TaintedLogic's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[The Dream of a Robot]

Note: this review is NOT for the NGAUC. I'm not scoring your group, LSD, but I was hella curious what you came up with for Robot Day and/or my competition. :D I love the emotion in the beginning, and the fittingly mechanical-sounding effects in the background. I didn't think the mastering was that bad, but I think the balance with the drums is a bit off. I could barely hear the snare throughout. I enjoyed the instruments you used, though, and the melodies were cute and meshed together well with the harmonic content you had in here. Like most of your tracks, it's very smooth-flowing, and the progression is appealing. I love the way you ended it, btw. Again, it's a very cute and refreshing piece. Nice job! ;D

LucidShadowDreamer responds:

Hahha, that makes sense :)
Great job, btw! 176 competitors for your contest is quite the achievement! And wow, I've listened to several of the tracks, and I'm beginning to think that I won't even make it to the next round XD
If I do get there though, I think I know exactly what I'll try for the second round :3

Glad to hear you like the emotion, flow and all the effects! I spend quite a bit of time tweaking them :p

Yeah, I think you're the 4th person to say that the percussion needs fixing, so it must be true! I'll look into that more in the future for sure. I think I'm getting better at this, in the very least :D
I also tried my best not to do endings like johnfn often does, so it pleases me to hear that pretty much everyone has liked the ending thus far :)

Thanks a million for reviewing even though I know you are super busy with the contest!
I've been surprisingly busy and lazy these past weeks as well, which is my excuse for not replying to your PM yet. That said, I will try my best to reply today!!!
Good luck with the judging ;)

[A War Between Our People]

I like the empowering and dramatic mood this piece has. Those samples are actually pretty good! The transition at :56 was a little sudden, especially considering the drastic change in mood. One of the little riffs that first appears at 1:09 reminds me a lot of Step's "This is Snake." Around 1:20, you can tell that the high strings get distorted a bit by the brass, and the dark percussion sounds a little muddy. I loved the way you ended the piece, though. It was dramatic, conclusive, and very fitting overall. Nice work, Larrynachos! Despite my criticisms, it seems rather appropriate for a war-themed videogame. Keep up the good work. ;)

larrynachos responds:

Ah, the "This is Snake" is an arrangement of Metal Gear Solid songs. I'd be lying if I said that MGS wasn't a small inspiration for this piece ^^;

Thanks for the feedback!

[Galaxy Wandering]

Okay, so the synths at the beginning are a little muddy and distorted. I'm also not a huge fan of the kick sample you have during the first 15 seconds. It seems a little choppy during the first minute or so. There are distinct, isolated sections of music, but they don't really fit well together and there aren't many smooth transitions. The violins get drowned out by the bass a lot, and the effects are so high-pitched and harsh-sounding that they detract from the piece considerably. I'm not even sure why they were necessary. If you want to use screeching effects as transitions like at 2:03, you need to take a few steps to make it flow with the structural elements around it first. For starters, you need to Equalize those effects so they don't sound so jarring and in-your-face. I would also suggest adding some reverb and volume automations to smooth them out a bit. You could also use some crashes or sweeps on top of the effects in order to strengthen your transitory moments here. Also, the piece was a bit repetitive overall. There were some good elements of the piece, though. I liked your instruments, and I think you have a good sense of harmony. Still, you need to vary the rhythm in the melody a bit more in order for it to be engaging and catchy. The ending was also rather sudden. I think you need to work on your mixing and mastering too, but maybe it's best if you focus on nailing the more compositional elements of music-making first. I especially want you to work on your transitions, structuring, and on creating some more melodic and rhythmic variation. When you've made a new piece that you feel does those things, PM me and I'll leave you another review. Good luck, man. Hope this review helped. ;)

BT-WIRE responds:

Thanks, I'm still trying to get the hang of it. I'm not very good at the thecnical part yet. I'd like your opinion on my other releases if you dont mind. Its always good to read reviews so I can get an Idea of what needs to be improved.
thakns bro, see ya!

