kayorent's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[A Farewell To Heroes]

It's not bad at all, way better than ech (the prototype) for certain. But as this is a review, I'm of course going to try to put in a couple suggestions. Nothing stands out to me about the notey stuff, or should I say the stuff that isn't the drums, it's good enough that no suggestions come to mind immediately. on the drums however I have a couple of thoughts.

Or maybe it's just one thought.

The shortest hit on the drums (the one that goes one two one two) doesn't feel like it has enough energy to it. It feels as though it's standing still, rather than sending it's feelings along the path of the music. If that makes any sense.

Only a little though, since after listening really closely I it might be fine the way it is, you did quite well. It's hard to come up with anything to pick on.

So instead of trying really hard to find something i'll just give a little suggestion to try out in future pieces, and that's tiny sounds. One of my favorite things about music is closing my eyes and being able to listen to exactly where each sound is coming from, and I love when tiny (not necessarily quiet) sounds are sitting way far out to the left or right.

I enjoyed how the lowest hit on the drums moved around a bit, the wiggle from left to right that the ending sound seemed to have. The cymbal up in the top right corner was interesting too, and it was nice how the background synth spanned the whole space from left to right. The other three far corners didn't have anything in them, but it wasn't a problem at all.

Gah there are so many parts of music, I don't even know how to begin on the choice of melody, as I don't really think about that specifically very often anyway.

One thing's for sure though, you did a good job for such a short piece.

Birdinator99 responds:

The melody isn't particularly inspired, so I'll meet you there (notey?!?!).

It would help to learn some vocabulary so I know what you're referring to all the time. The "shortest hit" I assume is the kick, and the "lowest hit" that moved around (apparently) and wiggled (unless that was a different sound that wiggled) I'm really not sure.

Terms like kick drum and snare help me know what you're talking about, and make your constructive criticism more helpful.

Again, with "tiny sounds", I'm guessing you mean short and staccato?

Glad you liked (I think) it.

[Lucid Dreaming]

You're getting to the point now where I have trouble finding anything to suggest, you're surpassing my knowledge of music creation, and that's a good thing.

However I still am able to offer up a couple of comments I think, thought I'm mostly just going to harp on things I've said before.

On the particularly weighty notes and in a lot of instruments I still sometimes feel like the notes are too... regular? They feel mechanical sometimes, maybe there isn't enough emotion in them, though I wouldn't know how to add emotion to notes with a computer program. Just something to think about, I've definitely mentioned this before, and it isn't nearly as noticeable in this song as it is in some of your previous ones.

Overall good job, you're definitely improving and I can tell you were having fun with some of the odd sounds and bends in here.

On a side note I have had several lucid dreams, and they're quite fun. The only problem is that if you get distracted at all you'll either wake up, or think you've woken up (but are just dreaming about having woken up). And you can only change something if you expect to be able to change it, so even if you know that that's true, you end up not being able to do what you want if you're anywhere near anxious about not being able to do it.

-DrightJKayorent

Birdinator99 responds:

The emotional thing is hard to do when you can't actually play -- hopefully that'll be corrected sometime soon. There's lots of room for improvement in the "musical intelligence" department, I guess you could say.

I'm so envious of you :[

[Symphony (GB)]

I agree with BFP on the headache factor (though I don't know what a limiter is =P). But replaygain in foobar2k will fix that for me anyway.

However this is the only NGADM third round song to put a smile on my face and chills through my bones so I wish you had won. I'll definitely be watching in the future.

GrantBowtie responds:

Thanks for the support!

[-Clutterfunk-]

So I took a look through the other reviews and didn't notice any big walls of text that might give you a real idea of how well you did, and that most of it is just people going "AWESOME WATERFLAME AWESOME LOVE!!!" and the like. So I thought I'd give you a wall of text! Yay!

Your production is great as always, but a song with no continuity just doesn't seem right to me. There are a lot of cool bits to this song, but it doesn't build at all for me.

In my mind I hear "Oh that's neat, oh that's neat too, oh that's also neat... hey wait is this going anywhere? Oh there seems to be more of a full experience in the last two minutes. Too bad the first two seem to have nothing to do with it though."

The last half of the song seems like normal you and it fits with itself nicely, however the first two minutes seem almost like a demo reel of stuff you might make in the future, and EVEN THOUGH the last two have continuity the first two make it seem as though they don't simply because I had to listen to them first!

