LunacyEcho's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Prey]

Ooh, I love the vibe the song starts off with! It's such a mood-setting bit of music. :) I just wish the repeated pluck was featured more prominently; it seemed to fade a bit as the pad set in.

The first section feels pretty repetitive (0:27-1:07). There's only one chord change in twelve bars, and then you repeat the section again with some faint arps and a couple more chord changes, which leads to some pretty boring listening. The instruments sound great and the mood is still set really well, but if I were you, I'd change up some stuff - either the chord progression, melody, background FX, or any combination of them. :)

Basically, the whole song sort of follows that pattern. Just different beats, but they're all pretty repetitive and could use more chord progression and a more variant melody. Some parts sound really nice, though. My favorite part was definitely 2:41.

Even though you said your mixing isn't very good, I didn't think there were too many problems with it. The snare might have been a bit loud and there was that bit at the beginning, but the rest of the drums and most of the synthesizers were mixed pretty well.

Honestly, I wouldn't be able to tell that this was your second electronic song just by listening to it. The composition may be repetitive, but the mixing, instrumentation, and mood-setting were all really nice. Great job, and I hope you improve!

JDawg00100 responds:

Yup it is extremely repetitive, it's good to hear about everything else though! I spent most of the time trying to get the right mood for the song, I find it hard to get the type of sound I have in my head.

Thanks for the feedback and the listen!

[-Galaxy Park-]

Another awesome song! Whoever that special person is, they must be very happy. :)

Say, how come you didn't do the NGADM this year? I'm sure we'd all appreciate your elite compositions. :D

Waterflame responds:

Thank you! Oh I didnt dare to enter due to moving locations and a lot of music jobs / other work. I want to do it when i know i have time and it will not feel like stress. So probably next year!

[Pokémon - Pirate's Road]

This is amazing. The Victory Road song was one of my favorites, and this is such an awesome rendition of it. :D

Are you sure you meant to type "Pokmon" in the title of the song though?

PirateCrab responds:

Ah it has an e with an accent, quite odd that it hasn't shown up, I'll change it for normal :)

But thanks bro! It was one of my favourite songs as well, so gonna be doing more!

*Edit: I won't be changing the title, because I can't edit the title. WAAAAAH :(

[404]

This does sound like it must've been a ton of fun to write and hell in production. Kudos to SkyeWint for amazingly quick work!

Even though this has the vibe of being a really progressive song, the part at 1:21 does make the main riff feel a bit overdone after a while. It's a good thing your drummer is so talented; it felt like the song was relying heavily on him from 1:59 to 2:38. The ending also came somewhat unexpectedly. Still, minor flaws aside, this is seriously impressive stuff, especially from your amazing live musicians.

Here's hoping you two collab outside of the NGADM for more awesome music!

camoshark responds:

Hey Lune, thanks for the review! :)

You are on the ball for the bit around 2:00, we ended up relying pretty much entirely on the drummer in that bit because the solo that was supposed to be there had to be cut because of time constraints.

That ending DID indeed end up coming much sooner than we had planned, sorry about that. :(

I'm glad that you managed to very much enjoy the track even with these flaws!

Cheers

[BB Mush Chronicle Ep. 1]

creepy af m8

nightmares 4evaaa

GhostLawyer responds:

Be my valentine.

[Perfect Storm - WIP]

This is really nice! It sucks that you got eliminated from the NGADM - I was really enjoying your style of music, which very few musicians on Newgrounds pursue.

Personally, I think the composition is fine. I love all the different elements you add to it and the way you create the melancholy, nautical atmosphere through your filtered pads and the 6/8 time (eh, Jack Sparrow?). The part at 1:47 reminded me a bit of AWOLNATION's Sail, which may or may not be a good thing. :P

I think the biggest way you could improve the song is your sound design/instrument choice. For example, the synth that comes in at 0:56 sounds really thin and a bit out of place. The sound at 1:20 sounds pretty cliché, as it's used in a ton of techno songs (I think it was more popular a few years ago). Some of what you used is great, though - the organ and your pads all sound great and fit the song really well.

Great work! I hope you keep working on it and I'm looking forward to when the final version comes out!

Spadezer responds:

It was good to hear that you really enjoyed my contribution to NGADM.

"(eh, Jack Sparrow)"
Not the complete intention but I guess it was easy to give it a similar feel. I'll admit especially when the organ came in I kinda imagined Davy Jones on the organ a bit.

I have personal opinions about Sail (in most cases I'm not a fan of pop music), but whatever floats your boat.

"The synth that comes in at 0:56 sounds really thin and a bit out of place."
It's still the same synth I was using at the beginning and I wanted to reuse it to try out a different theme. But that's why I want people to review this so that I can get a better grasp of what fits and what doesn't. It's still all down to personal taste but I want it to be a disagreement and taste and not craftsmanship.

"The sound at 1:20 sounds pretty cliche."
Bummer. I was really trying to go away from the 80's/90's style that I was playing in the contest.

Thanks for the feedback. Peace out.
-Spadezer-

[There]

It's the little things that make up a great song, and those masterful details you added - the intro/outro glitches, 0:50, 1:29, 1:53, those high-pitched notes you add in, all those random effects you add, and everything else - it just makes for such an entertaining listening experience. You probably have some of the best production value left in the competition, and I hope you make it to the next round. :D (Then again, we have yet to see Sequenced's submission...)

Is there any specific reason behind the lyrics you chose? They seem like generic dance lyrics with a few cryptic things thrown in. Just curious. :)

garlagan responds:

the lyrics are mostly about overthinking things actually! cheers lunacy!

