Everratic's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Tethered to the Past]

I think I become much more sensitive to piano velocity and the tone of playing after watching "Your Lie in April", which was one of the best stories I've ever seen. Now I can appreciate your playing even more :)

This is a wonderful and diverse composition, and I think I sense some inspiration from FFIX?

I think you mastered the use of staccato notes in a mostly sustained piece, and as usual, you managed to make the LH arrangement just as interesting as the RH arrangement.

I love the chord at 2:47. It sounds like something I would do.

I think this is easily one of your best compositions.

LucidShadowDreamer responds:

I liked that anime as well. A bit slow at times, perhaps, but it's all worth it for where it was headed. I think dynamics are a really important part of piano playing indeed, and often I rerecord something even for minor dynamic errors.

I had a lot of fun composing this. I didn't personally take inspiration from FFIX for this track, but rather from some classical works in general. So in that sense, your "Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso" wasn't far off!

Staccato notes are really fun. I've been (and still am) a bit too reliant on the piano pedal, so I'm trying to learn where it's not really necessary, and I feel like I've gotten much better at it. I also did put quite a bit of effort into the left-hand patterns! I'd say the most difficult part there is to learn to play my own arrangement ideas. The good thing is that that gives my left hand some much needed practice.

Thanks for the encouraging words, and good luck with this round!

[-A Tale of One Legend-]

I admire your courage to make a song outside your comfort zone in ngadm.

I really like the drums. Besides the lack of high end percussion, I think you did a great job in this area.

This is a good start composition-wise, but there is a lot of room for development. You can add more countermelodies, layers, and articulations. Even if you lack realistic instruments, you can make them sound a lot more interesting by using most of the different articulations available to you. As for layering, you probably have enough knowledge to figure out the primary frequency range of orchestral instruments by ear; you might want to consider layering instruments with different timbres and frequency ranges to create a more interesting sound and fill the mix a bit. In the beginning, it's easier to layer instruments from different families, such as a flute and french horn, for example.

I sense many opportunities for adding counter melodies and adorning elements, that will make the composition sound busier and more exciting.

Good luck in the contest and I hope you continue dabbling with orchestral music :)

Preds responds:

Thank you man! Glad to have a review from an orchestra expert (yes you are). I will take this to heart, will use layering more here and there and start experimenting with other combos.
And yeah the melodies... uh, talking about all the genres that I've made, thats my weak point, im still trying to get better at that!

Thanks again man! I will be experimenting more with the genre.

["Together" - Jessie Yun]

The composition is beautiful and heartwarming. The climax was executed perfectly. I love the piano outro.

JessieYun responds:

Hey Everratic,
Thank you very much for the comment, I'm so glad you enjoyed it overall <3

[Agente.001 - The Memory Lane]

I really like the sound design!

Agente001Tomhson responds:

Thank you very much!

[From the Dust You Whisper]

I didn't notice the length until johnfn pointed it out. That makes the song even more impressive xD

Phonometrologist responds:

Was it intentional? I cannot say that I do not disagree.

[Some Birds Are Not Meant To Be Caged]

This is amazing :O

zybor responds:

Thank you for stopping by, and thanks for your review! :)

[Melodic Convergence]

This is phenomenal in so many ways. I think the best feature of the song is its liveliness. You managed to keep me enthralled by your work for over 7 minutes, and I was actually sad when it ended.

I don't have any significant criticism. I actually like that there doesn't seem to be a unifying theme or melody, and there is even some messiness (or lack of focus) in individual sections; I think this feature contributes to the liveliness of the track that I adore so much. With that said, I think it might be slightly too messy at times - there were a few elements that I thought failed to add value, and they barely fit in the mix. I didn't really mind it though, and I think most listeners won't even notice.

I give this a 10/10.

VociferousMusic responds:

Thanks for the neat words, I'm glad you liked it!
I'm not exactly sure what you mean by messiness in terms of lack of focus. But since you are referring to the liveliness, I might assume that you meant that some instruments played a bit off-beat sometimes. That definitely has been done on intention to make it sound more real and organic. In the busier sections I reduced that to a minimum though.

I think I get what you mean by the last point. I must admit I do own VSTs that are worse on quality than others, which caused a slighty noticable difference between them in the mix. But I'm more than glad I actually had access to so many instruments at the end. At some point I prefered to have a certain instrument in instead of renouncing it. I felt like some instruments are really important to be added, to grant the certain flair to the piece. I'm glad you still enjoyed it that way and that gives me the feeling that I made the right decision about that. :)

[Arrival of Hope]

This is beautiful! :D The melody is so uplifting. The buildups and release of tension felt too textbooky for my taste, but it was still done effectively.

AceMantra responds:

Hey, thanks! I'll see what I can do about making future compositions feel less "textbooky" :P

[Don't Mean a Thing]

I never laughed so hard from listening to a song before! I don't think I'll ever forget this one. I love the cute xylophone countermelody, and the banjo comment is gold. I'm pretty sure this is my favorite entry from the ones I heard so far.

LunacyEcho responds:

Oh man, that's high praise! Thanks for listening and glad you liked the bit about the banjo haha

[endK - Resonance]

I'm amazed that on your first attempt, you made a song outside of your comfort zone that's this good! And you managed to avoid a generic sound as well.

You became really good at making your percussion and melodies work well together; I remember I used to comment on that a lot. It now seems like an area of strength for you.

This might be typical for the genre, so take this with a grain of salt, but I'm not a fan of the use of what seems sort of like white noise. I find it a little distracting, which is unfortunate because there's so much ear candy in the song. I also think that the song is ever-so-slightly over-compressed, and it creates an effect that sounds like all the elements are glued together into one wall of sound; perhaps you wanted that, but I can tell you put a lot of effort into making the leads sound highly expressive, and I think the leads would shine more if they were a little more detached. I hope that makes sense :P

Still, this is a great track, especially considering the genre change.

Like Chrono, I also love the key change.

endKmusic responds:

Yeah, everything you ever said I took in consideration, and I'm glad you did.

About compression -
I wanted to glue it and make it slightly less dynamic.
There are four different parts of the song I wanted all the major ones to have the consistent energy since they were a little bit different in terms of dynamics.
Sound of leads may be better without it, I agree, but it was not so much of a sacrifice, since I wasn't going that harsh on compression. I GUESS.
Next time I'll double check for sure.

Thanks for the review, I'm glad you enjoyed it!
Always love hearing from you! :)