LunacyEcho's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Sainthood]

This is quite a nice song! It's definitely got its ups and downs, but I think you're improving.

The first thing I noticed that's really different from your previous stuff is that you've got much better synth sounds. They're extremely melodic and elegant (especially the one at 1:32) and really heighten the listening experience, as they fit really well with the type of music you're making. Are they custom? Or are they presets?

The drum beats, however, are still really similar to the ones you've been using all along. If you're still using pre made drum loops, I'd suggest making your own beats, and if you're making your own already, I'd suggest using a different drum kit. Your music is mainly electronic, occasionally with guitars thrown in, and I don't really think this sort of drum kit fits it very much. Also, many of your drum beats are swing-y, which doesn't compliment most of your songs very well.

I'm not sure if you're doing this, but I sort of saw a bit more continuity in your song, which is good. I heard echoes of the opening melody in a lot of subsequent melodies and also playing in the background towards the end. I like that, and would also suggest adding some kind of chorus into your song. Like I've said before, it'd be an interesting experiment if you wrote out the structure of a song beforehand (e.g. A-B-A-C-D-A-C) and composed based on that.

Your melodies still seemed a bit meandering-y. Another thing that would be interesting for you to try is finding a catchy melody and writing a song entirely based off of that. In fact, that's how I used to write a lot of songs, and still do it now. You seem to write inspired by atmosphere, which is also a really great way to make music, but tends to leave the listener without anything stuck in their heads and it also becomes hard to differentiate between your songs.

In summary, great instruments, old drums, weird melodies, great continuity. I hope I've been helpful with the review. Great work! Keep trying new things!

[Mysterious Calm]

WHAT THE WHAT

I saw your four-minute song and was like "ooh, a longer song than usual." Never thought you'd surpass 'Clarity'. I was wrong. :P

So, this is impressive. I love the sound of vibes, and they fit so well here. Wouldn't have minded some accompanying piano, but that might've just sounded all muddled up. :D

Hang on. I've heard 0:32 before. Is this where part of Misguided Passion comes from? In fact, I can hear lots of stuff from your "older" (time-travelling here) songs that are reused here. :) Everything's a remix, right?

I've listened to the whole thing twice now, and I wish I could analyze it, but it does make extremely peaceful background music while I'm working. You're very talented, and an excelled improvisational pianist. Keep it up!

LucidShadowDreamer responds:

That the that!

Lol, yeah. The length of my pieces tends to vary from very short to very long, as I'm sure you've noticed...
I've played single improvisations for more than an hour at times. Unfortunately, I've never recorded any of those... They don't usually sound good all the way through either XD

I don't think I could've fit a piano in here, considering it's only one track, and the most my electronical piano can play at once is two. I would've had to run the MIDI file a separate time for the piano, and I'm not so sure the result would've been that great...

I haven't consciously used 0:32 anyplace else at least :/
That said, a mind usually thinks in somewhat similar patterns, so a lot of stuff that is improvised here can be very similar to other stuff I've made (or will make). The part I was thinking of that I know I planned somewhat on beforehand is the part between 2:30 and 3:10. The rest is fully improvised, but as I said, it's difficult to improvise something that sounds entirely unlike something that has been made before. Sometimes I'm almost afraid to play exactly what comes to my head, in fear of it being "stolen" from something that I only unconsciously remember from long ago :p
As I mentioned in the description though, I have nowhere close to a perfect pitch, so I don't think I should worry. I really don't know what I'm doing when I'm improvising...

Listenend to the whole thing twice o.O? Well, I can understand that, as you used it as background music, but I think this piece gets pretty monotone after a while :p

Thanks for the millionth review or so, and for being so encouraging! :'D

[FFX Battle Theme (Piano Cover)]

Amazing. You're only getting better and better at piano.

"I kind of came up with the arrangement of(f) the top of my head while learning the chords and melodies." WHAT ARE YOU

I love the way you incorporate those beautiful arpeggios at places like 1:53. They seem a little bit off-tempo, but they sound so nice it's almost forgivable. :P

There also is a bit more reverb in this song than I'd like, but it's still great. While composition is important, rearrangement is another cool way to expand your musical abilities, and I think you're doing really well at that.

Great job! Loved it a lot.