I think that putting the first half that makes up the clutter in between the consistent parts could have made it a better song because currently the intro holds no resemblance to the outro that I can see.

I'm not a maker of music, and I'm not a habitual critic or even qualified to discuss it. The judges have their own opinions and knowledge about music and I can't claim to understand a single percent of what goes through their minds. And I understand that you had a very limited amount of time in which to make this. But I just don't feel like clutter will make it through round four.

Waterflame responds:

thanks for the long review! it pretty much sums up my own problems with the song. i mean, in my personal opinion i like it, cause its suprising and frantic.. but from a technical standpoint, its a bold move i dont really feel i pulled off. i diddnt have time, as you said, to really think the song over for a day or two. witch i should. but oh well, done is done.

the last thing i want is the competition to be a burden and more stress than fun. so im sticking by my clutter and hoping for the best! however, i might redo this song later and do it justice :) all your points of criticim is taken into concideration, thanks for the input!

(and dont say you arent qualified to discuss it! aslong as you have an opinion about what you hear, and you go on a bout it in a polite manner, you have just as much right and impact as a professional music critic :)

[Ascend]

You created a nice atmosphere in a limited setting, good job!

I particularly liked the birds at the end, they closed the lid nicely.

The one thing that stands out for possible improvement is that your melodies and such still sound a bit robotic, so I think the velocities might need more variation (like that piano thing I mentioned long long ago). Also maybe speeding up and slowing down in some areas, such as progressively lengthening the silence between the last few notes.

But as I said the atmosphere you created is fantastic! Contemplative and airy, maybe bittersweet but not quite sure...

You're always getting better!

-Dright

Birdinator99 responds:

Glad you liked it -- I made a couple changes based on your suggestions; clear your cache and check it out!

Not ideal, but better, I feel anyway.

[Vexian-Madrid]

I'm by no means any sort of expert but if you just want something to think about then I'm your guy.

I think that a big problem with this song is the overall sound level variation. Generally the song is consistently loud the whole way through. Because of that the song feels very repetitive even when it's not (though it kind of is).

You need to build up tension and release but if you don't vary the overall loudness of the song throughout it's VERY hard to do that.

Thanks for making music! Good luck and do your best!

Also if you're active on the forum and stuff more people will find you (probably).

landon91 responds:

Thanks for the review. I'll go back and edit some build-ups and variations in!

[Shiver Mountain (Remix)]

Hi, looks as though I found this a couple days after release so that's good.

You stayed nice and true to the source in my ears.

I'm no music expert ofc so apart from saying it's going on my playlist and it sounds nice to me I can only pick on the stuff that I don't feel is as good as the rest.

I'm going to start right off with the drums they feel just a bit too crashy to my ears. I know it's supposed to sound snowy and stuff but the sound is almost so snowy that I can't find the melody as easily as I feel I should be able to, and I think that it is because of the drums.

I love when the melody comes in with force around :50 and in the other places as well. However I feel that it could give me chills if it had even a bit more weight behind it (places like 1:25~ as well). As long as you have soft areas to work from (like 2:30) I think you can swing in with a lot of weight in the melody.

You could even try the reverse -- making the parts before the melody comes in even softer. After turning my system volume up (as you said it is quite quiet)...

...I thought I'd feel like the melody was loud enough and everything else could soften down, but I still think the melody is just too quiet to come in after a drop (or whatever you call it) with enough impact.

Ah. More to do with general collaborative volume variation, it sounds as though this song would be a very good place to use portions where all sound drops out for a bit, and then the melody comes in strong. You kind of do it but you never go to complete silence when I think you could quite effectively do so.

An example of this would be 2:35 I think. Rather than stepping right down into the melody, you could have everything cut out for a moment and then create impact with the melody.

And I think that's enough to think about from me =P

I like where you're going, and if you keep working hard you'll get there for sure!

-Dright

Birdinator99 responds:

Well thanks for stopping by, dude.

The snare and hi-hats are tuned down an octave, the kick drum sample was too grainy (as Skye pointed out), and the bass had the melody. In retrospect, NOT a good combination!

Oh man, don't even talk to me about levels -- I tried it all! The choices I just mentioned above weren't helping, and my experimentation with compression was making it all the more confusing.

I think if I had made better decisions earlier in the process, especially regarding recording volume and sample choice, then the melody standing out more would have given me better ideas of how to use it effectively. All just part of learning, no doubt.

I appreciate the feedback.

[Summer Nostalgia]

Spill your thoughts eh?

