Step's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Among Ancient Ages]

This is an NGADM Round 2 review.

--

We have another extremely refined, developed piece from you, whose dynamics and progression succeed in communicating a story to the listener. Great! What I like about your music is how well-defined your atmosphere is. You portray the intensity and fervency of battle excellently, with a very suitable buildup followed by heart-pumping percussion that is a definite improvement over your Round 1 track's percussion. I have a few issues with the percussion but I'll delve into them later on. You have some rock-solid composition here, by the way! Your melodies have a good sense of development and they're glued together firmly with mostly smooth transitions and a commendable structure. Also, I'm very fond of your intro.

Your instruments are generally high-quality and you chose them well. The pitch-bending on your strings... man, I'm in two minds about that. I totally get what you were trying to do and to an extent it worked, but I think it was somewhat overused, especially towards the end. A pretty big problem with this track is that your main melody isn't carried very well, mainly in the more busy latter half of the track. You use strings to carry the melody practically throughout the whole second part, and without such suitable backing (particularly during the more intense parts like 2:58) they end up sounding very weak. I would suggest layering more instruments on top of it. A good idea would also be to carry the melody around various instruments, because leaving it dedicated entirely to strings can eventually sound dull after a while. Oh and, vary your percussive rhythms! I'm only hearing one primary beat played by the timpani, with little variation, and it gets old after a while. Adding more percussive layers is something that might fix this too.

The production is another issue that needs sorting out. Your mix can occasionally sound pretty empty/thin, and there are some levelling issues. For instance, at around 2:05, the plucked oriental instrument suddenly increases in volume, which sounds quite artificial, since it's as if the player of that plucked instrument was playing in the background like he should have been doing, and then he walked up towards me and started playing in front of my face! I'm hearing a few quirks throughout the track which sound oddly like excessive humanisation, but it could be just me imagining things. The strings are also not very expressive, maybe due to their sometimes unnatural attack time. In general, the mix is pretty clear but needs some tweaks in levelling and EQing to give the track more oomph.

Anyway, I can't fault your sense of composition, storytelling skills, structure, and so on, but there are still quite a few issues with the execution of this track!

Score: 7.7/10

[Sons of Valhall]

This is an NGADM Round 2 review.

--

You know, at first I was worried when I saw that you were making a cinematic piece. You generally make jazzier things and cinematic is a totally different style. Let me tell you, though, you hit the nail on the head. This is an excellent track with a breathtaking amount of detail that gives it plenty of replay value. You have fantastic composition that does a truly excellent job of depicting the scene you had in mind. One thing I really like is 1:16's change in pace. You very smoothly transitioned to a more dangerous, heart-pumping section with mighty choir shouts and booming percussion that is a great driving force.

Your instruments are very high-quality indeed, but I know very well that high-quality instruments aren't enough to create a natural-sounding piece. You definitely used your instruments very well. What I'm mostly impressed with is your background work though. When I turn my volume up I hear some excellent accompaniment played by all sorts of instruments, from string staccato, to brass staccato, to woodwind staccato, to choir shouts, to legato chords, and so on and so forth. Of course, you also have that fantastic percussion constantly playing throughout the piece, which is undeniably well-made.

The first problem that instantly cropped up in my head when I started hearing this was that the mastering could use work. Mix-wise, you have a clear mix and while I would've liked the percussion to be a bit stronger, everything is levelled well. However, the track is very quiet (which was an issue with your previous track too). I had to turn my volume up almost twice as much as I usually do when listening to music to get a suitable listening experience out of this. In addition to that, while you have such a superb background, your foreground could use some more work. You have brass playing in the foreground a lot of the time, and frankly that got quite monotonous. As much as I adore your brass sound, it was used too much. I think 1:28 would've been a good place to change the foreground instrument.

A few issues with the production, and I would've liked more variety of the foreground instruments to complete the experience. Otherwise, highly well-thought-out and enjoyable. Keep being awesome.

Score: 8.8/10

SoundChris responds:

Thanks a lot for that helpfun and detailed review step! This piece has been extremely annoying to create because (without knowing) i used logic in the 32 bit mode and it always crashed ... restarting took me about 20 - 25 minutes each time because the patches were that big. After having fixed that problem and got it work in 64 bit mode i really had to hurry to pump the piece from 20 seconds to it final length ... quite hard :) Unforunately i was not able to mix the track loud, but i think you know this already. I will try to get the mixes more transparent in the future so that all the details can be heared and i also will remix the track after the contest.

