TaintedLogic's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Into the Heart of the Beast]

I like the atmosphere and mystery at the beginning. The instruments mesh really well and help create a great sense of build over the course of the first minute or so. The panning was a nice touch too. The transition at 1:32 was a bit abrupt, and I wish you had done more to smooth it over (added a crash, preemptive drum fill, etc.). I also thought the next section with the whirring sounds was a little drawn out, and then the whirring sounds stop pretty suddenly once you faded in the next section at 2:27. I liked the intricate rhythms of the pizzicatos at around 2:38, but I thought it sounded a bit too minimalistic without any other percussion or bass. Eventually, the percussion comes back in along with this beautiful woodwind line at 3:04. There are a lot of cool isolated riffs and harmonies here, but overall the piece has little sense of coherence. During the 2nd half of the piece (2:30 - end), the piece is reminiscent of a series of solos in the middle of a band piece. This lack of succinctness detracts from the piece overall, unfortunately. The ending was rather enjoyable, though, and the mixing and mastering here are solid throughout. You’ve adopted a lot of disparate melodic themes here without connecting or developing them in any meaningful way, replacing them in jarringly rapid succession. Approaches like this can work, but you’ve got to flesh out these themes more and connect them more carefully if that’s the case. Right now, you have some rough transitions (such at 3:21) that don’t effectively bridge the gap between these ideas. It’s this lack of both connectivity and overarching development that constitute my main concerns with this piece. That said, I love the instrumentation and mood. You’ve given this piece a full-textured and unique sound design, and the frequencies are well-balanced and clear throughout. Overall solid work! Keep at it, man. ;)

7.5/10

[pür]

It’s a catchy piece. You kind of launch right into the action without much of a sense of introduction. Even a sweep or crash at the beginning might’ve helped release some tension and allowed you to draw the most emotion possible out of the ensuing buildup. The buildup itself was really drawn out, and only resolves at around the 1-minute mark, ⅓ of the way through the piece. That said, you don’t really have much strong melodic content in there, even during the “refrain” at 1:00. You essentially just added the 5th into the chord with an instrument I thought sounded a little thin. Then, by around 1:45 the rhythm was a little hard-to-follow and some of the notes became indistinct, which might be because of an excess of reverb. I thought the drums were mastered well throughout the track, although after a while the track gets very repetitive and never really has a second climax. The ending was not very conclusive at all, and in fact I thought the transition at 3:00 was going to lead to another “emotional height.” Having only one peak of energy in your track is a risky move compositionally, and so the drawn-out last minute or so of the piece subsequently failed to keep me engaged. Overall, I think you need more structural variety, including a proper breakdown or bridge section and some more fleshed out melodies later in the piece. The mixing is good, the transitions are solid, and you have a good sense of harmony. Otherwise, you have some work to do on the structural and melodic content. Keep at it, man. ;)

6/10

AwesomeAri responds:

Thanks for the feedback! I wasn't able to finish it :c by the time I knew that time was given until 30th I was already on vacation :c but nvm at least I know what to learn!

[Alone Together]

I like the blissful, cute mood here. It has a great flow to it. It’s pensive and moody, and you nailed the atmosphere here. Unfortunately, this isn’t a structurally complete piece. The progression is enjoyable, but I think the piece would’ve benefitted from a proper breakdown section and some more dynamic contrast. The sounds meshed well together, although I think you could’ve used some more careful equalization. For example, the arpeggios at :56 get pretty lost in the mix once the woodwinds come in at 1:04. Your harmonic content was very enjoyable, though, and I liked how you kept the texture full throughout. Other elements of the piece were solid yet not particularly remarkable. For instance, I think you could’ve found ways to do more with the rhythm section (drums and bass) as well as panning, compression, etc. to improve the mixing. I love the emotion and atmosphere here, but I think you should focus on fleshing out this piece a little more instead of limiting yourself to 1.5 minutes. Overall solid work. Keep at it, man. ;)

7.5/10

[SkullCandy - Her Sweet Farewell]

