MaestroRage's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Delusional Confusion]

Neat

Well stealth, lets begin our review.

I can see that you're trying out alot of things with this song in FL, synths, pads, bass kicks, scratches, this is like your canvas in which you randomly test out your skills, so this I can respect, the song does not infact flow smoothly but as stated previously I don't think you're really out to make a full song so much as learning the ropes.

The MELODY however of the song was pretty good. THIS flowed well.

Some ideas for next time. You had a pad at some parts, you should have a pad in the background at all times to provide a foundation for your other synths to stand upon.

I think you have discovered the effects box, as I think I hear some delay effects in there. Have you considered reverb? In techno/trance reverb isn't that important synth wise, but for your claps/ hi hats/snares, they are quite important to blending in with the rest of the song.

Try it out, I can assure you, that you will not be dissapointed.

Also don't be afraid to try and make two synths play the same melody and notes, fusing two or more synths can provide you with some interesting sounds.

Other then that, I felt this was a pretty good learning song for you, itself was also a pretty good song. Good work man, keep up the good fight and keep them coming!

Stealth-Emergence responds:

Thanks MaestroRage

I appreciate you're coming to review for me! I've got a lot to learn with FL so yep this is my testing phase for it at the moment

I'm not sure I've discovered the effects part in FL yet, or even how to incorporate them, though I think i know which part you're referring to with the effect in question.

I know it doesn't flow as smoothly as hoped! but that will improve as I progress with FL

2 synths together, now that hadn't occurred to me to try yet! guess what I'll be trying next? lol

Pad: I'm not sure which bit that was? I know I incorporated some random wavs for percussion and scratches, the beats/kicks were from FL

Like I say I'm still learning with FL so have a lot more experimenting/learning to do with it

Well Thanks for your review, expect a PM soon cos I have some questions, hope you may be able to help with!

Thanks again man, much appreciated

Peace Out!

Stealth

[DJ Sash - Those Times]

Sweet

The sfx WERE pretty loud, and the song underneat it all sounded so good T-T.

Oh well, our loss I guess.

Still if you lower the volume it does make for a great ambiant feel, and though I felt the first time the police sirens came around it was neat, the second layer you put of the police sirens was kinda overkill.

Still it was quite a good song, keep them coming Rave!

Rave4Yourself responds:

Thanks man, :D Ya, i'll try and remake it one day i guess... nahhhhhhh, :P

I dunno, its an okay song. Thanks for the review though, :D

Yay, my nickname is Rave!

[Jazzy Solo]

Sorry for double review :D

OOOH, Sorry I had to review again, a few ideas JUST struck me! Sorry :P.

I don't know if you use any programs like Fruity Loops or not but I'm going to suggest a few things anyways!

A violin! I could hear such a bittersweet violin playing to this guitar. Slowly followed in by some cello chords, perhaps a piano to play the chords, I don't know, the ideas are coming and going too quickly.

Wind AND Rain sound effect... oooh, now i've got goosebumps all over.

Some tamorines as the guitar melody does give off a faint spanish flavour to it.

A flute too, as a countermelody to the guitar! Maybe JUST maybe a vague choir? No... no choir, that wouldn't work.

heh, sorry again for the double review, just had to let that out :).

still 5/5, awesome stuff Soundshifter.

Soundshifter responds:

dude! i wanted to put strings!!! ahhh! but my midi wasn't working lmfao. look just for you man i will.. and your going to be first to know.

[Welcome to the Field]

Drums of war!

ah, so you want a story is that it Bosa!? Well my good sir, prepare yourself for teh story of teh century!

0:00

The wind is blowing at his feet, he looks up slowly to see his commander climb a small rock, he holds his horn up and at 0:06, he lets it blare out. The other soldiers raise their blades and spears to the air, and scream their approval. The commander drops his horn and slashes his blade towards the enemy.

All the soldiers pick up their weapons and charge. Our hero, being quite young and inexperienced feels geniune fear, choking his eyes and throat. In the blur of movement he falls into a semi-coma state (at1:05) and remembers what he is fighting for.

His home, lush with grass, tall mountains, streams gurgling to feed the crops. He see's his wife holding his child and he remembers smiling at the sun...

and then.

"AAAAAGH!"

The blood filled gurgled scream fills the air as the first arrow finds its target! He snaps out of his mind and realizes there are many arrows in the sky. Many soldiers are cowering under their shields, while those without are charging forward relentlessly.

The moment becomes more chaotic as they hear cavalry from behind them. He looks behind him and see an impressive force riding towards them, the enemies banner held proudly on their saddles.

Closer...

and closer...

He runs, tries to find a way to survive, any way at all, he just wants to go back home to his crops and family.

