LucidShadowDreamer's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Descent Into Erebus]

I like it. Such a sudden atmosphere shift at 0:23, and even darker at 0:30 XD
I won't say too much about the piece itself, but I think that the trailer featuring this track would have a lot of interesting things going on, ranging from calm/naturlike, beautiful to cutely dark, to hopeful to almost mysterious, shady and explorative with an oddly heroic ending ;)

I get a lot of good imagery from listening to this, and that in itself, proves that this track is interesting. I also think it's very good, so it goes directly to my favorites.

All in all, great job ;)

samulis responds:

Hey thanks, dude! I always enjoy hearing from you. Like I said, it's a bit all over the place emotionally. XD

Thanks for listening!

[Dancing Barkeeper]

Chill and relaxing. What more could one ask for :3?

VideoGameManiac responds:

Thanks! Maybe pizza x)

[Radiant Cascade]

Hey! Don't diss on cheap keyboards, RealFaction!
And also, I've heard Waterflame use the same kinds of synth sounds, so I think it fits really well :p

Ehh, I guess you already know my thoughts on this piece. But I guess I'll leave a small hello on the piece anyway :)

Hello :D!

LunacyEcho responds:

Hello! :D

Sorry I didn't use 'Recalescent Ocean' as the title, but I wanted the title to be reflective of a game level, like RealFaction suggested. I did try and keep your suggestion of having elements of both 'water' and 'flame' in the title, though! Thanks for that!

[Zelda 2 Temple Theme]

Created yourself huh? That's awesome! Some day, I must try doing that as well; I use mostly presets (heavily edited at times but..) at the moment.
Good job ;)

[Adrift]

Alright, so I've probably listened to this like 3-4 times meaning to review it during the past weeks, but somehow I never got to it, even if I only intended to write a small review. And today I realized I forgot to, and finally came back. Sorry for the delay!

So as you probably know, I like ambient music, a lot. This one particularly, gives me a really dreamy feel. Almost trancelike too; like I was dreaming/floating, but I don't really know what I'm doing or what I am planning on doing, which means that the name you chose for this is really apt.
The sound that is playing all the while is pretty overtaking, it seems to have a lot of reverb and takes over quite many frequencies XD But while it sounds muddy, I actually like it. The welcome sound just makes this all the more more trippy, along with all the weird extra effects and such.

The laugh of the girl is an interesting element. It is not unique to a frequent movie goer like me, but I still like it. I think I'd like it to be more varied though, and that is a voice that could perhaps actually have use of more reverb! But at places like 2:26 and 2:28 the laughs don't feel different enough to fit so closely to each other for example. But maybe I'm just applying too much of what I'd expect from a real human laughing to this composition, who knows?

Either way, I really like it!

Good job, and keep jobbing ;)

NicholasCabraja responds:

Thank you for this delayed review. haha. I myself also like ambient music. I can agree I could have maybe cancelled out a few more frequencies for the main sound. But I always like a nice warm sound that just fills all the caps! It's kind of the death of me... And I also really got to go ham on the reverbs, because everyone tells me to go crazy on it. I'm to gentle with my mixing, I should take my shirt off and go nuts..(or something along those lines)

Thank you Lucid :)

[T-Logic - Heuristic]

This is not the track where I will get my revenge.

I'm going to be honest here. The is one thing in this track that I think is extremely wonderful, and one thing that I think is pretty horrible. Luckily, the horrible thing is pretty easy to fix, I think. I'm guessing you did not use headphones when you mized this, or at least not good ones? Because you almost gave me a headache and had my head explode with those bright things in the beginning -_-
The very first ones are not that bad, but man, the ones at 0:17-0:19 almost caused my eardrums to rip apart, and I'm not even listening to that high a volume!

I guess that the biggest reason for this is that the sound is waaay too sharp. It should be softer; it'd stil lgive the same feel I think. I like the fact that it's cold though! But I was so distracted by them at first that I didn't even notice the pad playing in the background! It is however such a small mixing issue that I won't remove many stars for it.

The wonderful thing in this track in my opinion are the drums, throughout the entire song! I love the way you mixed them to get such an awesome sound. The rhythms are great as well.

The guitarish thingy ontroduced at 0:39 is pretty cool too. Reminds me of old Crash Bandicoot games, with the atmosphere and everything. Crash used to have pretty drum n bass based tracks back in the day. It's interesting that you call this drum and bass though, becuase I can barely hear any bass frequencies!

I mean, I guess the other intrument introduced at 0:39 is a bass of some kind? Sounds more like some kind of synth to me. Does it have some kind of auto panner /flagner/phaser on it or something, because I could swear I alternate between hearing it more in my left ear and then my right ear at some points o.O

The structural aspect of this piece is pretty interesting too. I like the break at 1:52, for example. These melodies are pretty obscure at times, but it seems to me like you're getting better at combining chords and intruments to create harmonies!

But yeah. The whole track through it sounds like this track is missing some frequencies (like at the lower end), which leaves me with a weird feel. I guess this track perhaps lacks what could be called a "full sound". The volume dynamics feel a bit flat too, except for some parts, which may contribute to this!

Either way, I ike the track and the overall atmosphere. I hope you'll get time to produce more content now , so I'll have something to listen to and review :D

TaintedLogic responds:

Yeah, even if this is one of my longer tracks, it's hard to get your revenge on a 4.5-minute long piece. I appreciate your honesty. I did notice that the pads at the beginning sounded harsh. In fact, I first noticed it when I gave this song a "test play" on my basement's bass-amplifying speakers. I tried nearly everything to fix it: EQ'ing it in different ways, compressing it, adding different filters, etc., but nothing worked. Eventually, I sort of just gave up. It's probably an issue with the instrument, as I'm sure the instrument was meant to be played in a lower octave. I'll fix that now. I get strangely attached to my instruments, so thanks for giving me the motivation to fix that! ;) I think the sharp sound is part of the pad, although I couldn't pinpoint the source of it in Autogun's plug-in window. Autogun has given me hell before, too. :P Thank Johnfn for the drum mixing work, which is (in turn) the main excuse I had for calling this drum and bass. XD The guitar sound is actually an electric bass that I transposed several octaves higher than it should really play at. :D The lack of bass frequencies is also as per the advice of Johnfn, although I probably overcorrected myself a bit there. I'll work on that! The synth at :39 is more of a bass I suppose, thus the term "synth bass." ;) Nice catch with the panning automations, another one of Johnfn's snazzy mixing tips. In fact, I altered the panning on the pads during the last refrain so that the synth bass and pads are always panned to the opposite ear, despite constantly oscillating between ears. Again, never would've thought of that without Sir Johnfn. Tbh, the breakdown at 1:52 is one of my favorite parts of the piece too, although I agree about the obscure melodies. I believe it was Johnfn who first pointed out my tendency to use obscure melodies, in fact. XD I'm glad you think I'm getting better at harmonizing, though! ^^ I'll certainly take into consideration all of these points for my next track. I think it's naturally going to be far bassier anyway. >:D Thanks so much for the review, LSD! ^_^

[~Lost in Fantasy~]

Cathcy! I like it a lot :O

The atmosphere in this track is more than amazing. Everything sounds nice, so good mixing as well. I love the transitions.

Good job with the intro; somtimes simplicity is the way to go!

larrynachos responds:

Thank you so much! I'm so glad so little could go so far ^^

[Upper]

This is amazing!
This is a really fitting good ending piece. Your mixing is splendid, and I love the melodies and intrument choices. Good luck in the contest!

FinaLee responds:

Thanks, LSD! Same to you and dem0lecule!