Thanks a lot for your kind review!

[I Feel]

This is an NGADM Round 2 review.

--

Well, whether you had a small amount of time or not, it doesn't sound like it. This is a long track with plenty of detail and development, and just like a lot of the time with your music, this has a uniqueness that is hard to digest after the first few listens but eventually the track really grows on you. Right, I want to say first that I think this has one of the best intros of the NGADM. Having all your sound effects and percussive sounds playing in such a bare section with very melodic elements in play allows the listener to appreciate them more, and damn are they good. And then at 0:58 you introduce a huge pad that has the same widening effect that the strings in your previous track had. Excellent intro, excellent progression from then on.

Of course your excellent sounds aren't only showcased in the intro. Your whole song is jam-packed with a very colourful and wide array of fantastic soundscapes, pads, glitch effects, instruments, and percussion. You've also got this excellent talkbox bass thing which I love to bits. Your production is much better this time round. Great, well-balanced mix that's pretty full-up but never cramped, and you've got very interesting use of reverb. Your composition is fine; while you definitely focus more on your sounds, textures and atmospheres, you've got a decent hook on the piano that brings the melodic structure of the track together through your repetition of it at the end. Transitions are excellent (apart from one I'll mention in the next section), especially the one at 2:22 which does a great job of introducing the "main" melody, so to speak. Great ending to top it all off.

Two nitpicks and a larger issue. Starting with the nitpicks, I think the clap at the beginning has too much high end, which kind of ruins your amazingintro, because we've got a wonderful, warm, deep atmosphere that keeps on getting interrupted by that harsh clap. It fits in a lot better once you introduce the other percussive elements, but for the intro I think you shouldn't have had such a contrasting element. And the 3:19 transition... I've listened to it like 5 times and I still don't get it haha. I think it should be more subtle and sensible. Lastly, the track loses its ability to maintain interest in the later sections of the track. In your intro you're able to keep the listener interested by introducing loads of new elements, but from 3:18 it sounds like we've already heard it all before, and while there are quite a few new elements in that section, none really succeed in taking the track to a new direction to stop it from getting boring.

Despite that, this is another excellent track from you. I genuinely can't wait to hear what you make next!

Score: 8.6/10

InvisibleObserver responds:

Clap - Roger that. Thats an easy fix, I can just drop a quick filter cut on it or lower its velocity and it should put it in place.

3:19 - I didn't have time to do up a fancier effectual reversy/sweepy/filter glitchout. I thought it was still within the rhythms of the song, though abrupt. I guess it sounds worse to fresh ears. I was at the point of a 10 hour sit down session where I was pretty numb to things.

Songs repetition - Ultimately just not enough time to really fluff it out. I need more similar patterns with new additions/changes and basically a different outro thats not a straight up repeat. I think some repitition is healthy - listening to this track once and the repetition probably welcome. Judging it and listening 3-4 times will make the rep stand out.

Maybe I'm just defending my musical baby. :P

Thank you for the wealthy review Step.

[Can't Express Myself]

This is an NGADM Round 2 review.

--

I did not expect this from you! For someone who almost exclusively produces electronic stuff, this is surprisingly expressive and something I'd expect from an orchestral or pop artist or something. You've got interesting use of diminished chords; your chords in general are pretty solid, and you have some pretty fitting chords like the 2:50 maj7 chord. There are some impressive melodic ideas in here as well, such as the 3:08 melody, although apart from that, nothing is really developed that much for me to point any others out. There's huge amounts of dynamics here, which makes me appreciate the soft parts, loud parts and their contrast far more. Oh and, fantastic ending.

Unfortunately, the fact that it's partly an improvisation really works against you. I'm hearing a lot of incohesion at various points of the piece. This, of course, makes plenty of sense with the title and story behind this track, but musically, it just doesn't work. You can't tell a story with art without the art itself being understandable and able to be interpreted, and I found it very hard - sometimes impossible - to interpet parts of your piece because they lack musical form. Some of your sections are perfectly enjoyable (2:08, 3:08, etc), but a lot of them just trail off into nothingness, without some kind of suitable continuation or resolution. This is something which is very hard to avoid in improvisations, since unless you're one of those experienced jazz musicians who can invent coherent and structured melodies spontaneously, or just insanely talented, you're going to have those pauses as you decide how to continue the next section, certain "off" parts when you don't sufficiently finish a melody, and so on and so forth.

