TaintedLogic's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Costa Concordia]

I liked the tremolo at the beginning and the dark, drone-like sound you created thereafter. The strings at the beginning do get buried a bit by the low brass at around :10, though. It does progress a little slowly at the beginning, but I love the chord progression at :48. It's powerful, dark, and full-textured. You seemed to throw on some sort of distortion at 1:10 that added considerably to the mood and atmosphere of the piece. I like how the track almost resets itself by around 1:52, and then you start building on more dark, deep chords from there! >:D By 2:30, it's official: the progression is my absolute favorite thing about this piece. All of a sudden, it's tranquil, majestic, and light. I also love how you based the song off of a real-life event. I think that's an excellent method for charging creativity. :) The ending left me wanting more, which is both a good and a bad thing: good, because it means I enjoyed the previous 3.5 minutes; bad, because I think you could've finished off the piece a little more conclusively. That said, I really like the track overall. Keep up the good work, Phonometrologist! ;)

Phonometrologist responds:

The tremolo at the beginning really has nothing added to the original sample. It was the very first sample I dragged over and allowed to set the mood for that was the main inspiration. How I approached this track overall was by listening to the samples and going with what I thought I was hearing by the nature of each timbre. This project started from that tremolo sample and it, along with the Costa Concordia, gave me the sense of foreboding to tell the story for the rest of the piece. That's why the strings get buried as it was merely the driving point for the rest of the piece. I haven't really composed such a piece like this in regards to how horizontally linear the process was from beginning to end. No moving around parts... just fluid train-of-thought.
I tend to compose in a manner that leaves music a bit open-ended symbolically to emulate that desire I feel when it comes to the fleeting nature of our lives. I figure, "Why force upon the listener a conclusion to their thoughts?" I instead would rather allow them to close in the gaps themselves of finding its resolve. I'm glad you enjoyed this work as you so have described in detail. The goal is to take one on a short journey and, yes, to leave you wanting more. There has to be more! More than what this life has to offer. Thank you for your hard work in reviewing these pieces. I enjoyed your review quite a bit!

[Port of Lost Souls]

I love the mood and atmosphere at the beginning. The somewhat arrhythmic church bells add a lot to that mood as well. I thought you had some slight balance issues at :35. The sample that comes in at that point gets buried underneath the drone-like pads you have playing over it. It has a very interesting progression, though, and by around 1:30 it has a different mood entirely - perhaps with the same sense of mystery, but less dark. I love how you create space with your sound design. The part at around 2:15 provided some much-needed structural relief. I also noticed, however, that the high-pitched pluck string sample at 2:55 starts ducking under the mix shortly after that harmony instrument comes in at 3:29. I'd like to see you using more careful Equalizing and panning to make both of those instruments come through clearer. I did like those huge, sweeping crashes you had. It's a smooth-flowing and well-structured piece. The ending was a tad underwhelming IMO, if only because I thought you could've transitioned better into the part at 3:50. Overall, I like it a lot. You certainly have an interesting Far-Eastern sound to this. Keep up the good work, DL2Electron! ;)

DL2Electron responds:

Thanks for the review. I guess there are a million different ways on how I could have transitioned and ended it, but this is the final result!

[Nothing But Sand & Water]

I love the mellow mood at the beginning with the arpeggios. Beautiful instrumentation and melodies. It's majestic and serene, and has a well-built atmosphere to it. One complaint I may throw out there is that it had little rhythmic variation (especially in the lead instrument) and melodic development. I'll also say that I thought it was a little bit...safe. You could've heightened the emotion a lot more here and really gone for some sweeping roller-coaster-ride sort of phrases. Instead, this piece is a little passive and I'm almost tempted to call it background music. Overall, though, it's coherent enough while still possessing enough structural variety to keep me engaged. You definitely captured the deserted island theme well. This is solid work in general, and I thought the decelerando at the end was fitting. You seemed to go for a very flowy style of progression here, so I admire the conclusiveness it had by the end. Keep up the good work, Mattashi! ;)

Mattashi responds:

Thank you TaintedLogic :) I should have spend some more time on this but I've been busy with work lately and really wanted to enter this contest so I composed something on my day off.
Thanks for the feedback!

[Africa (Singalong)]

I love the organic vibe this has, and the percussion arpeggios at :22 (and a lot of other places) add a lot to the piece. The vocals were very well done - I've tried (and failed) to record vocals well, and I can say that the balance and blend is great. I love the jump in energy between the verses and chorus. I love the solos that start at 2:57, and obviously the percussion is awesome throughout. Step, the mixing is top-notch (I wouldn't expect anything less from you), and MetalRenard did an awesome job with the mastering as well. If I had to complain about something, it would be that the ending felt a little bit lazy to me. I understand that it's supposed to have a continuous, flowy sing-along feel (which it most certainly does), but I strongly prefer the conclusions of tracks like this to be...well...more conclusive! Overall, I love it, of course. The mood, atmosphere, and transitions are all solid, etc. Keep up the great work, all of you guys! ;D

Ceevro responds:

Actually, the mix just previous to the final mastering was not faded-out, but ended with a single hit. Stylistic choices have to be made, and while I loved the last hit, others preferred the fade-out. If you go to the thread, you can hear the original ending on the last WIP, and decide for yourself.

