Deemo-R's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Into The Unknown]

Regardless of whether or not you guys proceed into the finals of the contest, pleeeeaaase keep making more collaborative pieces. I haven't had this much fun listening to music in a long time!

SoundChris responds:

Hey there, thanks a lot for your kindness. We promise to collab also in the future :D Glad you had fun and all the best from both of us!

[The Valley of Apples and Hope]

So... I kind of love this. I'm an absolute sucker for anything with even a hint of Chinese flair in it, so this speaks to my soul. And it says nice things. :3

Good stuff! Also, shout-outs to SSO, that chime soundfont is just so hard to fit into a cohesive mix.

Krichotomy responds:

I'm glad. :D I think it is mostly the shamisen (from Fluid R3) that drives the Asian feel.

Those chimes are tricky because they can be rather dissonant. I used them a lot in my track "Lost Winter" (which is my only project done entirely with SSO).

[Heavenly Waterfall]

It's always cool to see where good musicians came from originally. Funny enough, I'd say you were a lot better at piano back then than I am now ;P

As far as first compositions go, it's definitely one of the better ones I've heard. The melody's okay and the chords you picked fit nicely, but as I'm sure you know, it doesn't really go anywhere once it's started. The song kind of stays in the same position all the way through, though I do appreciate the playing around in the upper octaves as well as the left hand doing more than just blocking out chords the whole time. The mistakes early in the piece are noticeable enough to pull you out of it, but they don't continue throughout the entirety of the music. It's pretty enough, for sure. It's just not something I could imagine remembering into next week.

You already know all of that, however, so this review is kind of pointless. I just wanted to point out how much progress you've made from this point. :D

LucidShadowDreamer responds:

Hahha, yeah, I agree. I think it's great when you get to see an artists journey from the beginning to where they are now; how much they've developed, how far they still can go, etc. :p

Oh sure, I know that this piece isn't really going anyplace :)
It's the same chords, the same mood, and the same melodies throughout the whole song. The arrangement is sooo limited too, although I tried to vary the left hand patterns a bit.

But yeah, I don't really have anything to say to defend myself, I agree with all your criticism, as I'm sure you knew I would. Thanks for reviewing although it was a bit pointless XD

[Run Hobo Run]

This is super-groovy. I especially love the intro, as it starts to build upon the instrumentation little by little. It's creative in the panning, too. Really cool! It's a shame that you only get to hear a little of it when you're actually playing. Awesome stuff! :D

By the way, what did you use for the voice in the beginning? I'm curious.

SourJovis responds:

Glad you like it. Not everything I made for the game was put in no. Only 2 of the 4 loops I made were used, and the intro you can hear only very rarely (but I think that's some sort of glitch). That's why I wanted to post it as a full song. I did however change a lot about it, because the programmer (Wolve) asked me to make better versions of the songs for an upcoming improved release of the game... (spoiler!)

The voice at the beginning is an SP0256-AL2 soundchip emulator called "ST-1 Speak & Tweak". It's only available as a Reason plugin, but I'm sure there are other SP0256-AL2 emulators around, or maybe you can get your hands on an actual chip.

[Madness Combat: Intonation]

Great vocals, great mixing, and an entertaining chorus. I really like it!

However, this has an uncanny resemblance to Muse's "Uprising" in the verses, both in the bass and the vocals. The delivery is like a sped-up version of that song. I just could not shake that similarity from my mind as I listened to it.

Jacob responds:

SHOOT.
I didn't even realize that. I was actually worried that I may have borrowed from The Used in some way, and checked through their entire discography. Muse didn't even cross my mind. I love Muse, too, which makes it all the more embarrassing.

Hopefully it's not too distracting - I really didn't mean to rip that. But I guess it explains why that tune came to my head so quickly!

[Escape]

I'm really digging it.

I think some well-placed gating effects would have been a nice touch to add some extra "hybrid" feel on the transitions. Maybe I'm just a sucker for the cliched approaches, but that's just what I expect when one of the phrases is about to progress into a new one in a piece like this. :3

[ghosts]

Usually pieces with this much movement don't really resonate with me, but the composition here is so strong that I can't stop listening. I thought the hard panning towards the start was perhaps a bit too hard, but it was mixed well enough when the rest of the song kicks in so that it didn't bug me much. I really don't have anything to complain about here. Fav'd :3

johnfn responds:

Thanks! I'm glad that me going insane has managed to pay off somehow.

[Survival of the Hungriest]

Stellar work as always, Peter! Very interesting progression going on here. Good luck in the NGADM!

EvilRaccoon responds:

Thank you very much Darkmetroidomega! :) Thanks for the review!

[Dullness]

I very much agree with sorohanro's review below. What this song is lacking is any sort of support behind the melody, which kind of puts it in a state where it's hard to tell where the piece is going. Another thing that might be worth noting is that the percussion seems a bit too loud and static. It could provide a lot more interesting texture if you were to bring their dynamics down a bit so that they aren't competing with the other instruments, but are instead enhancing them. Play around with varying the velocity (if you're using a DAW) on the notes, too- a bit of humanizing goes a long way!

Alxertion responds:

Yep, I was using a DAW; thanks for the tips, I'll work on the velocity and on variating the percussion more. And as well, thanks for the review!

[~SW~ Misery]

Very nice composition - those runs were quite something!

SkyeWint responds:

Hey there! The runs were actually inspired a lot by Chopin's Scherzo in B flat minor. Actually, a lot of it was. If you haven't heard that piano piece, I highly recommend looking it up.