Krichotomy's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[LOTR Underground]

Oh, this is great. I don't even know what London Underground is. The recording quality is rather low, but Seán's script and your voicing of it are nice. Now, will you please excuse me? My axe has some orcs to mind.

Troisnyx responds:

The London Underground is the all-famous subway train connecting much of London, and parts of the surrounding counties. I will openly and readily admit this was recorded with a phone, and passed on Audacity's noise removal! XD

Mind you don't get yourself killed when dealing with the Orcs...

[[IV]A Chance of Rain]

This will go perfectly in my collection of "blue" music. The percussion seems to jump into the picture a little too aggressively. I think I would personally prefer the theme to play for a round without percussion, then have some standard drummy transition into the percussionified version. Sorry, I hope that is understandable. :o)

IglicaV responds:

Yes, it is understandable :D If I'll make a song similar to this one, I'll try to mess around with percussion a bit more : ) Thank you for your comment!

[Lionheart]

I'm gonna vomit out the contents of my mind: The instrument arrangement and the instruments are great. Your voice is great. The autotune sounds bad. I think your voice sounds too close - maybe there should be a tad bit of reverb added to the dry vocal parts? I think the more intense music parts (percussion) tend to steal attention from the vocal line, though I don't know how to change that. The percussion is rather intense, and your voice is rather soft and relaxed. I love the lyrics.

Cool work.

headphoamz responds:

Thanks K :D

[Onward Through Chaos]

Yummy!

I think the notes near the beginning that bend over particularly large frequency ranges (from the clear-tone instrument) would sound better if they started closer to the final frequency so as to not have quite as "silly" sounding of a bend/glide/whatever it is called.

The silent part would probably sound better with some "background noise" or something so the listener is excited to know what comes next, instead of thinking the track has suddenly died, and then witnessing it becoming undead. :D (I may be wrong about this.)

I have commented on what I consider to be flaws, but I really enjoy listening to this track as it is. A lot of tracks like this end up with a desperate need for equalization, other mastering, or outright surgery, but your instruments all come together to make a great sound here.

My personal taste would prefer the second section (after the silence) to become more intense than the first section ever was.

Also, if you use these same instruments to make a NES Fantasy Zone music remix, I will die in bliss.

OpenLight responds:

Thanks for the review! I'll take what you said into account ha. I'm always willing to hear some pointers. The sliding has become somewhat of a calling card for myself, so I put that in a lot in my songs. About the mixing, I have worked a while on it and I'm glad to hear I've improved. I also agree with the quiet part. I did want to make people think the track was over but have it come back to be intense, but what I tried to use ended up just making it a part B rather than a more intense section.

Thanks again!

[The Prevailing Peace]

I have a lot of thoughts. I hope they are useful. :)

ARRANGEMENT COMMENTS:
00:00 - 01:23 The melody has great potential for emotional instrumentation. Good placement of build-ups, good "bridge".
01:23 - 01:50 Choir notes are a bit repetitive for how much the choir stands out in the mix. I love the guitar.
01:50 - 02:05 My favorite part! Beautiful! Tears!
02:05 - 02:18 Nice resolution.
02:18 - 02:45 Perfect place to repeat the melody and build to the end. Love it.

DETAIL COMMENTS:
00:00 - 01:23 The strings sound kinda weak; The same exact slow attack on every note is weird. Also, there could stand to be more variation in loudness of notes, particularly coming up to the build-ups at 00:55 and 01:23. Also, 00:58 - 01:23 sounds like an exact copy of 00:00 - 00:28 - even listening casually my ears want a bit of variance there. I think a new harmony track or some gentle percussion would do the trick.

01:23 - 02:18 More of the sound (maybe just high frequencies?) seems to be coming from the left channel. It seems crowded, particularly because of the choir, particularly between 01:23 and 01:50. (Some people mind this, but I actually often like it.) I think the choir sounds slightly delayed, but I can't really tell.

02:18 - 02:45 Same comments on the strings as before. The ending has a great sound.

OTHER COMMENTS:
Nice track picture. :)

Emid responds:

Wow....thanks a lot for such a detailed review.
My restrictions were, first of all the patch I have used from 00 - 01.23 is from Symphobia 1 which is a non modulated patch. It cannot be controlled by CC1. There seems also problems with velocities. But its such a lovely patch that I ignored these shortcomings an went on using it. This might clear up some queries.
While other points might be true and I certainly put them into consideration but I strongly agree with variations in attack and repetition bit.
Thank you again for your valuable suggestions. Will help me a lot to improve :)

[Quietude]

Beautiful and calming. I don't like how it sounds like the piano is inside my head, though (when listening with headphones).

BenTibbetts responds:

Thanks! OK, I will work on the piano. What headphones are you using?

[The dying Ozone]

That's some serious intensity there. I feel like the entire ozone layer is going to explode or something.

Emid responds:

Hahaha.....nice interpretation! Thanks for the comment.

[Blackmoor Ninjas]

The track sounds cool, and the guitar works really well to add variety and energy. I wonder if all those voice shouts would be distracting from/interfering with the game's sound effects.

deadlyfishes responds:

That was discussed with the devs, it actually helped more than distracted. There's fighting going on in the background so it helped create the atmosphere :D

Thanks for the review!

[Duel With the Wind Keeper]

I don't get why the short description says "duel of the flutes" - not much flute dueling going on in this music. Or maybe the flutists were too busy physically dueling to actually play their instruments? XD

It sounds great. I particularly like the flute and plucked parts from 0:13 to 0:37. I think the variation in drive across the whole track works well to keep it interesting despite being a short loop.

headphoamz responds:

Hahaha, it was a reference to Duel of the Fates from Star Wars. Thank you! It was fun to make.

[Dark Reflections]

Beautiful and flawless, as usual. And so very dark and reflective. Music like this makes me want to write stories and movies.

Anyway, this is what came to my mind:

Stars wink as Jacob wanders around the neighborhood by the light of streetlamps. The cool air is the only thing in this world that seems soothing as he reflects on what was, and considers what now is.

Jacob has never been very socially active. Throughout his childhood he spent most of time in his room drawing things and writing story ideas. However, in eighth grade a new student, Silus, transferred to Jacob's school. Silus quickly became friends with Jacob and they spent many weekends together. Silus even dragged Jacob to a few social events, and through this Jacob became more familiar with and comfortable around his classmates. Jacob and Silus had great plans for the summer, but as soon as school was over Silus's family moved away.

There was never a summer when Jacob was not alone, but now it pained him. Will he ever hear from Silus again? Will he be able to associate with his classmates once school starts in August? How long and terrible will this summer be?

BlazingDragon responds:

Ahh, how this reminds me in some ways of my own childhood. Like Jacob, I was a very introverted youth. In seventh grade I made a friend named Michael, and he did so much to encourage and inspire me. He was a true extrovert and brought me somewhat out of my shell. He disappeared in the middle of the school year and I never did find out exactly what happened to him...

Thank you for sharing. You think you'd do very well writing stories and movies. :)