Everratic's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[FFX Battle Theme (Piano Cover)]

This is a phenomenal piece. I can’t wait to hear this play thousands of times over the next month or so :p

LucidShadowDreamer responds:

Yeah! This is the version I based my YouTube version on. Some people get tired of it, but I really like it :)

[Medieval Adventure]

Wow, this has a nice progression. It has strong ff7 vibes. There are some nice melodies in here. It’s actually not bad!

LucidShadowDreamer responds:

Haha, thank you! Sure, I hear what you mean. This too would need an update in production though xD

[Euneirophrenia]

The melody is so pretty. It reminds me of canon in d at times.

LucidShadowDreamer responds:

I'm really happy with the melody. If it wasn't used in a game, I'd probably update the piano sound :)

[God Jul Jeanette!]

This is so beautiful. It reminds me of the sleeping song from ff7. What strings did you use?

LucidShadowDreamer responds:

Thanks! I used 8dio's Anthology strings, and their 1969 piano.

[Darkness and Light]

You don't write lyrics often so I'm really impressed by how good they are! They evoked strong emotions in me, which you know doesn't happen very often with music. Much of composition is phenomenal, and there are so many delightful chords in there. I think I caught a few major chord anomalies, which were really sweet. I like the piano break in the middle, and it adds some welcomed variation.

I love these lyrics, and I feel like I can relate to it a lot. The line corresponding to the song title is the most ambiguous, but I found an interpretation that makes sense to me.

I feel like the way the song was produced makes it sound much colder that what you might have untended. The piano itself sounds cold probably both because of both the timbre and the dynamic range, and it sounds more upfront than usual. The vocals are also pretty upfront and seem to be compressed a bit. Overall, I feel that there's a bit too much compression and it slightly hinders the conveyance of emotion. I think the composition itself is very high in emotion, but the aforementioned factors make it difficult for the emotional appeal to be fully realized. Near the end you increased the reverb and that was really nice! I wish the entire piece sounded more like that.

I think this track would sound even more awesome with a more dreamy atmosphere. This is a fairly pensive piece, and I think that having a lot of reverb would reflect the vastness of consciousness.

The vocals sound a little flat to me, but I think I perceive it that way due to the great contrast in dryness with the piano.

I actually kinda agree with TL about the transition at :20, but there's one important thing he didn't mention: the contrast in volume can be startling when one listens to the first time. As I said earlier, this piece sounds a bit over-compressed, so perhaps that transition sounded fine beforehand and you overlooked it post-compression.

This is an amazing track, and I'm glad you tried something new!

Good luck in the competition!

LucidShadowDreamer responds:

I'm trying to write lyrics more and more often, although I still don't do it enough. I often end up thinking of all the details for waaay too long. I'm glad the lyrics spoke to you. I certainly had a few people in mind when writing them, even though they're mainly trying to convey a mindset/perspective of sorts. As for the chords, I try to do something a bit different as often as I can, while I still retain my style.

The song's title has a lot of meaning to me. I'll leave the interpretation to the listeners though.

I'm not sure what you mean with "colder" per se, but I admit it wasn't an easy song to produce. I'm pretty happy with the sound though. It's a very dynamic piano piece, with vocals in the mix. Even so, I think the volume levels are fine, and the arrangement is noticable in every part, including the busiest ones (which is surprisingly difficult when there's just a piano).

There certainly is some compression in the piece, though I'm not sure taking that away would affect the things you talk about. I'd say the piece sounds weaker and less focused with no compression on it. Maybe I have to listen with some different headphones though, as I might hear the piece differently.
I feel like composition is much more important when it comes to conveying emotions than the production. As for the increased reverb at the end, it wouldn't work for the entire piece; it's cumulative, so if it was used somewhere else than in the ending, everything would clutter up. I did have more reverb on the piece initially, but it started sounding muddy imo :)

When you say the vocals sound flat, do you mean as in they're out of tune?

I still disagree about 0:20. To begin with, compression doesn't generally increase the difference in volume, but it can decrease it, so removing it would likely make the difference starker. I also don't feel like the vocals are too loud, but that might be a matter of preference.
I don't think surprising elements in music is a bad thing, but I don't know what TL and you are hearing, possibly since I've heard the piece too many times, meaning I can't hear it "for the first time".

Thanks for taking the time to write such an extensive review, and good luck to you as well! It'll be fun to see what ends up happening in this round :D!

[Strange Taste]

I really enjoyed this. I'm currently playing Final Fantasy VII, and some parts remind me of the soundtrack from that game. I like the fusion of different styles, though I think the transitions could be improved a lot. My main complaint is that the drums sound too quiet throughout much of the track. The sound design strongly evokes video game vibes.

ColinMuir responds:

haha awesome, i never even thought of video games for this, but yeah it works :) Thanks

[A Summer's Dream]

This is a beautiful piece! The vocals are spectacular as always. I love your chord progressions. I hope you can decipher some of your chord progressions sometime because I really want to make a song with a similar style :) The whistle sounds great; how many instruments do you play? :o Good luck in the competitions!

etherealwinds responds:

Thank you BlueOceans! :) I'll send you the piano MIDI if you like and you can decipher it to your heart's content! I tend to stick to familiar chord progressions so it's nothing too spectacular. It has such a lovely tone doesn't it? I was waiting months to order it in a particular colour and in the end, I just thought screw it I wanna order it now, so I got it in red. Then the colour I wanted became available the next day haha! Well, piano, harp, and some woodwind instruments mainly. Kinda crappy guitar and I can bang some drums. Good luck to you too! <3

[Colosseum]

This is amazing. I love the ending; I didn't expect that sound at all.

Bosa responds:

Awesome! I really wasn't sure what people would think about this, so I am very happy that you enjoyed it.

[You're the Same]

Congratulations on the super high score!

LucidShadowDreamer responds:

Why thank you, and congratulations to you as well!

[The Elvenking’s Prayer]

It's cool that a song with eerie vibes can be so relaxing. I love your vocals as usual, and the instrumentation is perfect. I tend to prefer songs with more variation, but the execution is so good here that I don't mind the static nature of it.

etherealwinds responds:

Thank you very much :) hope you're well!