skyood's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[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!

[Repetitive Theme 2 (Revised)]

Good stuff!

Could easily imagine this in a Zelda of FF type game. Lots of good polished touches here and there. As for the ending it would probably work fine, depending on what it was used for, but you could tie back into the original theme.

Roy00 responds:

Thanks. Surprisingly, i get that alot. maybe i should look into video gaming music
:)

[(HoS) Rise Of The Fallen]

Good

Let's put it this way ... I could certainly pick at a few nits (I'm good at that sort of thing ...). But it's overall good enough that I don't feel a need or desire to. :)

HonorOfStyle responds:

Thanks! :)

[[Jest] Asteri Exusiai]

Not much to say ...

Just .... just plain good! :)

RandomJester responds:

Just plain thanks.

[Sugarsweet]

Very nice

I overall really like it. A couple suggestions (since that's why we all post here, right? Hoping to learn from each other and whatnot?):

I'm not a big fan of the tempo change in the middle. Specifically, I don't like how there's a bit where the tempo has slowed down but there's nothing indicating the new tempo (just the string chords in the background), so it's not obvious that it's a tempo change. Instead if just feels like the notes are a little late. Then the high hat comes back in, and I'm all like "oh, he didn't screw up, he's just changing tempo!" The problem is avoided at the end because you have the guitar (right?) chords on the beats which points out the tempo change.

Secondly a real nit-pick: I don't like the piano as carrying the melody. Too sparse, which you see what I mean during the parts where the marimba (or whatever that xylophone-ish instrument is) is carrying the melody. Just feels much fuller. I'd at least add a fair amount of reverb to the piano so that the notes don't disappear into everything that's going on immediately after hearing them. This whole point could be pointless if you intend for the piano to just be standing in for vocals or something ... but just giving my two cents. :)

J-qb responds:

Thanks for the thorough review, much appreciated. the piano was indeed meant as a stand in for vocals (which are non-existant lol); I thought about replacing it with something else, but in the end decided to just stick with it.
Again, thanks!

[Fire- Percussion]

Very nice.

And I had fun trying to figure out the time signature. 11/8? A polish thing you could do is, if you have the capability, fiddle with the velocity of the long snare rolls so that they sound realistic (how a person might play them live) and not machine gun-ish. Overall I'm impressed. Nice track.

lvl5drummer responds:

thanks, but that's the only way the rolls can be played with the program i'm using ;( but yeah, 11 8, then 12 8.