deadlyfishes's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Dawn]

You've got some nice content here compositionally. I do think that you should work on writing some profound melodies instead of orchestrated harmony and textures which you've already shown you can do very well. The thing about samples at times, I can hear you are using primarily EWQL right? Correct me if I'm wrong about that, but anyways there are some negative side effects have on people who compose using samples, and you kind of lose that element of orchestration techniques because we would rely soley on how the samples sound instead of making good orchestration choices, that would also apply to real live players, I know it may not be important to people who never aspire to write for a real orchestra, but good orchestration techniques are extremely effective in mock-up productions like this one.

As for the "complex music theory composition" feel, aurally, I cannot hear anything too complex except some direct modulation, and a pretty average use of harmonic tensions. Anything that isn't a chord tone is just color, passing tones, or harmonic tensions. There isn't anything particularly complex here. Game music that is simplistic and minimal can have very complex musical elements such as modal interchange that actually sounds pretty "simple" or "normal" to someone who isn't knowledgeable in music theory or composition. For example, a good harmonic idea to try out is the use of minor iv in a major key, and things written more in a modal style doesn't make it more complicated, in fact writing modal music is actually taking a step back in music theory as modal music was from some of the early periods of music when things were just getting started; composers from the early medieval period and Renaissance (Perotin, Hildegard, Dufay to name a few) did some stuff like that sounded extremely complex but in a different sense.

Too much rambling on here sorry. I can hear some of the things you have done that was you trying to explore more outside of the normal game type music and that's great, more people should do that these days, and this would fit well in a video game. I would just love to hear a very strong melody next time! (Maybe the composing job didn't call for if this was for one, I don't really know)

Also for everyone else who knows music theory really well it would be great to see some of your compositional notes so we can kind of get an idea of what you were trying to do here, and it is great to see how you apply what you know musically in your work.

Just as an example I have one I recently posted, I give some notes and even post the orchestral score if you want to use kind of what I do with my descriptions as a template for your own:
http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/liste n/510038

If and when you reply to this, can you PM me your response as well, I might not get notified if you reply.

Thanks and best of luck to you on the contest and any of your future musical endeavors!

4 stars for some solid work!

[{No Talent}]

Using random ideas isn't always a good thing...

Looking at what you said:

"I don't like repeating things, even if it's what is suppose to do. I like creating a random approach and keep everyone questionable, on what to expect."

So, I was thinking about some basic foundations on repetitions in some of the earlier music eras. In classical styles, motives or repetitious musical phrases are often "repeated" in the context of motivic development. Maybe they made the repeated part twice as long, twice as short, upside down, backwards or any combination of those. Also, changing the melodic shape into a whole new mode such as major/minor or any of the 7 diatonic modes. Now I know I'm getting way into this because I understand we're just talking about electronic music here, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try to avoid repetition. It's DIRECT repetition that usually makes a lot of electronic tracks sort of stale... Now, maybe you could have certain ideas and bring them back in a whole new way, but keeping the "soul" of that idea intact.

On a technical note, I hear that you mostly just use the presets of NI: Massive. They are tried and true of course, but professional composers/producers such as myself are starting to pick up on who is actually taking time to make their own synths rather than just picking presets. I am guilty of this as well, but I try my best not to do this.

In conclusion to all of this, looking at song formats, layouts and the idea of a "theme" will help you in any genre of writing. Even if that "theme" is not something melodic, especially in the case of dubstep.

Now, I hope you don't take offense to the rating of 7/10 but I feel that 10/10 is given way to easily these days. Honestly listening to this I could hear that you could do so much better and that you have the potential.

I hope you take this review into consideration, and with all this in mind check out my first dubstep track I've ever done. I have been doing many styles over these past couple of years; orchestral, classical, rock, electronica and with my years of study and experience I tried to make some simple trance/dubstep.

Check it out here:
http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/liste n/443429

Keep up the good work!

-Matthew

flashpantss responds:

Thank you sir, and actually, just to let you know, not all are presets lol. They just happen to sound the same. And I'm not mad I didn't get a 10/10 or you rated it 7/10. It's probably the right number for this, since in fact it does everything you say in the review.

I find everything you said in your review true. Repetition is not bad at all.

But thank you for the review.

[Birthday 20]

Awesome!

I like this a lot! I do agree with Burritos, but you deserve more than that! Keep it up dude.

[Awkward Sex]

Musically inept; an example of bland production

At first I notice the bland and generic use of preset-like synths. It doesn't sound like you actually mapped out those 16th notes yourself, because the harmony you imply is overall, monotonous. Moving on to more layers which again are the same type of preset-like monotonous synths. There is no real connection between the change of texture and is still overall the same harmony. The drums are from the popular drum machine, the 909 drum samples. Although drum samples and loops are pretty similar to one another, this one in particular is really uninteresting and does not spark any interest whatsoever to the listener. The only thing that could possibly grab anyone's attention is the title of the song "Awkward Sex" At the 0:50 mark, a sine-wave like synth is brought into the mix with atonal harmonies, probably not intentional since atonal music takes a lot of understanding of tonal music so that you could avoid any tonal center using only non-related pitches in a way that creates "textures" rather than harmonies. Throughout the rest of the song, new synths which are also presets pretty much follow the same natural minor harmony that you've been implying the entire time. No real melody is established and no interesting harmonic chord progressions are introduced although sometimes great music that stay within one chord can be very interesting, sadly I cannot say the same for this track. To be fair I'm giving this track a 2 because you stated in your author comments "I could listen to this on loop for quite a long time." If you made this for yourself to listen to and enjoy on loop that is good that you are making music for the right reasons. Also, people who think they could enjoy this more than 30 seconds should not be making music, but trying to learn and understand it more so that they don't get reviews like this one.

TheDevilWearsWill responds:

I think its pretty darn good for having fruity loops for only a week. I enjoy criticisms when I know they would help. It just seems like you're comparing me too much to everyone else, maybe even including yourself.