I like the cute strings at the beginning. The kick drum has a bit too many higher-end frequencies in there, I think. I would suggest layering some kick samples if you want to make it stronger, but you rarely need any treble tones in your kick. I think you need to work on your transitions quite a bit. You could do a lot more to tell your listener that something is going to change before it does (whether through filtering, drum fills, etc.), and then you need to release the tension built up by the transition after you get where you’re going (through crashes, sweeps, etc.). You have a good sense of harmony, although I’m not sure the vocal samples at :21 fit with the mood very well. They added a sort of dark, heavy vibe to the piece, which I think is the exact opposite of what the strings and bell-like sounds portrayed. I liked the emotional height at :43, and the vocals at :57 added to the piece as well. Still, you have a bit of a bad habit of varying the piece every 4 or 8 bars without really creating an overarching sense of direction to it. The result is that this track is almost jarringly fast-paced at times, such at 1:18. Also, I think you need to do some more careful equalizing on the kick at 1:18, as I can barely hear it. I’d also caution you about the balance at 1:26, as the bass really overwhelms the melody there. The claps at 1:18 was also a little dry. I would’ve added some more reverb. The pacing of this piece is also a little uneven at some points, such as 1:40. For 4 bars, you have this cool rhythmic chord pattern accompanying the vocals, after which you yield to more simplistic and slow-paced string chords. Without any indication that you were going to make such a harmonic shift, it came across as a pretty ineffective way of channeling the energy. I really liked the riffs at 2:08. After the first half of the piece, the second half was comparatively slow to progress. The ending was a bit underwhelming and inconclusive, and I think the last vocal lines at 3:27 were unnecessary. The piece doesn’t have a lot of melodic development or dynamic contrast, and overall I think you could’ve done a lot more to add emotion to the piece. The chord progression is pretty cliche. While I like the variations with the guitar at 3:06, I generally think it’s a compositionally risky idea to introduce new instruments during the last 30 seconds of a piece. Overall, the track isn’t bad. The transitions and mixing issues are probably my main complaints, although there are numerous compositional details that detract from the piece further IMO. Hope that helped. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to PM me. Keep at it, Akaruhime. ;)

6/10

[(Phantom Limb)]

I like the instrumentation here. It has this great punchy energy that you then contrast really well with the more laid-back vibe at :24. The beginning is pretty fast-paced, though, and this piece largely lacks strong transitions IMO. During the drum-heavy sections, such as 1:23, you seriously overuse the crashes, whereas I think you could’ve used more of them to string together some of the disparate sections of the piece, such as at :18. There’s a decent amount of structural repetition, but I was a little confused when you introduced a brand new theme ¾ of the way through the piece at 1:56, especially since it was perhaps the only strong melodic content here. I liked how you contrasted the soothing guitar riffs with the punchy fills from :24 to 1:06, though. In general, I’m pretty impressed with your mixing and mastering too. Making everything sound this clear in Garageband can be tough, and overall your frequencies were well-balanced, although I thought you could’ve done more to fill up the texture at times. There are long stretches of this piece with very little tonal content, such as 1:19 to 1:43, which detracts from it overall, especially since this is such a short track. You seem to pride yourself here on abrupt transitions, which is fine, although I’m getting very little sense of development within the phrase. An overarching sense of conclusivity is also lacking in the piece, as the ending is very abrupt and 1:56 felt more like a bridge than a coda. Overall, I think you need to think more carefully about how you structure your tracks, probably incorporating some more melodic content earlier in the piece and creating a constant sense of structural ebb and flow. Hope this helped! Keep at it, man. ;)

6/10

[Asau]

I'm not responsible for judging your piece in the competition, but I like this track a lot. The mood is quirky yet blissful. The melodies are so amazingly cathartic. I might've liked the drums to have a bit more presence during the chorus, but that's basically my only mixing complaint. The instrumentation here is nice. I especially like the percussion at around 2 minutes in. This track is really spacey and atmospheric. Sometimes I feel like it changes moods a little too fast, like the relatively sudden infusion of energy at 2:33, but overall it's a really fun piece. I think you could've brought out those awesome descending harmonies at 3:30 more. Overall, this piece is well-structured and smooth-flowing. Excellent use of harmony and texture. The ambiguous ending works well here too. Nice work! ;D

Onefin responds:

Hey, TL! Thanks a million for dropping by! Glad you liked it!

"Quirky" doesn't have the exact connotation I was looking for, but close enough. That was the goal!

I tried to give the drums more presence, but it seems it wasn't enough. :/ Eh, at least it lets the melodies ring through the space.

Aurgentin below me said the bongos at 2:00 are "awkward" XD I guess that really is just a personal pet peeve for him

Let's see, 2:33... oh yes, that part. I tried to do a sort of callback to the beginning to sort of guide the listener as to where the track would go next so that the energy didn't hit so hard, and I also did a slow tempo boost there. Maybe if the tempo ramped back up more quickly, it would have been less sudden. Take notes, me.

Yeah, I do love that melody at 3:30. Bring it out more? I thought that's why I wrote 3:45, but I guess not :/ How could I have done that? Maybe I could have had more layers backing it, but more layers means more mud... hm

Harmony and texture are two things I love and use a lot! :D

Ambiguous ending? Not quite was I was going for, but I guess that's what ambiguous means, right?

