LucidShadowDreamer's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[No Hope in the Horizon]

(Notice: this is a review for the older version of the track, in case it gets updated).

This is a wonderful piano piece you have here :)
The melodies and harmonies are wonderful.

As you said, it's a bit short. I also think that the left hand is a bit basic. In the great (but perhaps a bit brief) intro, it's a bit different, as is it in the end, but for more than a minute, it uses the same movement. Maybe you wanted to focus more on the melody, but I feel that the shorter a track is, the more detailed you probably want it to be.

Did you use Piano One for this, btw? Just wondering, because between 0:02 and 0:03 I can hear sounds that I find that Piano One typically makes (when the bass notes stop being held in, there's the noise of the reverb kinda dying on the low end) XD
In general, this also has kind of a Piano One feel, but maybe it's another vst that's sampled in a similar way :p
(even though 0:06-0:08 also has an echo that I recognize the sound of).

Speaking of reverb, you use quite a lot of it. I tend to do so too, especially if I want to get an otherwordly feel to the track. But bear in mind that using much wetness, will also make the piano feel further away. Sometimes, in a solo piano track, it's not what you want to go for. But as I said, I've done so myself too, and I really like the sound it gives. It just removes some power, especially from the base, you know? But you still managed to bring the volume up enough. I'll think of this as a stylistic choice, in this case, just wanted to give a heads up in general.

Another thing are those hits at 1:14 and 1:37. I like the fact that for this piece, the tempo is not set. It works well for solo intrument pieces. But in contrast, those hits feel very mechanic for some reason. The dynamic is fine, as the volume floats upwards with every hit. But especially at 1:37, especially the base feels very mechanic (try to listen to just the left hand, and notice how all the notes and rhythms feel the same volume and pretty stale at that one specific point). The buildup to 1:37 is really nice though! 1:33-1:37 is pretty perfect.

I probably wouldn't have ended the track on the same notes that you did, but whatever. It's the natural progression, so I'll let it slip by, hehhe... I guess I just feel like I would want something a bit less predictable for an NGADM submission? Not to say that predictable is always bad, but the ending feels a bit rushed in general, to me.

Oh, I almost forgot to say it! There's some minor clipping at later points in the track. I won't point out every part, becuase it ranges from at least 1:09 (Edit: heard some at 0:16 too) to the end. But it can for example be heard at 1:17, 1:18 and 1:20, as well as at 1:38 (those are the most prominent examples).
It's not much, but with good headhphones (maybe with good speakers too), you will hear it even at lower volumes. You may have to sacrifice just a little bit of loudness to fix this. You could for example lower the main volume just a little bit, then if there's some room left in the file that you get, you could normalize it to get the track to be as loud possible while keeping the dynamic range. Up to you.

Once again, at the very end, you can hear some of the notes dropping out at 1:40. Not necessarily a problem, but I'm pointing it out anyway.

Now, it may seem that I mainly gave negative criticism in this review, but I want to let you know that I really liked it despite that :p I especially enjoy how alive this track felt, at most parts. I enjoyed the small rhythmic misses like between the base and the melody at 0:55. Well not necessarily a miss, bad word choice. Rather that the left hand and the right don't hit the note at precisely the same time. It gives more of a realistic sense.

I also get that you were in a hurry. I think it's good that both you and Chris get a few more days (I think it's only fair). If you want to keep working on this track instead of making a new one, I think you might want to pay attention to the more important things I mentioned in this track (clipping, and such), as you're going up against SoundChris, after all (if he gets his things working).

If I were a judge, I'd probably go for a score of about 8.8, at the moment. But I would be a pretty un-harsh judge too, so keep that in mind!

Good luck, and I hope that this review was of some help!

NyxTheShield responds:

Thanks for the feedback, i will deff check what you point out (This is not even mastered, i really made this track in 3 ours while studying for a computational statistics exam i had today hahahaha), when i get my phones i will check the clipping problem (again, i mixed this with my Notebook's speakers XD)

[Tetris Theme (Dubstep)]

This sounds awesome! :D
I'm pretty sure the Tetris Theme has been made in every genre. I am happy to have heard a dubstep cover now (somehow I have managed not to hear one before this).
Great work, both of ya ;)

[~{ || MEGA || }~]

Even though it's closing in on 11 am, and I still haven't slept, I cannot help but leave a review for this. I am in awe o.O
This sounds extremely brilliantly exclusively super rad, dude! :O
The production alone is wonderful, but so are the melodies. Great taste in intrumentation, progression etc. No criticisms here.
Insta favorite!!!

Keep it up, you should definitely be proud ;)

larrynachos responds:

Oh geez, get some sleep dude xD

I'm so glad you enjoyed the song so much dude! I do think there are parts I could improve on, but I'm VERY proud of this piece.

