Step's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Anthem of the Adventurer]

This is an NGADM Round 1 review.

--

The reason I liked your audition was because it had such a great atmosphere, coupled by highly sensible composition. You deliver these qualities again in this wonderful piece. This has really nice composition that follows well with the premise of medieval/folk adventure and excitement that you offered. I can't really describe the composition in any way other than saying that you certainly know what you're doing. The instruments fit together nicely, the melodies progress beautifully, there are little pauses here and there (like 0:35) and the key change at the end was very well-placed.

The sounds leave much to be desired. They sound very much like soundfonts, which will never give you the crisp quality of high-end VSTs like East/West. Because I understand that not everyone can afford that stuff, I won't deduct marks for it, but I will deduct marks for the following. Firstly, the strings that appear at the beginning have the right sound but they need to be harsher and more spiccato (it's mostly noticeable in the pause at 0:35 where instead of having the harsh, sudden sound that would work for something like that, the note trails off lamely). There are a few levelling issues too; when a lot of instruments come in, it becomes hard to decide which instrument to focus on. There's a slight muddiness that's constantly present in the track that might be due to release times that are too large or too much reverb.

Anyway, if you've noticed all the issues I mentioned have to do with the sound of the track, and not the composition, which was great (albeit a bit generic). You're a highly talented composer!

Score: 7.8/10

ChronoNomad responds:

Many thanks, Step! There's no denying the quality (or lack thereof) of the SoundFont instruments, but as I am still learning my way around FL Studio, that also means lots of room for improvement. I'd love some awesome East/West VSTs, and anyone who wants to contribute to the cause by floating me a few hundred dollars will be my best friend for life! ^_~

Seriously, I'm a bit jealous of all the awesome orchestral suites that many of the other entrants possess, but I've been able to spend some time hunting down some really great stuff lately. Still SoundFonts, and of the relatively inexpensive or free variety, but they sound even better. Here's hoping that I can really bring the heat in the next round! I'm working on something entirely different for Round 2, and we'll just have to see how things go. A bit of chill D&B, which is something I've never really done specifically, and it's a blast. Look forward to it! :D

I'm extremely happy to hear that the composition is nice and tight, if a bit generic (I will probably hate that word for the rest of my life lol), and I am taking all of the sound critiques to heart. I'm trying to make things more dynamic going forward, from stereo effects to velocity, so hopefully that will be evident going forward and reduce that muddiness. I can't wait to dive headfirst into Round 2 with all these other hyper-talented artists! Tally ho!

[Seeing Spots]

Hey! Sorry for taking so long to review this. With piano lessons, the NGADM, music work, and other reviewing to do, it was tough to find the time, but I finally got round to it!

This has some pretty good qualities! First off, I can tell you worked on the mixing/mastering because the production in this track is quite clean. For a track like this I would've liked a stronger bass, and maybe an even harder-hitting kick, but what you have right now is airy and pleasant to the ears, so good job in that department. The piano in this track is lovely. Overall there are some pretty good ideas, and a nice amount of variety to boot.

Now, the main issue is the wow factor in this track. Unfortunately it's a bit uninteresting, and doesn't stand out among other house tracks as much as I would've liked it to. A lot of the sounds you used are cheesy/generic, especially that hypersaw, so a good place to start is being more creative with your sounds. This could mean looking into synthesis and making your own sounds, or investing in some new VSTs (I'd recommend Omnisphere but then again I recommend Omnisphere to everyone; I love it to bits. Shame it's very expensive though).

Another issue is that the composition is bad. So while you have nice production and some good ideas (like that ending; what a nice way to end the track), the melodic department is lacking. This is unfortunately not something I can give you constructive criticism about because to this day I don't know how to explain what makes a melody good, but all I can say is that with a bit more experience you'll be able to make great melodies to complement your good ideas and production.

Hope that helped, good luck with your future tracks!

Dylnmatrix responds:

Thanks so much for the review Step. This actually helps a lot and I feel better about not getting into the NGADM this year.

Strong kicks and basses are a weak point for me. I'm still learning how to EQ and properly compress everything, and I still use a lot of presets. But I'll work on making that better.

