SkyeWint's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Steam's Wonderful Contraptions]

Hi. Considering you won with the highest score out of any participant I think it's fair to say you didn't win just out of luck.

The Good:
-Those random effect samples are so hilarious and awesome.
-I'm surprised you managed to make Edirol sound good, I guess this is what happens when you use it for something it's not intended for as much.
-Certainly has the dance vibe you said you wanted to get across.
-The various bits of extra percussion you use rhythmically are spectacular.
-Overall composition is great, it really fits the title and feels funky as heck.
-Transition at 2:21 is spectacular, I love it. :D

The Not-So-Good:
-I think the transition at about 0:14 is a tad bit awkward.
-Sometimes with all the effects, other effects get buried such as around a minute and 30 seconds, the percussion in the background is very buried and is more just background noise. Similar happens to some background arpeggios at about 2:13.
-The ending is slightly off-putting with the awkwardly off-key steam whistle. Not sure if that's intentional or not.

Overall: Score of 9.5/10. This is just so quirky and awesome, it fits your title beautifully. All the various effects just add to it, the only thing I really think you need to work on (before getting really nitpicky) is your mixing. Don't bury the awesome effects that you have. :c

steampianist responds:

I think I may have gotten a little bit carried away with the whislte hahaha its my own recorded sample I got too happy with it

Thank you for this helpful review.

[Cthulhu Surfaces]

Hi. I love Cthulu, he's a beautiful tentacle-y thing.

The Good:
-Oh man those strings right at the beginning. That is niiiiiiiiice. Really sets the mood well. Me gusta!
-The bass in the first section is extremely well-done.
-At 0:46 it's VERY obvious what your main theme is (or should be), it sounds very nice.
-The section at about 1:26 is very very tasty. :) It's extremely well-put-together.
-2:21 sounds amazing. The atmosphere is really great.

The Not-So-Good:
-Your transitions are fairly rough, they often just 'end' one section and begin another without really actually transitioning except by a few of the same effects which really don't work. You can't just throw a timpani or cymbal roll in there and call it perfectly good.
-You know what I said about 0:46 and a main theme? Why the hell does it only reappear at the very end? >:( More overall compositional technique please.

Overall: Score of 9/10. Despite the flaws I mentioned, this is extremely impressive to me. Your composition for individual sections is spectacular, and your command of atmospheres is impressive. Good job!

headphoamz responds:

Hey Skye! Thanks for a great review. Understand where you're coming from on the main theme. Really happy you enjoyed it as much as you did, though :3

[Denouement]

Hi.

The Good:
-Instrument quality is good. Mixing quality is fairly good.
-I particularly like the bass you introduce at 1:04.
-I also particularly like the brass and clanking at about 2:26.

The Not-So-Good:
-Some weird sample clipping at about 0:04 and similar in the horns.
-Like most of the cinematic pieces of this round, this suffers from a lack of direction and thematic composition.
-Unfortunately, the mixing also suffers in that the instruments are pushed back. Things don't stick out.

Overall: Score of 7/10. This is a cool piece, but it really lacks direction, and there are strange aspects to the samples which cause weird audio glitches. Also, flat mixing is meh.

Wolftacular responds:

Ooh, I heavily disagree with the lack of direction! Thanks for listening!

EDIT: Sorry, I didn't realize you were an NGADM judge. This requires a hell of a lot more fight.

The sample thing is very true. Unfortunately my orchestral pack wasn't built for long sustains so I had to try fiddling with it on my own, but with 1 different sample for every key, and around 5 different instruments from that same pack, I honestly couldn't do anything more than what I did. Might be surprising to hear that it sounds a lot better than it did before the "fix". So this, you're very right about.

The "lack of direction and thematic composition" as well as the mixing, however, are two things I HEAAAVILY disagree with, and if it's not a sin to suggest so, I think you're very wrong in both. Well, I don't think, I know, simply because this piece IS very theme-based. The song tells a story that I worked with through the whole thing. You could argue that I do a bad job at it, or that the message got lost in translation, but I do honestly think you simply did not catch and/or understand it. This is also why I brought up the direction and mixing together; the "flat" mixing goes hand in hand with the story that this song is telling.

Normally, I would let this all go as simply a difference in taste, since we could argue back and forth forever about whether it's me who sucks or you who couldn't catch the narration, and in the end realize it's just our own preferences clashing. You're a judge though, and I'd expect a lot more analysis than the one I feel you provided, as well as a bit less bias. My song isn't trying to be likable, much less appeal to what the judges might favor, but that doesn't mean it's tasteless or aimlessly wandering.

All that being said, I appreciate the time taken to listen and review my song.