[\W/ Afterthought]

It's very majestic and flowing. Sometimes, the pacing is a bit off IMO. For example, it seems like you were going for some sort of dramatic pause at 1:06, and then you sort of rushed into 1:07. I like the structural relief you start providing around the 2-minute mark. That part is lighter and more tranquil. Then, you sort of abruptly transition back into some heavier, darker content, interrupting the flow with some more staccato notes. The way you sort of alternate styles (lighter and flowing vs. dark and staccato) may be a bit disorienting, but eventually I recognized that it helps capture a fleeting inner-struggle, rather ingeniously similar to the second-guessing that occurs after one realizes the potency of a seeming trifle of an afterthought. ;) Also, after reading the description I was a bit confused. Are there two different people who use this Newgrounds account? And, if so...which one is judging my competition? XD I thought "Winter" was simply your surname, Skye. 0_O Either way, I like the piece overall. The ending was a bit inconclusive, and it's a little stylistically disjointed (as I mentioned), but other than that this is solid work. Keep at it, SkyeWint. ^^

SkyeWint responds:

Nah, Winter isn't my surname. Winter is another person. I mainly use the account but I thought I should post her music on here as well. :) Don't worry, I'm judging the competition.

Just thought I'd post this on here and see how people liked it, especially since it's her first piece.

[SNES Map Music]

I love the cute mood and theme, as well as the melodies. It loops well. I thought the bass was a little quiet, but maybe that's more of a personal-taste sort of thing. I also think you should've shown off what little harmonic/varied content you have in this piece, i.e. the arpeggios at :15. Furthermore, the snare sample might've been a bit bland and dry given the melody that was dancing to its beat. I guess I just would've expected something that "snapped" a bit more for this type of piece. Still, all of these complaints are rather nit-picky (although, in my defense, most complaints HAVE to be nit-picky in a 30-second-long piece). It's certainly fitting for its purposes (i.e., in a videogame, of course!). Keep it up, SleepFacingWest. ^^

P.S.: After a couple of nights of experimenting, I've determined that I usually sleep facing south, haha. ;)

sleepFacingWest responds:

Thanks! I like nit-picky commentary, especially when it's well thought out and helpful. re: snare sound, I've had a hard time distilling the sound of the SNES world. I understand classic nintendo and gameboy better, I think. In the end, adding more compression and a little overdrive to the snare would probably make it snappier.
The next thing I upload will be longer. This one was kind of bullshitty.

[Stormy Evening]

Ooo...I love the tranquil and mysterious mood at the beginning. Sounds just like an impending thunderstorm indeed. It progresses rather slowly (but that's probably fitting for an ambient track). I love all the little string swells, like at 1:46 (and several other places). It has emotion, and a rather paralyzing mood. The progression is rather good. This is beautiful! I'm going to complain about one tiny detail: the note at 2:06 cuts off painfully suddenly. I would suggest both a) smoothing it out with some reverb and b) adding a volume automation to transition more cleanly into the next dynamic (because I'm not sure a subito piano quite fits in with such a flowing ambient track as this). Still, the instrumentation is marvelous, the mixing and mastering is top-notch, and the atmosphere is quite superior indeed. You've earned a fave and a DL. Congrats, and keep up the good work. ;)

samulis responds:

Thanks, TL!

I'm not sure I can adjust that quick cut off... those were actually sampled swells because I was being lazy, haha.

[~SW~ The Brain Cycle]

I like the screeching FX/effects at the beginning. This piece has a pretty cool progression, although it's a bit slow-to-heat-up if you know what I mean. I like the melody that started fading in around 1:15, although I personally think it should've been a little more up-front in the mix. Cool vibe you have goin' on at around 2:10. Sounds like something right out of a shady, smoky hotel rooftop lounge from a James Bond movie. 0_O The ending gets cut off a bit suddenly, but that's probably more of an exporting difficulty rather than an errant compositional quality. This is a very flowing and well-structured piece, though. I admire your sense of rhythm and harmony. I can tell you spent a lot of time on the atmospheric details of this track, and let me assure you that it's well worth it. The mixing and mastering was very solid. I liked the filtering and panning effects you used at various points in the track. The sound design is superb - this piece has really unique instrumentation (I'm glad you synthesized most of the sounds here!). Full-textured, funky, refreshing, creative...I'm running out of positive adjectives. XD You earned a fave and a DL. I'm looking forward to this impending album of yours as well! Keep up the good work, Skye! ^^

SkyeWint responds:

Sup!

The screeching FX is actually a few random recordings I manipulated which were titled "cd_spin". If you can figure out what that means, be my guest.

The melody at 1:15 was somewhat meant to fade in, since it felt a lot too abrupt when I had it coming in at a higher volume. It doesn't share frequencies with other instruments at the time though, so if your speakers/headphones aren't thin at the frequencies where it's filtered down to, you can hear it the whole way through fairly easily!