With this being an experiment in House, I was a little afraid to make my own sounds for it, so I used the generic ones, just so it would sound more house-y to me. I'm sure that if I continue working at house music, I'm sure I'll get better at it, but I tend to stick to my Trance.

It's a shame you thought the composition was bad, but I guess I didn't focus on the melodies in this as much as I do in my trance tracks. Probably because I was so afraid to step outside the boundaries of house when I was writing this, and I don't hear much house music with amazing melodies like Trance or Complextro.

I really appreciate this Step. This is going to help me a ton if I decide to try House again, and in my other tracks as well. Thanks.

[Rat Thief! Rat Thief!]

This is an excellent track. There aren't many bands here on Newgrounds and when I hear band songs with solid production like this, it makes me forget I'm actually hearing this on the Audio Portal haha.

I'm just going to skip straight to the good news. This sounds great. Not only is it considerably unique but you've got some great production value and composition. I'm highly impressed by the instrument playing (especially that drummer) and even the singing is excellent. It falls a bit flat at times but come on, it's tough to execute perfect vocals and these are damn near perfect.

What I also quite liked was that you don't just stick to predictability like so many other songs in this genre. For instance, just when I thought that I heard all there is to hear in this song, 3:53 comes in. Apart from that, you've got plenty of sweet things like gating on the guitar, whispering, and neat drum fills like the one at 4:50 to keep the listener interested.

Despite all that, I think that at 5 minutes and a half, this can get monotonous unfortunately. I have nothing against long songs and I can hear you made a genuine effort to keep things fresh and interesting, but despite that, it doesn't really vary much from the sleazy, trippy-sounding mood it latches onto so much. And even though the production value is great, the mix is slightly muddy, making it hard to make out some of the sounds, including the lyrics themselves.

There are a few other small issues here and there that I won't bother getting into, but overall, damn, this is excellent stuff! Great work, keep it up.

[Lucid Dreaming]

As usual, I love your avant-garde kind of approach to music. I'm hearing techniques and approaches I've never quite heard before. You've got some highly interesting piano composition and sounds. The whole idea of this song is well-thought-out, and it's easy to tell you put a tonne of work into it. One of my favourite things about this is how it builds up an atmosphere, especially at the beginning. With those effects it really does sound like I'm dreaming.

Now, I can't guarantee you that what's following will tell you why you didn't make it in to the NGADM, but it will tell you what points of criticism I can bring up. My main issue with this is that it needs more movement. Boring isn't quite the word I'm looking for; it's more of a monotonous kind of thing. The main instrument only ever changes at one point, for a brief period. The mood also hardly fluctuates. Sure, the song has its moments, but never does a section truly distinguish itself. This is more like something one would zone out to, which was probably your intention, but like we always do in the NGADM, we judge a piece of music for what it is, not for how well it can fit in a background of a game or how well you can zone out to it or whatever.

In a normal year this track would make it through easily, but the quality level was through the roof this year, and we had to decline some really good tracks like this one because of one or two negative flaws they had. Hope to see you next year though man.

Birdinator99 responds:

I agree with your point that this piece lacks a memorable, distinguishable section. A mood change would have been a good idea to break things up. The piano isn't something I usually use, so I guess once I got a result I liked with it, I got carried away. If the main instrument you're referring to is the pad at 1:13, I stick by my usage of it (made it myself!).

I did spend a lot of time on this, so thank you for noticing. Best part is, I've got a whole year to get better for next year!

Also, thanks for taking the time to review; I know you're a busy organizer at the moment, so this was a nice gesture.

[Mr Brightside/Somebody]

You were very, very close to making it into the NGADM. This sounds like a really well-meaning audition that you've put together here. The singing is near-perfect, the harmonies are absolutely lovely, the timing is very precise... it would've been a pleasure to have an artist like you (and your acapella group as well) in the NGADM. Great work with this.

The reason this didn't make it was production-related. The reverb in here is too much. It's probably natural reverb from the recording environment (unless you purposefully added it afterwards), but it made the vocal layers sound considerably muddy. This sounds like a small problem but it was actually enough for you not to make the cut. Like I said, you were extremely close and in fact you're mentioned in the honourable mentions. Great job with this, shame we couldn't accept you through!

raggd46 responds:

Hey thanks for the review! really helpful; I've only just started into the muddy waters of producing/recording very recently and I'll take into account the production tips for next time.
And I'm now flattered, this one is all me singing the different parts, so I must have done something right! I hope to record one with my group though after the summer...