LucidShadowDreamer responds:

Thanks :)
That might be, but I'm not improving as fast as I'd hope to, as I barely have any time to spare for playing the piano :(

You know, if you keep correcting my grammatical errors in my descriptions (though I could swear I wrote it with two f's yesterday!), I'll just have to leave them there so that your reviews will make sense! XD

What am I? I dun knuw :3
When I began learning pieces I always looked up specific arrangements that I liked, and played pretty much exactly alike (from sheet music or a MIDI file for example).
As of late, I've been learning songs very loosely and played them kinda like I want. After a while I tend to stick with a certain arrangement of my own that has come from apparently nowhere. It's almost like writing your own piece, so learning is a lot faster, and playing the songs gets easier o.O

Those arpeggios are really fun to play (and perhaps not as difficult as some might think, although as you mentioned, the tempo is probably way off :p).
This is the result of me exaggerating my piano playing to the max :'D

The production after recording is less that half assed for sure :)

Might be that rearrangement is a good way to expand musical abilities, but I know I'd have a really hard time trying to come up with serious rearrangements of songs! If I try to put too much genuine thought behind what I'm doing, I'm destined to fail XD

Thanks again (I love your stuff a lot too!) XP

[The Door - Fibonacci]

Dammit! I was planning a math song! :D Man, this is awesome. You know how much I love gimmicks when it comes to music. It feels like you'd really love this song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E36qMxXGo3A :)

As for the track itself, it's pretty awesome. It's mixed really well; all the different instruments are nice and clear. Some of the instruments sound a bit loud, especially the synth that comes in 2:08. I know it shows up in other places in the track, but it really feels a bit loud there. After you automate the volume down in the next bit, it goes back to sounding normal.

There's tons of cool rhythmic stuff going on here. I'm pretty bad at coming up with creative rhythms while I'm noodling around on the piano, since my basic rhythms are ingrained in my brain, but you always have these awesome syncopations that make your tracks really memorable. The only place where I think the rhythm might be a bit confusing is the synth that plays by itself at 1:09. When I first listened to it, I was caught a bit off guard, but once the bass and drums started coming in, it sounded much better and I'm pretty much used to it now. :P A thing I've noticed about having too much syncopation is that if you don't have any background instruments playing a steady beat, it gets disconcerting upon first listen, which is something I think tons of musicians ought to keep in mind.

Your melodies are getting much better. :) A few of your older songs have some off-key notes, but recently, your stuff has been improving a whole lot. It's cool to expand your range of musical abilities in any way possible; you seem to have B minor down to a cinch. The chord progressions of the majority of my old songs revolves around F, C, and G, and you can hear the lack of melodic quality when I tried leaving them. This one sounds great!

The overall atmosphere of the song is quite eerie. The breathy instruments, the thin pads, and those background sweeps at 1:02, 1:06, 2:40 contribute so much to the mysterious, somewhat creepy vibe of the music. Also, I'm not sure if this should be a loop; the intro and outro don't have that much connectivity. Still, I really enjoyed the song. You're improving a lot in your melodies and composition. Great work and good luck in school!

(How exactly would one express Pascal's Triangle through music? Hm...)

TaintedLogic responds:

Thanks so much, LE! :D That Pi Prog Rock track was awesome, btw (I listened to the whole thing)! XD

I'm glad you like the mixing. I worked on it a lot. There were a lot of volume automations in this one...one for almost every instrument. I see what you mean about the loud synth there, but for a lot of the piece it's one of the more interesting riffs IMO, so I decided to bring it out a bit more there.

I totally agree with you about the syncopations at 1:09. I almost wanted it to be a bit disconcerting, though...sort of adds to the haunting vibe, right? I definitely took a risk there, but I wanted it to stand out.

I'm glad you think my melodies and composition skills are improving! ^^ Creepy is what I'm going for...usually I either go for creepy or chill (or both)!

Now that you mention it, I'm not sure this should loop either. I'll fix that right away!

How to express Pascal's Triangle through music? Maybe you'll see! >:D

Thank you very much again, LunacyEcho!

;D

[The Gauntlet]

HI! I saw your request in the forums and thought I'd give reviewing this a shot.

So you wanted feedback on your mix with emphasis on the bass? Personally, I think the mix is pretty good, except that i feel the drums could be brought out a bit. Also, the mix feels a bit cluttered in the low mids region, especially in parts such as 0:40-1:00.

Bass-wise, I feel the bass is a bit louder than normal. Now, I have bass-boosting earphones and enjoy a good amount of bass, but it does feel like it overpowers the low mids a bit here. Still, the mix was great, as I could hear most of your instruments clearly. Your stereo imaging was also done well, although I would have preferred a bit more in the right side in places like 0:17-0:25.

Great work! I enjoyed it quite a lot. Hope you have fun recording it and good luck on your project!

DSykMusic responds:

Thanks for letting me know! Appreciate it.

[Nothing New]

ur so creative w ur titles, mang

Sounds nice, as usual. That high-pitched interlude in the middle is really nice (although there are some harsh notes); I'd love to see you incorporate that in your future works!

Notes cracking, a bit of tempo off, blah blah blah.

That ending came out of nowhere! That thing your left hand did at 1:47 was awesome. What was that?!

I'm sort of only reviewing these to keep up my record, to be honest. :P Good work! Why didn't you go home for the weekend? :(

LucidShadowDreamer responds:

Quick with your reviewing again ey? You're really awesome for keeping up with your record even if these are just old weird tracks XD (same goes for TheDoor6!)