He turns around to see his general's eyes, and sees one solemn tear escape his otherwise emotionless face. So then there really was no hope... Our hero picks any direction and begins running, he hears a whizzing sound, and suddenly silence.

he falls to the ground with an arrow in his chest. And that, was the end of that story.

Overall I feel you've done well with this piece. I could see this story perfectly in my head, and the moods of the song change so quickly, without any warning.

Are those drums real? Seriously, if they arn't, where did you find them?!

The dissonant screaming violins near the end did an exceptional job at creating the distressed feeling, panic above everything else.

The subtle french horn with the pounding drums, made for a great "approaching evil" kind of theme.

Another question is the vocals? Where did you get them?

Anyways, easily a 5/5 from me Bosa, once again you're really impressed me!

Bosa responds:

Good to hear from a creative thinker. I will answer your questions which hopefully, is in best understanding. First, the vocals. Bulgarian babes was at the store where I hang out. I, of course, spoke with them.. since they were rather beautiful. Well, I got to speak of my music and I needed some real choir. Well, after alot of talking and negotiation, we came to an agreement. Yet, I don't think I'll ever see them again. Now, on to the drums.. I don't like to give away my secrets, but I will give this very small one. You can buy Timpanis from any music store that sells them. Timpani drums have both high, and low tones, so you should be able to get a good battle drum sound. I'm still growing in the live band era. Since we've covered most of what you want, we shall move on to some more diffrent matters. The audio portal grows well.. and strongly. Yet, it does not meet the attention as the flash portal does. A very depressing matter towards me. But, if the rumors are true, then I will feel joy over it. These rumors are not ones to discuss in public. Don't want to give away future plans on The NG Geo Bat Cave Base. Actually, after reading this, you have been subject to a disease. You have 3 minutes to live.

Your Friend,
Bosa (With cherries on top.)

[Fall of Grace: Euphonium+Piano]

Inspiring...

This wasn't as sad as I thought it would be :'(

You've made me sad now :'(

I shed tears here.

Anyways, seriously, onto the song.

Another brilliantly composed work, I felt this piece had a lot of subtle tones of anger in it over sadness, this I credit to the french horn. It's blaring glory at key points made the song sound a tad angry, and the oppressive piano at the end, only compliments this idea.

The melody is one that makes me think of adventures, you know, shield in one hand, beer in the other... time to party >:)!

Some ideas to make a sadder sounding piece. Perhaps a nice oboe and flute combo? I think if you replaced that french horn with an oboe it would have a sadder feel to it, instead of that heroic defiance (where DID I put my shield anyways...).

But leaving the description behind I felt this was a pretty good piece. Deserving of a 5 easily.

Esn responds:

Well, I never meant "sad" as in "depressing"... there are different types of sadness. I've never been drawn to the "downright depressing" style myself (eg. some of Frédéric Chopin's nocturnes). ;)

The brass instrument was a Euphonium, not a French Horn (a French Horn would never be able to go that low), although I had to use the "Tuba" sound since GPO doesn't have the Euphonium... which is frustrating, since it's my instrument.

I couldn't add any other instruments to this one unfortunately (though you're right, it would've been nice) because it was an assignment for a certain York University class ("composer's world music ensemble")... which means that eventually it'll be played by me and a pianist. In retrospect perhaps I should've waited until I could actually record the performance to upload it, but I grew a little impatient I'm afraid. In any case, Finale 2007 + GPO certainly doesn't sound bad! The piece originally wanted to be longer but I had to put a line somewhere and say "this is it" because my assignment was only to write a minute of something, and it's already 1:40... and in any case, shorter submissions seem to get more love on Newgrounds. It sounds kinda complete as it is anyway - I can always upload a longer version later if I like (one of my problems is that my pieces just keep getting longer and longer - they escalate into these huge things!)

Thanks for the review. :)

[Little Tree Pond]

Truly excellent work.

... well I must say I am definately glad you brought my attention to your works. This is by FAR the best sounding song on NG I have ever heard. I am afraid you will have to recieve all 10's across, and to date this will only be the second time I do this.

I am a HUGE strings fan, so to hear that violin really just pushed my ears to the edge and then gently oh so very gently pushed them off that edge... now I have to find the bloated corpse somewhere...

The melody is exceptional, when I first started making music THIS was the kind of music I wanted to end up creating! I must know how long you've been composing, and where you got your inspiration and so forth.

As a final request could I also have the music sheet or midi for this song? I would really love to study and learn from this!

Enough with my flattery though, lets get on with the song.

The mood of the song changes incredibly effectively and so drastically, it's quite impressive. As if literally I enter another room and the transition is as long as it takes me to open the door and walk through.

My only ONLY suggestion I have for this song, is perhaps some percussional aspects, you know, a triangle hit, or when some timpini, I feel the two would really add another layer to the power of this piece as a whole.

