MaestroRage's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[The Purest of Winters]

So pure and gentle...

Hey Dan.

I don't think I have to tell you that i've been listening to this piece for three and a half hours... straight.

I would also like to take the chance to say that because of your piece, if I close or change it, my ears feel uncomforatable... IT'S A DRUG NOW >:(

Anyways onto the song itself!

The gentled bells, and strings, as always your great sentimental abilities usher in a gate load of emotions that I am not ashamed to say have been... well frankly locked up tight in myself. I don't think i've ever felt this form of peace before.

And again, your piano, ALWAYS WITH THE ORGASMIC PIANO!

There is a great load of dynamics in the piece, and though there is nothing but serenity coming in from all angles, it leaves traces of excited power in its wake.

The image I get is so frieghteningly real. A small child runs up a hill, slated with the sheets of pure white snow, as large flakes fall down lazily. Falling down to make a snow angel the child looks up and watches the great gray sky, as it slowly disentegrates into the white haven that its made. I also see the clouds rumbling softly, only because I don't think i've ever actually seen that, and i think it would make for a good image :D.

I have absolutely no suggestions in making this better. Best of luck to you on the contest, I may as well give you my piece of the crown, for I am quite sure you will be the king ;).

First time I gave somebody straight 10's on this account. Take care Dan, keep them coming!

MilkMan-Dan responds:

Maestro, you've been here... holding my hand... through everything.

I'd really like to thank you for taking the time to get ahold of me and tell me about this contest. Like a true friend... you know me well enough to know that this is something I'd love to do.

You gave me hope and you gave me the spirit. I look forward to your submission because I have never seen any challenge set fourth to you that you did not conquer.

Brothers for life Maestro...

[Epic Orchestra]

Awesome!

As a instrumental artist myself, I must say this song absolutely blew me away. It is truly a very powerfully epic piece, very driving, very demanding, filled with a great feeling of sorrow, passion, and many overtones of remorse.

I'm listening to this piece through some pretty lousy headphones, so I apologize if some of my suggestions or ideas don't make sense.

First off, that has to be the MOST original percussional beat I have EVER heard. I have never heard such an interesting, almost random beat work so well for any song. If I were to guess you are using Edirol Orchestral for your pieces?

The cellos are a tad overpowering, and this is where I may be wrong. My headphones are quite bass illeterate, and so it tends to overcompensate the lower frequencies, this rings especially true with the timpini rolls, I could almost not hear the instruments.

I felt that timpini role was a tad too long. It kinda loses it's power.

Some bells? I didn't quite hear those awesomely awesome tubuler bells that I adore oh so very much.

have you ever considered a choir? I feel a nice deep with high choir would really add some flavour, this I mean especially near the end with the timpini roll. I feel that you put that in there for so long because you didn't really mix up the last part of the song.

Also Organ. I feel that your song portrays an emotion that would be excellently conveyed by a organ, one of great judgement, struggle, and of great proportions... epic ;).

Other then I felt the melody flowed insanely well, the mix of instruments were incredibly well performed, and everything just melted into place for me. Easily a 5/5 bomb from me crodian. I would like to invite you to listen to some of my pieces, and tell me your opinions on them. Keep up the fighting spirit, and keep them coming!

crodian responds:

Thanks for the great review! Yeah, it's EDIROL I'm using...it's fantastic. And thanks for the instrument suggestions, I agree with you on those.

The thing is, this song is made to be easily reproduced on www.splicemusic.com , an online music sequencer. It can only fit 8 tracks at the moment, so that's how many I made. I wanted ppl to be able to remix it easily :P

Check it out if you want, we could always use a pro! lol

[Fort Watauga]

Impressive!

Hello Bosa. Sorry about not getting to this song earlier, i've been listening to it for a long while now, I just havn't written a review... until now that is.

I must after reading your description I was expecting a more "indian" flavour, then those awesome bagpipes came in and immediately I discarded the indian image to feel the song better.

What i'm getting is a kind of festive feel. Like you would see in a great field, with dancing, festivities, campfires, and such smooth waves of emotion, of love, peace, and later on, even sorrow.

The french horns you introduce with that oboe and flute, really nailed that feeling of peace. Then it went all minor on my face, and this is where the sorrow, and slight overtones of darkness came in. It was quickly replaced by some peaceful, romantic strings though, so that ended quickly.

Back to the bagpipes after that, I felt this was a good move. That bagpipe sounds live. I know you have some friends who are able to play instruments, if this was him, I must truly commend him, those bagpipes are well played.

I must have listened to this song over 20 times, it just flows so well.