[Monsieur Blacksky]

Excellent mixing man. This was one of the better metal auditions. The guitars sound positively menacing, and the drums have a lot of oomph in them. You used the compression very tastefully as well, since it wasn't too much to have the instruments compete and create a mess of sound, but was still there to give the instruments the power they need. Your riffs are solid, your playing is good...

...so why wasn't this accepted into the NGADM? I can't speak for the other judges, but personally if I were to criticise it, I'd mention what MetalRenard said. This needs better melodic content. There were other excellent metal artists like Braiton whose audition had great production value like your track had but at the same time had good composition. This has flawless production, but lacked in the composition department.

Apply your production skills to some strong melodic content and you'd have a winner in your hands.

PirateCrab responds:

Thanks a lot for the critique Step, it's muchly appreciated.

This song was written with vocals in mind which is why it lacks melodic content, I'm actually producing the vocals right now haha. Knew I should have chosen a different song!

You'll be seeing me next year fella don't you worry!

[~SW~ City of the Clouds]

Hi. Yeah I know I said I'd review this and I took ages to get around to it (but in my defence I was in Spain and I am certainly not analysing a track on laptop speakers or Apple earbuds thank you very much). Now that I'm back in Malta, I can finally review this, and let me just say from now that this is your best work. I greatly admire Birth of an Astral Nation for the whole size, ambition and creativity of it, but this is hands-down your most solid unified song. On top of that, I absolutely love it, and let me tell you exactly why.

This has EVERYTHING*. It's like my new smartphone. It can do everything save for make me my breakfast (but I'm sure there'll be an app for that in the future). This has parts that are slow, parts that are energetic and bursting with speed, parts that build up, parts die down, atmospheric parts, insane solos and even traditional instruments like the dizi and zither for God's sake. What's not to like?

This is such an ambitious project, just like a lot of your other works. There's a big diversity in sounds, effects and melodic content. This song is like a starry night sky. Look up at it and you've got a beautiful array of stars. Look closer and you start seeing more and more stars pop up here and there, and the more you look at it, the more stars come up and the more beautiful the sky becomes. Same thing here; if I listen closely to the song at any one point, I'll always pick up some new little detail which I didn't notice before. Yes, your song is a smartphone and now a night sky as well. DEAL WITH IT.

The insane amount of detail provides a very slight negative effect. It's very tough to add in so many instruments and soundscape layers playing together because that then diminishes the effect of each individual instrument, which makes this track fall in the same trap a lot of your other songs have. No sound truly stands out in the mix (except that open hat at 2:52 which ironically stands out too much. Turn that crap down, man). HAVING SAID THAT, this is very slight issue because 1.) It makes sense with the theme to have so many things playing together...

...and 2.) you've actually done a much better job on the mixing than you've ever done before on a track. This makes the problem of no sound standing out much less apparent because even if there isn't the clarity I want to hear in certain sounds, I can still feel the power and statement of certain instruments.

This issue is slowly dying away the more you make music, so I think after some time this issue will have disappeared for the most part and you'll be able to separate sounds more adeptly and suitably in a heavy and detailed mix instead of having them competing so much. In all fairness, your mixing skills right now are already great anyway. It's just that you use so many sounds that it ends up being a massive chore to control them all and mix them suitably, and you're already improving rapidly at that.

Now, I often start with composition when I review melody-heavy tracks like these but I wanted to get all that stuff out of the way first. The composition is stellar. I can't begin to express how much I love the leitmotif you've used here or how much I enjoyed the guitar solo towards the end without sounding like your number #1 fanboy or something. Not to mention that great rhythm guitar-like thing you use in the background during energetic parts like 1:20 which is coincidentally one of my favourite things in this track. Overall, you used just the right amount of quirkiness and just the right amount of excitement. This sounds very inspired and creative.

