Breed's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[The_Challenge]

...

I have some subjective criticism for you. I think the "staccato" strings should be way louder at 24 seconds in and on. They supply the melody and its barely audible. Would raise tension too if they were louder. Some louder punchier vocals would help too. Percussion section was a bit thin. Some snare lines would fit great in here. Otherwise I'm thinking extra fills would be cool...theres not many of them; a crash here and there and a bell at the intro.

The good shtuff: Picardy third at the end sounds pretty interesting to me. The song fits a pretty cool cliche emotion/imagery that I haven't been able to emulate yet so I'm a bit jealous. Good use of suspensions in the slower section.

Love this type of music though, soooo 9/10 for what you got goin on.

Cheers!

[Everything is Floating Up]

sexy

I can really see some of the small things that your earlier submissions had degrading over the course of all the tracks. Things like rhythm variation, dynamics, and melodic phrasing variations. At the same time I still see a great central theme and idea to the piece, which each of your tracks has had. This piece had a lot of interesting ideas at each level, the harmony, the melody, the rhythms, and the structure. It just sounds a bit like a rushed production though. Overall a 8.5 for me.

[Bagattella di Estate WIP]

Love the quirky feel

Newgrounds hardly ever gets really bright sounding pieces like this. Everyone here seems mostly interested in dramatic minor pieces. I love how you were able to avoid the cliche corniness that I always get trapped in while trying to write pieces like this. Also the orchestration is really well done. All around great piece.

I really feel that we could learn from each other if we collaborated on a track that has aspects of both this kind music and my own high tension specialty. I'd love to see how other composers approach composition of this style as my only collabs have been with electronic artists. PM me if interested.

5/5 9/10

Cheers!

blackattackbitch responds:

Thanks for the offer, but I'm not really the collaborative type. I just don't have the focus for that kind of stuff.

And don't worry, your main style is pretty much the same as mine, except I tend to focus on action rather than drama. This piece just came to me randomly about 8 months ago, and I decided this was too good to leave alone.

When I upload the finished version, I'll connect it to my main style and you'll see how easy it was to write this.

Thanks for the review and as always, I'm glad you liked it!

[[MC] Look to the Horizon]

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Personal Review:
The is one of the first newgrounds pieces that I've heard where the percussion isn't just orchestral timbres, but actually is reminiscint of perccusion in modern contemporary writing for orchestra. Very legimate. Like me, you like your percussion very far up front in the mix. However, in this case, I think the timbres of the strings and the smoothness and calm nature of the melody calls for a little less on the percussion volume wise, and exciting percussion could easily be simply a mezzoforte intensity-wise as well to match timbres with the melodic instruments.

That said I loved the arrangement of this. It makes me feel like you have good knowledge of orchestration. Or at least a good ear. The strings seemed a little too mellow for me at times, intensity wise. If you are using sound founts, it might be a good idea to invest in some good accented notes libraries. Or if you are using a good plug-in like East West or Vienna or something, be sure to change note velocities at higher tension points rather then do an automation clip on the volume of it.

[.:Black Orpheus:.]

Great backing track

I see that this is an arrangement for soloing over, and it's very done to compliment some reeds or other string instruments like you listed.

I have just a few minor suggestions for improving your mix quality however. The first is your relative volumes. The trumpet as mentioned is a big too loud compared to the others for the moment. Just a few dB pad on that guy and you will have yourself a much more balanced sounding piece. The second is the piano, those higher octave chords cut through the mix rather sharply, perhaps think about adjusting the velocity on some of those higher notes so that it feels even.

From a composer/songwriters standpoint there are a few other things I noticed that maybe your standard listeners might not--the drums for instance are very repetitive and don't have any fills until the very end. A little variation every 8 measures or at the end of each part would really give the song more flow as well as keep a listener interested without noticing. Also for different melodic parts a different main variation of the beat would emphasize that the song has moved on.

I know you probably realize a lot of this seeing as you did this quickly, but hopefully there's a shred of usefulness within my post here. Fun track to listen to mate.

Cheers!
- LD -

Review Request Club

camoshark responds:

Thanks for the great review!

I never really mixed the song, I made a quick arrangement in it's most basic form pulled directly from the realbook to compliment my solo in the middle.

It was mostly meant to be made for that only purpose, thus the louder trumpet to make it stand out, but I decided at the last minute to post it here to get some feedback.

As for the piano part, there's a good reason for being too high: The version in the realbook was a 4th too low, so I simply transposed it to the right key, keeping the original comping. I was just too lazy to arrange it properly.

The rythme section was also done quickly, and thus don't really have any presence throughout the song.

