TheVodouQueen's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Vino Bueno]

** A NGAIC REVIEW **

o/ :)

COMPLIMENTS:

Woo! Finally some EDM/House! :D The Spanish/English vocals were so nice, TBH. Most people vote to do more fully melodic/harmonic arrangements with no vocals, so this is a breath of fresh air! Really groovy!

CRITIQUE:

My main issue is that the piece is fairly...static. I know it makes 0 sense because you have a lot of texture and backing pinning this all together, and they work wonderfully, but the thing with EDM is that there's usually a lot of bells and whistles going on. Panning, sweeps, tempo changes, key changes, additions of arp / taking away elements and putting them back, changes in velocity note-hits and pitch--you name it. And I did not hear a whole lot of that going on, so sadly, what we hear from beginning to end is practically identical. I'd (personally speaking, from experience and criticism I've had on my work before), do something like that, focusing in on how I can make any EDM piece warp and change and go crazy over time. EDM (and its genre-derivatives) seems to be pretty centric on the idea of transformation. Some people call it "ear-candy", but that is pretty essential to the genre(s) as a whole. Would've also been nice to hear the vocals chopped up and manipulated. Whether glitched, pitched up and down on an automation envelope, have an ad lib repeated and sped-up to help glide a build-up to a drop, etc. So like Arbel said, dynamism is key. :)

Otherwise, I think your mixing is pretty solid. Just needs a lot more bells and whistles to keep your audience engaged for the full ride, especially with volumes and pitch.

Keep up the good work! Good luck with the remaining Layers, and I look forward to hearing more from you. :D

WontonSauce responds:

late response but thanks for the critique! when i was makin this i felt like something was missing but i couldn't put my finger on in but ya hit it right on the head. appreciate ya takin a listen and ill def try to employ your advice in future work. again thanks sm!

[Victory of a Soldier]

** A NGAIC REVIEW **

o/ :)

COMPLIMENTS:

Ah, what an elegant, thoughtful piece for your friend! It is very beautiful, and something that would belong in a movie like Fury or Saving Private Ryan. I'm not big into marching / militaristic arrangements, but I've done one or two and listened to some of the old standards in band class long time ago--and over the years. You definitely honor their standards, pace, rhythm, and the overall emotion that carry with these types of songs. As usual, pretty brilliant from you, Ace. :)

CRITIQUE:

There's really not much to critique here. The horns sound perfect, and your string pads are spot on--to me. If I had something that kinda rattled me a bit as a listener, I was expecting some form of chimes, or bells, when the choir came in @ 0:50, and perhaps some play of those or the snares coming in earlier (say, 1:05) would've meet my expectations and built up the 'hype'--for lack of a better term--a bit better. It really doesn't need much more than that or light splotches of a tad more percussion. But...that's just my two cents....

Otherwise, very, very nice, and I enjoyed the entire arrangement. :D

Good luck with the remaining Layers. I look forward to hearing more from you over the course of them. :3

AceMantra responds:

Thank you for listening, and the review! Stay tuned, I still have to write some.

[Antarctic Terraformation]

** A NGAIC REVIEW **

o/ :)

COMPLIMENTS:

I like the simplicity of the drums, and your instrument choices for your main melody. The transitions are pretty tasty too. :D

CRITIQUE:

Your pad/bass is way too loud, sadly. I think it as a whole is a bit too loud, and in looking at the graph of the song, it peaks all the time. Your melodic and harmonic variances (even though the song loops and is a bit repetitive) is actually pretty good, I just think the balancing/mixing between your drums, your instruments, and your pads/bells is uneven and there's defo certain instruments that's overpowering / blasting out the rest of the arrangement (ex: @ 2:50 you have several instruments going nuts at the same time and fighting for 'space', especially the bells, and their timbre is almost piercing). If you want your bass to be powerful, the drums should also pack the punch, and get sidechain compressed together (so you can hear the kicks and snares push through the bass when they come up, and the bass be present at all times), without sacrificing the volume of the song.

Otherwise, I do like this, and think it's pretty weird and EDM/psytrance-inspired.

Good luck on the remaining Layers. Look forward to hearing more from you. :)

SirSandman0 responds:

Thanks for the feedback!