Something I would particularly commend you on is how you manage to combine a light, floating atmosphere with an energetic and fun atmosphere, even adding hints of deeper reflection in certain parts like the end. The sound effects and layers of drone ambience only assisted you in this feat. At the risk of sounding too much like an A.I.M. judge, this fits excellently with the art you chose in my opinion. Your story also fit so well that while I was trying to read it in sync with the music, I practically got goosebumps. It really works.

Notwithstanding the little mixing issue I mentioned above, the technicalities are pretty much nailed. Fitting intro and outro, superb transitions, great choice of sounds and choice of chords, and a very solid structure to boot.

There's nothing more I can say about this piece right now because I'm getting sleepy. I can tell you're proud of this and you should be. You worked hard on it and the result, without a shred of doubt, paid off. You get a 10/10 from me. Keep in mind the issues I've mentioned above and keep on improving please!

10/10
5/5
Download.
Favourited.

* except a cowbell.

SkyeWint responds:

FIRST THING. YOU ARE AMAZING AND HANDS-DOWN THE BEST REVIEWER I KNOW. PERIOD. This is not up for debate, you are not allowed to complain. So shush with the downplaying of yourself. I need to review a piece or two of yours (or like, 5) to repay you for all this great stuff.

Now, copy/pasting and responding to your points.

"this is your best work"
:D :D :D :D :D ME GUSTA. Definitely was my goal, though I hope to overcome that... like, 4-5 times during the NGADM.

"even traditional instruments like the dizi and zither"
Okay, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. But I must do this. It's an erhu, not a dizi. ;_;

"This has EVERYTHING* * except a cowbell."
...so is it like Omnisphere then? :D

"Yes, your song is a smartphone and now a night sky as well."
Okay, I can deal with it being a high-def picture of a night sky on a smartphone or a smartphone app depicting the night sky. Seriously though, I am highly complimented by you noticing this. I work incredibly hard to have tooooons of little details in my music which people can pick up on if they look deeper, and it's great to have someone comment on that in such an artistic way. ^_^ Also, of course... I always try to have things be diverse and 'different'.

"(except that open hat at 2:52 which ironically stands out too much. Turn that crap down, man)"
Yeah, people have mentioned that before. I guess I should probably change that at some point, lol.

"you've actually done a much better job on the mixing than you've ever done before on a track"
Thank you so much. x.x I hope that each individual instrument had a lot more space and was a lot clearer than they've been. I tried to give them each more room to breathe, and let the relevant instruments stand out a bit more when they're given their chance.

"It's very tough to add in so many instruments and soundscape layers playing together because that then diminishes the effect of each individual instrument"
You can say that again. :\ I like to add a lot of detail in my music as I said. Unfortunately, it can make mixing a complete nightmare. Still though...

"This issue is slowly dying away the more you make music, so I think after some time this issue will have disappeared for the most part and you'll be able to separate sounds more adeptly and suitably in a heavy and detailed mix instead of having them competing so much."
This be good. If I can seriously manage to do that then I want to be crowned the damn mixing king of the world (lol yeah right).

"I can't begin to express how much I love the leitmotif you've used here"
Will send if you want. c:

"the guitar solo towards the end"
Will also send if you want. C: It's this really cool and crazy synth I found lurking in the depths of Omnisphere, actually. No guitar related at all.

"without sounding like your number #1 fanboy or something"
:D PLEASE DO SO. I will give you a cookie the size of a car tire. Or possibly some pancakes, I know a place (went there this morning and they served 3 pancakes the size of hubcaps. I only managed to eat one and then was stuffed for the next 7 hours).

"Something I would particularly commend you on is how you manage to combine a light, floating atmosphere with an energetic and fun atmosphere, even adding hints of deeper reflection in certain parts like the end."
Atmospheres are actually something I also work heavily on. ...okay, so I try to work heavily on almost everything, but atmospheres are still an important thing I try to add into most of my music. :P They help so much in storytelling... which is apparently a good thing since my story came across well. :D So I think that's it, and I'll take my leave... oh wait.

"Keep in mind the issues I've mentioned above and keep on improving please!"
YES SIR!

.

(...but it's not in your favorites. ;_;)

[Biohome]

Certainly a well-deserved 2nd place! Hell, I thought you or InYourDreams had first place in the bag! This is a very chill, catchy, well-produced and enjoyable track with a great video-game vibe and a lot of diversity in moods. It's so good that it won my vote! Fantastic work with this.