Loops well too, so good work. easily a 5/5 from me Bosa, another great. Keep them coming!

Bosa responds:

Fort Watauga is where all the fesitivties in our community are held. One, in favorite, is the Celtic festival. Every year, the colonists would hold a festival which contained mostly celtic craftsmanship. Once, a great battle forsaked them, and the indians drove them out. Well, we look back to those days and feast to our heritage. They had some dulcimers for sale.. I was going to buy one for you. The ones who sold them were dulcimer craftsmen. I learned quite a bit from them. Also, they had some medieval armor and weaponry. All was the jet of a blast.

[_Yumbo-Yak_Hymn of Hip Hop 2]

Neat

I didn't quite like the piano selected for this one. And instead of the note resonating, it cuts off pretty drastically, especially clear in the beginning. I would really advice using the reverb effect for future classical/hip hop fusion songs.

However once the strings and synths start going at it, it really starts to pick up. The hi hat issue has been resolved so that indeed make me quite happy.

That choir man... it would sound so damn good... if only you had found a better choir for it. Goggle Papalmedia choir, it's an excellent free soundfont for choir.

Reverb the choirs like crazy, choirs are only good if you reverb them so hard that their mothers start speaking reverbed!

Otherwise a very interesting mix, it's just the samples you chose this time around that kinda perked of me ears.

Still, good work Yumbo, keep going, you will get as far as you want to.

Yumbo-Yak responds:

Thanx and coming and checking it out maestro
I may let this piece, rest in peace
i'll google that choir,
If i make another piece, that i think u may be interested in i'll pm u, until then adieu, and keep searching for good pieces

[Call of The Wind]

Neat

hey speedmetal!

I never thought i'd see a classical from you. It's quite strange to see really! Anyways onto the song.

Deflektor (I believe) mentioned something about the samples, I agree with him. Their quality diminishes the power of the piece.

Some ideas.

The buildup to the brass is nice, but I felt the brass came in too abruptly.

Also when the brass does jump in, perhaps some deep cellos in the background to fill in the lower spectrum?

To end the piece, I would suggest a trailing note, fading out you know, the ending was a tad abrupt as well.

Anyways, for your first classical piece, I must say i'm damn impressed. You have inspired me to try my hand at metal now ;). I hope you will be there to hear it when it's out.

Keep up the good work speed, keep them coming!

speedmetalmessiah responds:

Wow man thanks for the awesome review. I'll work on getting the smaples to sound better for my next classical piece. I'll also try and ease into everything a bit smoother next time. I should have mixed the bass end of things better but at least now I won't make that mistake again.

Thanks a lot for the tips I'll definately take them into my next orchestral.

I'll be looking forward to your metal tune and if you ever need a guitarist just let me know I'd be more than happy to help you out.

["Welcome"]

Impressive

Hey Roy00.

I didn't get a very "welcome" feeling to this song. More like a "welcome to hell!" kind of thing. There were many overtones of a dark and sorrowed feeling, yet there were traces of happiness, especially in the middle with the quick strings and brass. More noble, more almighty kind of feeling.

One of my first suggestions above anything else, is finding better samples. This song's melody flows very well, it's structure pretty good, however the quality of the samples bleeds the life it would have otherwise out of it.

The song also loops pretty well.

That piano ending, I did not find in the greatest of taste. I felt that it let the song just kinda die out. I would suggest perhaps a fade out?

have you considered timpini? I think this song is a very noble oriented one, and though you do have some timpini going on at some points, I feel having them around more would be a welcome addition.

I also believe you should use the reverb effect, give it a more realitistic feel, especially on those choirs. I find reverbing choirs to hell and back gives a very neat effect.

Anyways, thats all I can think up of for now, i'd like to invite you to listen to some of my pieces, and tell me what you think of them. Thank you. Here is my 5 bomb for you! Keep them coming!

Roy00 responds:

Oh yeah thanks for the comment by the way! yeah sorry about all the "flaws" in this song.... LOL! its just that im using finale 2003 and playing everything through a demo version of 2007. so im not used to the crappy sounds '03 has. but im getting better! thank you by the way. i'll continue listening to your music. Bye!

[_Yumbo-Yak_Hymn of Hip-hop]

Neat

Hey man, I really think you're onto something here! When I heard that opening I thought (man that sounds famaliar!), then i read your description and it said that you used the ffx song, and it struck home.

I think a hip hop version is definately a welcome break from the original, however I also think you should mix it up some more. That constant hi hat throughout the whole song lost its power after a while you know. Those soundeffects you had going on there was also a pretty neat idea.