I'll try to work on the volume thing. The software I use is kind of finicky when it comes to master volume, so hopefully I can find a solution to that soon.

[FD - Aurora Australis]

** A NGAIC REVIEW **

o/ :)

COMPLIMENTS:

Another lovely ambient piece. :) I do like the higher resonances 'riding' the lower ones, almost akin to the dancing colours in the sky during an aurora...

CRITIQUE:

There's not much to give criticism on (in a good way), I think the only thing that might've been a nice touch would be a fairly 'distant'-sounding arp, or set of bells. Nothing too strenuous on the padded vibe, and nothing too solidly melodic, so as to not take away from what you've arranged and how it feels to listen to it. And it doesn't have to be throughout the entire piece, maybe just a bit towards the end, like a small jingle. Otherwise, the soundscape is quite mesmerizing, and powerful, as is.

Take any criticism I give with a grain of salt... I might not be full on knowing WTF I am talking about (seeing how shit my song seemingly is, by comparison). It's only something I thought of as I listened to this a few times...

Good luck on the remaining Layers. :) I look forward to listening to other arrangements you make in the future.

ForgottenDawn responds:

Thanks for your input! I will keep that in mind on my next tracks. Looking forward to a year full of hidden iceberg gems. :)

[The House of Lithriel (COMPLETE)]

** A NGAIC REVIEW **

o/ :)

COMPLIMENTS:

Wow, for the NGAIC, this is incredibly ambitious! I can tell by your Comments you truly had a passion and feeling in making this, and poured your all into it. It's extremely cinematic and kinda blew me away on first listen. You mentioned DnD, but this feels appropriate for the opening cinematic of a video game, or a TV show, more than just a DnD podcast--and your friend, I hope, is proud of this as much as you are and gets to use it for his campaign(s)! :D It's always great seeing someone have this kind of drive to compose something outside their usual sphere of skill, and I always enjoy a good orchestral shanty!

CRITIQUE:

Three things;

1) Your percussion is a bit...flat? Spread thin? I'm unsure of the proper term for it, but your snares, kettles, and cymbal hits are all spread out across the stereo field too much. Most percussion (AFAIK), *especially* in an orchestral setting, would benefit greatly with reverb, but there needs to be a balance I suppose to that. I always like to sit and think of things as "how would this sound in a full amphitheatre space"?--when producing orchestral pieces (as you said you have done). I guess it kinda helps I used to be in band class as well, and acoustics is very important in how each instrument carries and bounces around a room. So the very soft bits get buried when the horns or bass come in, and your mids (any string, for example) can get lost if there's not enough panning and reverb. Or, in this case, too much. The reach is impressive, please don't get me wrong, I just think some instruments could do with shorter reverb than others, and more panning to give it the feel of a full orchestra grouped at different points of the space.

Also, to go along with that in reading your Comments--as far as I've gathered in working on orchestral pieces myself, you *don't* want to overly blend instruments together, and a good chunk of them should be set to 'mono'. Yes, they need to be grouped (as it would in a natural setting), but everyone plays each of their instruments slightly differently. Your variance is magic, but it sounds like the MIDIs are kinda static. And if layered, and they all sound the same in their velocity, it loses out on the realism. So yeah, if you're ever taking the same MIDI and copying it across several instruments in the same 'grouping/branch', try randomizing velocities, quantizing for purposeful imprecision, and going up or down the scale to have them playing at different tones on the same key. I know coming from an EDM background, you want your powerful synths to match in velocity and curve most of the time when maintaining the meaty beat. Orchestra is the exact opposite, weirdly enough. I know you want a perfect piece, but imperfection makes the dream work. ;)

2) I have no idea why, and I don't have an issue with the length of your piece, but...the section from 2:42 - 4:35 or so pulled me out of the flow almost instantly at first listen. There's nothing inherently wrong with the section on its own, and the transition wasn't the issue. It just 'felt too different' from everything else, if that makes sense? I'm all for variance and an orchestral piece running more like an opus, where there's clear distinct, very different sections for the piece, but I'm unsure. It didn't grip me nearly as well as the beginning "ballad" or the ending "march". Probably because it's distinctly bass-heavy / lacking melody. I can't really put my finger on it, but you went from whimsical castle-setting of guards and merchants and a kingdom with its monarchy, to dwarves mining in a cave, back to the armies of a kingdom, marching ever-onwards... It felt a bit like whiplash, and I might've cut that bit because it's too dissimilar from the rest, and lasted a bit too long/was repetitive.