I'm amazed that you managed to make this in just 3 days! As I said in that mini-review I gave you in the thread, this has such a clean and airy mix, and you managed to nail it in such a small amount of time. That is what I call talent. The production of this is off the charts. I can hear every instrument with crystal clarity, and this sounds great at high volumes (especially those bass-driven transitions like the one at 1:47).

The percussion is just great. I literally have no complaints with it. The beat is fitting, and the way you mixed those drums gives them a lot of oomph which, again, sounds excellent at high volumes, especially that kick which is probably the best kick in the contest, I swear. I sometimes have problems using kicks and sub-basses together because the sub-bass clashes with the frequencies of the kick and makes the whole thing sound like a bassy mess (which is tough to fix with EQing), but you execute it here seamlessly. Great drum samples too. Also, let me guess, the drums in the intro are from Stormdrum, right?

The composition is lovely. Everything is just so relaxed; it almost makes the biodome look like a beach resort paradise or something, ESPECIALLY when that guitar comes in later on! That guitar sounds amazing by the way; is it real or sampled? Funny how we both praise each other's guitars. Anyway, I digress. Apart from the stellar melodic content, you make brilliant use of grace notes, in the lead square synth, the guitar and the piano, which may be subtle but really heighten the melody.

My complaint in this section is that I would've liked to hear a little more melodies. I was disappointed to hear that the piano's melodies are practically the same or very similar to the melodies played by the lead synth. It was great hearing those melodies played with such an expressive touch by the piano, but still, I would've liked it if the piano veered off into some different melodic content.

When the guitar comes in playing some awesome new melodies, it sounds like a relief, but that relief is short-lived because a few bars afterwards, the main melody comes back in again. It sounds beautiful at the end, don't get me wrong, particularly when you bring it up an octave and get the guitar playing with it at one point, but you use that melody so much that it cheapens its final iteration. Also, this is just a little thing that I'd like to suggest. Maybe you could have a lush, uplifting pad play with the main melody at the end? Just to give it a bit more of a climactic feel.

By the way, words will not even begin to express how good the transitions in this track are. My favourite transition would, without a shred of doubt, be the transition at 1:47. Unlike TheDoor6, I absolutely love how "empty" the part at around 1:30 sounds, because it creates such a sweet contrast with the meaty, bassy transition at 1:47 that introduces the main melody. You approached that transition perfectly, and when the main melody finally comes in, it sounds beautiful. To a lesser extent, the transition at 3:05 was also great.

Finally, I'll quickly talk about the intro and outro, which, I felt, were sub-par compared to the rest of the track. The intro was nice and cinematic, with an interesting use of the rain sound effect, but to be honest it was a bit boring, and didn't give any indication that this track is something truly worth listening to. In fact, when I heard this for the first time during the voting period, only around 1 minute and a half into the track did I realise that this track could very easily win the round. Before that I wasn't quite impressed.

The ending is alright, but that final ending note could've been a bit more pronounced; you know, maybe you can add a crash cymbal and kick playing with it to give it a more definite ending than just a timid note on the lead synth that is filtered out. In addition to that, you could've added a bit more silence at the end. The ending on the whole felt a little rushed.

In conclusion, you've got an excellent track here. Highly impressive work; I consider this to be one of the best tracks in round 2 and I hope this review was helpful! Keep up the excellent work!

10/10
5/5

johnfn responds:

Holy crap man, what a review. I was thinking of doing a blow by blow response but it would just be me agreeing with every point you made. Ha! So instead I can make some high level comments.

1. Wow you pay seriously attention when you listen to songs. I seriously need to work towards that. I am eventually going to review your song so that should be a good time to practice ;-)
2. This review is a really good motivation to work on those little details, cuz I know that somewhere out there Step (or someone like you) is listening to each of them. In almost every negative point of your review, when I had written that part of the song I had thought "yeah I should fix this but I'm lazy" (or whatever bad excuse).
3. I applied almost every bit of advice you gave on my next entry to NGMT. Sadly I kinda ran out of time to mix it properly because I only had two days to do it. But yeah a lot of your points were suuper helpful.
4. I also really like this review because we agree on almost everything. Intro? Yep, didn't like it (tossed it in to get closer to the theme). Quiet transition? I thought it was awesome too. Repetitive melody? Yeah I knew that was a bad idea. Ending? Yeah, it needed more. Production? Yeah, I really nailed this one. (Somehow - I often struggle with mixing.)

