Krayon's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Shadow Boss Battle]

Synthesised

It's synthesised. Get better sound samples, the drums are all the same and orchestral sounds terrible.

I've heard that song a million times from final fantasy remakes and that one's one of the worst. No offense intended.

You should check around and look for some decent sound libraries, there's a number of users here who use free stuff, I never managed to track it down though.

The looping was good though, I can't tell when it ends and when it starts, so that's good. You just need to really work on the clarity and quality of your instruments.

Also, get new drums. Bring some thunder into the piece, the current drums are weak at best and don't constitute to much of a beat. Add some variation to the beat structure and the individual beats, so they don't sound all the same. No drum ever does.

Tune is ok. You could do a lot better with it though. I'll leave that to you though, as there are currently no ideas forthcoming.

Good luck, Krayon

[Shadow Symphony V4]

Great idea

Ok, so you have a very good idea here. But it could be taken a lot further.

Firstly, you need more clarity with your instruments, a number of areas sound muddy. Especially the backing. pretty much 0:54 onwards.

Also, because of this, a lot of the complexity is lost.

First thing you need to do is pull out the main melody. I believe there is a trumpet, or flute, doing most of the work there. Get a few more trumpets and give that a bit more power. Right now it's sorta lacking in the depth that a lot of instruments have, it's synthesised.
If it's a flute it needs to be less articulated and flow between the notes a lot more.

Those backing strings need to be louder and more emphasised, work on the articulations to really pull out the beat. The middle layer thingo, not sure what it's called, I think it's a harp of some sort, or a cello, that thing that muffles everything pretty much, needs to be made a lot clearer.

You've done a good job weaving the disparate elements together, which is a big plus on your side, but you really need to work on the clarity of your instruments and how they are melded together.

The idea is good, you just need to work on your articulations a lot and bring out the clarity of the instruments a lot more.

Krayon

[The Lost Ice Dungeon]

Nice enough

It's a nice little tune, but it's a touch too short and after a few repeats it gets annoying.
Here's why I think so.

Firstly, the end and beginning are not similar enough, there's a clear jump. You need to fix that.

The tune is good, but the backing doesn't have the depth needed to carry itself properly, it sounds a touch flat and very sythesised, which can grate after while.

The concept is good, however, you need better sound to carry it up properly. I'd advise you also make the backing more prominent, even with the speakers turned up I can't catch the finer details properly.

[In Silence]

Repetitive

There are a lot of ways to portray silence, but this on really doesn't evoke that at all. It fits better in a reflective piece, but even that would fall over.

This is mainly due to the definite lack of any sort of melody, though you could call that descending note structure a melody, it's very simple and evokes little in the way of anything.

Also the repetitive nature of the piano only serves to emphasise this.

It would have been a better idea to have single, clear strikes of the piano and careful, sparing use of backing. Silence is best portrayed when juxtaposed with sound. In other words, nothing protrays silence better then silence itself beside noise.

Apologies if this sounds particularly nasty as far as reviews go. It is meant to offer constructive criticism bluntly. Take it or leave it, as you will, I am merely telling you what I think.

Krayon

Bitca responds:

Full title of the song is actually In Silence, His Love. It is about someone who could not express himself to the one he loved and had to remain silent and supportive as a good friend and watch her fall into the arms of another man.

As I mentioned in the description this is a conceptual piece that basically means that I was just freestyling, so to speak, with the little bit of footage I got from the film. The repetitiveness, although I do hear you, was intended. This piece was just supposed to capture one brief moment in the film, and that was he sees her for the last time.

On the other hand, I completely agree with single strikes of the piano. That was something I really considered once I´d posted my work. It is not too late though. It is only conceptual.

No need to apologies, your criticism was appreciated.

Regards,
Einar Magnús.

['09 Ride through the Dusk]

Hmmm

Remembered you did some decent pieces before so checked back after finding someone's work with you're music in it.

There are some definite clarity boosts in this one compared to the others, but the difference, after checking, isn't huge. Please note:

I understand that this is a practice piece. I am, however, critiqueing it anyway.

Drums - Bad. They sound very synthy, every beat exactly same as the last, listen to drums, no beat sounds the same, there's always a slight tone difference. Also, they are very... plastic. Basically just doesn't sound right. The beat was fairly simple, I've heard it a lot of times before and because of the drum sounds it lacked even more. sounds sorta like a robot playing with one hand.

