Step's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[mik // the beach \\]

Not bad :)

You're definitely getting better at composing. This song has loads of potential to become a great song, even though it has some problems.

The melodies are quite fast-paced for an ambient song, but they're quite well done. It gets a little hard to keep track of them, so I think some soft drums in the background would keep the rythm more, but from what I'm hearing, the melodies are great, especially the one af the beginning.

It shows that you're at a loss for instrument samples :P. Instruments sound more like bells than an organ synth, which is OK for me, but what I didn't like was the lack of instruments. There was only one or maybe two instruments (I'm not sure if instrument in the middle was the same organ synth lowered a few octaves or a different sample entirely), and it really put the song down.

What I think you should do is add some ambient bass pads, and vary the main instrument. Maybe give some plucked instrument sometimes and a decent bass. If you don't do them, not only will the instrument choice be bland but the song will be too high pitched.

The effects were a good attempt, but droplets don't sound that much like a spring :P. Applause effects for waves was done OK, but I'd prefer if you used an actual sea wave sample. Some large soudfonts (Unison, SGM V2.01, etc.) come with some nice seashore sound effects, so you could google them. Websites like www.partnersinrhyme.om (I think that's what it's called) give some good free sound effects too. Also, you should use more sound effects than just focusing on the sea. Some seagulls, kids laughing, etc... they all give out the picture of a beach.

The transitions weren't that good, since as I said before, I quickly lost track of the song, so you should try and add drums like at least a slight kick every beat or something. The structure and variety were a little random, because although the song was decently varied, it didn't have a fixed chorus which played every now and again and the small amount of instruments made it a little boring.

The intro was quite expectable, but fit well nonetheless. Droplets sounded a little strange, but the waves weren't bad. What could be better is if you give the bells a crescendo somewhere around 0:08, (that means make them from soft to loud gradually). The ending was actually quite good, but a little abrupt, so if you do a ritardando (that is, you make the tempo get at least 15 BPM slower towards the end) right before doing that ending note, it'd not sound that abrupt.

There were no drums over here, which as I said made the song hard to keep rythm with. I'm not asking for some heavy metal/hard techno loud drums or anything, but some laid back, slightly soft drums playing along with the melody would fit well over here (just make sure you vary them), or maybe you can even try congas, shakers, tambourines and bongoes.

I see a growing talent in your composing skills, and your songs are getting better. Just work a little on your samples/effects and lack of drums mostly. Also, the song is a little on the short side too... Still, keep up the good work!
7/10
5/5 - since this song got 0-bombed...

-Review Request Club-

mikkim responds:

I wasn't composing it to give the feeling of ambience or of a beach, but more to give the feeling of the song.

[itookachillpill]

Oh... the potential... IT BURNS!!! :P

This is practically almost as good as guitar solos can go, seriously. I enjoyed it a lot, even though I'm usually a fan of songs with more instruments.

The melodies sound really nice, even though they're only played by one instrument. It was cool how you continued it at the end of the song with single plucked notes, you should've continued the song like that, and then the song builds back into the chorus. You played the guitar really well too, and it's impressive that you kept such a stable rythm without any drums playing along and keeping the rythm for you.

The transitions were fine, with all the melodies blending together really smoothly. The structure is great and the variety is fine too. The song kept the same rythm till the end where it moved to the plucked single notes, but it didn't get repetitive. There was some noise at the beginning which was wierd, but other than that, intro was perfect, with a well played slight accelerando. Ending was a little strange, you should continue the single plucked notes as I said before, and try to end the song in a chord, not one note.

What would really fit well with this song would be drums, IMO. Some ride cymbals, a brushed snare and a kick would fit well over here, with maybe some splash/crash cymbals here and there.

The only reason why you got a nine is because this slightly on the short side, the ending was a little eerie and because I think some medium-soft drums would work well over here. Still, definitely keep up the amazing work! Sorry for the short review... OK... "short".
9/10
5/5

-Review Request Club-

loansindi responds:

Glad you enjoyed it.

