LunacyEcho's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[rover]

Barring the fact that the intro was 25% of the song and you apparently still have no idea how to make an ending that satisfied everyone (lookin' at you, TheDoor), this was an amazing song.

Thoughts while listening:

This piece has a variety of different feels. At 1:36, it started sounding like a montage scene, but once the tons of glitches started coming in, I just stopped thinking about what it would sound like and just sat back to enjoy them.

At 2:07, the melody sounds a lot like you're back in NGADM again. The transition at 2:40 seemed a bit sudden; I felt like it could've had a more driving kick into the guitar solo.

Towards 3:48, the song started getting a bit repetitive, and the glitches started sounding a bit overused. 3:44 was a good place to put the outro, but I guess the extension has its own charms.

Upon afterthought:

The guitar solo was nice. It was relaxing, but with an exciting factor at the same time. I think you didn't need to filter the background as much as you did, but it still sounded good. Guitar is something you haven't done much of (from what I've heard of your music), and I think you can explore the juxtaposition of guitar and your style of music a bit more.

Your drumwork has been steadily improving. I still think Steel Nightmares was your best drum piece so far, but this really comes close. I think you just repeated your glitches a bit too much. :/ Didn't think it was possible, but I think your glitches got too repetitive. Then again, if you made each one individually, we wouldn't hear this until 2017. So, it's a small tradeoff to hear these amazing tracks of yours as often as you put them out. :D

March being drums and acoustic guitar is something I can get behind. :D That 'monthly theme' thing is actually a good idea. It obviously wasn't planned, but gimmicks are cool. :P

Thanks for another great song! May you add more guitar in your work from here on out, seeing how successful it was here.

johnfn responds:

Hey thanks for the epic review dawg. I imagine that the sum total of all your words is getting close to exceeding the current winner (I imagine it's Step... but then maybe TheDoor6 has him beat in consistency ;-))

> At 2:07, the melody sounds a lot like you're back in NGADM again

Yes it's the return of the grooves! I always felt like my groovy melodies were my best which is why I don't do them too often, it feels like cheating. Also it feels like I might tire everyone (or maybe just me) of them heh.

> glitches started sounding a bit overused

;.;

Yeah I can see it though.

> filter the background

Heh, I just couldn't mix it any other way, I just didn't know how to mix recordings with things that weren't recorded. I've actually improved since this song...

> drums and steel nightmares

That song was definitely drum driven so I can see how it would be my best in terms of drums. This one is about a 50% split between drums and melodies, I didn't want one to overpower the other.

> I think you can explore the juxtaposition of guitar and your style of music a bit more.

COMING RIGHT UP. I plan to do guitar in all my songs this month no matter how poorly it fits >:O. In the song I'm currently working on I've done some tricks and it actually sounds pretty good.

Thanks for the review, again :)

[The Door - Idol]

Two years in the making, huh? At any rate, it sounds very nice; you pulled off the mood quite well.

That tempo change at 0:59 was probably one of the more memorable parts of the song. It has the effect of being both sudden and gradual at the same time, if you get what I mean. Not sure exactly how to explain it through the medium of words.

I think after that part, you could've kept it going someplace else, but like a typical trance song, REPETITION. It's not your fault, trance songs typically have TONS of repetition to the face. It's, like, required in the genre to have at least one verse repeated.

Whoa, the song just looped. Didn't even notice until I looked up. The climax-less-ness leads to a very clean loop. Nice.

Where was I? Doesn't matter. I'll keep going. Ironically, I think this song could've used a bit more variation to the drums. :P Maybe some different cymbals or something? (I'm being a HUGE hypocrite right now, but whatever.)

I like the melodies, although I think the instruments you used could've been mixed a bit more. Bit of a personal preference there.

I can't believe you've been working on this for two years. I normally discard a project if I haven't worked on it in two WEEKS. :D Good job!