I also think that kick should have been louder, also reverbed up the ying yang, for that surreal feeling the ffx song has.

Anyways, great stuff, the ending was redone, so good work with that. I think the song has potential but still more diversity would have been a great addition.

Keep them coming Yumbo-Yak, good stuff.

Yumbo-Yak responds:

This song has alot of room for improvement.
I'll revamp it later and make a worthy version to be displayed on newgrounds,
thanx for the review.

[Sunset Forest]

Neat

Hey Ocelot.

I liked the melody of the song, it flows well, it has a relatively good story to tell, but like mentioned before hand you have whole notes playing in the background all the time and that can become a little tiresome to listen to.

I didn't like the ending at all with that hi-hat segment. Letting it trail and fade out would have been a better move.

Some ideas.

First off, I think you should get better samples. If you had great samples this songs power would increase nearly three fold. I'd like to invite you to listen to some of my own pieces, you will notice that melody wise they may not be better then this piece, but merely because of the quality of the samples they take on a whole life. Of course i'm not telling you that great samples is the bane to all good music. You could have a real orchestra and still suck if the song just doesn't have structure or melody.

To make your instruments sound more real, I would recommend you apply a reverb effect on them. Reverb is an effect that makes it sound like the instrument is being played in a large hall (or small room depending on the parameters you set).

What program are you using? If I were to guess i'd say Finale?

Anyways, you do have talent, so keep them coming! You'll get there if you keep pushing.

Ocelot3000 responds:

Firstly, let me just say thank you for writing such a detailed review, It is deeply appreciated. I am aware that the sound quality for the piece is below my usual standards so I was expecting this comment to appear sooner-or-later. When I first wrote this piece over a year ago, I didn't have access to high-quality samples.
I can in all honestly say that I don't use Finale, instead I use software with a built in multi-effects processor, reverb controls and a realistic sound simulator, the reverb was just not set to a very high level.
I would like to point out that I was rushed to finish this piece (Hence the ending) and I DO plan to redo the entire piece again when I have the time so your comments will be taken into account.
P.S. I also hade the same comment made by 'Ventoche' about the long background notes, don't worry the will be changed.
Thanks a great deal
*Ocelot3000*

[Drown in the fountain of youth]

Neat

Well lets begin the review shall we?

Lets start off with the beats. You're percussional beats are pretty good, very solid, laid down and keeps the song in pace.

You've got two guitars working in this song, one is a more cleaner version, and one is very distorted. For future reference, I would very carefully consider that distortion guitar. That cleaner one you have soloing, and then accompanied with other similar guitars worked well.

That really distorted guitar sounds real, and maybe that is why it doesn't work that well. When you have synthesized sounds with a real instrument the synths will sound MUCH cleaner, as well the synths were probably either produced artificially or recorded in a studio with much more gear then the average person. So your recording of your guitar in short will sound extremely low quality compared to the synths.

How to solve this? Many people used DKFH VST (Drummer Kit From Hell), which is a percussional program with really high samples geared towards metal tracks. As well as try not to mix in synth guitars with real ones, as the two will generally not mix that well.

Other then that the song itself is solid, it's merely the presentation that could use some work. Keep experimenting, you'll get there if you keep pushing. Keep them coming!

Stealth-Emergence responds:

Wow man awesome! thanks for your review! erm well all the guitars on this were real, I think one problem i've got is that the chords just sound really bad whenever i come to record however i seem to adjust the nobs, and the solo's seem to come out a bit cleaner, I'm working on this now! struggling a little to keep the distortion from pulling the quality down

Thanks again for your review, and man your tunes were awesome!

Peace Out!

Stealth

[With You]

Impressive

first off, I don't know if the guy below me will ever read this, but what the hell are you listening to a song with the description "A MELLOW GUITAR SONG" and then expect it to be metal.

Anyways, some real criticism.

The guitar melody was awesome, simple, soft, sweet, short, and subdued (alot of S...)

I would have said add more instruments to it, but by itself this song is pretty awesome to. Have you considered reverb? I know I heard some in there, but I felt a heavier dose, with a slight echo would have made it more... peaceful?

Anyways, I really liked it, 5 bomb for you! Keep them coming, you've really got some talent behind you.

ShadowJim responds:

Thank you.

To tell you the truth, I actually wrote the melody when my high e-string was broken. Was oddly inspiring experiment.

It was one of the first songs I did in Guitar Pro, and I really was never satisfied with the sound I got, either. I considered making another version (different guitar? different program?), but I'm hoping someday I'll be able to actually play and record it on my own classical guitar. Don't have the talent, now, alas.

Arigatou gozaimasu! *bows*