I'll preface this response with stating that this was a one-take, one-track recording. The goal was mostly to spit out some ideas that have been kicking around for a long time, and to publish a 'finished' work, because I don't do that often enough.

That said, I'm glad you could enjoy the result.

The bit at the end is suggestive of a theme that hopefully will become a more realized idea at some point. and one that I think will mesh well with the original theme. When I can hammer out a more solid, less improvised structure I'll definitely work on it.

Drums might be good. My ultimate goal is to add vocals to this one. Once I hammer out some lyrics and either suck it up and do it myself or find a vocalist, I'll definitely look at some percussion.

Overall I'm glad you enjoyed it, and I appreciate your excellent review, as always.

[SN | Once Again | SN]

Never heard this type of music from you before...

...And man, you sure are good at it! Fully of energy, and although it's maybe "too happy", the enormous amount of energy, variety, and on the whole awesomeness of this amazing audio submission definitely makes up for the exaggerated happiness this song has :P. Maybe next time you should've done a change to the minor, though :P.

Melodies are quite generic, and I've heard that chord progression somewhere before, but they're very catchy. Loved the part at 1:57, a nice break from the energetic feel this song has. What I think would be cool is if you add an ambient part somewhere in the middle where you hear the melody playing with high bells in the background, and then a drum buildup pulls the song back to its energetic form.

Instruments are slightly generic too, but the use of that plucked guitar-ish instrument that you used at the very beginning was quite creative. I think you should make the bass a little louder in the louder and more energetic parts of the song though. Nice use of sound effects, like the one at 0:15, which I think is a reverbed kick, and the effect at the intro. Vocals were nice too, but I think this needs a few more vocals to it (I don't mean you sing throughout the whole song, but a few more vocals to transit from one melody to another would be good).

Transitions were really excellently done, especially the ones at 0:15 and 1:06, and all the melodies flowed very smoothly. Excellent buildups, especially the one at the beginning, and all introductions to new melodies were smooth and well done. I liked how you introduced the saw synth in the first part of the song.

The song structure is excellent, with loads and loads of variety, which is why I'm reviewing this song after listening to it like 10-15 times (lost track... I had it on loop for around half an hour without knowing it was looping :P). Intro was really nice, definitely one of the best I've heard on NG in a while.

Ending is what I don't like (by now you must've noticed how fussy I am with endings). Although it had a brilliant effect to it, it was much too abrupt. I have a really good idea for an ending, but I don't know how to explain it, so all I can say is, make it less abrupt :P. Piano endings are hard to do, so maybe you could try ending it with the piano, saw synth and well, practically all the instruments playing together.

Drums are just flawless O.O. Seriously, do you ever get the drums wrong in your songs?? They had such a great variety, and fit excellently with the song. Drum rolls were the best I've heard on NG (take that as a huge compliment, I listen to a lot of audio on NG) and the samples are great (you just gotta love the sound of that snare). Drum beats were impressive too. Perfect job on the drums, they were great!

Remember when I said your submission Guitar Shredding was my favourite submission of yours? Well, scratch that, this one beats it by far. I usually enjoy Dance songs, but this is one of my favourites. Definitely keep up the good work, looks like Glitch isn't your only prominent genre ;). Phew, long review O_o.
10/10
5/5
Download.
Fav'd.

-Review Request Club-

SessileNomad responds:

a change in minor is somthing ive done b4 with dance songs, i kinda just made this to fit in with all the generic trance songs

too happy is good enough for me :)

that chord progression has been used in 90% of all pop music ever, so yeah, its def. generic xD

everything about this song is generic so i agree with

lol yeah it did loop perfectly, i didnt even mean for that to happen

i could have played around with the ending a bit more, but honestly i really didnt put much thought into this track : /

lol i do pretty well on my drum tracks, im quite good at compressing and EQ'ing as far as that stuff goes

generic snare was generic, lol i actually think the snare roll should have had more notes in it, but i just left it

glitch is a very new genre of mine that i became ok at, i actually used to make a SHITLOAD of dance songs like this, except i would try to be original with them you know, not this same chord prog that everyone else uses

thanks for DL, vote, rev. fav, and smiley O_o.

lol i think its really funny that you like and guitar shredding track and this track, because i think that those two track are some of my worst of my recent tracks, i really am into the glitch/ambient/idm stuff, but you already know that

peace out dude thanks for long and informative review

[SN | Guitar Shredding | SN]

That was AMAZING!