3) The end ended too abruptly. xD Sorry. I think just a natural fade-out with the reverb lingering for a few seconds would've been the cherry atop the cake.

I say all of that, but the cake is pretty damned superb as is. Take what I say with a grain of salt, if I am in any way incorrect on your process and methods. I'm not a "pro" at making music, and I contend with a lot of the same stuff when my pieces get reviewed. But I really enjoyed this piece and your commentary.

Very promising. Good luck with the remaining Layers, and I look forward to hearing more stuff from you! :D

(**EDITED NOTE**: For more context on the middle section that felt like whiplash--it felt as if you were running too many ideas in the one arrangement...or too many eggs in one basket, insofar as emotions and stylings set for the piece. Perhaps take that section separately some day and tackle and add to it on its own? I'd love to hear an expanded version of just that section, like...for a kingdom of dwarves! ;) Hope that makes sense. Once again, this song is so expressive and intricate... Keep up the brilliant work!)

trunotfals responds:

What great critique!

Couple thing I'll follow up on;

It STARTED as a DnD thing, meant to be very short, then it quickly stopped being that, and became so much more. It will NOT be in the podcast, but that doesn't mean I wont write something else xD I'm taking a break from writing for a while. I put a lot into this.

I actually automated a TON of purposeful error in velocity. You can hear it a lot in the brass. I for sure neglected the strings all throughout the piece. I am semi-professional French Horn player in practice, though I don't get up to much playing at all these days. Due to that, I favor winds much heavier than strings. The patches I use also dont offer a lot of variance in articulation compared to the brass patches I have. So the strings for sure lack in dynamics and velocity variance. I'm not ready to spend more money yet haha. And I truly tried to approach the velocty in a natural way, as if played by a real orchestra, but I'm pretty limited in what they can do actually. Or rather, I need to play around with a ton of settings. I will do more work in the future given this awesome critique!

There were also a few moments that I wanted to be a wall of sound, without dynamic variance, like the end of the woodwind ballad. Its just a brick wall of sound and arpeggios. That was intentional. Actually because of the limitations of this patch, I really had to rely on suspended cymbals to simulate crescendos. Sadly.

Also I'm so glad you liked it. I am for sure a composer well before I'll ever be a mixer/producer/mastering engineer. But I like to try and get as close to all of it as possible.

Despite what I have posted on Newgrounds, Orchestral/instrumental composition is actually my true background. I studied for four years and never finished my degree in composition. I hope to go back soon. I have mostly worked on all of this stuff exclusively to school, and never had the tools at my own computer to write anything of note, or quality that I would be willing to upload here. Not sure why. I actually have a large repertoire of pieces that I could upload here now that I have these tools, but they're currently all in weird midi Finale mp3's that dont sound great, other than compositionally. I could for sure put them into my DAW now and probably get some pretty awesome results. This could be a fun project actually.

I actually agree with your second bullet point. I truly do love this melody in this part, but you're correct; it isn't quite fitting. Part of it may be that it isn't in triplets, like the original introduction. It gives it a bit of a shanty feel, maybe reminiscent of Pirates, though I didn't intend this. I tried a few things, like expanding that introduction, but I wasn't happy with it. I was stuck on it until i made what you hear now, because I LOVE what I wrote, but just because I wrote and loved it, doesnt mean it fits in this piece. That would be worth re-visiting, as I actually plan to study and expand on this piece when I return to school. So thank you!

Drums; They could be clearer, I'm just not sure I want them to be though. I suppose if this were to truly be cinematic, they really should be a bit more upfront. I do want to revisit this if I can get my hands on some more expensive plug-ins.