Thanks for the incredible review man. I will try my best to do you one in kind.

P.S.

1. Yup, it's stormdrum. Good catch :-)
2. The acoustic guitar is not live. I wish I had recording instruments!

[Sanctuary]

Yesss. This is such an improvement over your NGAPTAC submission. Wonderful atmosphere, very solid composition and spectacular use of instruments. Even though it's a whole new level from your NGAPTAC submission, for some reason I still instantly knew it was yours. You've got a knack for making stuff that sounds experimental, avant-garde and sometimes downright weird, and when you execute it well enough to make it enjoyable and sensible on the whole, like you did here, that's when you have me impressed.

This was one of my favourites from the contest for various reasons. If we had to judge solely based on atmosphere, I think I would've voted for yours. You manage to build a pretty incredible atmosphere with both unsettling elements like the industrial-esque percussion and voice, and more majestic elements like that harp and flute. Some instruments like the guitar are used both to convey a tense mood (1:14) AND a feeling of majesty and grandiose (2:49). Hearing the difference in mood from each section played by the same instrument was something I loved.

Like I said, you make great use of your instruments. You really give each instrument its due respect, which is the total opposite of how I work. I throw in as many instruments as I can into my work and together the instrumentation is a greater whole than the sum of its parts. On the other hand, you seem to give each instrument a lot more attention and care, and then make them somehow work together at the end. You don't use as many instruments but make great use of the instruments you ARE using, and by the end of the track each instrument has its own unique identity, which is a very interesting approach. Yes I have no idea what I'm talking about.

And the composition is great! I love the chords you use, the melodies you make and the rhythms you create to support them. You have some truly great ideas over here, for example stopping the drums at 3:03 and then bringing them back in with a little mini-buildup, which, coupled with that descending phrase on the harp, really highlighted the beautiful atmosphere you have going over there.

Now, my main problem with this is the one I mentioned in the thread. The eccentricity of this track is a double-edged sword. Going against the norm creates very interesting and unique listening experiences, which is certainly evident over here, but at the same time, take it too far and it starts making the track difficult to enjoy at times.

For instance, you've got that harp and flute combo playing beautiful melodies at the beginning, and then at 1:04, without any form of suitable gradual transition, the track suddenly becomes tense, which doesn't make much sense. You probably did it to depict both the majestic atmosphere and dangerous atmosphere of the biodome, but that transition makes it sound a little forced. In general, the track's metre is also hard to follow at certain points, which, again, is not necessarily a bad thing, but personally it made it harder for me to enjoy.

With regards to composition, I would've liked it if you latched on to a motif that plays occasionally, since the structure of this track is pretty much all over the place. Additionally, I think that the flute doesn't quite fit at 2:17.

I understand that my points of criticism sound like they're trying to "standardise" or "dumb down" this track to make it more pleasant for a casual music listener, but what I really think is ideal for this track is that it nails a balance between sounding experimental/unique and sounding like a structured and well-thought-out piece of music. Right now, it's still very enjoyable, but leaning a bit too much on the experimental side, I feel. A track which, in my opinion, nails the balance, and has a pretty similar atmosphere to this track, is Shadow People by Buoy:
http://goo.gl/rspHj

Anyway, that's my opinion on this track. You've done an excellent job, and this track is bursting with great ideas and an amazing atmosphere. I very much enjoyed it, bravo!

9/10
5/5

alternativesolution responds:

I just... *blushes*

Thank you very much for your absolutely wonderful review! ^___^

I find your critique very informative. And I'm really glad you like it! Yes, considering my NGAP submission was done in just a few hours (not proud of that), I would hope that this one would sound more improved.

Though it varies from the different types of music I make, I tend to work on my transitions last, so that may be a telling point when it comes to how they've been affecting the stronger sections of my pieces. So, I will work hard on those!

Um.....all the detail.... T__T

I'm still smiling after reading this huge fence (it's not so much a wall..) of text, haha. :) I appreciate your thoughts on this piece more than you could know !