You can do those crazy guitar melodies on your keyboard?? Man, anyone who could do that earns my respect. Great job, that was awesome.

Melodies are really nice (I've heard too much darn glitch from you; it's nice to hear what great melodies you can do [Hehe, I rhymed. I feel like being poetic... :D]). Guitar melodies were so fast-paced but great at the same time. Trust me, making this 50 BPM faster is a recipe for disaster (Again with the poetic...), since it's already really fast as it is. Piano melodies were perfect.

The instruments were really nice, they remind me of Guitar Vs Piano, except with a much slower piano, obviously. Speaking of the piano, I think it needs a bit more reverb to it, or maybe some delay. I think you should add some more effects around the song, although the pitch-bending on the guitar was cool, and that little effect at around 0:24 which sounded like a reverse Hihat was good too.

Very good transitions, especially the one with the effects, like at 0:25. Drum transitions weren't bad either. Song structure is very good, and the variety is fantastic. Piano intro was very well done, with a good buildup afterwards, but the ending wasn't too good. After hearing that effects, I expected it to continue guitar shredding after, but it just ended really strangely. Just continue more really fast guitar notes, and then end the song with a lot ending note.

Percussion, as usual, was flawless. There was a huge amount of variety of the drums throughout the song, and as Box-Killa said, the drums at the end were very well done and varied. Samples were superb, and the beats were extraordinary. I liked how you introduced them at the end too, with a cymbal every beat. Good job!

Definitely one of your best in my opinion, and you were one bad ending short of me fav'ing this song :\. Keep up the good work in general, this song was great!
10/10
5/5
Download.

-Review Request Club-

SessileNomad responds:

i think its very funny that you think this is one of my best, cuz i actually think its one of my worst, as far as EQing goes and stuff, i really only made it to show box-killa what i can do on keyboard, its probly just a genre thing

dont get too used too not hearing glitch, i have a beautiful peice in the works right now

thanks for the review dude, im glad you liked it, and yes i can do this on a keyboard, i just need to get a midi cable, mabye ill make a "live" version xD

[musingsthefirst]

You got that 10 I was talking about :P

Yep, another good improvement to the previous version. Some of the best Classical stuff I've heard on NG, keep it up.

There weren't many new melodies from the original, just the ones at the end, but they were great new additions. Wish I saw more flute ambience though. Instruments, as I said before, had excellent quality, with the oboe souding the best from all of them.

The transitions on the whole were great. The only transition which felt a little abrupt was the one at around 1:57. Firstly, the flute was just slightly too quiet, and it was a sudden transition from loud to soft, and secondly, instead of just ending the strings like that, you should play one long note with the strings and then simply fade that note away while the flute is playing the ambience. I liked the slight drum build-up after, though. The ending you did here is almost perfect. I think you should continue the song a little more with the oboe and strings, and maybe add the bassoon later on, and then you end it as you did now, since it is quite abrupt as it is right now. Sorry for the long paragraph. D:

The orchestral drums are quite well done for a first try. I think you should give them more importance though, since it's very hard to hear them as they are now, and you can really achieve some epic-sounding percussion out of orchestral drums when their volume is quite high. Good job with the snare rolls. Practically, my only complaint is that they're too quiet.

Has a few defects here and there, but the fact that it's one of the best classical pieces I've heard on NG in a big while, you'll get a 10/10 from me. Good job, keep up the great work!
10/10
5/5

-Review Request Club-

loansindi responds:

Hey, thanks man!

I do want to note that there's no oboe, there's a clarinet, and a bassoon though.

I know the song's probably not actually done, but I'm calling it that way. Because I know that I could probably spend hours and hours and hours on this piece without ever finishing it and moving on to new stuff. So I've got to call it done.

