Everratic's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Showdown!! [SSS]]

This is phenomenal. The vocals are a nice touch and make it sound much more lively. When I listen to this, I imagine a cutscene in a rpg where the characters all dance. I love the part at 1:20; it makes it feel much more worldly and adventurous.

Deemo-R responds:

I'm really glad you liked it! I do love my RPGs, so I'm totally satisfied with it evoking that sort of sensation - though I'd definitely cut the part that you liked (sorry!) if the team went back to work on the project again, because it just kills the momentum a bit too much. As a fellow fan of the orchestra, it makes me happy that you like how it sounds! :D

[Christmas Memories]

This is one of the most memorable melodies you ever created. I look forward to hearing a new version :)

[To Zanarkand (Piano Cover)]

This sounds lovely :D

The song evokes so much emotion. I love listening to it when I first open the game.

LucidShadowDreamer responds:

Thank you for the review! Somehow it seems it has gone undetected by me for this long, but no longer ;)

[Cracking the Code]

This reminds me of johnfn's music from several years ago :D

I love the automation on the main lead. The orchestration is very good. I'm not as fond as the melodies, but the interesting orchestration and bass line mitigates that to a great extent. The piece is rhythmically catchy.

The one thing I dislike is the panning on the snare. It feels a bit odd and arbitrary to me. It's not so bad though.

Overall, I enjoyed this a lot and it improved my mood :)

ChronoNomad responds:

Hey, thanks a bunch for the feedback, BlueOceans! You're aces, man.

The automation on that main lead was fun to do, but took a lot of fine tuning. I'm glad that it was worth it. Not much I can do about the main melody since this is for a remix contest and that progression couldn't be altered much, but knowing that the fun and funky bass line mitigates the damage is a relief. Also glad that you dig the rhythm!

I panned the kick to one side and the snare to the other. Not particularly arbitrary, but duly noted. I was ultimately trying to create a nice, wide stereo field for all the elements.

Hooray for mood improvement! It always makes me happy to hear things like that. :D

[Sink or Swim]

This is very relaxing for the most part, and the ending is quite satisfying! I like the melodies and chord progression. My only gripe is that I feel that the two sections with the slower rhythm could be a little more interesting; they could benefit from some light countermelodies or flourishes. I think it's a good idea to have these rhythmically slower sections, but the sustained synths in unison don't sound very pleasant because there's naturally little expression. The addition of ornaments could alleviate that.

[Mourning My Memories]

I listened to this in the background while doing some work and it helped me get into flow! I still managed to pay attention to the song, and I enjoyed it a lot. I listened to it analytically some days ago, and oddly, I think I appreciated it more when I listened to it as background music. The intro is my favorite part :)

LucidShadowDreamer responds:

I think most solo piano music lends itself well towards being listened to in the background :)
I personally don't tend to enjoy analysing music too much in real-time. Even when not listening to the music in the background, I prefer allowing it to take me to a new world, where it describes a setting, feelings, or even a story ^___^
Thank you for your review!

[Forgotten Promises]

I love this song so much! The cello is gorgeous! It's my favorite entry of the final round. It feels somewhat novel while simultaneously feeling like it belongs to a movie soundtrack. The piece seems to forgo emotional highs in favor of using the momentum to change styles, which vivifies the story. This is a feature I find really interesting and appreciate.

[Chasing The Horizon]

This isn't bad! I enjoyed it, and it has a lot of energy.

Don't take chips scores too seriously. The participants, aka voters, have varying degrees of music knowledge and competence, and the categories and even the scores themselves mean different things to different voters. Furthermore, "overall" is a category that is supposed to reflects how much voters enjoyed a particular song as opposed to individuals voting on it based on what they think is the objective value of the piece. This can be a major problem if many of the voters in a particular competition happen to have very different musical preferences.

FateModified responds:

Hey BlueOceans! It's good to hear from you again. I'm glad you liked it, and thanks for your comment. :)

I'm pretty new to Chips Compos, so I appreciate your input about how the compos are all judged. Personally, I wasn't too happy with my production on this one. I think it would have turned out much better if I had more time on it (as is always the case).

Thanks again! :D

[Allowed to Dream Reality]

I can't get over how effective the chord progression is at depicting your idea. I don't emotionally connect with music often, so when I do, the piece in question means a lot to me. I praise your chord choices quite often, but this progression is truly special and undoubtedly one of your best. I'm very sensitive to aesthetics and in music, and I think this composition is absolutely beautiful and enchanting. I think you can get one of the highest scores in the round if you submit this to ngadm. You might even win!

Good luck again with the song you're making for ngadm! If you manage to top this one, I think you'll have a good chance of winning.

LucidShadowDreamer responds:

It's interesting to me that this piece in particular speaks to you so much. Perhaps it is because chords like this aren't used very often, and thus they stand out to you!
I still know a couple of parts in the piece that could use some slight editing, but I didn't do anything to those parts, since I also recorded a video. I'm likely not going to use this for the NGADM, but we'll see how much time I have to finish my other work :)

Thank you!

[-More Killable Squares- [TAWBS OST]]

I love the percussion throughout the piece. There’s a lot of nice, unpredictable variation. Although I don’t find any melody to be very memorable, the track is still quite catchy. This has a high replay value, which is perfect for a game. In the beginning, on my first listen, I kinda disliked the chaotic nature of the melodies, but by the end, I started to enjoy it because it contributes to the track’s liveliness :)

Preds responds:

Thanks for the feedback man! I really putted all my effort into this song, means a lot to me. Im sorry to hear that the melodies arent that memorable :(. I'll get better on those catchy melodies haha.

I tried to make it non-repetitive a lot, since as you said, its going to be playing over and over again in a level of the game!