skyood's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Arabesque No. 1]

Impressive, but ...

I'm very impressed at your ability to play this piece fairly well. I love Debussy, classical music, and classic piano music in particular.

That being said, I'm not sure that this audio portal is the best place for this (granted I don't know what *is* a good place for it either). It's not a copyright issue at all, obviously ... but I dunno. I'd stick to posting your original music. Just my personal opinion.

Twone responds:

Well, where else would I put my work? I like the audio portal. If video game covers are acceptable (which I love to do also), then covers of anything else should be acceptable as well. I like to do both.

Regardless, thanks for the review!

[- LD - Doomsday Brigade]

Great + my 2c

So I feel like I don't even need to pile on the compliments because there have already been many of them, and they are well-deserved.

My 2c: The Japanese drums/stick sound (don't remember the name of it, but I'm pretty sure that's what it is ... I think) is a little out of place for me. I feel like the end result could easily be achieved with more traditional orchestral instrumentation. Would get rid of my only little nitpick which is that I'm at parts suddenly finding myself thinking, "wait, is the world ending in Japan for some reason?"

So there's my one bit of suggestion. Don't take it to mean that the end product wasn't fantastic, because it was. Fantastic, that is. Great work.

[Night of the Dancing Skeletons]

Very good

The reason another commenter mentioned Christmas is maybe because this is so very very reminiscent of Nightmare Before Christmas, instrumentation in particular. In fact, I did a quick listen to a couple of those tracks just to make sure I didn't recognize a theme. :) There's one place in there that I could swear I recognized a theme/progression from somewhere ... but that could just be because you did such a good job of reproducing the style. :P

I could do without the off-beat cymbal hits 1:30ish ... I understand wanting to add variety, but I just find it distracting. Be confident in what you have and leave out that particular little gimmick. :)

Great job!

SilentTakedown responds:

You're the second one to mention Nightmare before Christmas and I swear I never watched it. I really should do it to see how much I accidently copied from it. xD
Thanks for reviewing!

[newtonian shore]

Good stuff

I also can't believe it's somehow less than 1 with 100 votes. Ridiculous.

I can see some of the below criticisms being valid ... only, as you said, this is background music for an animation. If you knew in advance what would be happening when, then sure it should be more varied to fit the changing scenes. But considering what you were asked for was probably a simple loop, much more variety, particularly in rhythm and dynamics would make the music stand out more at times ... which you don't want for *background* music.

acmeDyne responds:

Thanks skyood! I cut out several minutes when I made it into a loop.
Maybe I'll upload a longer, non-looped version.

[Evillish]

It's a good fragment/start

It's a piece not a whole, that's what jumped out at me. Hopefully, you're working on something and this is an initial stage, in which case, keep doing what you're doing. If this is meant to be stand-alone finished ... I really think it needs another layer or two. Pretty bare atm.

StixRcrazy responds:

Thank you very much, and indeed, I hope to do something with this :) Thank you for your positive review.

[RPG: Town of Dawn]

Good

Don't worry about the "zero bombing," it's just part of life here on the NG Audio Portal as best I can tell.

Personally, the delayed/echoed chords at the end jarringly stuck out. Why not go back to the arpeggiated chords like you had at the beginning? That would also help with the looping ... just my opinion, of course. Overall and otherwise, very good.

CheckeredZebra responds:

Yeah. I agree with the chords. However, I think it's more of an instrumentation problem (the echoes make it impossible to loop correctly) however, using a different instrument at the end would make it link poorly to the starting instrument. And the original instrument fits exactly what I needed. Hrm...

I'll play around with it, see if I can just use the sole arpeggios and cut out the chords altogether.

[Call to Arms (descara)]

Very good

You'd been watching Band of Brothers or Saving Private Ryan or something when you did that opening section, didn't you? :P

descara responds:

Curiously I had none of the movies mentioned in mind when I wrote this... still, might be unconscious influence!

Thanks for your comment.

[Destiny of Fire]

Great, but a bit scattered.

I definitely can tell how much effort you put into it, overall it's very high quality. What I would point out is that you have a lot of diverse elements going on ... and I don't feel like you do a great job of making them sound like they belong together. The epic solo vocal is a perfect example ... there's a section in there where, imo, the feel of the vocal line and the underlying music are very different (1:06 until about 1:45, when the strings come in and help bring the gap between the two). It's kind of jarring. Now, if that's what you're trying to do, create a high contrast, well then carry on. :) But the same category of thing shows up in other ways, like 3:23 where we're trucking along in one way and the just sort of cross-fade and we're heading in a different direction. The variety and multiple ideas is great, just think you could tie them into each other more consistently (the transition @ 5:00 is great, for example). The quality bar for this song is already quite high ... just trying to give a pointer for what you might do to top it. :) Great jarb!

Pivvot responds:

Thank you for the review! Yeah some of the transitions are a bit odd I do admit. However, this is my first classical song so I think it is quite a fair start into the genre. Thanks for the review!

[Snow Waltz]

Overall very good

Excellent overall. Loved it. Two things I would suggest: (1) The "left hand" is super predictable-- you could make a huge overall impact if you mixed it up from the standard root, chord, chord. Arpeggios in a couple sections or something. (2) The ending could be much stronger.

Like I said though, overall great piece.

OcularNebula responds:

Totally agreed. I usually just run with a melodic idea and use a basic functional left hand, and then rush to finish the piece. Hopefully, as I get better at piano, I'll be able to write more complex parts quicker. Or spend more time editing and revising a piece.

Thanks for the pointed review!

[Twitching Dinosaurs]

Not a big dubstep guy ...

... but I still liked it. It had actual melody to it and plenty of things going on in there to keep it interesting. Agree with above that maybe some more bass would have made it ... more powerful, I guess? Overall though, it's good enough for non-dubstep fan to enjoy, and that's something significant in my book. :) Cheers!