descara's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Crossing the Brook]

Very atmospheric! I love the piano. Loops around in a great way.

Troisnyx responds:

Thanks : )

[-*}CaSH{*- King Benjerman]

Quite the crazy journey! Hard to really pick out anything to critique - it holds together very well considering the broad spectrum it covers. I love the bassoon at 01:10! The follow-up is great as well. The double bass transition is marvellous.

Only gripe was that the room felt a bit off sometimes, and the occasional limiter pumping (at least it sounded like it to me).

camoshark responds:

Wow, thanks man, I'm really glad you enjoyed, and coming from you, little to no critique is a good thing! :P

As for the room, if you're referring to the orchestral layout, I'm really bad at reverb, so I panned out the orchestra from best I can from memory, but no deepness effects were added, so certain instruments may sound odd. As for the limiter, I had to add one to compensate the REALLY loud segments, such as 4:20.

Again, thank you very much for the review, I'm glad you enjoyed!

Cheers,
Samuel Hebert

[Wandering to the Unkown]

Very atmospheric. Quite a lot of things though I reacted to, however:

The woodwind melodies are a bit messy - not so much in the beginning, but as more voices are added in, things get pretty chaotic and aimless.

Speaking of the woodwinds, they really overpower the rest of the orchestra to the point where it's rather annoying - the cellos and basses are so weak, they're barely audible!

Also, check the cello and bass writing, there seems to be some funky intervals - you've got to be careful with intervals between parts in lower register. If you're having cellos and basses in the same "layer" (as they so frequently are), octaves are nearly always most effective interval - the cello then reinforces and builds upon the basses timbre.

Kudos on really capturing the scene you describe, though!

TequilaShot responds:

Thank you for the CONSTRUCTIVE criticism. Much more helpful then, "Meh, was ok but could be better."

I had a hard time with coming up with the melody and I tried my best with the flute and clarinet duo but even my music teacher basically stated what you said (This was a project I did for Spring Semester). I might try altering it so the melodies aren't too dissonant.

I'm still learning to mix and master orchestral instruments and looking back, I could have toned down the woodwinds. Just gotta keep trying to improve right? :)

Again, I have to agree with the bass instruments though it seemed like they were acceptable here but I'll take your advice about keeping the cello and bass in octave intervals with each other.

You seem to know what your really talking about with orchestral arrangment and voice leading. Do you know any books that could help me with orchestral composer. Thank you for the feedback and positive rating =)

[WIP: Amaya's Lullaby]

Indeed very relaxing! Don't know why this got such a low score, but that's newgrounds for you.

The thing I reacted most strongly to was that the harmonies were somewhat all over the place - it starts with rather "pop-y", modern harmonies, but in the B-section introduced first around 1:40, I find things are more reminiscent of romanticism. An interesting genre clash to some regard, but initially I found it distracting and a bit cluttered.

It does pick up the pace very nicely, and the variation of previously heard material is nice. The ritardandos stops, and the fact that they're all very akin to each other, takes away a lot of energy from the piece whenever they show up - in part due to wasting away all momentum, and later on because they're so very familiar and predictable. My first suggestion would be to try doing one of these cadences but keeping some form of motion in some voice, rather than coming to a complete stop.

It's perhaps a slight bit on the lengthy side with regards to the material, but it kinda gets away with it - though first half got a bit tedious. For what it's worth, I think the ending worked beautifully!

[Stuck (Entry for RAC7)]

Pretty nice, sorely needs a bass though! If you don't have one, or lack VSTis good enough, there's always the cheap old trick of recording your guitar clean with an octave pedal, or tuning it an octave down in your DAW.

The kick and snare really good compared to a lot of peoples digital drum work however :)

adilovemetal responds:

You know what? I think am gonna do just the same... record it with an octave pedal... thanks for the suggestion :D this one be re rendered

[Aydin - Nine]

Great stuff, I really like the dark mood. I love the pluck synths as well, they have a very slick feel to them. Thought the wub could've been just a bit filthier and kick a bit fatter, but in general the soundscape is superb. The songwriting could've really used some more variety though! Great fan of the overall style though.

Aydin-Jewelz123 responds:

Thanks for the feedback mate! Much appreciated.

["The Last Ship" Short ver.]

Short, but wonderfully sweet. The production is excellent, the timbre of the strings and brass is marvellous. The others pretty much covered all the awesomeness of it.

Some things I reflected over:

I would've kind of liked a slightly more fluid melody - the note-against-note chorale style gets somewhat old with time.

Some light percussion, cymbals perhaps, would've been neat but it does stand on its own as it is.

The harmonic palette used is great, but when listening pointedly to the arrangement, I really found myself wanting more contrary motion (though 0:42-0:43 is great!) in certain places.

Disregarding all that crap, this is the best I've heard on NG in a long, long while.

[Impromptu - Spring]

Very touching piece - I'm sorry to hear about you losing your grandmother. The piece definitely feels in-the-moment, a proper impromptu. It was some time since I last lost a relative now, but your comments on the matter strike home to say the least.

