Azhthar's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[I.H.E. III draft]

Interesting
Definitely a nice start you have here. Especially the fast strings are very cool and give some kind retro feeling from some 70´s tracks. The drums sound als nice and the tom fill at 0.14 is a treat as well. Some things you really need to improve is the mix. The track starts at very low volume, gets very loud and suddenly very quiet again. A bit of dynamic is good especially for cinematic stuff but this is a bit to extreme and the loudness changes are too abrupt. Also sometimes some instruments are too loud compared to the others like the drums and the violins at about 0.12. Try to adjust the volume levels of the single tracks and maybe use a limiter for clipping tracks and some compression in general.
You also asked where you can go with this track. I would say it´s a matter of taste, especially yours ;) But probably that doesn´t help a lot. Some suggestions I have: Take some of the themes you already used (like the one starting at 0.16) and try to variate or develope them. You could also play with the instrumentation or playing techniques. Like taking the theme and let it play slowly from some legato violins, maybe with some sustain string chords below it and then increasing the drive again by fastening and changing back to the staccattos. You can always use more instruments in your orchestration (like some brass or maybe some woodwinds playing some chord arpeggios).
Another approach would be to give this track a more regular song structure by taking your part as an intro and develope the track by shifts between "verse" and "chorus" (maybe also developed out of themes from your intro).
These are just some ideas I would throw in. Hope it helps a bit...
Anyway, really nice start here! I like it ;)

asid61 responds:

Thank you! Dynamics have always been an issue for me, so I'll pay closer attention to them and see how to mix this up better.
Thank you for the suggestions! I will try and add a few more instruments.

[Cool Song 1]

Nice background atmosphere here! I feel the mixing is done quite well actually, although I have to regret that I´m not an expert in mixing electro stuff. I also like the simple beat and the minimilistic approach in this one (not every track has to be completely overloaded) and the white noisy stuff you sometimes use is also quite nice. What I feel is that the track needs a bit more variation... There are some variations but it feels like just one part repeating all the time. Some contrastpart here would be really a great improvement for the track. On the other hand this keeps the track flowing in a way... Also it would be nice to have some melody here. The lack of a melody makes this one more some kind of a beat for somebody to sing over it. The intro and outro fades are nice. Finally, I have to agree with Ceevro that this two note "singing" sound is a bit strange. It´s completely outside the atmosphere of the rest of the track. Especially in the part around 0:40 with the pitchwheel stuff it feels completely misplaced and out of tune... I know this is a matter of taste if you like the sound, no question... Anyway, keep on doing nice stuff ;)

TheAudioGuy responds:

i definitely went for a minimal approach with this one, helped make the mixing a lot easier aswell. yeah i can understand you when you say it needs more variation. it transitions a lot, but it doesn't change by all that much in each transition. the vocal ah sounds were meant to form the melodies in this song but it really isn't right in your face, so i can see why you think this song lacks a melody.

thanks

[Me And Julio Cover]

I didn´t know this one, but... Nice! Singing was perfect and it´s also nice that you did your own backing vocals, although it felt a bit odd at the beginning to hear your voice twice ;) I think your mixing improved a lot compared to some of your earlier tracks. The only thing I felt that I have to comment on is the use of two rythm guitars. If they play something different it is hard to distunguish them but I think you just wanted to double them to have a fatter sound, but here is the problem that they are sometimes slightly out of sync and that feels a bit strange... Anyway, nice job here! Always love to hear your music.

Ceevro responds:

Another case of my own musical pride getting in the way. I could have simply doubled the vocal and rhythm guitar tracks with a millisecond delay...but I wanted it to sound like it was happening in your living room, live. Thus, I pretended to be twins, with two full recordings playing the same thing, as closely as I could manage without looping. I should re-submit this one with the more...shall we say, "industry standard," method of fattening the tracks.

