JohnFloyd's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[_-=[Insanity Inside]=-_]

i think i'm in the minority here... : )

Maestro, don't get me wrong -- I like this piece a lot. I just wanted to point out that there isn't a clear melody. There's nothing wrong with that at all, I just thought it should be said. The piano comes in with a theme at the beginning but other than the very beginning always sounds like more of an accompaniment than a melody to me. I'm not saying that I could do any better, and once again I am NOT saying that it needs or even *should* have a melody. I think this piece is awesome and I really like the drums. (If this were a Pop song, by, say, Tatu, the piano would be the accompaniment to the vocals, which would carry the melody. Just a thought.) -1 for not sounding insane enough. (and I would know :D )

MaestroSorrow responds:

heh, yeah I'd know by that... you crazy nut!

And once again your right, this piece had no definate melody, in fact I made this piece quite experimental, and worked backwords. The melody you hear at the end, was actually what I made first, and then just expanded backwards from there...

... for all composers, don't do that >_>".

[_-=[Ballet of Darkness]=-_]

no low end : (

I agree that this needs a bass, or SOMETHING "down there." I'm holding the 10 and 5 hostage until you add that.

MaestroSorrow responds:

okay, for you then John, i'mma go add some bass and expand this bad boy!

[_-=[Bitter Sweet Harp]=-_]

i disagree

There IS a beat here... it's in the harp and tambourine. And it rocks. But, I can say from experience that a cave in which I'm fighting spiders is NO place for a very repetitive loop. I hate spiders and will just get more frustrated by the repetitive music. I suggest pulling the harp back into the background to act as percussion instead of the "melody" as everyone keeps calling it, and throwing in some dynamics to make the piece sound like it's changing more than it really is. This track made me think of Lufia for some reason. I don't know why, I don't even remember what the Lufia music sounds like.

MaestroSorrow responds:

See i'm going to cut and copy this and show them!

"HERE'S PROOF!" i'll say, and they'll HAVE to let me put in that beat ^^.

Many thanks for confirming what I had suspected I should have done John, and again for the review.

[_-=[Alone I die]=-_]

my take

Obviously others disagree with me, but I found the song to have a frustrated/tense/nervous tone to it. The phrases don't cadence often enough, and the dissonance is ambiguous enough, that I just can't find comforting *or* sad here. But then, I might be a little over-sensitized to musical cues... :) Personally I found "Alone I Die" to make perfect sense with a nervous/frustrating feel, I guess it all depends what you were going for. Great orchestration (as usual)! As others have said the mix of classical and electronic instruments was well done. You get an 8 because, having heard your other works, I think you could have done even better.

MaestroSorrow responds:

I can do better now, and from here on, I gaurantee it, I will not disappoint ^^.

Thnx for all the reviews.

[In a land of War and Hatred]

wow!

Excellent orchestration, excellent melodies, excellent accompaniment. Reminds me of both Warcraft and Chrono Trigger at the same time. There's only ONE thing that I can think of that would make this better, which would be either better samples or having it played by an actual orchestra. Just a moment ago I was thinking how difficult it would be for me to rate someone a 5 (which, to me, should be reserved for special occasions), but here I am, giving out a 5. I hope this gets used in animations as much as it deserves.

MaestroSorrow responds:

Many thanks, and again, your right on the money... must find... more... and better.. samples X_x.

One day i'll get around to buying that $2000 VST program with all the instruments of the rainbow.

[_-=[Flying Unmatched]=-*FIXED*]

is it the EQ?

MS,
I liked this piece a lot but right from the start something was bugging me... sort of like Mona Lisa's smile, you know? I'm not 100% sure but I think that it's the frequency range of the instruments, that many of the instruments are sharing the same frequency ranges. If you can EQ each track separately you might want to try picking out a "sweet spot" for each instrument, if not then the only thing you could do would be choose instruments with different freq ranges... or I could be off. Either way it's not that big of a deal. Keep up the good work!

MaestroSorrow responds:

you are ABSOLUTELY right John, and I will tell you why I can't eq every channel individually.

When I load up this song on my computer, just having it SIT there, consumes 84% of my CPU, which means when I press play, I hear more stuttering then an old person on sour steriods and viagra... its not pretty.

So I have to play the guessing game a lot, and predict what it would sound like, it takes about 10 mins (literally) every time I export this piece to listen to what it sounds like, after the 40'th exportation, I grew tired, so I left it.

I am glad you caught onto it right away, more proof you know what your doing.

[The Oath]

Nice!

Very nice orchestration. Some of the instruments (harpsichord, organ) sound distorted, which unfortunately takes away from the overall sound of the piece. I'm a little confused as to whether this has any relation to Squall's theme in FFVIII (which is also called "The Oath"), the style is similar but the themes are different; if you were trying to make something in the same style you succeeded!

Love-Hate-War responds:

Sorry, it was mixed in a bit of a rush, I had to submit it as part of an audio portfolio and I was running a bit late, so it may have clipped in places, I think the timpani near the end suffered the worst though. I didn't realise that was the name Squall's song, I thought it was "maybe im a lion"? So sorry for the similarity in name, I do draw alot of inspiration from the music from those games though. Thanks for the great review! :D