TheBenjerman's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Children of the Sky (NEW)]

Gorgeous

Absolutely beautiful. I love the texture. Simple straightforward themes with simple, straightforward orchestration and harmony. Very effective, and a pleasure to listen to from start to finish. I customarily write long, in-depth reviews, but I find it hard to find anything to nit-pick here. Maybe watch the attacks on your string samples, some of them seem to be slightly too abrupt, but I find it hard to say even that. I want to write something like this!

Lush, gorgeous.

5/5 10/10, fav'd

Setu-Firestorm responds:

Yeah, and even the horn attacks are a bit punchier than I'd like them to be in the beginning.

Thank you for taking the time to review, though. I appreciate critique from fellow composers. =)

[The Spy {ARG!}]

You rock my socks!

Really nice! You've got that uber-cool, but still upbeat flavor on lock. Simple but very effective. The Guitar/Bass combination is just right too. It is very easy to go overboard when doing tracks like this. I've got just a few little possible tweaking suggestions.

First, the low brass hits are an integral part of the piece, and really add to the badassery. I would suggest boosting them just a little, not in volume, just punch. You are almost-but-not-quite to that gritty, low, crunchy, awesome hit. It would really just be a little sound-design project. You could double it an octave lower with more brass, or something else that has punch.

Second, the drums are just a little flat. They are well programmed, but they SOUND well programmed. If you cut off the tops of the velocity, and boost some others to more closely mimic live drums, the drums would draw less attention to themselves, and make the rest of the piece shine through.

Just a few little suggestions. Take them with a grain of salt. This loop is genius! I love it, and I wouldn't have reviewed it if it weren't a totally top-notch loop.

BTW, the organ at the climaxes, and the call-and-response with that little woodwind section really make this piece for me. 5/5 10/10

ARGMusic responds:

Thanks a lot for the return review! :)

I suppose I could play with the EQ on the brass, and see if there's something I can lay under it (maybe a good synth brass for the punch).

I set out to make something resembling an early Final Fantasy battle theme, and then got inspired to do the spy thing--that would be why the drums sound like they do. ;p Guess I never revisited them, and I probably should.

Glad you enjoyed the piece. ;)

[Empty Your Mind]

Sweet Suds!

Alright, first off, I love the funky/chill mood of this piece. You got me interested from the very start of the song with the vocal clips and synth strings. I really like the instrumentation of the whole piece. You bring in some gritty bass, but keep that funky slap bass synth. I also like the switch from electric piano to acoustic, and your ending the piece with the vocal clips again was a good call. I have a few things you could look into if you want that might help you improve the piece.

To start with, I like the feel of the strings at the beginning, but you might want to make them just a little more synthy, or a little more realistic. You are right in that area where people wonder if they are supposed to sound real, or are for an effect. I have been extremely guilty of this numerous times.

Second, I am going to draw attention to that awesome slap bass line because it totally sells the piece for me. You have a pretty good quality synth bass there, but it is a little bit flat in terms of variation. If you change the velocity on the individual notes to closer imitate a live slap bass, you would add an extra level of grooviness. You also might want to play around with notes that do not land right on the beat, add a little artistic flair, but I won't go too far into that.

Third, I really like what the electric piano adds, but I would cut it down just a little bit. It kind of plays all throughout the little sections it is in. If you play back and forth between the instruments a little more when you add instruments, it should help this piece flow even better. You do more of this about halfway in, and towards the end.

To wrap things up, I'll say the vocal clips are totally rad, and you could play around with them even more, say in the little breakdown in the middle before everything starts again.

I really liked your piece, and these are just my personal suggestions to be taken however you want. I'm certainly not asking you to completely rewrite this piece (unless you want to) and if you disagree with my comments, I'm not offended in the slightest.

I only review pieces that really impress me, and I really liked yours. Good Job!

5/5, 9/10, Props.

Cuzone responds:

Thank you so much! This is the most extensive, comprehensive and intelligent review I've ever gotten. All your comments are spot-on, especially where it concerns the strings. I think I like the fact that you can't quite tell if they are meant to be real or synth, I think that's why I set the attack on this instrument to zero (or close to zero).

About the variations on the slapping, I would definitely do that if I weren't so eager to finish this song and release it here.

Again, thank you very much.
Timraband

["Collab"]

Thank you.

I've been waiting to hear something this crisp on NG for a couple of years now.

Very nice job with the mixing. The levels really make this work, and you've got them just right. The beat is in the front, and everything else is secondary. That overpowering kick is sick. The pizz adds a nice touch too. The only thing I could really comment on is the lack of bass/bassline, but it really doesn't matter that much, cause this beat is ILL.

I'll be watching you.

Peace,
TB

DCF responds:

Thx alot. It always feels good when people analyze my music. It has a bass though. It's just in the very deep frequencies.

[NinjaSkillzLoop (Upbeat/dark)]

Great potential!

I really like your ambient feel. Really chill but still kinda edgy. I think you could do a lot with this!

I have a few suggestions:

First, you really only have about two chords in the whole loop. A more interesting/developed chord progression would make the full song version a lot more engaging.

Second, you have a nice blend of sounds, but you have no real melody. It's really just a texture at this point. Now, I wouldn't go crazy and make some really complicated melody that runs the piece, this tends to be a major NG mistake in my opinion, but if you add a little more melodic material I think your piece would be even better held together. An overarching melody in a higher register would work well I think.