On a more production-related complaint, the piano sample you use is indeed bad. I mean, it sounds bright, clear and full-bodied, but piano solos like these rely so much on expression (which you made a conscious effort to portray, I'm sure) that it sounds jarring when you play softer notes and they just sound like the louder notes except with the volume turned down. As I'm sure you know, a soft note on a piano (or any instrument for that matter) won't only differ in volume but in actual sound too, which is why sample libraries introduce velocity layers. This track would've sounded better by quite a fair amount had you simply asked someone with an expensive piano sample to replace it with yours (and entirely within the NGADM rules). Not going to reduce any marks for it, but it's something that would've improved this.

Anyway, if I had to put aside the incohesion, this would be a really expressive track with great ideas, but unfortunately I can't just put aside such a glaring issue. Still, props on trying something totally new and good job with this, it has potential! Also, you improvise much better than I will ever be able to improvise, haha.

Score: 7.1/10

Sequenced responds:

I'll probably re-record this song on a full sized piano with a more organized structure next time. I'll let you know when it's out. :3

btw, writing piano songs like this is not new to me. 17 years of piano experience. I've just never uploaded any thing I've written on the piano ;)

[Draesdne Adaas]

This is an NGADM Round 2 review.

--

Ah, that Bosa. Being the king of pretty much everything makes him a pretty busy person. Quests are quests though, looks like you were on your own for this round! Despite not having Bosa with you, you still created a fantastic piece that's very characteristic of your style and has these wonderfully well-woven textures that are a blast(issimo) to listen to, no doubt because of your excellent chord voicings and instrumentation that fits together like a jigsaw puzzle. You also have a very good structure and progression, as you almost always have in your music. I loved the melody-answering at 1:24 and the 1:37 abrupt transition to the soft choir section akin to the one you had at the very beginning.

I should also commend you on the excellent ending you have. I don't think you mucked up the ending at all (and I never even knew blastissimo was amusingly an actual musical term). I think you managed to create a very apocalyptic and almighty final section with artful use of dissonance and a spine-tingling brass sound. Some heavier percussion at the end would've wrapped up that outro nicely, but it's a great section anyway. To my relief, despite you starting this track quite late, it doesn't feel very rushed. Sure, it's somewhat lacking in intricacy/detail at times, which is a bit of a let-down, but not glaringly so.

You saw this coming a mile away, but for a long while, production value will be your downfall, samulis. You have such a heavy focus on composition and so you never do stuff like small melodies that lazily repeat themselves all the time, predictable chords over a pseudo-epic brass melody with staccato strings going insane in the background or generally any kind of simplistic and bland composition that tries to sound epic (something I might be guilty of in my music). You always deliver solid composition with excellent harmonies, and then your mix is thin and lacking the oomph I so desperately want.

You've got a solid track here, with awesome textures and lots of good composition. Keep up the awesome work.

Score: 8.5/10

samulis responds:

Thanks for the review Step. I've always known my Achilles Heel and struggled with mastering (at least I can blame it on the fact I use a notation program). That's why I'm going to a college with a focus on modern music- the place where I can learn the most about mixing and mastering and technology. Let's face it, teaching yourself chords and the form of a Fuge is a far cry from learning how to properly use compression without making it sound like a dead cat. Maybe in a few years I'll have that final step down (no pun intended).

Blastissimo isn't actually a word as far as I know, but I use it a hell of a lot to describe the brass parts in 90% of modern cinematic-action music (essentially it's FFF + Full Tilt + Cuivre in music lingo I guess). XD

I figured give it the old Samulis approach... it's only failed me a dozen times so far, hahaha.

thanks again for the review, Step! It's been a Blast(issimo) too!

[Memories of a Forgotten Land]

This is an NGADM Round 2 review.

