Flash-MX's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[The Sorrow of... Ibeza]

Terribly..

Underrated. Short, but there is a LOT of strong composition going on here. Love the counterpoint.

Mind checking out my latest, Satin Doll?

EraldoCoil responds:

I don't see how it's underrated if you wrote a review of it as soon as it came out, but thank you.

- ~ K o i r u - k u n ~ -

["Desert Journey"]

A bit too..

Western sounding for me.. at least in the sense that it's supposed to be a journey theme in the middle of the desert. Of course, when I think of desert, I think of the Middle East.. this would work in an American desert.

Anywho..

If you're aiming for a more middle eastern sound, I'd check out Maurice Jarre's score to "Lawrence of Arabia"..

This chord progression would work very nicely in a film like Avatar, or Braveheart. Epic, a foreign sound, but not necessarily belonging to any one culture.

The chord progression I usually use for an "arab" sound (using C for the root) will go..

C - Bb m - C# Maj

with a

C - C# - E - F - G - G# - B - C

scale playing on top of it.

Other than that, I think it's well produced, well arranged, the instruments sound authentic, reminds me of the desert race scene in the first Mummy movie, but not quite as fast.

It would def. work in a Mummy type setting, and my above is just my opinion.

BrokenDeck responds:

Wow, thanks for the in-depth review. It's for a desert that's not on our own world. So as long as it's ambiguously ethnic, it doesn't really have to follow a Middle East desert (which it wasn't). And yes! Another person on NG who knows who Maurice Jarre is, although I liked his score for Dr. Zhivago better.

Thanx! :D

[The Flood (demo)]

Such a good part

Very nicely composed, reminded me of Pink Martini's Black Swan Song
Nice entry for the collab!!
Peace

5/10d

Tamadrum responds:

Thanks man... I'll be sure to check out that song you mentioned, I haven't heard it before.

[Contemplative Safari]

Very nice piece.

Loved the ambient feel of the whole piece in general; in fact i've had it running for about 5 or 6 loops now and it still feels new each time.

At 1:14, the piece basically refreshes and may be the reason for this apparent ambience (note taken) :)

Of course, the synthetic sounds of woodwinds and strings hinder its true ability, but nonetheless a great song; would do nice in a hunting video-game of some sorts, thats what I pictured this whole time was a background song for a video-game.

9/5
Sorry for not getting to this sooner :(

SinJim responds:

Thanks for the review Flash. I'm glad you liked this one and I do agree that the quality of the samples is what holds it back. Over Christmas, /I'll be purchasing the EastWest Orchestra pack and I'll be redoing this, most likely. I'll let you know when I've got an updated track to see if it sounds better. Definitely a hunting-ish soundtrack.

Thanks again for reviewing, glad you liked this piece.

~SinJim

[Sorrow Had Its Wayv2]

Very nice recording

This is a very cool recording, and the improvised style is done pretty flawlessly, the only thing I noticed that held this back from truly being great is during the section where the drums come in, the strumming is going much faster than the drums, and the downbeats are off; but style wise and overall, great track, awesome work on the guitar!

Reminds of the Doors a whole lot

GronmonSE responds:

Gah, I wasn't sure when to introduce the drums. Maybe I should introduce the drums after the fast strumming, might change that soon. A friend had already told me it'd be hard given the fluctuating tempos, now I understand why :P

Thanks for the review :D

[Flight Of The BumbleBee -Alix1]

Review Request

Did you personally really play this?
Sorry to be offensive/deuchebag but I don't think so, I think this is a midi or you got a sheet and put the notes into FL Studio somehow. I'll give you an 8 though because either way that is hard.

What gave it away to me was :25, no way humanely possible that can be consistently played PERFECTLY at that speed.