The percussion levels are going to be a little off no matter what I do, due to how they were routed within the software.

Glad you liked the ending, I thought it might be a little cliche.

Overall I'm glad you liked it, and I'll be sure to let you know about my next work.

[ECHO - Sons of Scotland (]

Nice job ;).

Although you may look at this as a rip-off of a good theme with a few minor changes, and repetitive percussion, you may also look at it a a well-hamonized, enjoyable march track. I'll go for the latter. Good job on it overall.

Melodies are just great, but the fact you used te Worms Theme (which by the way is one of my favourite themes too, you're not alone...) did take away a few points from the score. It's true that you added your own melodies after, which sounded amazing and so catchy, but the rythm is based on the original theme's rythm, which made this sound a lot like the Worms theme from beginning to end. Still, there was a very nice amount of alternate melodies, and the flute melody was very nice.

Instrument choice was great; foreground bagpipes, background bagpipes, strings, flute, and an umm... harmonica, I believe, correct me if I'm wrong: they all were excellent choices and fit with the majestic Scottish feel you were going for. Unfortunately, the instrument quality isn't too great. It's rare to find really nice samples in soundfonts, since soundfonts focus more on quantity than quality; you should see if you can find some orchestral VST's and stuff for your instruments. Still, flute had very impressive quality; I use Unison too, sometimes, and never knew the flute sounded that good on it. *Steals your idea of using Unison's flute*

One of the best parts of this was the very impressive harmonizing you did throughout the song. All the instruments harmonized beautifully together
with many accompanying melodies along with the main melodies, to keep the listener enjoying the song to its fullest. What I didn't like was that you used a reverse cymbal. Songs which use samples from real instruments are supposed to give out the feel that they are played not produced, and I'm sure it'd be impossible to play a reverse cymbal in real life. You should leave the reverse cymbals for electronic songs and stick to samples of real instruments only when you're making songs like this.

Holy shrimp, my review's getting big... Anyway, onto the transitions. They were perfectly done. I liked how you played the melody in the foreground and then echoed it again in the background. New instruments were introduced excellently, with a nice gradual buildup at the beginning to transit to the main melody. Good job.

Song structure is quite unique and well done, plus the variety is fantastic. There were many different melodies, and no repetitiveness but this didn't get random. Intro, as I said before, had a good buildup, and it's good that you started it with a snare roll like what usually happens in march songs. Ending was epic, and although I lost track of the rythm a little at the end, I still really enjoyed the ending, since it had such a nice blend of all the instruments playing together. If I had to go through it, I wouldn't change anything (except, obviously, remove that darn reverse cymbal DX).

The snare sounded good, and the snare loop was quite well done, but that's till where I stop praising your percussion, since, even though it's a march song, the snare loop was the same from beginning to end, and man, did it get annoying... Add different snare loops, and maybe some more heavy percussion like bass drums and timpanis. Give some more snare rolls and stuff. Percussion just ruined the fantastic variety and harmonizing of this with its tedious non-stop snare loop :\.

This is a really good song, which I definitely enjoyed. Even though it does have a lot of defects, you get such a high score from me for such amazing variety, great instrument choice and quality of the flute, good snare sample, nice melodies (not original, though O_o), and great transitions, structure, intro and outro. Just work on that percussion, getting better instrument samples, and please... take away that reverse cymbal X(.
...Whoa... you were one of the unfortunate souls who ended up victim to one of my huge reviews... Looks like I shaved 5 minutes off your life XD.
9/10
5/5

-Review Request Club-

OMG AI REACHED TEH CHARACTER LIMIT!!!!! XD

Echo responds:

Oh my GOD!!! Do you honestly have to reach the character limit eveytime you review one of my stuff?????

Anyway, thanks for the review. It is immensly helpful (not to mention immense).

Yes, i did use the worms theme and only for a particular reason. I've had it in my mind to make a sort of remix for the worms theme and also do a march song, and while i was browsing through NG, i came up with the idea "Why not put them together?" and hence i started to make this. Dramatic huh?