--

Wait, what. After your Round 1 track, you give us this? I did not expect it! Your Round 1 track wasn't bad by any means, but this track is in such a different tone... your Round 1 submission was set on building an atmosphere and this one's all about expression. Impressively, just like you succeeded with your goal in Round 1 by building such a great atmosphere, you've certainly succeeded in expressing such powerful emotion in this track. The first section is very melancholic, and the second section (from 1:09 onwards) feels more hopeful. Of course, credit must go to Jeremy for such a beautiful violin performance. In short, the expression in this track is just wonderful.

That, of course, can't quite be achieved with bad composition, and thankfully, you have incredible composition. Lovely melodies on the violin. Who composed them? Michael or Jeremy? Your progression is superb, and when the violin's melody hit high notes in a beautiful melodic ascension, I died. Highly suitable chords, by the way. 1:09's little chordal passage is actually one of my favourite parts of this piece, even if it's a pretty small section that doesn't last long before the solo violin takes the spotlight again. The production is nearly pristine, by the way. Everything sounds warm and clear, and there's a lot of dynamics.

I say the production is nearly pristine because I felt like, as JacobCadmus correctly pointed out, sometimes the sampled instruments don't quite match up to the violin in terms of expression. This is expected, of course, because when you introduce a human element in music, it always ends up being more expressive, but still, sometimes the instrumentation in the background just sounds flat. The main culprit is one of the instruments you have in the background which I can't quite make out - it sounds like a soft French horn playing in its higher register, or it might just be a woodwind instrument. It first comes in at 1:21 and plays quite consistently throughout the whole piece - it just feels dynamically flat and occasionally, at points like 1:42, its precise frequency can penetrate a bit too much in a mix full of deep, warm strings and sound ugly. Also, I would've liked more than just the violin carrying the foreground melody. Rarely is the melody given to any other instrument, and even though I'm partial to a great violin performance, which Jeremy certainly delivered, variety in the foreground instrumentation is still important.

This is a wonderful track. Far more developed than your Round 1 track and full of beautiful composition and a touching violin performance to top it all off. Great work to both of you.

Score: 8.8/10

MichaelJ responds:

Wow, Step. Awesome review. Thank you!

I had violin samples in the first half of the piece when I sent it to Jeremy, and he recorded himself on the real fiddle. I then removed the samples and inserted the recording. However, everything past 1:33 is 100% Jeremy.

You're right, my instrument samples can't compete with the real thing! After adding the violin recordings, I think my ear turned off all of the other instruments. I then rushed to get this published. I'll watch out for stuff like that next time.

Also, I am so jealous of your ability to write solid reviews. Thanks again.

[[IV]Maskmen]

This is an NGADM Round 2 review.

--

Aw man, sorry to hear about your illness! Hope you're feeling better now. Regarding the track, compositionally I don't feel that this is rushed. You've got some very solid composition that, to me, feels like you put a fair amount of thought into it. Your low string melody is lovely. Melodious, expressive and suitable for the theme you were going for. I like your staccato string passage at 1:06; I felt like you could've expanded the amount of notes it actually plays, but it was a good way to keep the tension levels high and at the same time provide a bit of variety from the really stretched-out melody notes that I think are characteristic of your style (based on the tracks I've heard from you at least).

With regards to production/execution, I think this is where time got the better of you. I'm not quite getting the airy and spacious mix I got from your Round 1 entry. Everything is very muddy and confined to the lower mid or low end of the track. I noticed that one of your tags is 'sci-fi', but because of all the muddiness, only after I noticed that tag (and after I curiously turned up my volume) did I recognise the bass synth playing in the background, which really shows that your mix leaves much to be desired. Your strings also feel a little stale and unchanging in volume. 1:32 was a pretty bad transition, and from then on we're not treated to much new content, as ChronoNomad pointed out.

This track needs more changes in texture. The melody is never carried by an instrument which isn't strings. Really, all I'm managing to hear are strings, percussion, the bass synth, and maybe some super subtle woodwinds which might just be my mind tricking me. Not only that, but the strings only ever stay in their lower register, which only adds to the aforementioned dynamically stale issue that they have. This lack of instrumentation might've been because you were sick, since your Round 1 track didn't have this problem!

Overall, it does sound a bit rushed; shame that things happened how they did. You're an excellent composer regardless (you've got to be, considering you beat PeterSatera!). Good luck in your future tracks, and if you're still unwell, get well soon!

Score: 7.4/10

[Tir Na Nog]

This is an NGADM Round 2 review.