Still, good job on bringing it into FL Studio, and I could be wrong, tell me if I am

3/8

Review Request Club.

alix1 responds:

I got the sheet music and put the notes in FL by hand. This WAS very hard.
Even on FL. Thanks for the review but I say it deserves a higher score.
Thanks,

--Alix1

[>Welcome to my Haunted House<]

A bit underrated!

Although it is not a particularly memorable tune, it is a bit underrated!

Technical Aspect: Not much to comment on here, the mixing was pretty average, In other words, nothing wrong with it. Not many effects, but none are really needed in this piece, reverb would have destroyed this piece.

Artistic Aspect: What you pulled off is actually pretty hard to do with the piano, have two almost completely contrasting piano parts come together to form the melody. It's not something easily accomplished. That being said, it doesn't come all that well together here, but the concept is there, which I happen to like.

Overall: An average piece, attempted a pretty difficult "fugue" kind of piece, and almost accomplished! (Another example of this kind of piece would be something like the haunted mansions in Super Mario World)

4/8'd, it's there, but not completely

DjCompass responds:

Actually, there was a bit of reverb, but just enough to give it a sort of real room sound.

Well thanks. Look at me, i'm blushing XP One day i'll get them to fit perfectly. Just like boo mansions! Until then, thank you for your sage words.

[Sad²]

A little disappointing..

Here's why:

Technical Aspect: Well done, nothing to really complain about here, well used samples, effects, the works.

Artistic Aspect: Here's were its a little disappointing, the intro is done so well but the rest of the piece is akward to listen to. Its building up to something great but nothing happens, it is essentially one long introduction. You could expand on this and create something possibly classic, but take off with it. Introduce at least one more instrument and vary out the melody a bit, and it's not too soothing because it sounds like its meant to be a song, not a soft ambience piece.

Overall: Technically pleasing, artistically disappointing; my suggestion, build on the piece, introduce a new instrument, vary it somehow.

3/7

.Review Request Club.

loogiesquared responds:

-I guess i'm a more "thecnical" artist. =p

[{dj-N} Not Alone (RMX)]

A little out of control

This is a pretty ok piece, but I think you can probably do better. I can give a lot of pointers here though that just one change could make a major difference.

Technical Aspect: The song shines in some place and not so much in others, the synths first off are pretty fat sounding, the EQ work is nicely done I wouldn't change much here, the drums could be a little tighter though, some Compression work would help fix this. Here's how:

Bring the ratio on your compressor out to 2:1. lower the input gain, bring the threshold up to about 80% and bring the output gain up a little bit. This is using Reason's MClass compressor, not sure how it works on others.

Effects wise, I liked the use of filters but the fade-outs were not very good. A hint of advice, all the great trance artists use the fade-outs when the song is about to either change key, rythym, melody or add something new. If you fade out in between a phrase though, it will only sound interrupted and amateur. Balance wise it did fine for the most part, just make sure the mid-range instruments don't play over the melody, thats what makes it sound sloppy.

Artistic Aspect: Not much to say here, its just well done. The progression is nice. very trance like, maybe happy hardcore? Nothing really stood out (If you notice, what makes Nate stand out is the "nate" piano in all his pieces. If you find something that makes a song your own, you'll get major points already for your song ;D

Overall: Good attempt at making a trance piece, but not quite. Although I don't have much experince making trance, I have heard plenty of it, if you follow some of the given pointers, it could potentially be very great.

4/8

.Review Request Club.

FunkmasterCatking responds:

Thanks!

About the fade outs, those weren't intentional, that was one of the side-effects of the Nexus demo (which actually DOES work when exporting as an mp3). This was mainly just to test out Nexus, and I definitely like it!

Thanks for the review!

[Jasons Phone Call]

Funny!

It was pretty funny, I'll give it that,
There's nothing technical or artistic points I can give here, so I can't really give it higher than a 5, but its pretty funny and I will 5 it on the vote, gotta be fair on the review though

5/5 (wtf???)

.Review Request Club.

KlanMaster911 responds:

Thanks.