Glad that u liked the alternate melodies cos i worked really hard to make this as vareid as possible. I also focused mostly on harmony and instrument blending other then in drum samples, which as u may have noticed weren't particularly varied.

Yes, i did use a harmonica lol cos unison's harmonica sonds quite good with a flute although i did use the bagpipes in one part and throughout in the background.

Just in case ur wondering:

Strings are Vins Unison (Squidfont)
Bagpipes are Unison
Harmonica is Unison
Flute is Unison
Snare is a Snare sample i downloaded.

Ah yes. the reverse cymbal. Well, technically it is possible to play it in real life. All u have to do is to use a differnt kind of drumstick, namely the ones which have a sort of fur end. Then, you hit the cymbal slowly at first but rising in speed and volume slowly,as in a real reverse cymbal. This gives a sort of cymbal roll if u get my meaning. anyway, i'm glad i did use it because it provided a great transition buid up.

Holy shrimp, my response is getting big...Anyway, on to transitions. Well, i'm glad u liked these cos i focused quite a few hours on perfecting these cos they were particularly difficult as the melodies all start on an up beat. What i did basically was continue the last note so that the first two notes of each melody overlap with the last note, providing a chord in themselves and not leaving a gap of silence. (Ingenious don't u think?).

Yes, i introduced the build up as a kind of fugue at the end. with first only the flute. Then flute and harmonica, and then flute harmonica adn bagpipes. Just in case anyway of u don't know, a fugue is explained like this.

Flute-> A A+ A++
Harmonica-> A A+
Bagpipes-> A

Note that A is a melody while A+ is the same melody but with some differences and so on. The fugue can be used with as many instruments as u want although it is best if not many instruments are used. Yes, now that that's explained onwards to ur last...holy shrimp...ur last 5 paragraphs....

Song stucture i also worked hard on as i wanted to perfect it perfection although i'm not sure i actually achieved that. There's always room to improve ;)

Ah yes. The snare loop was indeed repetitive but i figured that ina march song or something similar the same drum loop is repeated. You shoul hear the bolero man. Its five mins of nonstop same snare...And most marches i hear induce the same type of loop, namely the repeat from beginning to end. Remember that this is not an electronic song and thus, snares are only there to provide a sense of rythm and not to make noise (:O NO NOISE?!?!? NO!!!!!!)...

Well, that was a very long review, which although i spent aroudn ten minutes reading, was pretty helpful and gave me an excuse to give u my longest response yet. Yes, i will work on what u metnioned (that should take a while :O) and i will defintely try to imrpove as i'm always open to such constructive criticsm. And yes, although i ended up victim to ur review, u ended up victim to my respons. HEHE!

Overall, tks for the review and all the helpful advice which u provided. This is one of the longest reviews i've ever got and therefore i ahve responded wiht one of the longest responses i've ever given. ;)

Darklight17

P.S Character limit ends...right....about...somewhere....
nearly....well...this may take a while....character limit....ends...HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!....

[Fable - Rebirth (XB)]

Not one of your best...

...but still great! I have to say I'm not a fan of these atmospheric calm songs, but it's songs like these that make me think 'OK, so not ALL calm songs are bad'. Good job!

I guess this is a remix, so you couldn't have made the melodies, although I really liked the melodies anyway, so you chose a very good song to remix. I just wish that the song would go through more changes than just the calm, monotonous rythm this had. Maybe introduce more instruments, some sound effects, etc. As for the instruments themselves, they had a nice, spooky, unique sound to them. Wish there were more, as I said, since in a lot of parts, the song sort of felt a little empty.

Song flowed very smoothly throughout, and the variety here is great. The song structure seems like this could fit really well as background music to an anti-climax in a movie. Nice intro, with a good slight buildup up to the main melody, plus, as Darklight said, a very good loop too. So good that it's almost impossible to track where the song loops unless you look at the progress bar.