Strings? - Ok, they're muddied and I can't hear them in some places properly.

Brass - probably the best part, however it's muddied, and I can only hear the overall tune but not the melodies within.

Choral - excellent, good job with that.

Overall, you did a good job for epic, but it falls over due to lack of clarity between instruments and there is little complexity to be heard. A suggestion would be to work on the tune itself until there is a good range in pitch and instrumentation and that you make sure you don't overdo the bass sections which can drown out some of the higher ones. Try to work on a bit more complexity and that last drum bit was unnecessary.

Keep up the good work, I'll be paying attention in the future.

Krayon

[The Scroll and Dragon]

Blech

Nice tune, I didn't like the guitar. It sounded off, there's no ringing in the notes. I'm a guitarist and I know what a classical guitar sounds like. Those notes are far too short.

The drum needs working on, it's the same too. You might want to think about adding in a more flow to this piece, so long pieces and some longer notes in there.

A fiddle or a violin playing along to it would be great, as well as adding quite a bit more pitch range, it can go a lot higher and there is great potential for a lot more instruments to be added.

Good luck!

Krayon

[Silent Tears [Orch]]

Disagreement

I'm in disagreement, music is one of the few forms of art that can directly touch the heart. You can carry emotions in music that you can never carry anywhere else.

Especially the human voice. There is something about the human voice that tugs at our innermost being with a strength that nothing else does.

Nice job with the song, it's nice to know you're over it. It has some excellent feeling, however, I feel, due to the power of your emotions, it could have been a good deal more powerful.
Passion can be conveyed in many ways, in music you need to lose yourself in it and the playing of the instrument. That's one of the things electronic music cannot emulate yet. Passion.

Good job though.

Krayon.

Dj-Flux responds:

Disagreement over what? I agree with you completely. Music carries an emotion all of it's own, and every time someone listens, that feeling is always passed.

Unfortunately I do not have the resources do compose a piece any other way, so electronically is the best I can do for now.

Thanks a lot for the input. I appreciate it. :]

[{B.A.B.} Warrior's Quest]

Impressive.

Very nice job, even for non-free stuff this is outstanding. Where'd you get em from?

Good composition, dynamics, depth, texture. It was epic all right.
I don't hand out many tens but you've pretty much got mine. One thing I especially liked was the quality of the drums in this piece. Drums can really carry a song on their own if used properly, many classicists tend to forget this and go all string or brass. Nice job.

Krayon.

blackattackbitch responds:

Yeah, I've seen your reviews, so to get a 10 from you is really an honor.

I'll send you a PM detailing where I got my stuff in a little while. But the drums are mainly due to Squidfont's drumkit and the Roland Orchestral Rhythm soundfont, with a little help from 2 other percussion soundfonts.

Thanks for the review!

[_-={Lords of Legend}=-_]

Great!

Very good! You took my advice with getting LadyArsenic to do the vocals! If you didn't, good call anyway. She really adds a lot to it doesn't she?

Excellent composition, nice sound effects and the vocals were brilliant, congratulate her for me.

A minor issue, the drum sequence is a latin dance one of some sort, or at least spanish/latinish in origin. I don't really care where it's from, the start makes this song sound like a strange dance track for spanish/latin dance. It doesn't fit, especially with that pick of drums.
The beat wasn't deep either. Deep drums have echo and make the floor shake, these ones don't. You should probably work on the length that each drum beat rolls on for, make it longer and the drums deeper.
Normally, I wouldn't knock off a mark for that but because of the fact that the drums are a primary part of this piece in conveying the battles and epic scope, I had to as they failed to do so properly.

Krayon

[-Execution-]

Well done

Well done. You managed to get me right into the middle of that thing. Very good. Nearly perfect combination of the various elements and this thing has a powerful feeling in it.

I did however, have a problem with the long start that seems disconnected with the rest of the piece, the walking, the beheading/execution, then the running? The heartbeat? The last beeping? It just doesn't seem to connect. They don't seem all that well integrated into the whole, being separate entities in their own right.

No, I'm not contradicting myself, each element - the running, croud sounds, heart beat, breathing etc, all flow really well together and sound great along with the music. It's just that there are sections that don't seem to fit together all that well, despite a smooth transition.

Krayon

Mrmilkcarton responds:

Song = placing the bomb, Alarm, jump out a window, run, stop, click, boom.

Get it now?

Course that's just how I imagine it.