LacrimosaMuse's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[%u263C Fight On %u263C]

not bad

awesome song, truly. for your mastering problems, the help section in your program will likely give you the answers, or, if you wanna get really in-depth, pick up traxtor or sonar as a good program for mastering. or, if u have income or limewire, try getting a nice sony program like acid pro. these will help you be able to pan your audio tracks, add reverb/chorus and the like, and pretty much change half the aspects of the sound itself. Onto the music now...youve really got a good sense of instrumentation. there was definatly a wide variety of sounds that u harnessed quite well. the ending violin part around 3:00 really came out as good writing. some of the synth stuff, however, such as the synth/chimes part around 2:30. The chord progression worked for about 3 measures, but id reccomend changing the last measure's chord progression into something that flows a bit better, it sounds like your going from the tonic to the third, which doesnt really work in most anything besides eastern/middle eastern music. the part around 1:17 in the violins didnt seem to line up, but it sounded like that was more of a sound engine problem rather than writing, and that it would sound alot better if the instruments were clearer, but u might wanna look into it just to be safe. thats pretty much it, sorry if i got a bit repetative, its late and im somewhat drowsy. Keep up the good work

TheWisestMagi responds:

Haha, I figured out the mastering issue..I will be updating the song soon.

Turns out I was playing both the recorded/mastered version and the normal version over the top of eachother when I rendered the song. Oooops. Meaning 2 tracks are playing over one another...sometimes creating too much sound at once and sending my program into overdrive...hence the synthetic sounds...and the overly loud percussion at some points.

Thanks for the compliments! It means a bunch, as it seems you know a thing or two (or a thousand) about music yourself there!

By the chord progression comment, I can't tell if your referring to the bass or the ensemble..they are inverses of eachother. Also, do you mean after a full run of the chord progression make the next one different in entirety? You see, it is actually a four measure progression.

So, you do you mean, have 3 chord progressions, and then change the 4th measure of the 4th progression? Or are we talking about a specific part...sometimes I get confused sorry =P.

The part at 1:17 was probably due to the double render =P.

You weren't repetitive at all! Thank you for the consturctive feedback, I truly value it. I'll have to give a look at your stuff!

Regards,
~Bob

[Rise of a new King]

outstanding

when i first heard the beginning, i didnt think much was gonna come outta the track, whether you meant this or not, it only augmented the surprise at the next section. Very well put together as far as transitions(especially the key change), and instrumentation (what program do you use? the sounds were amazing) Nothing on this track can and should be critiqued. Best score ive ever given out to another composer on here. Keep up the good work

DukeLukeProd responds:

The augmentation you've mentioned was kinda intended, but to be perfecly honest I only noticed this effect properly when it was almost done. It's kind of an unexpected but welcome feature ;) Key change: it's really easy to do but it never gets old, just transpose everything by one half note :)
Thanks for the great review!

[-<Besieged]

nicely done, especially for a first

from start to finish, use of some lower strings would bring out the feel of battle, around :32, the melody line got really out of key, which kinda made the feeling of battle seem kinda out of place (if you want to continue using chromatic scales in these kinds of things, look up some of Nobuo Uematsu's songs {the guy who writes for almost all of Final Fantasy}) :49 could have had alot more of tension to the next part. Near the final part, u tried matching the cymbals to the piano melody, which kinda didnt work, it wasnt horrible, but kinda got distracting u know? For future refrence, try using some more instrumentation, such as a snare drum doing some militaristic flams, and (especially for castle-like battles) use alot of brass, especially trumpets/cornets/horns. This song is definatly well done for its own rights, but was kinda slow and more balladish than epic, whether or not that was what you were going for, it seemed from your comment that it would have sounded alot more action packed (look up Immediate Music to see what im kinda talking about, they have alot of different techniques that help out some epic composers) if you were actually going for a balladish type song, then by all means you pretty much nailed it, although the drumset wouldve helped set up a feeling of ambiency if it had a snare shot or something to help give a more relaxing beat. toward the end, the song didnt really move as much as it did in the earlier parts, id suggest changing the melody part a bit. I gotta say, this song was really well done for your first submission, hope u keep at it

Morty74 responds:

Thanx a lot for the review. I listened to it again, and i totally agree. It just doesn't give the epic feel i could get with some brass, and the cymbals are a little heavy. Anyways, thanks, i'll definitely remember the suggestions next time.

[Fog Of Winter {ReMix}]

well done indeed

very good man, i gotta say i really enjoyed the way this song themed around the core melody, from beginning to end, there are a few things i would change though, for starters, the guitar part went from a nice chord arpeggio to the sixteenth run kinda suddenly, the parts sounded good, but mabye the same arpeggio harmonizing the sixteenth notes wouldve made it less surprising, besides that, i wouldve mabye changed the snare to sound a bit more militaristic, but i didnt know what program your using and i know most dong have flam notes or diddles so i didnt grade on that. all together i gotta this song was a theme and variations type movement that some of the greats wouldve been proud to hear

[Tuesday's Gone]

...

this is why god made drummers....on top of what everyone else said

[Hymn of the Fallen]

outstanding

spectacular song, i usually give critiques, but theres nothing i would change about this gon

[[\Wild Run/]]

definatly good

i liked the ostinatto you used throughout the majority of the song, and your mix of orchestral/indie/effects deffinatly gave some orgionality, there seems to be a few glitches, but i didnt judge that since Finale does that to me constantly, the thing keeping the song from perfection was that the repeating line couldve used a bit more diversity, keep the same main rythem, but give a solo to the percusion every now and then and itll keep the lower end interesting

paradoxphenomena responds:

Yes I felt the same after finishing it and the sudden stops and changes in tempo were put on purpose. I was experimenting and it could have turned out better but overall i think it doesn't take away too much from it. Thanks for the Review.

[{ReF} Canon (Remix)]

nice, but kinda outdone already

gotta say, this was a really well done version of Canon, but origionallity is always important. this song has been done quite a many times before, and i was looking to give this one a pretty bad score at first cus i thought it was some half-assed techno mix with the E.Q. raped and no good change in the mix, this however, suprised me. its definatly a step above the usual rendition. the only thing i found wrong with it, and the reason i gave a 9 instead of a 10, is that the bass line kinda dominated alot of the track, the harmony, especially the pan flute, couldve been brought out a bit more, besides that, well done

ReFreezed responds:

That was very helpful. I'll think of that next time. Thanks a lot for the review! :)

[Epic Trials and Tribulations 1]

awsome track

definatly one of the more epic pieces ive seen on here, only thing id change is bring out some sticatto high strings on the quarter notes, its a common technique and definatly wouldve made the main segment at 1:10, wouldve also been a cool effect to have the violins have a high run going into the main phrase

paradoxphenomena responds:

Thanks, I'll definitely give editing this a thought, as i can even think of ways to extend it now.

[Musical box {Classical&Cult}dv]

awesome

the only thing i wouldve done differently is given more of a crescendo before the sudden drop to the music box theme besides that perfect song