My titles are the most creative ones you'll ever find in this world. I usually spend days upon days thinking about what I should name a piece, whereafter I find the perfect title within the depths of my very soul.

That interlude is definitely too high-pitched for this piano sound (although the reverb and delay improved it some), but I liked the idea, and have used similar stuff before and will do so again XD

The ending? It's left hand exercise :) I actually failed with hitting every note there too, but the reverb makes this track so muddy that it might be hard to notice :p I have no idea what I would call what I did though. It's those same rolling notes as usually, except I doubled the amount and the speed >:D
I think I could pull it off much better now, more than one year in the future, but I guess I did okay :3

I didn't get to go home, because the army sucks >:(
Every fifth weekend or so (sometimes more often), you have to stay here, because meh. We don't have much free time the weekends we go home either, but it's something :/ (Soon halfway there!)

[ghosts]

If there's such a thing as prog johnfn, this is it.

I enjoyed the opening quite a lot. In fact, the first couple minutes worked really well. It didn't sound like a rushed job at all! When you get to 1:38, however, the transition just feels so rough. It's always difficult transitioning to different time signatures, but I just think this one threw me completely off my zen listening mode (pretty sure that's a thing).

It feels like you're going back to older johnfn music (older being a really relative term I guess) and using tons of really quick synth licks to solo-ize your songs. Aside from that one dissonant part at 2:47, they sound great! Really loving the way you use your glitchiness on the synths and drums from 3:38 to the ending (which was so much less satisfying than i believe's which i've sort of come to enjoy).

I actually think one of the biggest problems I have with this song is the title. :D A few people this round went for the 'horror' theme (Troisnyx, PeterSatera), but I don't really see how this is 'ghosty' at all. :/

Great work and good luck!

johnfn responds:

Hey I'm glad you liked it! Personally I don't even know what I think about it. I think the biggest irony is the 1:38 transition. I worked SO hard (you don't even know) on the other transitions because they were SO BAD. Then I totally forgot to fix 1:38... darp

Yeah I kinda messed up the ending heh. I shouldn't have repeated that section so many times woops. Oh well!

With the quick synths I was borrowing a lil from older stuff, but I also went different in that the melody style wasn't really johnfn-y, imo (I GO HARD ON PITCH BENDS BRUH). Also, 5/4 time for some reason.

Also how come ghosts have to be scary? That sounds discriminatory to ghosts to me. How come ghosts can't groove sometimes??

Thanks for the review!

[Survival of the Hungriest]

The thing that bothers me about how this track sounds is that the guitar somewhat distorts an otherwise clear orchestra. :(

Otherwise, it's great cinematic piece as usual! The post-climax is a bit drawn-out in my opinion, but the mood you were trying to evoke definitely shined through.

Also, that art. :D A horror film about a raccoon... Raccula? (o god kill me now pls)

[Deflect]

This sounds amazing. I'm really enjoying your style of music!

The melody synth sound really great (even though I wouldn't mind if it were louder), but some of the chords just felt a bit off. It's definitely a really unique chord progression that I'll remember, but I'm not sure how well it meshes with the rest of the song.

Like AeronMusic said, some of the synths are a bit too loud, especially the main chordal one at 1:28, but I think the reason I think that is because for me, the overall mix is a bit too loud for my tastes. :P Still, they fit in the song really well and make the song sound a lot more heavy.

Most of the transitions here sound great. I love the way you used the slap bass to add jumpy effects into lots of the breaks, especially in places like 1:06.

Great job and good luck!

[Inside an Eye]

I'm not sure whether this is what absoluteDETH was going for, but this really is very nicely done. It's probably my favorite loop from you thus far. :)

I actually like the percussion a lot! I enjoy tons of reverb (more and more lately, it seems), and those bouncy, jumpy sounds add a lot to the mood.

I'm actually pretty scared of eyes. :D I once screamed when a teacher showed an enlarged picture of an eye on a projector. Even so, the picture you used is pretty hypnotic, especially when turning visualizations off...

LucidShadowDreamer responds:

Thanks LunacyEcho! I always love reading your reviews; they're so full of spirit!
I think this is my favorite loop by myself so far as well (although "Unimailma" just might beat it).

I'm actually surprised you like the percussion (^O,O^)
I love tons of reverb. I almost always find myself saying... MOAR! MOAR REVBREV!
What can I say, I like bouncy sounds? I think that's why I chose that particular vst and threw something in quickly XD
I still don't really like the percussion myself though...

Eyes can be pretty creepy! My cat scares me sometimes at night...
That rolling eye is a bit hypnotic indeed. It bothers me that I didn't center the pupil better, since the hole in the "cd" cuts it off weirdly :P