[IYD- New World (NGMT '13)]

What an excellent track. You should not be bummed at all that you got no votes. I honestly expected you or johnfn to win, and like I said in the thread, I only voted for johnfn over you because I thought that his track felt more detailed and like it had more thought put into it, whereas I feel that the deadline didn't work as well for you. But honestly, your production quality, composition, execution, and everything are so good that if it was only a bit longer and more developed/fleshed-out then I would've voted for it.

I'm going to start by saying that I love this kind of metal. Melodic, catchy metal which isn't just mindless shredding is just awesome, and here you execute it perfectly. Your guitar playing is nailed. I loved the rhythm guitar's riffs; maybe the chugging rhythm is a bit generic but honestly at this point it's impossible to find a fitting rhythm that hasn't been used many times before. It works well and fits neatly with the track.

The production value is through the roof. For three days, you've certainly managed to make a polished and tight mix. I remember listening to the tracks before voting and when I got to this track, I literally thought "crap, this guy knows what he's doing" when I heard 0:08. The guitar sounds GREAT, and your heavy use of compression works well over here since it really highlights the oomph of the guitar combined with those badass drums.

Speaking of which, the drums are stellar. I have yet to learn how to make such a clear and bassy kick, and that snare is amazing. The cymbal may have been a little underpowered (for some reason I swear I can hear it a bit better in the SoundCloud link but then again SoundCloud's playback is a bit compressed/weird at times). Otherwise, I have no complaints with the percussion, and I love that sci-fi-esque snare hit you played at times like 0:24 and 1:43 (or is that the same snare except with filters on it?).

The composition is lovely. Very catchy and "epic"-sounding. In a way it reminds me heavily of this (http://goo.gl/gdDni) for some reason. Like I mentioned in the review, my main gripe with the composition is that I think you use it to the point that it sounds pretty overused and milked. I would've liked some different melodic stuff played by the lead guitar, while still giving in some hints of that motif here and there, rather than starting every melody you've got with it (I'm talking about the first five notes of 0:25). Still, why should I be complaining? Composition is catchy, and well-made. I'm just nitpicking.

The instrumentation is sweet; one of my favourite things about this track. I always love when tracks blend metal with orchestral, or metal with electronic elements. Naturally, when you blend all three together you really win me over. The sci-fi stuff works well with the guitar and then you introduce strings which, while sounding premature and unexpected, sound great with everything else. Additionally, the sci-fi/techno elements tie the track to the biodome theme, even if that tie is not very strong.

Transitions are nice; nothing extraordinary, but they're good. 1:42 may have been a bit abrupt but otherwise, smooth transitions on the whole. Sweet intro as well. The same unfortunately can't be said for the ending though. After such good production and structure, all of a sudden you throw in some strings out of nowhere, and end the track like nothing happened. It makes it sound an awful lot like the deadline got the better of you, and as I said a few times now, the fact that this track has some underdeveloped ideas, not as much content and that weird ending is probably the main (or rather, only) reason I didn't vote for it.

Honestly though, I regret not voting for it. This track is fantastic and based on this track alone I consider you one of the most talented metal artists that I've heard here on Newgrounds. Eventually I'll check out some of your other stuff to see if it's on par with this, and if so you're going straight to my favourite artists list. Keep it up!

10/10
5/5
Download.

InYourDreams responds:

Wow,.. that's a lot to read xD...

Yeah... I only had one day time to write and come up with something for this round. I admit I did't work as much on this song as I would normaly do. Lucky for me I got super inspired that day :D... the rest is practice, I think.

Allmost everything I used for writing and mixing this songs were freeware plugins. My drum sounds are actually an awefull sounding drums- VSTi. But I used some boosts and EQs Compressors and stuff to highlight the Kick. The snare needed only a little boost of air and a lot of reverb (and love... xD...). I wanted an organic acoustic sounding drums, but at the same time modern and somewhat robotic. The simple beat made it easier to create those feelings.

This Metal-Electro-blend is becoming something like my style latetly... I love it! :D... I'm glad you liked my song. Check out my latest 3 or 4 songs... before that I was still developing my sound and my playing and mixing skills.

Thanx for the awesome review, Step! and see you next round :P