...the end was a lowpass filter where the cutoff point was getting lower and lower until it reached zero at the end of the final note, so there wasn't a volume filter going down or anything. I guess it was actually an errant compositional quality. Not really something I can fully correct either since there's nothing to really let ring out at the end of that. Another example of this is in Float: http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/573077 The ending there is also a fadeout in the same way. Same thing again in Cranial: http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/585340
In both of these cases the fadeout worked a bit better because it was just suspended chords, whereas this was fading out activity.

Flowing composition is something I definitely try to do ( http://skyewint.newgrounds.com/news/post/870256 ). Harmony is primarily learned from jazz theory, rhythm is... uh... I dunno. Fun? Atmosphere, well, you know I've obsessed over that since basically the start of music-making. Similar for unique instrumentation and panning. Mixing, mastering, and production effects... well, that's a recent thing of mine that I've been trying to do!

Glad you like it overall. Here's hoping I'll be able to finish the album sooner rather than later. :)

[Empty Memory]

Thanks for sharing as always, LSD! :D I like the bright, energetic mood at the beginning. Solid progression and flow as usual. I like the slight decelerando going into the end of the piece. It made it feel much more conclusive than it otherwise would have been. As a stand-alone piece, I'm not sure it has much value. It kind of lacks structural completion. I'm sure that's not what you intended for it to be, though. I personally didn't notice too many mixing issues, but with a piece literally consisting of one instrument, one can only screw up the mixing to SOME extent. ;) I like it. It's cute. It's fun. It's upbeat. Keep on keepin' on, LSD. ^^

LucidShadowDreamer responds:

Hi! And thanks for reviewing, as usual :3
This is indeed just a short track to fill up some space. If I would've made it into a full song, it would've looked a lot different, and there would've been several other parts dividing the section you now hear :p
As for the part with the ritardando (although I like the word decelerando; you'd think it exists, but apparently not), it's almost stolen from part of Garry's theme from "Ib" XD
As for the mixing, there's just some minor clipping at a few points, but I didn't really bother to get rid of it, as that'd would've required me to do the process all over again.
This might not be my best work, but on Friday, I'll upload something I think you'll enjoy ;)

[~Echo~ Eternity (WIP)]

I know you aren't a part of my competition anymore, but I remember I really liked your piece from last year (My World), so I decided to check this out anyway. This is excellent. I love the dreamy quality and the progression. I can tell that you carefully considered the volume/filter automations, and I loved the minimalistic drop at 1:20 and how you transitioned out of it back into a more atmospheric style. I thought the mixing, overall, was very good. It's long, but it also has a flowing, even drone-like quality that makes both its title and its length seem rather fitting. At the same time, I think you could've done a lot more with sections like 2:15 - 3:30, during which there isn't a lot of variation. Still, the progression and mood of this piece are almost unbeatable. You have a good sense of rhythm, harmony, and structuring. There's A LOT of reverb in there, but I think it was fitting for your purposes here. I thought the ending was a little melodramatic and perhaps rushed. I would've appreciated a more serene conclusion more, I think. Still, overall I like this piece a lot. Best of luck in the NGADM, my friend. ;)

aliaspharow responds:

Thank you so much for your Extended review TaintedLogic :) I really appreciate everything you had to say. I think you are right about the breakdown, I could of added more in there but i chose not too because I honestly couldn't think of anything that built on the chord structure of the song and didn't sound out of place. I probably will try again after reading this review as it has been about a week since I've worked on this. Also I have to agree with you about the ending. I was more intent in fitting the bass pattern of 5:50 than ending the song in a awe... Most often i finish the track with a pattern that was in the beggining or transitioning into the breakdown section and in this track i chose the latter... although it does leave more to be desired. Hopefull I will be able to change that as well.

Again thank you so much for your constructive criticism and your encouraging remarks :)

If you liked My World then I think you would really like my new track "Leap of Faith" that i just released

[Voyage]

I liked the tranquil and rather cute mood at the beginning. The progression is good, although I thought you needed a smoother transition into :27. Even a simple crash would've sufficed. Still, this piece has an upbeat, melodic, and even adventurous vibe to it that I really like. It would be very fitting for a videogame (as your selected genre indicates). I can picture the romantic-era castle, the glory of a hard-fought battle and the honor in having been loyal to your kingdom for all of your days. This is well-structured, smooth-flowing, extremely conclusive, and, perhaps most importantly, puts a smile on my face. Great work, ILG924! I love submissions that can put an image in my head, and you've done just that. Keep it up, man! ;D

ILG924 responds:

Thanks, that means a lot! It's nice reading what someone else pictures in their mind when they listen to my stuff.
You're right. a crash at :27 definitely would've helped. I remember thinking it was missing something but I couldn't figure out what