[Sons of Valhall]

Hi.

The Good:
-The introduction to this is quite nice, I like how you finally have more bass in this with the drums.
-All your instruments are high-quality samples, I particularly like your choirs and the chants toward the middle.
-Your composition is through the roof, as usual.
-Ending is good. Intro is good. Transitions are good. How do you composition so good so quickly.

The Not-So-Good:
-With all these instruments comes mud. A lot of the sounds are fairly buried and difficult to hear, such as the harp gliss at 0:52 and the choir after that.
-1:17 Dat commonly-used string slide. Also fairly buried.
-The bass drum is booming a little bit too much IMO, try having a few more breaks with it.
-I normally look forward to hearing all your little motifs and themes that you display throughout a piece, but I don't hear them in here, it's more... generic cinematic. :(
-Thunder is drowned out in the ending.

Overall: Score of 8.6/10. Mixing hurt you bad here. I don't think there's much else to say.

SoundChris responds:

Thanks a lot skye! Its right that a lot of sounds are burried and difficult to hear ... i had massive problems with the mixing ... hope i will get better and more experienced soon! Another big problem was that i could use my software just 2 days before the deadline because i used logic in 32 bit mode without having noticed that. So the system always crashed because of lacking ram ... After i have seen that the 64 bit mode has to be activated manually ... :D

Thanks for your review and see you next round!

[I Feel]

Hi.

The Good:
-Those are some nice delayed effects at the beginning. I'm also enjoying the overall atmosphere.
-Great ambient effects throughout, actually.
-Sound design and mixing are sweeeeeeet.

The Not-So-Good:
-I think the introduction was a tad bit long, there wasn't enough to keep me interested.
-Wondering where the main melody is by 2 minutes in, the only thing that 'could' be called a melody repeats too much and sounds quite a bit like background.
-Sections seem to drag on for too long with a lot of repetition, a lot of repetition, like run-on sentences that keep going, and keep going, and keep going.
-Transition at 3:19 is sudden.
-The ending is bleh. I do not like it, very anti-climactic, you could have done this a lot better.

Overall: Score of 7.2/10. This is honestly pretty darn good, I like it a lot. The atmosphere is well-done, and the effects are sweeeeeeeet. That said, this suffers mainly from repetition and overly long sections, which makes it notably more boring.

InvisibleObserver responds:

3:19 was me cutting my losses with some post production effects. I felt the quick change was still solidly in time, and better then exporting a rather choppy incomplete effect-doo-dizzle.

Yay mixing/sound design, was able to mix this guy cleaner than round 1.

The structure is long in a trancy-ish way but the content is very not trancy at all. I think I could have handled arrangement and structure much better.

Ending - time constraints, I'll certainly be tuning up it, aswell as other above mentioned bits for later on album work.

Thanks for the time and words! Good job on not buttering up the cons. Keep them honest. <3

[Draesdne Adaas]

Hi.

The Good:
-Tubular Bell VST. :3
-I like the various melodies you have here.
-Instruments are good as always, mixing is clean.

The Not-So-Good:
-Mixing gets a tad bit muddy at times, but not much.
-Would be nice to have more consistent ideas as well as a theme which recurrs at least once, but you know this from me, I support composition that works for more than soundtracks.

Overall: Score of 8.4/10. Without getting too nitpicky, those are my comments. I think you and Bosa can do better than this. :(

samulis responds:

You didn't read the "this was just me" part, did you?

Oh boy... what am I going to do with you Skye... Thanks for the feedback, Mr. Use Forms. ;)

[Memories of a Forgotten Land]

Hi.

The Good:
-Dat violin. I've always loved realistic violins.
-The realism in the harp is good as well.
-Depicts the mood quite well.

The Not-So-Good:
-Where's the main theme? It seems that this is meant to go along with a story or animation... wtihout the story or animation for it to be the background to.

Overall: Score of 8.5/10. Man, I'm trying to not get nitpicky in these reviews, but aside from that one general problem the only thing I could do is get nitpicky. If you're forcing me to get nitpicky though, then at that point your piece is 9/10 quality and up. I think you can do it. Go for it!

MichaelJ responds:

I'm not sure what you mean by "where's the main theme?"
The story is for you to interpret as you listen. Try closing your eyes! :)
Thanks for the review!

[Tir Na Nog]

Hi.

The Good:
-I'm loving the cultural vibe, along with all the pitch-bent trills and sounds.
-Panning is well-done with the harp and other panned instruments. Try panning some a bit more subtly rather than have it always be fully panned. :)
-Harmonic lines are also very well-done, I like it.
-Vocals are good, of course.
-Great overall composition, I like the form.