Thanks!

[Uplift]

Oh yes, I almost forgot to review this. But I came back to it in order to hear it again (it's so good :3), and i noticed I didn't leave a review. I've been pretty busy lately...
And it's 10:39 am now, and I still haven't gone to sleep, hahha XD

So excuse me for not leaving an extensive review. But this track is really good, as I've told you before :D

Awesome work, and keep it up ;)

Troisnyx responds:

Cheers, meep ^_^ You really need some sleep after all that....

[What Lies Beyond]

Tssk tssk. Once again with the zero voting (I saw the score drop from really high to insanely low in just a few seconds, so...). Oh well, hopefully the score will rise again, but regardless of the score, this is an awesome track :)

And you know, it's just my style. You have such a nice way of composing! Actually, our approach is kinda similar at some points when it comes to music of this genre. Once again, your track has reminded me of the good old days of retro JRPG:s.

And man. The harmonies! Melodies under melodies. I love it (and I tend to do it as well). But you've done it very successfully way here. All the simultaneous melodies are easy to follow, imo, as well as fit nice into the mix with the other intruments playing. The melodies are all very nice and soothing, as is the general sound design. Also, I love how you hid some darker and more mysterious chords in the mix at points!

The glockenspiel and bells too, they sound so great! I have a love/dislike relationship with the harp in this track though. Don't get me wrong, all the harp parts are good. I just think there's too much of it here, to be able to really enjoy it's presence! It basically plays all the time, except for a few parts, like the nice breakdown at 1:45.

I for one, totally understand your choice not to use percussion in this track. For one, most kinds of percussion would not fit in this track at all. I would've personally enjoyed a light but deep gong at a couple spots though, just to add to the atmosphere. That's just my personal opinion though :D
Some of the bells actually sound a bit like atmospheric percussion, and they really add to the mood (referring to the ones that start at 2:38)!

The mixing is far superior to mine, so no real comment on that. What were you using to make this track? Some of the intruments almost sound like good sound fonts (I mean that in a good way, as I actually quite enjoy the sound of many of them)! But you probably used something else, so I'm curious to hear how you managed to mix them to sound like this o.O

And yes. Those trills. Funny thing is, I actually hid a flute trill myself at one point, in the track that dem0 and I are working on :D
Can't say for sure yet, but there's a good chance our track will be pretty huge, and very different from this. Despite using percussion, I have tried to make it enjoyable on many levels.
This track is definitely worthy of being an opponent :)

I just hope the judges won't automatically like a faster track better. But from what I've seen so far, they seem to be relatively fair when it comes to genre.

I forgot to mention. I also like how there is very little repetition in this track. Many people seem to find that something always needs to repeat, and have some kind of a main melody. While I think that they're not wrong, I find it doesn't apply to every situation. This is a track I just want to listen to while relaxing, and enjoying the beauty.

Well, I guess I may have rambled on for enough time now. I too found the brass in the end to be a bit jarring, or at least harsh, upon first listen. But having listened to this several times now, I've kinda grown accustomed to it.
Alright.

Once again, beautiful track, dude! A very relaxing change from many of the heavier tracks in the NGADM. Favorited for sure :D
Good luck!!!

ChronoNomad responds:

Yeah, we can't quite get rid of the zero voters, but at least they only get one. Don't they understand that this is a competition? No sense of propriety, whatsoever. I'm so glad that you like the track, Lucid! We might be rivals in this competition, but I am proud to consider you a friend. I'm just here to make great music and have a bit of fun in the process. It's a great opportunity to push ourselves artistically, after all.

Man, you know I love your reviews. They are always so chock full of good stuff! And I definitely agree that we have a number of interesting things in common when it comes to music like this. It's awesome to get some comments on the melodic and harmonious layers. Those darker bits and mysterious chords are a great way to tap into other emotions, and they're all connected to the overall theme. I wanted to do lots of different things with each instrument, and when you work with lots of different kinds of instruments that really opens things up for a world of variety. Vibrato, trill, expressive attacks, plucks and strums. The universe of music is just so brilliantly expansive! And that's just speaking of the Classical genre...

Another fan of the glockenspiel and tubular bells! But I'm a little sad to hear that you get tired of the harp. I do understand of course, but that was one of the instruments that I really worked on keeping fresh by using it in different ways, changing up the direction of the arpeggios, and so on. It is true that it plays throughout most of the track, but I wanted it to be the secondary driving force to the cello, taking over when some of those slower, super expressive attacks are only beginning their ascension toward crescendo.