TaintedLogic responds:

Thanks so much, LunacyEcho! :D I'm especially glad you liked the tempo change at :59. I think that it is both "sudden and gradual" is a great way to put it! ;) I agree about the repetition, but it was hard to vary it greatly after I decided I wanted it to loop. The drums are definitely not my most creative or original work, though. About the mixing, I mixed this a few months ago when I was thinking of uploading it then, but it never got posted. I've improved since then. ;) Btw, my FL projects list is EXTREMELY disorganized. I completely forget about projects and then start working on them again all the time. I think it's partly because I give my projects really non-descriptive names like "FunkyClubSong2_11." This one was actually labeled as "UntitledProj3" for the longest time! XD Thank you very much for the review, though, LunacyEcho! ;D

[From the Depths]

What struck me the most about this song is how professional it would sound if the mixing was better. Sadly, it's not. I think TheDoor was right. Bit too much reverb. :(

The structure of the song also needs work (then again, it IS only 44 seconds long), but the instruments you used and the way they went together sounded great. I was about to say that you had a real knack for something, but I can't figure out what. :( There's something distinctive about your tracks, but I just can't pinpoint it. Dern.

This is quite a good piece, seeing as it was made two years ago. Just up the mixing and crank up the structure and you'll be golden. Good job!

LucidShadowDreamer responds:

Wow, thanks!

I actually didn't expect that positive feedback on this song from you :D
You're right about your critique.
This track definitely needs a lot of work. Some day I will probably redo this, and make it into a full song, with both better planning and better mixing. The main idea is good, I think. Alas, the execution is not :p

"This is quite a good piece, seeing as it was made two years ago. Just up the mixing and crank up the structure and you'll be golden."

=> Yes Sir! :)

[A Small Box of Music]

I started listening to it, then got really, really, confused. About ten seconds later, I realized it was in 3/4 time and it made a whole crapload more sense.

It runs pretty smoothly. It seems like whenever it loops, the volume diminishes slightly, but that might just be how Cubase works (I think that's what you said you use).

Whoa. So, I was in the middle of typing this review, when the song finished downloading onto my computer and started playing. THE ONE ON NEWGROUNDS AND THE ONE ON MY ITUNES PLAYING SEPARATELY SOUNDED ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC TOGETHER. You should try playing two at the same time. You might have to edit them slightly to get the right sound, but I assure you, once you get it, they will go beautifully together. And you will want to make another song based on that.

Anyways, the instruments you used combined with the melodies create a really creepy, ominous atmosphere.

I can't continue with this review. I'm just listening to how good it sounds on loop in two different places. It's mind-bogglingly amazing. I'm moving this up to five stars just for its double-loop-ability. Wow.

I'm almost sure that that wasn't what you were going for, but I can't really comment on anything else about the song without it looking boring. Your song looping in two different apps is amazing. Great job.

LucidShadowDreamer responds:

Wow, I uploaded this 10 minutes ago... Damn you're quick XD

Yes, it's a bit confusing in the beginning :D It's mostly because of the 3/4 time, but also because I started the melody in such a weird way.

"It runs pretty smoothly"

=> Yeah. It's not only that the volume diminishes, I think that a millisecond or so from the end is actually cut off; it sounds to me like it jumps from end to beginning too quickly :D And I use Cubase indeed, but I have no idea about how it exports audio, but what I know is that this loops fine in Cubase. However, when the loop starts anew in Cubase, the reverb from the previous loop is still running until it dies in the new loop. Hence, I never know if it will loop as smoothly after the export XD

"THE ONE ON NEWGROUNDS AND THE ONE ON MY ITUNES PLAYING SEPARATELY SOUNDED ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC TOGETHER"

=> Ahhahhahaha, is that so? I have to try that out then :D I actually do this with other songs every now and then, but I haven't had it happen with this one yet XD I will do that immediately after writing this response!

I'm glad you like the instruments too; they were chosen in a quite random manner, but ended up being pretty much the same as in my previous loop :'D I really need to learn to use drums, and percussion VSTi -_-

"I'm almost sure that that wasn't what you were going for"

=> Umm... Yeah! That was... Totally... What I was going for. I had certainly planned for everyone to download this and listen to it in two programs at once. Totally...

Well, good thing that double app looping ability gave this five stars XD Thanks for yet another entertaining review :')

[Jumpy]

*raises hand, jumping up and down with excitement* OOH, ME, SIR! I LIKE READING TAGS!

You know what would be interesting? If it's a MIDI file, switching it to different instruments and seeing how the mood changes. Not only is it entertaining, but it adds to your mental repertoire of sounds that you can use in music.

Speaking of variation and melodies, this actually sounds like it could have been improvised with a hint of inspiration beforehand. When I heard the beginning, it sounded really somber, so I didn't immediately get the 'jumpy' feeling, but as the song progressed (0:47 seems like a nice place to say that that's where it got going), I felt it bounce over me (admittedly, that sounds quite painful).

