent beat, directly into the echo-y mallets/bells at 1:48, etc. You've lined up your ideas like books on a bookshelf; instead, I want them to be a part of the same story.

At the very end (around 3:30), you start integrating the different riffs with each other for the first time in the piece. It sounds a little dissonant, but that's probably okay for a piece like this. Ideally, you'd start by writing a collection of riffs in the same key and that all follow the same chord progression. To be more specific: first, choose a 5-7 note scale to work from. Then write 4-6 chords in a row in the piano roll that use that scale. You may only need to change 1 note at a time from one chord to the next. Then, when you write harmony lines, play them over the chord progressions so that a note in the harmony line is always in the chord that's playing at the same time. That way, it's a lot easier to get different harmony lines in your song to layer on top of each other and still sound good. I know that sounds really restrictive, but it'll make your piece sound much more cohesive until layering a bunch of harmonies on top of each other comes more naturally to you as a composer.

I don't want all of this to make you feel like I hated your piece or anything, because I didn't. The beats and instruments are cool, and the mix holds up pretty well. I just strongly feel like a good next step for you as a composer is to work on adding depth (but not dissonance) to your harmonies. This is something I struggled with immensely during my first few years as a composer too.

Hope you found this review helpful. Please reach out again for more feedback once you've tried my harmonic layering exercise! ^_^

Creeperforce24 responds:

I’m starting to think none of this will help and I’m just using the wrong presets, or maybe I’m just learning still as you said, either way.

Maybe it’s just my style of music, even though I take inspiration from waterflame and predatormusic, I try to keep things more original, I feel I might just need to get better.

thanks for your feedback.

[Radiance]

Hey TheGrassGuy! Believe it or not, two months later I'm still circling back and trying to give people some NGUAC feedback on tracks where the judges didn't provide it initially.

Love the laid-back mood and acoustic sound design here. Reminds me of a 70s soft rock ballad or something. There's a great sense of gradual build-up into the part at 1:35 or so. The breakdown at 1:52 comes on a bit suddenly, but you transition well back into the upbeat and busier section at 2:25, and the expressive piano there is especially nice. The mixing here is also rather good - crisp drums and well-balanced frequencies throughout. The rich strings and melodies at 3:08 hit the piece home quite nicely, and I'm also a fan of the mellow outro. "Radiance" is a fitting title - this piece just has an elegant kind of buoyancy to it. Stellar work! Hope to see you back in the NGUAC next year. ^_^

[Silver Phoenix]

I like the echo-y strings at the beginning and the dark tone of the piece at :08. The eerie percussion at :11 helps establish the atmosphere, and the brass and other sound design elements all mesh nicely together as well. I think I would’ve liked to hear a bit more of the militaristic percussion in the mix at around :40 onward, but otherwise the production quality is great here. There’s a lot of pent-up tension in this piece, but I’m not sure it ever really gets resolved. You do a good job of creating variety with the instrumentation, but after a while the harmonic framework gets a tad repetitive. The pattern of the heavy downbeats with the dramatic quarter note riffs following (1:06, 1:21, 1:38, etc.) is effective at ratcheting up the intensity for a while, but also gets fairly predictable after a couple of minutes, and it doesn’t help that during many of those riffs the rhythm is fairly square. Still, the melodic content, sound design, and mixing are characteristically strong here, and I thoroughly enjoy the cinematic style of this piece. Keep it up, LSD! ^_^

Mixing, mastering, and balance
1.75/2
Structure, transitions, phrasing, and variety
1/1.5
Melody, tonality, harmony, and texture
2/2
Instrumentation and sound design
1/1
Emotion, atmosphere, and catchiness
1.25/1.5
Originality and uniqueness
1/1
Overall (how do the elements above interact?)
.75/1
Composite score
8.75/10

LucidShadowDreamer responds:

Finally I have a bit of time to respond :'D

I composed the short intro on the piano, but it took the longest time for me to figure out what instrument should play it, in this cinematic version. I tried all kinds of things, but ended up going with just a solo violin at the end. I'm glad you like it, for that reason!

Nice catch with some of the percussion dropping out after the first section of the piece! The idea was to change things up and keep things progressing, but in hindsight I agree that the execution could have been better. I also see your point about the lack of many satisfying resolutions. On one hand, that's intentional, as I wanted to keep the tension growing until the climax. But I think it just goes on for a bit too long and stagnates a bit, unfortunately.

Those problem-areas aside, I'm happy to hear you enjoyed the composition! I would like to do something very similar to this again in the future, but just... A bit better xD