Third, you may want to consider a more regular, steady beat. Your drums are just a little bit erratic, and that makes your rhythm less clear.

Just some suggestions you might want to think about! You don't have to listen to them at all, this is my personal opinion on the matter.

Oh, and I would not be reviewing this at all if I didn't think it had really great potential. I want to hear the full version!

Peace,

TB

djninjaskillz responds:

I like how you mentioned it was more of a "texture," that would explain more of what i was going for on here, I made this with the mindset that this was suppose to add a layer of depth to somebody's project, not be a standalone song, and actually, i started this as a song, and i looped this to get a feel of what i'll go for next and i like it so much that i just made it a stand-alone little piece. :3

but otherwise, i know what you mean about the two chords, i usually start adding chords once things pick up but like you mentioned this is more of a texture that i was trying to keep in the same place. ^_^

i agree with drum parts. lol.

but yeah, i'll hit you up when that song gets finished. :P thanks for the input!

[Psychedelica - Panic Pt.1]

This is a quality tune.

First let me say great job, I really like this piece, I think the both of you did a very good job. Good textures, effective layering, professional mix, and nice melodies. I really like what has been done here. You start off with a build into a dance section, then go to a mellower piano section, then build like you are going back into the dance part, and then drop the bottom out of the whole thing and go into a super chill pad and synth strings section. Then you go back to a recapitulation of the dance theme. Great form etc.There were only two things that seemed a little off to me, and they were the piano and the transitions.

First of all, I thought the build-up at the beginning could have been stronger. If you are going to start slow and speed up, it is generally more effective if you start slower and speed up faster and faster with a steeper and steeper curve on your tempo map. Otherwise you have less of a difference in speed the closer you get to your goal, so it is kind of anticlimactic.

Second, I liked the transition into the piano part, and the beginning of the section, but your processed piano is missing the the higher frequencies normally present, and when you bring your unprocessed drums back in, they overshadow the piano because they still have a little bit of those frequencies. An easy fix would be to eq the drums and drop the higher part just a little.

Third, I really loved the pad section, and I think you could actually emphasize that even more. You just completely tricked your listeners. If you put a stronger transition in there you would be saying "ha, suckers!" instead of the suckers being confused. You could do anything for this.

On a side note, I loved the final transition, I would call it perfect. Each section was great, I loved the variety, and you had a fantastic ending.

All of the stuff I wrote is entirely subjective, that is my personal opinion, and if you did all this for a reason, I say more power to you, you are the artist and therefore you are right. I only review pieces I thoroughly enjoy, and this was one of them. Way to go guys, you did a great job.

5/5 10/10 and downloaded.

Tilkanuts responds:

Thank you for your input. 'I thought the build-up at the beginning could have been stronger' - Holy crap i know what you mean and i WANTED to do that........but the sound i produced crackled a ton because of that tempo transition. my stupid sound card............*sigh* D:

About the piano and transitions, we are both still on the learning side of things, but we are pretty happy with this piece. With that said, we will take your advice into account for future reference and we thank you for your criticism.

Thank you for the review and we are glad that you liked it!

[{Heim} Awakening]

Hmmm...

I like it overall, but there were a few things I would draw attention to:
First of all, the background strings you have throughout the entire piece are good, but might need a little bit of a change, because they get a little stagnant. A slightly longer motive or a few small dynamic changes should take care of this fairly easily.

Secondly, the quality of your synths is a little low, but this is to be expected with synth strings. Strings are one of the hardest elements to emulate synthetically. If you can't get something performed, a general rule is to try to cover it up with other synths that sound better, or to try to edit what you have, i.e. dynamically, through processing, or through layering other instruments on top.

You can disregard any of the above if you want, everything is dependent on what you are writing this cue for. I do really like it, it has a pretty nice atmosphere, and I will leave the compositional aspects up to you. That is personal preference. Quite a nice cue though, I really enjoyed it! I wouldn't have said as much if I didn't really like it.

9/10, 5/5

:)

JeffHeim responds:

First of all, thank you for providing such an indepth review! I really appreciate it, and this will definitely help me out, both in editing this piece and writing for future pieces as well.

Now for the strings...I added solo string instruments on top of the string ensemble, which is what you might be hearing. In the future, I'll keep this in mind and avoid writing solo strings on top of the ensemble strings. Thank you again, I'll take a look at some of the dynamics as well.

[Silver Reflection]

Awesome!

I really like this piece. Nice transitions, good compositional material, beautiful melodies, good fusion. The only criticism I could possibly make would be to edit the individual instruments a little more to try to mimic the way it would sound if you recorded it live. That's always the hardest part about strings. :-/ A little bit of processing and just a little bit of swelling into notes etc. goes a really long way. Fantastic work though. That's some pretty awesome vomit you've got there. :) 5/5 10/10 and downloaded. You rock dude.

BTW, I just wanted to draw some attention to the delay in the violin (or viola) starting at 1:18. That was a nice touch.

Aeris responds:

Thanks :D

I may do a little editing with the cello and maybe viola, my concern when doing that is losing its solidity. But I'll see what I can do :]

Thanks again ^-^