I think another thing I enjoyed about this song is the fact that it spans so many octaves. I can just imagine of some guy playing this in a concert hall, stretching up and down the piano.

When you came up with the name 'LucidShadowDreamer', did you have LSD in mind? Because not only is that a huge coincidence, 'LucidShadowDreamer' sounds like a description of someone on LSD.

LucidShadowDreamer responds:

Hahha, good thing you like to read the tags :p

OMG, you must be psychic! I already did that half a week ago! It didn't turn out to be horrible, but I liked the original better :p Then I deleted the file, because I don't know. I regret it now, since it sounded quite funny (it was difficult finding a good instrument for those high notes though, since my sound library is somewhat limited :D).

If you want to hear something of mine that uses more instruments, you can check out tinyurl.com/EmptinessNG; it's the very first track I uploaded to Newgrounds, before I was scouted, so I don't think you've heard it :) (not done with a DAW though). However, it's a completely unedited version. I might upload it again at some point, with slightly improved quality XD

Lol, I could never improvise this well though! About the beginning, you're definitely right. I wanted to mix that slightly comedic left hand with a darker melody. But I almost immediately failed. I just let this piece write it self, which is why its structure is a bit odd :p

Yeah, Many of my songs range over almost the entire piano. It's a weird habit, but it does give variation :')

About the name, as fun as it is, it is a coincidence D: I actually only realized a couple of months after I first used the name (on some website)! You see, my usual go to name is ShadowDreamer, without the Lucid part. But since that name is already used on some sites (like here on NG), my backup name eventually became LucidShadowDreamer (Lucid being the name because of lucid dreaming).

Aaaaaaanyhow. Thanks for the review :') Which reminds me; time to go review your new track! :'D

[still breathing]

omg johnfn u srs
y r mor improv
jk s gud

i here miner mistakes bt is improv so s ok. vry gud.

it rlaxin, but i thnk u ned a climmax, also moar revrbe.

uk how n my lasd improv rvyew, i sed tings lk 'ur hnds r two cloase'? wel, ths tim, vry bettr. ur hnds stayd n th rite teratory; thy di'dt gt two cloase lk lasd tim. vry gud.

uk how n my lasd impvor rvyew, i sed tings lk 'u so bd @ tmpoing'? wel, ths tim, vry bettr. ur tmpo vry gud, not jmping arond nlesss u wantd t two. vry gud.

bascly, vry gud. i lk vry mch.

What can I say? I got tired of writing normal reviews.

johnfn responds:

OH GOD i think I died trying to read that.

> climmax

Yeah I kinda messed that up oops.

I'm glad that the tempo thing is a little better... I kinda applied some rubato in there and stuff. I think the "hands too close" thing was possibly more a problem of choice of instrument rather than a problem I generally have since with piano I think I usually do fine. I should have a better sense of that stuff across instruments though.

Thanks for the review as always dude! Even though it was ABUSIVELY HARD TO DECHIPER

[The Door - Abandoned Church]

I see that LSD has already covered all the major points, so I'll be sticking to nitpicks in this review.

Personally, I enjoy the organ drops at 1:07 and 3:07, but I wish you'd made the pad playing beneath it stop as well for a more whole effect. If half the instruments suddenly stop and half keep going, it sounds quite strange, but if they all stop, it can be quite effective.

The bell sounds you used are also a bit weird. I know Garageband quite well; I use it to make all my music. You can easily make the bell sounds more realistic if you go to the Edit Instrument tab and adjust the Tuning. Speaking of editing sounds, I think the organ could have had a lower attack, as in ambient music, sudden sounds aren't the wisest idea.

I loved the part where things all started coming in at 0:39. I wish you'd kept some of those instruments around, though. They sounded very nice with the song.

This may not have much melodic development, but for an ambient track, it's very well made. Good job!

TaintedLogic responds:

Thank you very much, LunacyEcho! :D I agree with your comments about the drops. I hadn't thought of that! I only started using GarageBand again a few months ago for the misic tech class I'm taking at my high school. I really appreciate the advice about fixing the bell, although in a way I wanted this piece to sound as weird as possible! >:D I am glad you liked the progression, and I agree I could've avoided changing everything so quickly. I'll think about that in the future! Thanks LunacyEcho! ;D

[steel nightmares]

Ooh, this was definitely unexpected. It doesn't necessarily creep me out, but it does a hell of a job in trying to.