If this is summer it's kind of like the end credits, it's that kind of flow created by the regular dun-dun-dun-dun-dun in the background like the credits for sm64.

This song is quite hard for me to pick apart I can say for sure that you've done a really good job with it so nothing irks me so far and it definitely deserves a head bob.

Actually there is one thing, but it's minor: at the end of the song my mind really wants the last choir note to drop a bit with some drums like wa- wa_ or whatever. But as I said it's quite minor.

I agree with what you said earlier the instruments definitely remind me of your previous songs. Of course the mixing and mastering and stuff is drastically improving.

Maybe you should take a look at the airiness of your drums but I don't think it's a big problem, just a place to look.

Also look at diversifying the kind of instruments you use, I liked the choir and you know best when it comes to drums, but everything else is definitely a synth and they're all kind of similar in my ears.

But hey I'm not even close to tired of listening after writing this and the song is going straight to my playlist, so good job =D

Birdinator99 responds:

SM64 -- good comparison.

I understand what you mean with the end, but I like it the way it is.

I need to start making stuff with fewer synths; right on the money there.

I'm glad it's a bit of an earworm for you. Summer songs should be like that, I think.

Thanks for reviewing!

[-Back then-]

Oh, hey Crash Bandicoot.

This loop definitely reminds me of the songs from that series in the latter half.

I've noticed that all of your material has a similar sound to it, such that after ten seconds of listening to your song I can think "yep that's Waterflame."

Unfortunately I can't really give any advice at my current level as a critic, but I'd say you're doing well so far. Your songs are sounding cleaner than the first ones I listened to years ago (I think it's been a couple).

Good job.

-Dright

[IDWTTYD (Remix)]

I don't see any problems with the sound quality or mixing or whatever it's called.

It's a good remix and stays true to the original for sure.

My problem is that it just seems too slow of a pace without vocals especially at the start. The first low note just seems to hang around for too long. The original does the same, but gets away with it better somehow, probably because Todd's piano is softer I think.

Also the way it turns into a spacey fade out irks me, and it bugs me in the original too. It's like the song is shouting "hey look at me, I'm ending so here's a sound that doesn't have much to do with the rest of the song to distract you!" Though I like your spaciness better than Todd's.

In the beginning it feels like the piano is speeding up and slowing down at times and it's really weird. The first few notes have a nice tempo and then the low note slows it down oddly.

I think it'd be nice if it could sound less mechanical as well, it feels like the notes are being played by a typewriter all clacking down perfectly.

Ah! I realized now that it feels like two different pianos are playing the low notes and the high notes.

It's something I learned in choir about the piano, the more experienced you become at playing it the better you can link the notes together. Big notes are followed by a series of smaller (lighter) notes that seem to flow together. When I listen to your piano and Todd's and think about big notes they seem to happen twice as often in yours.

And with that I hope I've given you something to work with =D

Good job!

Birdinator99 responds:

Well I couldn't do vocals, so the song definitely loses some of its charm there. The slowness is appropriate within the context of the album (it's kind of like a multi-track journey), but I can see why it would bug you here. Todd's got a great piano, boy.

As for the ending, like I said, his albums are more like "journeys", so a lot of the pieces transition in to each other, as was the case for this song. I couldn't end it like that to be a stand alone song, so that's why it's different. If you don't get it, try to find the album somewhere.

I should have mentioned that I tried using tempo markers for the first time. Most songs played by a human don't stay at the same tempo the whole time; there are natural speed ups and slow downs. I attempted to replicate these as best I could, but it sounds like they didn't compliment the velocities I chose, so maybe I'll rethink that method.

Ah yes, the piano is pretty quantized. It's a shame I can't play it myself; I tried to make it flow, but I think in the end I just realized why I don't like piano :o

"Ah! I realized now that it feels like two different pianos are playing the low notes and the high notes."

I think what caused this was that I have two pianos playing the same part: one in the left and one in the right. They're separated by a short delay to give the illusion of stereo width. Maybe?

I suppose when you say "big" notes, you mean heavy, or unnecessarily loud ones. I thought I did a better job on velocities for the piano this time, but listening to it a few more times, you're right, there's clearly room for improvement there. Back to the drawing board -- err, mixing board.

Heh, if you take out the first two lines and the last line of your review, it sounds like this piece is a disaster, but I understand it's all constructive criticism. Your background in choir definitely works to your advantage while writing these reviews. Thank you!