I totally agree with you throughout your review, and don't think I won't take note on what you said. I'll put more efforts in my futur arrangements from now on, and will do what I can to EQ it properly, as I use a notation software, with wich I write sheet music and not sequences.

Thanks again for the review!

Cheers

[Clayfacer - Stalker (Cut)]

Great Fills

There are some great strengths to this track: Firstly and namely your fills and automations. You keep it interesting with something new every four measures whether it's a new fill or a combo of fills and automations, keeping me listening and progressing quickly through the track without noticing(great quality in a song). It's also unified very well and the structure is well planned as well.

At this level I only have small critiques for you. The first little trick I would suggest is using a band pass or low pass filter for your entire intro. The advantage to using a band pass is that you can make it more subtle and get a stronger effect. A wide bandpass that cuts just a little bit of the detail in the very high end and the power in the low end will make your main bassline and kick feel like your bringing up the power for the main drop. As for this version, you kind of already get the main part for a while, and when it finally comes back in a few minutes into the piece, you feel like you're just revisiting what you already hear(even though the rising action is amazingly done).

Another I would say is that overall if you want more power to your piece you need to pump that compressor a little more on the kick, make sure your release isnt set too high so that you get a longer sub punch, and don't forget to up the attack a bit usually 8ms to 20ms depending on the waveform.

The overall mastering comes out a bit quiet. You could get the track mastered if you have enough headroom, but if you know your way around a good multiband compressor like izotopes then you could really pump up the whole track by what would seem like a few dB rise, making the mix stick out above other songs.

Good luck on your musical journey and I hope to review more of your tracks in the future.

Cheers!
- LD -

Review Request Club

mmmburgers responds:

Thanks for the review! Glad you liked my fills, there's tons of automation going on every 8 bars, :D

And yeah I do also agree that the mastering on this track lacks punch and loudness, but I'm getting the track properly mastered before it gets released under a label and all, so that should give the final version more oomph. :D

[The End.]

Tonal Dynamics Needed

To start off, there are a number of things I like about this track: The percussion is well mixed for this style of hip hop, the snare isnt over or under compressed, the kick has good strength and isn't hidden behind the bassline, the vocals are at a good level, and the structure of the piece is strong and well thought out.

That aside, there are a lot of areas that I suggest your attention in the future.

The vocals are very dry and monotoned. One way to get out of rhyming like your talking is to actually write melodic lyrics, like you're going to sing, then rapping the melody instead. It might sound corny at first, but it is really important to get a feel from the rap that goes with the song, not just over the song. That's more of a performance issue though. As for the recording, the timbre of your voice could use a few mixing difference. There's not much fullness to it, try doubling your voice or using chorus to fatten it up and give it a more full feel. EQ's could also be your friend here, a little bit less upper mid(nasal frequencies), a little more highs and lows to give your voice a fuller sound.

The end of the piece cuts off abruptly. I would suggest ending a song with at least a 2 second gap of silence unless you want it to loop.

The scratchy vinyl like sound you have in the background doesn't really fit the style since this is more modern sounding, it more so just muddys up the percussion, but thats a very minor thing.

Overall I liked the track, the vocals should be your main focus for your next pieces. Kudos on the backing song.

Cheers!
- LD -

Review Request Club

Luke responds:

Thanks for the review my man!!!

[[MC] NGADM-Week 1 Entry]

Carol of the Bells

Listen to Carol of the Bells then try not to hear that everytime you play this song haha. I cant get over the similarities

[Blue Monk-Sorohan soloing]

. . .

Incorporating the main melody within your solo was a good idea. I think the panning of that organ threw me off a lot though. On speakers it works fine...but on headphones its wayyy to much methinkz.

By curiosity how much of this is recorded live? My guess is that its just the trumpet.

Still thanks for putting everything together!
Cheers!

sorohanro responds:

Thanks for the review.
Trumpet and guitar are played live, organ solo played and not quantized (so, kind of count as live) bass and drums sequenced (played on keyboard and quantized and layered).

[{B.A.B.} Storm Clouds ~WIP~]

. . .

Is it sad that John Williams made it so that every time I hear repeating minor 2nd's I think of the sound track from Jaws? Cuz thats exactly what I was thinking. You even had the tonic, minor second, tonic, major 7th thing that also charactrizes jaws...ljnrgphwfhwe<--keyboard mashing from trying NOT to hear jaws.

Lots of horror aspects to it, very score like.

blackattackbitch responds:

That's part of the reason why I decided not to work on it. It sounds too much like Jaws, and I didn't want that. Plus, I couldn't get the song to fit with the theme I wanted. Thanks for the review though, I really appreciate it.