Beginning at the intro. It began with a typical johnfn beginning: a simplistic, repeated synth riff that preludes the song and foreshadows the feel of the song to come. It was nice, but when the bass came in at 0:29, I felt that there was too much focus on it. Too many wubs, man. I think you tried a bit too hard to make it interesting, maybe.

The part where the percussion comes in at around 0:54 was typical of you, in an atypical setting. I liked it a lot, but the bass was still a bit too strong for it.

2:48 was too silent. I think you have a habit of repeating the same structure in everything, and that was evident here. It's intro-melodic/heavy part-breakdown-even heavier part that sounds awesome-outro. I've noticed that recently, your breakdowns have been getting more and more minimalistic. I thought that here, it was unnecessarily silent. You really could've added a few more instruments.

That 3:12 transition was absolutely beautiful. Everything started coming together, and the bass finally started feeling like it belonged in the song. The filter at 3:38 was definitely unnecessary, but other than that, the part from 3:12 onwards was definitely the gem of the song. It was exciting, edgy, crunchy, and definitely something I've never heard from you that you should definitely explore. I never thought that glitches could be used in such a way before.

That ending. I'm sure you know what I'll say about it. :) Sorry.

I was actually thinking about giving this four stars, but it had too much detail and obvious effort put into it to merit anything that low. Most of the stuff you do is as top-notch as usual. Good job! You certainly don't fail at making a dark mood.

johnfn responds:

> bass

I dunno if you're keeping track but along with making my breakdowns even quieter I've been progressively making my bass louder and louder =D

One reason I did that little bass flair is because it sounds to me a little like a warning or maybe unstable electronics :D

> arrangement

Yeah I gotta do something new with my arrangement... bluh... it's because honestly if you have 2 climaxes there's honestly not much other way to arrange them xD

In retrospect I think I should have developed out 1:38 for like another minute or something, I really love that section. It coulda been longer.

And as you can tell I LOVE parts of songs that become so quiet that it's almost like there's nothing there at all. Especially because the rest of my songs are usually jam packed with crap. So that's not going away HAHAHAHAHA it might be a matter of choosing the right elements.

> 3:12 onwards

You should know by now that climax #2 is the only reason to listen to the song ;-P God I'm so lazy.

Fun fact is that I'm using the egyptian scale here, which is why it sounds really different (perhaps).

> effort

You probably shouldn't use this as justification to give me a better score haha. Especially because I was kinda lazy about this one... Actually the truth is that my glitching VST doesn't store any of the settings that I use because it's still a demo, so I pretty much had to finish the song all in one go.

[The Forgotten Past]

This is really good. Probably the best solo piano piece I've heard from you thus far. Speaking of, this should probably be in the solo instrument category, not classical.

Five years of piano practice is great. Commitment and dedication are two very important qualities to have. I say piano 'practice' and not piano 'playing' because I've technically been playing piano for over nine years, but damned if I'm as good as this. I haven't kept up practicing it, and these days, I only really ever use it as a 'yeah, I play this, this, and this' plaque. Keep up your commitment, dude! Don't let it go to waste like I sort of did!

I'd say this song follows tempo the best. I'd also say it has better arrangement than most of your other music, but I can't really judge that well. I'd say that I enjoyed the structure and dynamics, but coming from a novice of my level, that's like a hobo remarking on the state of the global economy.

I would've enjoyed strings though. I'm not entirely sure of what you mean when you say that your time is limited. It's not like Newgrounds has a deadline where you have to submit this many songs by this time or else your account will be taken down. Take your time! Details are what make the song.

Great work! From basic impressions alone, this sounds like one of your best songs, but I wouldn't put too much stock into what I say. :P

LucidShadowDreamer responds:

I begin pretty much all of my review responses like this, but thank you for liking it :D
Whoops, you're right about the category. I changed that now; good thing you mentioned it!

This might very well be the best piece that you've heard from me thus far. I don't know what it is, but there's just something that doesn't click between me and the song. I do have better compositions in storage; I will post them eventually. It's just that I want to record them properly, so as not to destroy the pieces because of lacking sound quality :p

Lol! I don't really practise the piano either! I've never practised scales, the closest I've gotten is playing the Prelude from the Final Fantasy series! I've never practised sheet music or taken a good look into music theory either. This is probably a mistake, but at some point I will try to correct it.
I might not really practise piano playing, but I PLAY A LOT. In avarage I've probably played 1,5 h every day for five years. I've only played songs that I actually like, until I started making compositions of my own. If I had actually practised all that time instead of doing random stuff, I would be much better, but my motivation would be dead XD

I'm glad you're pleased with the tempo. There are only a few places that still bother me, but I'll live :)
I must inform you that if the arrangement is good, it's purely coincidental. I'm sure your level of listening is at least as good as mine when it comes to judging music. What if... What if hobos run the global economy!