[Heavenly Waterfall]

Sure, there's the rushing and the misplayed notes and the repetitive chord progression and the bad recording, but still, this is amazing. After one and a half years of piano, you were playing this? Damn.

I'd love to hear you rearrange this composition! It's always nice to revisit old stuff or some of your earlier stuff. You've progressed a lot over these five and a half years. :)

LucidShadowDreamer responds:

I've always been a pretty fast learner. Everyone used to be really impressed with my piano skills already at a pretty early time, because I always tried to play much more difficult stuff than I could handle. The result was that I learned to play very hard songs, alas poorly. Non-musical people don't always tend to notice how well you play a song though :/
I too think I've developed a hell of a deal since this, but I still have a loooooooong way to go :p

I'd love to rearrange this too! Do you know what I also would love :3
Some fucking free time from the army shit -_-
I'm past the halfway point though; only 75 days left!
I really don't have time to do anything, which is extremely frustrating. Either way, thanks for reviewing my first ever piece :'D

[redemption]

The second I heard 0:48, I ripped my earphones out so I could listen to its entirety once I got out of the Taiwanese taxi.

This song is so beautiful... For some reason, the sound of the children makes it sound really nostalgic, and then etherealwinds comes in and makes it sound like all the stresses of today are gone. (I think this might border on heresy, but personally, while I enjoyed eth's voice, I didn't really like the sounds he was making very much - I think it might be because the vowel sounds he used were a bit weird for me.)

I think this is some of your best drum work. I've always thought your drum kit sounded nice and had tons of potential, and in this one, I think you brought it out to some of its fullest. Not sure if anyone's mentioned this to you before, but one of my favorite things about your drum kit is that your kick isn't really bass-y; it's more like a really really low mid, so it doesn't clash with the bass that much.

Your ending was really nice this time, even though it dragged on a bit. Even though you played the ending bit a ton of times, I still thought you'd end on a more conclusive chord. Poor, naive me. :D

Great work! I'm reticent to say it, but I'm going to take a risk here and say that I just think you might've advanced to the next round.

johnfn responds:

> etherealwinds

It's hilarious that the complaint you had about him was actually my fault. In reality I ended up chopping up a little stem he gave me and reworking it into what you here now, so all the weirdness is just me. :p

> Non-bassy kick

That would be because I'm using an acoustic drum kit, rather than an electric one! I like it for more acoustic songs. Bass-heavy kicks only really work imo in heavy electronica stuff.

> end on a more conclusive chord

Well, it's the tonic, how much more conclusive do you want ;-) But yes. SADNESS FOR ALL >:D

[Action Crusaders Theme V2]

One of the best qualities a musician can have is being willing to go back to their old work and improve it based on others’ ideas. Never stop being as good as you can. :)

So, the first thing I noticed about this version of the song is that it’s much longer and more complete than the first Action Crusaders (still loving the title, btw). The fact that it’s now more structured and sounds a lot more like a cohesive theme song makes it much more adventurous to listen to, and it’s making me question why you don’t have more followers. :D

Its structure seems to be ABCABDC(filter out). Definitely not bad, but a little bit heavy on the repetition. Of course, this is a theme song, so a bit of repetition would be expected. Still, I would have loved it if you’d maybe added in some sort of melodic solo or something. That might be a bit biased; one of the things I value most as a musician is progressiveness, and lots of people would disagree with me on that.

The instrumentation definitely got a lot better from your previous one. Now that you’re keeping the eighth note plucks all throughout the intro, it definitely gives it a much more connected feel to the song. I’m also glad you took the advice about the first melodic synth coming in too loudly. Now that it fades in, it transitions into the song much more smoothly every time it comes in. I also love the quavering it has. I know that was in your original draft, but they just sound so epic!

Speaking of transitions, the way you transition in and out of your song are pretty interesting. You don’t hear many fade-ins to a song without some sort of filter alongside them. The filters you did use to transition in the middle of the track (0:30, 1:45) were well done. I’m just a sucker for filter transitions, I guess. :D In fact, I think your transitions are where you improved the most. I enjoyed all of them (except for maybe 0:56, which sounded a bit abrupt). The anticlimactic buildup from 0:26 might be a bit polarizing to an audience, though. I personally like them, but there are some who’d say that the buildup leads to nothing and therefore ought to be changed. Just keep an eye out for that. Also, your ending was a bit iffy for me. The chorus was all energetic, but then it just felt like it trailed off. The filter didn’t really help either. :/ Another thing to watch out for - make a satisfying ending, especially for an action-packed song like this.

I mentioned repetition before. The melodies of the song itself are a bit repetitive as well, in my opinion (although maybe that’s because I’ve spent too much time listening them trying to analyze it :P ). I still really enjoy your chorus, although I miss the piano/high-pitched hits that you had in the original chorus. Where’d they go? It’s always good to have high mids/treble sounds in your most exciting and packed parts. Also in your chorus, your kicks are powerful and drive the song forward well, but the inclusion of snares on every 2 and 4 would be helpful in varying the sounds of the percussion. In your first version, the distinction between kicks and kicks with snares was somewhat noticeable, but in this one, I can’t even be sure if you have snares.

So in conclusion, better structure and instrumentation, great transitions, a bit repetitive and some chorus problems. Don't get me wrong, though - I still love the song! I’m really glad you completed it, and I hope I’ve been helpful. I doubt you’re going to upload a third version onto the site, but still, I hope you keep making music. You really deserve more fans. :D Keep up the great work!

kinggrinyov5 responds:

Once again, a great Response, it is quite likely that I wont post a third version, chances are because no one ever has and probably never will. But if I ever finish developing my actual game I may just tinker with the music once again. Thanks again Lunacy! Cheers :D