--

This song hits many of my soft spots. I have a soft spot for celtic music, a soft spot for sus4 chords (which you make really nice use of, especially in the intro) and a soft spot for etherealwinds' vocals. Well-played! Your atmosphere is exactly what you described it to be - mysterious. Something people know little about, but at the same time something exciting and heart-pumping. You highlight this well by throwing in so many different elements, and unlike in your Round 1 track, you've brought the production quality up a notch, so despite so many instruments playing together, it's not a game of Eeny, meeny, miny, moe to decide which to focus on!

Your transitions are almost all excellent. 1:16 was a bit abrupt during the initial listen, and perhaps you could've made 2:16 a bit more subtle, but otherwise, everything's smooth and well-made. 2:44 is just mind-blowingly well made, by the way. What an excellent way to heighten the melody and switch everything to overdrive, so to speak. Your progression and structure are also masterful. On the instrumentation section, I can tell you made an effort to give your instruments dynamics and realism, and your instruments are well-chosen, but they're still soundfonts, and some of them (0:07's instrument especially) sound very thin and MIDI-like. Again, I'm not reducing your score for it because you seem to have done everything in your power to give this good production value, but you're one of the people who I think really deserves some better sounds. It's an investment to consider. If you ever do consider it and would like some tips, feel free to hit me up.

Now, first impression; this track is very generic, even moreso than your first track (sorry for using that word again haha). When I think "celtic", this kind of track is exactly what I'd think of. This might be a good thing because it means you kept to your vision of making a celtic track, but it's also a bad thing because it feels like I've heard all these melodies a handful of times before. They're very typical for this genre, and I feel that it's important to make your work stand out. This is a more uphill struggle in EDM, since there are so many tracks in that genre that it becomes hard to give your music an edge over other EDM music, but you have no excuse! There's plenty of celtic music out there but there's still a lot of room to make your celtic track sound unique. Tiny mixing issue; at 2:49 the lower frequencies of etherealwinds' voice are too prominent.

Anyhow, good job improving on your Round 1 submission; the more I listen to this, the more I enjoy it. You need to work on making your music stand out from the crowd, because couple that with your compositional talent (and some better samples of course) and you've got a winning formula. P.S.: May I remind you how good 2:44's transition is. I keep going back to that transition because it is SO DAMN WELL-MADE. Bravo!

Score: 8.6/10

ChronoNomad responds:

Huzzah! I pinpointed all your weaknesses systematically and violently zapped them with high-powered sound waves...without even knowing what they were! This pleases me greatly. I'm also glad to hear that the mysterious quality of the music is quantifiable. It's also a pleasure to hear that my production quality has improved despite the continued use of SoundFonts. :D

On to transitions! As for 1:16, that was intended to be strategically jarring in the hopes that it would feel nice and dramatic. A false ending as it were, and then...BAM! I was never (and still am not) quite happy with the cymbal crash at 2:16, but ditching them entirely felt too underwhelming, and nothing else I tried really seemed to work as well. I would have gone back at the end and continued experimenting, but it ended up just being forgotten in the general shuffle. Oh, but 2:44--YES! It would seem that you love that particular transition as much as I do. I really wanted the title of the land/song to appear vocally at least once, and Jordi proceeded to deliver beyond my fondest expectations. I would indeed love to acquire some robust EW suites one of these days, but as a person with bills and college tuition payments it's just not in the cards at current. Believe me, I'll be saving any birthday and Christmas money for precisely that! Until then, I can but do the best with what I have.

Generic!? Gah! Argh! It burns! It bites! It freezes! My Preciousssss~!

But seriously, I do know what you mean, and I accept my fate. It's not like Enya generic (not that Enya is generic; I just mean it's not like her style), but it does have that old time Celtic tavern sort of generic quality...a little. I can admit it. That doesn't mean that I love my marvelous little Irish rose any less, of course! Hopefully my Round 3 submission will blow your socks clean to Timbuktu.

Yay! Thanks a lot for everything, Step. I feel very honoured by such praise, and I hope to maintain this level of badassitude going forward. Hooray for the un-freaking-believably sweet transition that is 2:44! That will always be my favorite part, too. ^__^

[Ablixa]

This is an NGADM Round 2 review.