You're really good at making remixes, and although this isn't one of my favourite ones from you, I stil rather enjoyed it. Sorry for another slightly useless review, I'll go and look through some of your action-packed songs where I can write my usual 1000-character left reviews >: 3. Good job overall :).
9/10
5/5

-Review Request Club-

Cosmos8942 responds:

I think it is one of my best...well maybe not with the samples (they could actually be much better...I wasn't TRYING to make this sound like a music box x.x). But nearly all my pieces are remixes, its what I do. Take a good song and make it better, or try to. That is why you'll never see me remix something that is already great (like the liberi fatality <-or whatever >.> from FFVIII). The calm state is basically how the original was..just more so. Be glad I spiced it up as much as I did. But frankly I felt that introducing too much would lead to it losing some of its feeling. I really enjoy the feeling this one gives and I didn't want to ruin that for everybody else in order to just make it sound cool.

But yes, the instruments, bad samples put aside, are unique sounding. I forget exactly what I did with them but I liked it enough to not remove it completely. I didn't work really long and hard on this one (you never really need to with remixes. Most of it is already there. Kinda cheap I know xD). The variety is pretty good with the ending being a little long and overdrawn I thought. The loop was unintended and is labeled as such only because this was posted before the sites remodel. In which case it was placed as a loop for reasons unknown to me. Plus it only seems to loop well because you are drawn into the song and it practically forces you to not pay any attention...thus the feeling that it loops well lol.

Ah well, maybe I can do better if I go back to this one.
-Tony-

Though I doubt I'll do that x.x.

[First Musings - v2]

Man, how do you stand that Hydecka??...

...He's giving you low scores for no reason just because you did to him on a song that deserved a 2... Well, the best way to do it is not caring, so good job :P. Anyway, onto what I'm supposed to be doing... This is definitely a lot better than the older version, with some really great additions. Still, you get a 10 from me when you finish it :P.

The new melodies you added are really great, and there were some nice new touches to the song, especially the strings at 0:34, which sounded great. Loved the flute and string ambience at the end, if you were to continue this, you should continue it with more flute/string ambience, and then the bassoon comes in, then the clarinet, then more strings, and it plays a grand ending with all the instruments.

As for the instruments, as usual, excellent quality. Flute had an eerie feel to it which was cool, and the clarinet was excellent quality. Bassoon was great, and the strings had a lot of fullness to them. In general, the instrument choice was great. Maybe in the final version you can add a harp and maybe some trumpets/trombones? By the way, I just noticed right now, I think the bassoon needs to be a little louder throughout the song, since even though it is a backing instrument, it's a great instrument to play in this song, and I believe it should be heard a slight bit more in the song.

Transitions, as usual, are done to perfection. Every instrument was introduced perfectly and I liked how you introduced the flute. Good fugue (well, I think that's what it is...) at the beginning. The song structure is perfect, and without getting a fixed chorus, you managed to make this song varied but not random. Bassoon intro, as I mentioned in the older version, was great, and this ending right now is rather good, even though this is still a WiP. Maybe when you end the song in the next version, you can end it with flute/string ambience.

I said it before, and I'm going to say it again :P. This needs some orchestral drums. Cymbals, tambourines, marraccas, triangles, taikos, timpanis, gongs, snares, kettles, bass drums, you have a lot to choose from.

A nice improvement from the original, good job. The only slight defects I can point out is the slightly too soft bassoon, and the lack of orchestral drums (no need to be anything too mighty, just sime soft percussion here and there, with some gongs and stuff). When the V3 comes out, be sure to send me a PM or something (unless of course you're requesting it at the RRC). Good job, keep it up!
9/10
5/5

-Review Request Club-

loansindi responds:

Hey man, thanks for another great review!

I promise to try and fiddle with percussion the next time I fire up the ol' fl on this project.

The bassoon I let fall back in the mix because it's kind of just... playing the same thing over and over again. I admit I didn't go out of my way to write a lot of material for it. It also is an instrument that has trouble being heard, as round as it is.

I shy away from brass because garritan's brass samples are really horrendous. My overall goal is to transition into a longer, slower feel with the flute/strings, and then head back into the irreverence from the start. We'll see how that works out. I don't want to try to rush through it and end up with a low-quality piece.

We'll see where it goes. Thanks again for the excellent review.