"Strings"

=> Yeah, you're right. When I say my time is limited, it means I should actually spend my days reading for tests and stuff instead of procrastinating and composing on the piano. I guess I could've waited 'til I had time to add strings to this, but as I said, I felt like uploading something NEW on this site, since it's been so long :p Another thing is that I fear I will ruin the song if I fail with the strings. I will however probably try adding them at a later point; if for nothing else, it's good practise!

I'm glad you enjoyed this song. It might be one of the best that I've put here on Newgrounds. I also think that the production value of this song beats the ones that I put out before, since I know a little more about what I'm doing now!

I'm sorry for such a long reply! Thanks again for reviewing this ;)

[The Door - Platform]

For a first chiptune song, this is pretty nice. First impressions after hearing it were: It's got nice melodies and sound effects, but needs more depth.

When I say depth, I mean that you could possibly add more sustained notes. It seems very spacious right now, since you don't really have any instruments that are playing through each bar, just a bunch of instruments that play really short notes, nothing longer. Not saying that this is a bad thing, but it does make listening to it a little more confusing and jagged-y (if you can understand what that means).

I also think your drum noises could use a bit of work. While the other instruments are pretty good, your drums lack the 8-bit-ish quality that makes chiptune to endearing to so many people. I think there's an effect you can add to them called 'Bitcrusher' (not sure exactly how FL works). Even if it's not called 'Bitcrusher', there's a method of making things sound more 8-bit in most music-making softwares. I think.

Onto the good stuff! I think your melodies were great. They were a little spread out, but a few of them really stuck in my head. Funnily enough, the catchiest one for me was the base melody that kept repeating, maybe because it didn't just appear in one place; it stayed for the remainder of the song. I think the essence to a catchy melody is one that people enjoy and isn't blasted in people's faces, but one that appears pretty prevalently through a song so that people are satisfied with it.

My favorite part of this song was the effects you used. For instance, the 'broken' white noise sweeps. I loved that. In fact, i didn't even notice that it was happening so often until a replay, when I heard them a lot more. If you can do quarter breaks in them, why not try eighth breaks? Sixteenth breaks? Cool stuff like that really captures an audience. Also, there were the background effects that sounded great with the song, the little blips and boops. And that little detail you had at the end of the melody at 2:54 was unexpected but hit home as well.

Anyways, good job on your first chiptune song! Obviously, it wouldn't be perfect, but it's still really good. Looking forward to seeing more stuff from you, TheDoor!

TaintedLogic responds:

Woah! 0_o Thank you so much for this overwhelmingly thorough review, man! :D I agree about the lack of depth, but I think the goal of this track was to avoid having too much depth. My next track should have more. :) I agree completely about the "jaggediness," so-to-speak. I just think it's in the nature of traditional chiptunes to be very pizzicato-esque. Besides, mixing this thing was really hard (3xOsc covers 3/4 of the tones in the Equalizer!) so I needed to create as much "space" as possible! ;) I have heard of bitcrushing before, and I was vaguely aware that my drums weren't traditional 8-bit material, but I have to be a little bit rebellious, don't I? XD I'm glad you like the melodies; I personally think they're better than normal for me, especially the one at :49. I'm not quite sure what you mean by the "base melody." At first, I thought you meant the "bass melody," which is probably either referring to the "oom-pahs" (0:00) that are going throughout most of the song, or the bass at the breakdown (1:55). Now I think you're probably referring to the main melody at :19, but you could also be referring to :49, 2:10, or 2:39. XD I'm glad you appreciated the broken white noise effects, which sound really cool AND are super easy to make. I've actually done that in quite a few tracks of mine, most of them unfinished/unreleased. Maybe I'll upload some more soon! :D The "blips and boops" are all from DrumPad, and they were one of my true inspirations for making this song - I just had to use them somewhere! I actually just added the effect at 2:54 today; it's made with the Slide Tool, which I've grossly overused in the past and is also really fun and easy to use! Thank you so much again for your fantastic review, LunacyEcho. Sorry I rambled so much in my response! ;)