It's hard to critique something like this without feeling like an arse.. but overall it's more than great! I almost wish for more reverb on the piano, but due to a slight hearing loss in the typical reverb response frequencies I'm not the best to judge this. I also would've kinda seen more of the cello before the orchestra entered, to really prepare for the orchestral que!

By the way, I love your progressions. You manage to pull off some great chromatic lines in the bass lines and some great use minor subdominants without sounding cheesy.

BlazingDragon responds:

Thanks for the words of consolation. Like I said though, I'm feeling at peace about it. :)

Hey, bring on the critique! I'll take whatever advice I can get. The reverb on the piano is subtle, but I think I'm pretty content with where it is at. I usually drown my piano sounds in so much reverb that I'm trying to go light on it lately. -_-

You know, that orchestral cue found it's way into the piece without much choice on my part! I just wanted to bring out the strings toward the end, but it sounded funny having them just pop in the way they did, so I added a cymbal for a small, light transition. That sounded so thin though, so in came the bass drum. Then, I had to beef up the dynamics on the piano and strings so that they weren't too quiet after the cymbal roll. By then I thought, "Eh, I've already come this far, I may as well add a timpani in thar!" Ahahaha. :D

I can see what you mean about a cello though. The issue to me was that I really wanted this to be a solo, quasi-improvised piano piece. The orchestral cue mostly serves for a) transition and b) to highlight the change of mood in the climax. Musically, I wanted to communicate the shift in my emotions and viewpoint regarding my grandma, and how I've come to see her passing not so much from an angle of bittersweetness but rather of great beauty. With that, I rationalized the suddenness of the cue.

Thanks regarding the progressions! I love chromatically descending bass lines, especially through the use of juicy borrowed chords. I'm also kind of obsessed with those minor subdominants...But yes, they definitely can be cheesy if used carelessly.

[Focused Noise (NGADM '12)]

Great to see some good metal on here! The guitars are really fat It's good to see someone with some instrument and recording chops on here. My only real gripe about the track is that in comparison to everything else, the drums are pretty underwhelming.. but I know the pain of trying to get digital drums to sound convincing, however I'd perhaps at least bring them up some in the mix and maybe compress them a bit. Also, perhaps the songwriting was a bit all over the place, but the general awesomeness pretty much makes up for it. The 01:00 riff gives me awesome stoner doom and/or Sabbath-vibes!

By the way, checked out Disfigured on your youtube, great stuff.

Demon-Slayer12 responds:

I agree, the drums were a huge headache for me the last few days. I need to mix them a bit more still, but I really like the sound I got with them. They don't cut through the mix like I thought they would.
Glad you like the guitar tone though, I've been working hard on that. Pretty surprising that I'm only using a Line 6 Podxt Live, I didn't expect to get the sound I actually wanted haha.
That riff, its the grooviest thing I've ever written..XD
Thanks for the words man, and for checkin out Disfigured, I hope to get more videos/songs up soon!

[Hymn To The Fallen]

Beautiful mood you set here! The mm-intro is novel and a very nice touch. I really like the chromatic lines, the clarinet around 0:30 especially. Your use of drastic terraced dynamics.

It's nice to woodwind getting some love, though they sound a bit synthy.. the EWQLSO in particular bassoon isn't very fun to work with, but some nice expression data curves can make it sound pretty good and make it really breathe!

Productionwise things feel a bit so-so to me.. everything sounds rather dry, I'd like perhaps some more reverb. Also, some levels seem way off - for example at 0:42, brass playing so strongly the tone "bursts" (I don't really know the term in English, sorry) sounds weaker than the woodwind previously heard! Of course, this is a digital production, but that just sounds unnatural. Also, going by traditional seating layouts (which I kind of got the feel you were doing from the track - sorry if this isn't the case!), the oboe and bassoon sound very far on the right - while they are typically seated slightly to the right, they are also further away from the listener than the strings, diminishing the effect of this.

Again, good to see someone using woodwinds, and I must say your piano parts and the interplay with the orchestra were very enjoyable :)

Rampant responds:

I've never found the winds to be QLSO's strong point; indeed, it's a pretty old library, without the mod-wheel controlled dynamics cross-fading, and the engine lacks a lot of the clever scripting that new libraries have to make things more realistic sounding.

Now, as for the mixing: I tend to go with what sounds goods to my ears. It's not always exact traditional seating arrangements, but that's the great thing about working in a digital environment. For reverb, I like the sound of the Sony Motion Picture Scoring Stage, which is naturally quite subtle: I like EastWest's convolution reverb, and it sounds pretty nice, but it can be painstakingly difficult to blend other libraries in the same mix.

The section you referred to, around 0:42, is, I think, when the Wagner tuben come in: even at the lowest velocities, the Big Sus patch sounds very brassy.

For me, melody and orchestral colouration almost invariably comes first. Although I do strive for realism, spending my time on the actual music takes precedence.

Thanks for the feedback/review.