The end, where it got softer, you have no idea how much that moved me. I am quite a fan of softer, sadder tones.

Awesome stuff, if you submit any other works, do keep me informed. Easily a 5/5 from me, EASILY! Keep them coming Esn.

Esn responds:

I'm very flattered by your praise, as I think that most of your work is fantastic. This piece, actually, was only the second one that I ever composed... I wrote it in grade 12 - I was in the Claude Watson music program in Toronto - and it had to be for a specific instrumentation (violin, cello and piano). It is played by the Gryphon Trio (who were sightreading, by the way) so any compliments on the playing must go to them. I know that my pieces often lack good percussion (although in this case it couldn't be helped), and that's because I'm simply rather clueless about how to compose for percussion. I'm much more in my element writing soulfull melodies in natural minor keys.

My inspiration for this came from just a whole slew of melodies that I created on my keyboard - they come into my head all the time, then I record them on my keyboard so that I can remember them later. This piece is made up of a few of them, although some of them are significantly altered from what they originally were (the bass line of the cello in the first fast section at the beginning was originally a melody in 3/4 time). There are some flaws here that I'm aware of - for example, the key change is a bit awkward (from A- to Bb+... there's no way to really do that seamlessly, is there?). And the piano line is rather monotonous sometimes.

Still, I'm glad that people like it. Now if only there was some correlation between the quality of the music and the quality of the flash submissions that use it. ;)

Anyway, I'll send you the files... thanks for the review.

[Time for Bed - vocal edit]

So relaxing...

I'ts 3 am right now as i'm listening to this... wow, bad move Maestro... so sleepy.

You sing very well, your voice has a very soothing quality to it, and WinTang's bedtime song compliments your voice very well.

I'm sorry I don't have words of criticism or ideas, i've listened to this three hours straight, and I just love sinking to it's core again and again.

5/5 from me. Keep them coming.

snoballandthmonyshot responds:

glad u liked it maestro. was quite concerned about ruining what was already a beauty of a track so i tried to keep the vox fairly dee lo, is cheesy as hell but works in it's own way i feel.
and btw a sentance isn't a paragraph;/
;ped

[{=Sea of Uncertainty=}]

Damn impressive...

Well here's a halloween track if ever I heard one...

You've got a huge collection of some insanely creepy soundeffects. Where did you get them?! I've been meaning to put together a nice creepy piece like this, but through lack of good sound effects am unable too.

Anyways, the song flows incredibly well, it had me on the edge of my seat quite well. Good thing it sunny out, or i'd have to slay some goats to appease the shadow gods that dwell in my room... the bastards...

I personally liked every soundeffect, they were all crazy effective.

I have no suggestions or ideas in making this better, just wanted to drop my support, 5/5 from me!

SineRider responds:

Actually, most of the wierd effects are reason samples, but filtered and altered. If you have Reason you can get alot of cool effects with the default sounds with some editing.

Orignally when I started maknig hte song, it was suppsoed to be my MAC6 entery. But I guess I went the compelte oposite way. =)

Thanks for the review.

[Opus for Violincello, Ver. 2]

Impressive!

Awesome! Extended! Listening!

The piece moves along pretty smoothly, I must say the image i'm seeing now, has somewhat changed, perhaps because of the extended parts, and the additional reverb really altered it's core, but not in a bad way.

I kind of wish you had brought in that cello sooner into the song, it just adds a whole other level of depth to it.

I'm glad you extended it, I was really able to fully enjoy it this time. Also you must have just created the most seamless loop I have ever heard. The silence at the end, and initial pause at the beginning has created a very convincing loop, so top marks for that.

Lets see... it's equally hard to really suggest any improvements or ideas this time around as well... I just don't think there is anything I could suggest, except to keep them coming! Another 5/5 bomb for you!

ShadowJim responds:

Thanks again for another glowing review! You are too kind.

And thank you for the first review. That was really my driving force to find a way to work the repeat into the song.

Lastly...Cello? You mean the bass, I'm guessing (comes in around 1 minute in). Feel free to PM me, if you wanna discuss the this or anything else further.

[Goldeneye "Silo-ed" || HM RMX]

Pretty impressive

Damn interesting HouseMasta. I must say I was quite taken by the song. My only qualm is the beginning. It did start off rather strangely, and though it was by no means unoriginal, it still left a sour taste in my mouth.

The percussional beat is uplifting, but on the other side of that coin I didn't quite feel it was anything new, or diverse.

The song itself flows well, there isn't really anything that strikes me as inconvinient, truely enough everything seems in order.

I am getting all these instrumental ideas, but no point in sharing them really, so i'll just stop here.

Good stuff HouseMasta, keep them coming!

HouseMasta responds:

im sorry about the original, its just an intro by me... it needed to be a remix, so i put my own thoughts into the song.

wont share with the rest of the class? aww...