I really agree with all your comments here about percussion; it just never felt like it fit in with this track to me. I'm not actually sure I actually have a gong anymore after having to rebuild my VST collection, though I'm sure I could find one easily enough. The tubular bells really do a nice job of filling things out, just like you say.

Ah, there's an interesting little tale regarding the VST that I used for this! I promise to keep it brief. As I'm sure you recall, I was in the first Deserted Island Contest and shared the 2nd place spot with Emid. Long story short, every single instrument that I utilized for this composition is straight from the Versilian Studios Chamber Orchestra! It's a real memory hog and some of the articulation changes don't work quite as intended, but I loved it from the first moment I heard it and figured I could make a pretty nice ADM track with it! :D Pretty doggone solid for an alpha version, if you ask me.

As for the mixing, it's mostly the usual: Parametric EQ, Stereo Enhancement, Convolver for realistic spatial reverb, a touch of Soundgoodizer just to enhance each instrument's presence, and a bit of Compression mostly to make the really soft cello parts more pronounced. I also had to use a couple instances of Edison for WAV files when all was said and done since it wasn't possible to put all the instruments together in a single file. Whew!

Flute trills are the best! I shall have to seek out your hidden flute trill, good sir. I'm really looking forward to hearing what you guys come up with in this round, and I just want to go on record by saying that I'm not down on percussion or anything. I just didn't use any. I love drums that are well done, but I'm admittedly kind of bored by the overuse of very similar kinds of drums across so many Cinematic tracks. The term "Cinematic" doesn't even have much meaning to me as a genre since it seems to be applied to so much these days, but I suppose even my track could fall under that umbrella. That said, it's 100% Classical and that's what I decided to go with. :)

Yep, I think the judges are pretty fair about stuff like tempo and genre differences. Of course each judge has their own favorites and sense of musicality, or what works for them, so you just never know what to expect...especially when there are six judges all told! Should be an interesting battle and I've totally brought my A-game. Incidentally, this song's tempo is 146 bpm. Bet that's a bit of a surprise, eh? (;

And now you come to my favorite nuance of this particular track: the lack of repetition! I generally have a limit to how many times I think a particular progression should repeat, so I keep that ideal in my head whether I'm composing or reviewing. That said, making a song like this with very little actually repeating means I don't have to worry about that at all! Which is pretty nice, if you ask me. Repetition has its place, but - in my humble opinion - too much can mar the integrity of a song. Variety, after all, is the spice of life!

Mhmm, I figured folks would find that extra brassy bit at the end jarring, but you took it to the next level and gave it a few more listens so it could grow on you. Right nice of you, LSD. Much appreciated all around and thank you ever so much for such an overwhelmingly informative review! You rock heavily.

Best of luck to you and dem0, too! Love the stuff you guys put out, so just being up against you two is an honour. I've actually been wondering what you think of the portmanteau I whipped up using your names: LSdem0 (or LSDem0). Excelsior!

[Zen]

This is such a tasty jam! :O
Great job, and good luck in the contest :D

PirateCrab responds:

Raspberry Jam! Thanks pal you too!

[Mission 01]

Once again, I don't really have much at all to say. This short review is your punishment for writing a track that's just too good to really criticise without going super in depth, and even then it would be very difficult.
So...

TL;DR:

Amazing job, dude! :D

Noisysundae responds:

Punishment for writing it too short, you mean. :P

[Hope (Piano)]

I'm pretty sure you could pick any chord progression in the world, with any melody, and still make it beautiful, using nothing else that the dynamic and expression in you playing style. I actually improvised for one and a half hour on a real piano today, and I noticed I was playing very silimarly to this. I understand precisely why you would choose such a way to let your emotions flow. Rather than having a simple and clearly defined melody that you repeat with intelligent chord progressions, you can actually show just as much emotion by just playing in a certain way (not saying there's no melody or good chord progression here though). At least for improvisations. That said, I usually like the combination of the two the most. Which is perfect for the original version of the track (well, I guess that in one sence, this probably is just as much the original version).

The arpeggios are nice, so it's good to hear them. I like how you kept some silent backing strings in there as well, as they don't really take anything away.

I think that's it for this review really. I like the track, but I'd rather just listen to it today, than engage in an in-depth analysis. Thank you for sharing :)

Phonometrologist responds:

You are always generous with your words, but I don't mean that to sound that I think you're being unauthentic in the words that you use for I really do take them to heart. It really was just using dynamics to express the beauty of music really. Perhaps a little bit of hesitation (rubato) between notes here and there too. I don't know.. this is a weird piece in terms of listening but not being able to necessary know what to hold on to. I understand the chord progressions of what I'm doing obviously but my brain really doesn't follow it chord by chord, but rather the overall structure and sound of it. Just showing that I get what you mean.