The ending reverb; I had to render this about 20 times, over the span of 4 or so days to get the patches to upload correctly. These darn Cinesamples plugins emulate a ton of "Human error" but what that turns into sometimes is just, bad. And I NEVER thought to make the end of the piece a proper fade of reverb. All i needed to do was highlight an extra measure or so. Im actually sad about that. I just never thought of it. I was focused on having to listen to the whole piece through three or four times to make sure I liked the result. I would have LOVED to get that reverb ending in there so badly, but i need to figure out a way to stem this piece or something, so that i dont have to spend 4 hours rendering it, only to hate it and have to render it again, and again and again. It truly took that long to render, on a pretty monstrous PC.

Thank you for this wonderful critique! I'd love to collab sometime, as I saw your collab forum post, I may reach out to you if I can get out of this depression :) This review made me happy.

[SpeedRunning - NGADM Round 2]

Goddamn, man. Thumping goodness at its finest. ♡ Used to love playing Extreme-G...(miss that game and others around the N64 / PS1 era.) Some real fantastic shit deserving the big 5 from me.

Godspeed in the competition. This is such a banger! :D

Spadezer responds:

yeah definitely one of my favorite fantasy racing games that Nintendo has put out (can't beat F-Zero-X for me though). Glad you liked it

[AIM - Mystery]

Man...I love that deep synth and 80s tech-noir feel. I'm unsure if it really fits its artistic inspiration, (for as unsettling and chaotic it looks), but...if we're speaking of the really old, more accurate depictions of angelic beings, and how they were so mysterious, bold, and discomforting to look at...this track kinda edges towards that. So I would say, a direct correlation to the inspired source?--not so much. But metaphorically?, yeah...I can see / sense it, especially @ the 2:20 and beyond mark. :)

It's pretty cool, bombastic in all the right places, and has that weird, almost creepy air in behind the instrumentation. I wish the background soundscape reflected more of the horror and chaotic notions of old-school angels and the artwork itself, but ATM what you got here is pretty rad nonetheless.

Good luck in AIM 2022! Keep up the good work. :3

TenodiBoris responds:

Thank you for your review :)

[Lost]

This kinda reminds me of the start of some older works by Daft Punk... It would work lovely as a BGM loop. Would've also been nice to see what art inspired it, (as I can't see that anywhere or in your description...unless I've gone blind... D: ) I love the soundscape, but I do wish there were more juicy details to it. I am sure whatever you cook-up to further this song will be a banger. :D

Look forward to hearing more from you. o/ Have a good one.

V1ZION responds:

It’s in the extended version but I can just link it here too.

https://www.newgrounds.com/art/view/hypervolt/embark

Also, thanks for the kind words. I know the extended version is basically just this with a faster version of the same thing after it. I may actually try to switch it up a bit in the future if I ever come back to this.

[AIM - Navigatah]

Bro...track is fire. <3 Loving the drum n' bass, and the rap (coming from the sentient hyper-car). xD It edges towards just being a comedy-track / parody, I'd say even worthy of something Weird-Al would do, but it's got so much heart, drive and sick / sleek bass to it, it's just a legitmate song in its own right. I love your experimental flow with this, and I agree with others that I wish there was more stuff like this on NG (as well as other music genres) that isn't all just techno or, at a push, general EDM. There's very little appreciation for original hip-hop, synthwave, orchestra, etc. So this is a breath of fresh air and very creative. :3

Good luck in AIM 2022! Have a good one. :D

Kalviter responds:

Thanks! Glad you like it, some very positive feedback for sure

[AIM-Tragedy]

This is something worthy of a piece that was based from an actual Italian Renaissance sculpture. It captures both the beauty of the music of Legend of Zelda and European orchestra. ...I'm trying to think of words to justify even writing a review, but the music speaks for itself--I think--and I don't even know (or can hardly tell) if the piece was actually done with live recording or synthesizers. Based on what you say, I'd guess the strings were all live and the rest was synth, but it all blends so well, and you clearly mixed and mastered this piece with your full heart and soul in it.

From the standpoint of a fellow musician and a fan of anything Zelda-related, I salute you. <3

Good luck in AIM 2022! Have a wonderful day. :D

DigitalProdigy responds:

Thank you so much for that review. I really appreciate you taking the time to listen and comment with such passion. I really wanted to produce something special for this very special art work and I just kept looking at the art work while trying to feel what the person in the art was feeling. I'm glad you enjoyed it!! Thanks again and take care!!