[Veil of Dreams]

Ooo...I love the mood. This has a strange sort of energy to it, apprehension even. All of a sudden at :39, I picture someone lifting up the last branch at the end of a narrow, windy forest path and the sun hits her, a view of mountains beyond like an enlightenment, a revelation. I admire the progression! I will say that I thought the transition at 1:31 was a little sudden, but the phrasing and articulation in this piece is beautiful overall. The church bells were also a nice touch at the end. Your samples are amazing! Which plug-ins/VSTs do you use? It sounds like main menu music more for a PBS movie than a videogame (and that's a good thing!). Haha, keep up the great work, Samulis. ;D

samulis responds:

Thanks for the review, man! That little turn at :39 is my favorite part, it gets me every time I listen. :D

The samples used are actually all of my own creation. Believe it or not, the samples used here were no different from the ones in the contest I just ran, there are just quite a few more than 25 in use, haha. I'm thrilled you think they are amazing, it was a massive amount of work to make all these samples and the resulting plugins. Hopefully I will be able to share them with you and everyone else soon. :)

[~{ Chrome Killer }~]

I like the gritty synths, although sometimes it was hard to distinguish the bass's notes, as it got pretty muddy down there. I liked the angry mood and hard-hitting drums. I think you needed a smoother transition into :34, but the melodies at :34 were pretty cool. It's a well-structured yet very fast-paced piece. It loops pretty well. I think the drama and mood of the piece would've been enhanced had you made the bass and effects towards the beginning (which seem to persist throughout much of the piece) sound a bit cleaner and more distinct. Overall, though, I like it. Keep at it, Larrynachos! ;)

larrynachos responds:

Yup, I agree with all your points. Thanks!

[Soon....]

I like the synths and the beat, but it progresses awfully slowly. Sounds like you need some more melodic content, although you do have some arpeggios in there (literally playing for the entire 1.5 minutes) that could add some harmonic support. I also wasn't a huge fan of the snare sample at :08. It needs some reverb at the very least. I thought the transition into :23 was solid, though. Obviously, this piece doesn't end conclusively as it is, but I understand that it's a work in progress. You might actually want to tone down the reverb on the arpeggios just to make sure they don't distort the impending melody you should really add. I'd say you have a lot of work to do, but it's a solid start. Keep at it, TeraVex. ;)

[There's No Coffee in Hell]

Ooo...this one is really soothing and flowy. Sounds like it's from a montage in an old movie of a boy and his dog. You captured the innocence, the lazy summer days, and the feeling of comfort and companionship. I've always admired your ability to craft moods like this, SleepFacingWest. This is seriously good content! It's well-structured, relaxing, harmonizing, and cleanly mastered. Newgrounds needs more music like this! Keep up the great work, man. ;)

sleepFacingWest responds:

Thanks! (and thank you for your suggestion on the other track. I think I know what's happening)

[Spy Theme Excerpt 01]

Wow, I just love these short, jazzy tunes! The drama at the beginning was good, but I was a bit confused by the pacing shortly after. This is going to be nit-picky. I thought you were going for a classic Forte-piano and then rapid crescendo during the first 5 seconds, but the crescendo never really came. This made the transition into the sneaky-sounding piano at :06 fall flat IMO. The first chord sort of brings this energy into the piece that is quickly reset and made more mellow. I just thought it threw the listener off a bit to have a dramatic intro perhaps predicting a fast-paced piece, while the rest of the piece progressed rather slowly. That said, the part at :06 and beyond is moody, charming, full-textured, smooth-flowing, and generally has all of the ideal compositional values I look for in a piece. I admire your sense of rhythm and harmony. It's a very catchy track. You should go for a full-length track sometime where you can really space out your ideas. :06 to 1:28 would make a great intro for a 5-6 minute track. I know that this piece already feels relatively conclusive as it is (I see you used the classic tonic octave-jump), but more development and structuring is necessary for this to be a truly complete piece IMO. Like I said, though, this review is extremely nit-picky. Your compositional skills are already rather good, and the mix seemed pretty tight as well. Keep at it, man! ;D

sleepFacingWest responds:

Good ears! I actually WANTED to do that sforzando into crescendo, but I couldn't make it go. This was the first piece I had written with this software and I was learning how some of the articulations worked. Despite pushing various envelopes around, I couldn't get them to swell without reattacking with a new sample. I could have crossfaded between samples, but I didn't have the processing power to run that much at the time. Now I would probably double up a lot of the horns with samples from a symphonic set to fatten them anyway, so I could use proper crescendos from another library and then balance the two in post production.

And thank you! I REALLY appreciate nit-picky. Your commentary is absolutely spot on. I was focused more on learning the new library while writing this one, so I slacked a bit compositionally. Originally I had intended to write a very driving manic jazz track, but I realized that A) the software I had gotten is actually quite hard to work with and everything sounds like crappy general midi from the 90's without a TON of edits, and B) My jazz arranging chops were rusty as I hadn't used them in years and just remembering how to idiomatically harmonize melodies in 5 parts was a bit of a struggle. In short, I bailed on the idea to do an "action jazz track" because it got difficult. That said, I'm definitely more prepared to do this sort of thing now and think that perhaps it's time to revisit it!