[Awake (Horror)]

First I have to say I´m a big fan of Penderecki, too! I guess Polymorphia was an inspiration for this track. Did you program everything by yourself or did you sometimes also use presets of orchestral effects? If you programmed everything by yourself, this is amazing... How did you do the col legno battuto clusters starting at 3:29 then? You definitely did a great job here and I can hear that there is a lot of work in this track. The problem I see, is that it´s probably impossible to capture work like Penderecki´s with virtual instruments at the moment (which maybe is good because a lot of musicians would get unemployed otherwise ;) ). For example the glissandos sound very synthetic which takes a lot of atmosphere from this piece... It´s also hard to cover the feeling that often every musician in the orchestra plays his part slightly different, because Penderecki gave a lot of freedom to the musicians in his scores as far as i know. I hope you don´t see this as a critic on your work, because you really did an awesome job here which I greatly appreciate. Nice piece indeed...

Phonometrologist responds:

HAHA yes Polymorphia was exactly the piece I had in mind because I just wanted to focus more on the strings for now. The sliding clusters at 2:50 were influenced by his Threnody piece as I love the fact that through this technique, the strings sound like sirens. I didn't program every single articulate in the strings. I can't imagine that being possible, or, if so, even worth the time to inputting all of it, and that is precisely why Penderecki himself wouldn't notate it as such. You need that indeterminacy within this type of music, and that is why you're right that you cannot capture completely the pieces like Penderecki's. You can get close but it will never be the same. For one, the piece I can write through sample libraries would be the same every time whereas in his music every recording will be at least different from the so many variables in the freedom of how to interpret it as a musician. The col legno section was a preset of Cage and Symphobia 2 effects.
The glissandos, I can only assume you mean at 2:50, because to me that also sounds at moments too artificial as well. Except, I think the contrabasses were much closer than the high strings.

The problem with trying to emulate Penderecki is that you need to control each string instrument of the 48 players. In order to do that I need to really have about 24 different sample libraries just for the violin section. I might get a way with using the same patch 3 times but any more than that, it really starts to sound fake. After all, what I'd be doing then is really duplicating the same sound wave in that case. Sure I could try bringing it out of tune, but the wave source is still too close to the original. There are a few things I can try differently now that I experimented with it, but ultimately you are correct. There isn't much sample libraries can do in regards to this kind of music because even when they capture these effects, you can't really create much variation in them except by adding plug-ins, and editing the sound wave which I've done here. Best way still for this is to capture a musician playing them. But I still think I can get even closer so I'm a bit optimistic.
In regards to enjoying the works of Penderecki, I'm very happy that I'm not alone here at Newgrounds. Thank you for listening and spending the time writing this. Love your Suddenly All Alone piece!

[Secrets of Wysteria]

Love it! Great job. I still have to get the Olliver plugin... The chorus is awesome! Nothing more to say ;)

steampianist responds:

Oliver is not a plug in hes actually a voicebank for yamahas vocaloid editor

[Party In The Trunk]

The diffuse intro actually is quite cool, but the high lead after the first few seconds has a bit too much heights for my taste... Actually I immedeately had to reduce the volume of my headphones. Except the parts with the high lead the mixing is done quite well. I like the syncopated chipsounds and also the toms which start around 0:30 and 2 mins (nice sound and cool beat by the way). On the other hand the sound of the snare playing the crotchets at the beginning and around 1:23 doesn´t really fit to the rest of the track. I don´t really agree with the last reviewer that the track needs much more consistency. Actually I like that the track is constantly changing a bit because this kept me in. But I think that´s just a matter of taste...

Wayv responds:

Thanks for leaving a review, I'll keep working at it!

[Tea Leaf Melancholy]

Nice melancholic track. I love the musicbox! It was surprising (but in a good way) when the other instruments started. The track gets a bit different feeling here. More like in a dreamy fantasy world. Would fit nicely into an old japanese roleplaying game I guess. But I also understand the comment from MeisterMach5 because at the beginning of the track it´s hard to concentrate on the melody above the arpeggios. Maybe try to reduce the volume of the accompaniment during the musicbox part a bit and the melody will get a bit more presence. Anyway... Great job here!

Krichotomy responds:

I didn't consider reducing the volume of some of the music box notes because I think every music box I've heard had no variation of note volumes, and I wanted to imitate that. But I probably shouldn't constrain my music to that.

Thanks for the review, I'm glad you enjoyed the track!