--

Damn, this is amazing. What instantly hit me is that this has some of the best production value from the whole round. I mean sure, it sounds heavily brickwalled, but thankfully it's not tiring to listen to at all, even at high volumes. Your bass is phenomenal. I really enjoyed listening to the bassline. You give it a lot of space in a mix that's pretty full-up already, so it's astoundingly clear. Really, I could spend all day praising your mix. Everything's clear, full of depth, and a pleasure to listen to. Great sound effects in general too, like the 2:28 filter automation, the really wet reverb at the end and of course, the main melody which is a stretched snare from all things. By the way, 0:22's low rumble is awesome. Really deep and sounds great.

The composition on the whole is very good. Rhythmically, this track is excellent. The way you highlighted the rhythm of the vocal sound with the snare at the beginning, all the while having that stretched snare going insane and the bass providing another solid rhythmic factor... it was all a blast to listen to and everything worked together like clockwork. The transitions are very impressive, no doubt due to your masterful control over sound and incredible production value. Highlights would be 1:03, 1:42, 2:28, and your progression to the ending, where you gradually removed elements and then just doused everything else in reverb. Also, cool idea to introduce that harsh pad at 2:10 and then have it sidechained when the drums come in afterwards.

The main issue is - yep, you guessed right - the repetition. I know that this genre has heavy focus on repetition, but once it starts to get monotonous to listen to, then it becomes a problem. The stretched snare at the beginning got a bit repetitive, but the real culprit would be the melody on the square lead at 2:30. You repeat it plenty of times - it's a long melody with plenty of subtle pitch-bends and stutters, but unfortunately it's monotonous because it retains almost the same rhythm every bar, and it's repeated multiple times such that it gets pretty predictable. Also, while the ending was fantastic, the intro was a bit bland. Given the amazing sound design elements you have scattered throughout the track, I expected better.

Overall, extremely impressive work. I'm not docking that many marks for the repetition because it wasn't too grave at all and the fact that this is 4 minutes and 13 seconds of pure ear-candy kind of does make up for it.

Score: 9.4/10

garlagan responds:

Step, how do you do it? This review is extremely helpful and detailed. I'm so amazed it's not even funny. Thanks a lot mate. I really appreciate it.
Just like the other one you left on the previous round, I've probably read this one more than 20 times now (yep I like your reviews).
I agree with the things you pointed out. I have to work on them. The strange thing is, I also knew this track's 'mistakes' but i'm always late at starting my tunes. I should learn somehow not to procrastinate so much, and my whole life would be better lol.
Cheers Step <3

[Worth Your Time]

This is an NGADM Round 2 review.

--

Damn, this is the second song I've listened to in this round, and it's the second time I've crapped brix. What a lovely improvement over your Round 1 submission in almost every department - production, variety, structure, etc. It's hard to compare this to a chiptune track of course, but while your chiptune tracks can occasionally get a bit obnoxious or hard on the ears, this is the total opposite - something I'd love to leave in the background for a nice, relaxing soundscape that rivals that offered by a great ambient track. Because of my hearing problems I can't really understand the lyrics that well but I'M SURE THEY'RE COOL.

Of course, your singing is excellent. You've rarely had any problems when it comes to singing. The effects you put on your voice are very tasteful and meld well with the atmosphere. The atmosphere itself is great; you've struck a commendable balance between making something pop-like and relatable, and giving it an unconventional, dreamy earcandy of an atmosphere. The production is very nice as well. Great climactic section at 2:13 that gives the same kind of awing effect to the track as the glorious 1:27 section of your track We Don't Talk (yes I still remember that part). Your drums, while being simple, work well, and are nice and punchy, just how I like them!

Unlike what other NGADM tracks often have, which is a bunch of cut corners and little issues here and there, your track has only one problem, but it's pretty big. Your composition feels like a downgrade from your Round 1 track. The melody generally resides in the vocals, and it was, quite frankly, a pretty boring melody. It made the track feel like it drags on at a slower pace than what would've been felt had this track made use of more interesting melodies. Perhaps this can be fixed with a great instrumental section or simply some more exciting or effective melodies sung by the vocals. Some more vocal harmonies could perhaps do the track justice as well, although I'm not quite sure if that'll fit with the style.

Anyway, so much for doing chiptune for the whole NGADM! This was an excellent change, though. Brilliant job, just work on those melodies a bit more!

Score: 9/10