One last time, thanks so much for the review! It means a lot coming from a pro like you! I'll be sure to keep these words in mind in the future!

[-Toil-]

This is a very catchy track with a lot of engaging content throughout. I also enjoyed the vocal samples. I think it was very bass-heavy overall, so much so that the more melodic riffs get drowned out at times, like at 2:11. I also think the drums could've been mastered a lot louder. Perhaps the ending could've been more climactic or interesting. It's well-structured and smooth-flowing nevertheless. I like the filtering and distortion at around 4:10 and, despite being a little long, the piece maintains my attention throughout. Keep at it, Waterflame. ;)

Waterflame responds:

Thank you for the constructive feedback and nice words! I kind of wanted to hear something like this. The mix was the one thing that made me a bit skeptic about calling this song done.
And I can hear that you are def. right about that. I could have cut into the bass a bit and made some more room for the drums.
As far as the ending goes tho, I like it like this. I felt the song is climactic and intense almost throughout the track, so the ending is more like a wind-down.

[Sopra, City in the Sky]

Interesting mood at the beginning. The bells and pads have this dissonance about them that's still somehow soothing. I love the phasing synths that first pop in around :20. You successfully changed the pace at :38, which is good. The drums are still mastered really quietly, though. I think you need to compress them, and then make sure that you've equalized out all of the lower frequencies in everything except the bass and kick, because I can hardly hear the kick here. Despite its slower pace, :37 felt like a chorus/refrain section. Yet you never really added to or even returned to that melody later in the piece. I think one thing you really need to focus on in general is coherence. Perhaps the fast-paced, dynamic nature of these tracks is fitting for a video game, but if you're not listening to this on loop 50 times while smashing cartoon monsters, the broad disparity of different sections of this piece come across as pretty jarring. You have this great bell-like trance going on for the first 35 seconds or so, and then a more bass-heavy atmospheric section at :37. From there, you dive right into a bubbly, fast-paced retro VGM vibe. I'm hearing some more bell-like instruments at 1:49, but by then the harmonic structure of this piece is completely different than what it was at the beginning. Perhaps it's okay to make these sorts of drastic structural changes for a breakdown or bridge section, but I don't think they should occur throughout the piece. Again, this is my perspective as someone used to judging stand-alone content. I hope this makes sense, and if it doesn't please PM me with more questions. I can understand why you're a well-respected video game composer on this site, but the compositional expectations are simply a bit different for the audio-only contest format. Hope this helps! Good luck with your future tracks, man. ;)

[Deconstruction (Rough Cut)]

I think the instruments blend really well together. This piece is catchy and has a great sense of flow and direction to it. I think you could've done more to prime the listener to your transitions. For example, there's a pretty dramatic change in the pace of the melody line at :37 without any sort of drum fill or crash to release the tension that was built up by the preceding section. Your drums in general were a little bland, especially before 1:12. I thought that, while I could hear all of the instruments pretty clearly, the bass was a little too loud throughout. I think you meant 1:44 to function as a breakdown, but I think it would've been more effective if you had stripped away the drums and bass, which otherwise play for essentially the entire piece. I liked the chord progression and dissonance at 1:44, though. During the 2nd refrain (2:44), I think you could've done more to expand on and vary the themes you introduced earlier in the piece. Perhaps some sort of modulation or more dynamic melody line would've helped. Overall, I think you can do a lot more with phrasing and dynamic contrast in this piece. That said, having listened to your tryout piece ("breaking protocol"), I'd say the mixing and mastering is much stronger here. Your melodies are still a bit bland, and come across more as repetitive house riffs than melodies tbh. I'd recommend checking out this post (http://johnfn.newgrounds.com/news/post/937050). Johnfn is the KING of melody composition. I think you probably would've fared better in the competition had you submitted this piece. Hopefully you have a better idea of the criteria of the judges now, and you can take this knowledge going into next year! Best of luck with your future tracks, man. ;)

[MAI]

This is a catchy piece. The beat was especially creative and dynamic. I like the atmosphere with the chimes and vocal samples too. During the refrain (:44), the kick got a little lost in the mix. I would suggest some more compression and/or sidechaining. Nice job with the funky rhythms at 1:06. The instruments mesh well together, and I enjoyed when you offered some structural relief from all the energetic content at 1:50. Compositionally, this is a really solid piece. You also used reverb well here. Nice work!

Bobeo responds:

Thanks for the feedback man
Its funny because like immediately after I uploaded this and listened to it in it's entirety a couple of times I went back and changed a lot of the things you said to fix- before you even said them. Good ear. If you're genuinely interested in hearing the updated version i updated this uploaded and put it on my soundcloud.