Viperodriguez's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[-*Technik*-]

Really sinister

This is very ominous. I can't picture this being mainstream however. The product itself is really good, I particularly like the break in the middle. But there's nothing to grasp or hook onto. I think this is great, it has really good atmosphere. I look forward to hearing more of your work and thanks for sharing.

Gorgorothx responds:

Thanks Viper, I really appreciate your comments. By "mainstream" I meant: more mainstream than my previous stuff. haha Thanks much for the comments

[Chill Rx]

The intrigue

I like the atmospheric tones in the background. It's very unobtrusive and would work really well for the purposes of which you described. Nice work and thanks for sharing.

Gorgorothx responds:

Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

[RisingLegend's Battle NEW]

Nice effort

I like the chord progression. I think it could have a little more interesting percussion part. I also think the guitar part could be different that backing the string part, maybe it were playing quarter and half notes it might add a little more texture. It's very high energy cause of all the sixteenth notes. Really nice effort. I look forward to hearing more and thanks for sharing.

Darkmaster603 responds:

Yea, I agree about the guitar needing to be different than the violin. I've done more with this, and they have a "musical duel", so it doesn't stay boring for too long. I'm glad you liked it though, and I'll have to work on the percussion. Thanks for the review and the constructive criticism!

[Hero's Tribute]

Seems solid

There are some tweaks I think you should look into. Be on the look out for balance and blend. When arranging classical pieces it's important to remember balance, think of it like a balancing a scale or playing Jenga, you don't want a song to be too top heave (meaning higher pitched voices) or too many low voices either, you have to find a common balance in between. Another thing is blending. You have to take into consideration what instrument voices can do and what they stand for and try to find a way to blend them with other instruments. Example, flute and trumpet, they both are soprano register instruments but a trumpet is naturally stronger than a flute. Trumpets are usually used to carry the melody or theme because they can overpower most instruments, on the other hand a flute is mostly used for embellishments or counter melody. A lot of times when a flute has the melody all the other instruments usually back off in volume to accommodate the light sound of the flute.

Now with that being said. there's nothing wrong with your instrument choices. In fact, I think it's quite good. Some thing I want to point out though is that from 32 seconds in to 43 the reed sound seems a little over bearing. It sounds like you have two different voices playing the same note, maybe lower the volume on one of the voices or change the pitch of one of the notes to a different note and make it a harmony. Another thing that struck me is that at 1:04 a brass sound comes in (a trumpet I think) and kinda gets over powered by the choir, I don't know if you want it to be that way but to me it feels like the trumpet is caring a melody if it is you might want to push the choir back by lowing the volume on a them a little. Another thing is that if that is a trumpet, then it's going way too high right at the end. I think it would be cool to make it a trumpet fanfare right there at the end by adding a harmony to that line at 1:04. That's what I have to say. Sounds really good, good luck with you song and thanks for sharing.

Also,
what software do you use? if you haven't already done so you might want to look into using the Graphic Equilizer if your software has one. I also want to offer you my ear as a sounding board so please feel free to ask me any questions about the development of this song, I really want to see this be something really great.

later,
Jay

blackattackbitch responds:

Man I really gotta thank you for the nice long review. And I'm taking all of those into consideration. In reflection, I really wish I had more time to work on this, but I gotta finish this by the 24th. And I gotta do that in between work, christmas shopping, and general errands. Btw, that reed sound is actually a french horn section. Yeah I need to turn that down. And yeah, I have an affinity for powerful choirs, so I have a bad habit of turning the choirs up too loud. And it does overpower the hell out of the trumpet. I realized that when I took the choir out and left just the 5string soundfont and the trumpet pretty much overpowered the strings. I'll probably end up doing this section over again, but that depends on how much I can finish in these next two days.

Your comments are greatly appreciated and I'm taking all of them into consideration. Damn, this time constraint is making me nervous as hell. And I'd hate to enter this contest with merely one song too, I need to make another one by the 24th. Maybe I should stick to just this one, this one is fine.

Furthermore, Imma make it a point to check out your songs. I held off on it because your songs were listed as rock and I generally am not a rock fan. However, i remembered that I should appreciate all music no matter the genre.

Cuz no matter what genre it is, if it's a good piece of music, it's a good piece of music.

[Out of the Abyss...]

Quite a beast

Classical is a whole different animal from contemporary popular music. I think you did well on not relying on drums, you mostly used them texture and emphases. Classical can get away with not having a drum beat because they got a conductor to keep the time. As far as finishing it I think you should hold of from this until you get the urge to go back and to it again. It very healthy to take a break after completing something, take a break from it work on other stuff and then come back to it and revise and tweak things. Nice effort and thanks for sharing.

blackattackbitch responds:

Thanks for the reviews. I think the main reason classical can get away with drums is because it's definition as a genre is pretty loose, which gives the composer a wide range of styles to work with. I'm gonna do what you said though and keep this one for later work. Considering how well my MAC8 is sounding as of so far (that's another work in progress), I can tell that I will be able to turn this particular song into a beast.

I want to change a few things about this song though:
The tambourine sample.
The low orchestral hit sample.
Some of the chords.
The string staccato samples.
Definitely the tuba sample.
The choir at the beginning. It sounds too synth.
The envelope of the brass staccato sample.
You know, just general things to make it flow better.

[Talk Some Sweet Talk]

Cool tune

The only thing that sticks out it the choir voice with the high C#. One of the things we have to look out for is if a voice or instrument choice works with the over all song. some instruments I think could be changed. However if you like that voice you could try to minimize the volume or defuse it with harmony. Another thing you might want to try is adjusting the channels so certain parts can be heard in the right or left speaker. Towards the end where every thing comes in it gets kinda' busy. If you shift the speaker channels it should reduce listener from being overwhelmed. Great work and thanks for sharing.

blackattackbitch responds:

Thanks for the 10 even after pointing out all those problems. Next time, I'll definitely not use that choir voice. Thanks for the in-depth review and I'll take all of that into consideration for my next song definitely.

[Piano in WTF Minor]

I love this

Oh wow. Very dark and compelling. It's like Renaissance Nouveau. It's like something out of psychedelic Victorian film. I think if Bach where alive today his work would sound something like this. Very well done sir. Thanks for sharing.

Gozchev responds:

Thank you, I cannot express to you how awesome it feels to have my first complete piece complemented in this manner. Though I must say, Bach's works are pure genius and if nothing else, are simply more thought out than this. But again, the first reception has made my day, thank you.

[Turn Here]

Kind of agree with Hyper-Freak92

However, I think this is interesting. To me the bass sounds like something out of Oingo Boingo. Now if you structured this chaos then nice work, but if you kind stringed this together randomly then you might want to look into chord progressions. Well with that being said keep making music and thanks for sharing.

Kuebic responds:

I agree with both of you (Viper and Hyper) and thank you both on such awesome comments.
The song is not a TOTAL mess that I put together. Perhaps it is my fault for not being specific in the comments: the bass notes were the only thing added randomly. The song structure was based off the random bass notes that start and end on a C, so the guitar chords are based off the C scale. That was about as much of the chord progressions there were to work with. This was only an experiment that I was amazed to see work out so well.

I really enjoy your comments, and I'd like to see more comments from you.