The Not-So-Good:
-The section from about 0:30-1:16 is a tad long without too much variation, I think by this part the guitar should have changed from doing the chords to doing something else.
-Some transitions are a tad bit rough, though overall they're good.

Overall: Score of 8.5/10. This is a well-composed and awesome-sounding piece of music and I like it a lot. <3 Try having more variation within each section and letting instruments do different things.

ChronoNomad responds:

Greetings, Skye! Thanks for the shiny new review; it is very much appreciated.

I like that even in The Good you offer some nice suggestions to improve the panning. I lean more towards natural-sounding pans, such as where an instrument would be in an orchestra and so on, but I also love getting creative in this regard. There's a happy medium in there somewhere, and I'll keep trying to nail it down. I'm quite pleasantly surprised that the Celtic vibe has been so well received! This is also the first review I've gotten that specifically mentions the way that I used pitch bending for all those fun little trills, so thank you for that. :D

Aw, I love how you avoid the word bad and simply say The Not-So-Good. Unfortunately, that also precludes my ability to make a humorously relevant 'The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly' reference...but I digress. I can't say that I disagree with anything you've said here, and - in perfect 20/20 hindsight - I do rather wish that I had varied the cister strums with some other form of attack; possibly with slower arpeggiated chords to complement the faster harp arpeggios. Ah, well. Live and learn.

Thank you again for all the great feedback and suggestions, and I'm glad to have you aboard as a judge! Also, every single time I see your name it makes me think of Austin Wintory. Random factoid is random. Ta!

[In the end]

Hi.

The Good:
-Intro piano is quite well-played and beautiful.
-Actually, all the piano is well-played and pretty beautiful. The soloing in the final section is very good as well.

The Not-So-Good:
-Why the hell do you have a drumset in this? :v It feels so out-of-place.
-Disappointing lack of compositional technique, the piece is just one constant change without any particular theme.
-Ending is kinda boring and generic, not the worst though.

Overall: Score of 6/10. You can do better than this. Unfortunate that your other song didn't work out. :(

BlazingDragon responds:

Valid points that you've made. Thank you for sharing, and yes, I can do better than this. And I will next year.

[inside the machine]

Hi.

The Good:
-Oh man, dat main theme. The introduction with it is just awesome. The glitchi-ish background is great.
-The way those drums come in sounds just plain awesome. VERY good at depicting the machine.
-"Perhaps it was the subconscious fact that I knew that skyewintrest was going to be judging my track, but I spent a lot of time working on transitions" HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA That made my judging session, I might have to increase your score just for that
-Seriously though, your transitions are excellent. And just because of that, I'm going to nitpick the hell out of them. Don't worry though, no score reduction for it. ;)
-The solos are excellent, your mixing is excellent, in fact just about everything about this is excellent.
-Drum fills are sweet, I really like them a lot.

The Not-So-Good: Mainly transition nitpicks but then one major issue.
-NITPICK TIME! Your introduction could have been slightly better. Rather than instantly diving into the song headfirst, why not have a small lead-in from the silence?
-At about 1:20, the mixing starts getting really fuzzy due to the increased loudness of everything and the kicks leading into the next section are buried.
-3:20 has pretty much the issue as 1:20. ...man, I didn't have much I could nitpick.
-Okay, now I'm going to have to slap you. This is what kept your score from being more like a 9.8. You did not end. You faded out. I want to slap you repeatedly with a newspaper made of iron. Please don't EVER make a song this awesome again and give it such a shitty non-ending. >:(

Overall: Score of 9.2/10. FADEOUT ENDING. >:(

johnfn responds:

Ahahahahaha. That's what I get right? I knew you guys had a hatred of fadeout ends... and I did it anyways!!! >:D

Though if you allow me to soliloquize for a second, I don't think that fadeout endings are all so bad. I mean, geniuses like Tom Waits, Stevie Wonder and even Radiohead make use of them, and they can work fairly well in some contexts. Though it's fair to say that it doesn't work here haha.

Fine though - I resolve to make no more fadeout endings this NGADM. I have been properly reprimanded. ;-P

Your nitpicks are appreciated too :-) The idea of starting off a little quieter is a clever one. I was actually messing around with the opening up till the last hour.

I think the fuzziness you are noticing at 3:20 and 1:20 is a white noise sweep - my fault for not making that more clear (actually, I'm not even sure it's necessary on a relisten).

Finally, like I said to Step, thank you thank you THANK YOU for all the work you did for NGADM! I realize that writing all these reviews is no simple task (especially writing 31 in a single day hahaha), and I am super duper appreciative of all the work you guys have done.

P.S. I shall forever regret adding that fadeout ending so I didn't get the fabled 9.8. xD