Setu-Firestorm's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Amen, Gypsy!]

Who would've thought

I would never have conceived the idea of combining gypsy music with drum n' bass; two genres that have never collided up until this point.

Certainly a unique piece, that's for sure. While the drums seem dissonant from every other instrument going on at the same time, they seem to still play nicely with each other.

Not my personal cup of tea, but certainly a great attempt to combine two completely different sounds and make it work.

JPRixdorfer responds:

Thank you very much! "Not my cup of tea", but a 9 score - that is a great compliment!
This is not completely new. Others have combined Gypsy Polka with fast electronic music and I'm probably not the first one with breakcore. It's an attempt to combine two different, but both fast genres I love.

[TI:.Robots Unleashed-RD2011]

Interesting composition and mix

Perfect atmosphere for its title. The compression and mastering done on this piece is pristine. The distorted synth does not become overbearing on the speakers, and the percussion has that nice clean, wet punch perfectly suiting this genre. Love the chopper effects.

For its genre, this piece fits in very well with most professionally-produced cues.

TIMarbury responds:

thanks a lot for the comments. made my day :). It is not perfect but i did put a lot of time into the basic overview of how i wanted the piece to be composed and not overdo the amount of synths and frequencies to have a muddy mix.

[Pure of Heart]

Very awesome

This piece has very good atmosphere, and the mixing, composition, and overall execution is completely flawless. I very much adore the hybrid you have running here of orchestral celtic meeting bluegrass meeting atmospheric acoustic-rock.

Never in my life was I ever a bluegrass fan, but you have redefined the genre into something I could very much get into. Thank you for sharing this.

Bosa responds:

Bluegrass isn't all pick, grin, and hoedowns haha.

I'm always trying new things, and although this isn't necessarily traditional bluegrass, it was heavily inspired by the genre and its roots. I'm glad you managed to listen to it, and I hope to hear more from you musically.

-Bosa

[Epic Logic]

Impressive

I really love the feel that this piece conveyed. It was certainly something different within a conventional genre.

The mixing of the piece was damn near flawless. Well compressed and EQ'd, while still slightly heavy on the bass which is what the dance music genre calls for.

Awesome job with this piece.

kilvertm responds:

Thanks alot,
I'm glad you thought the mastering was good, took ages!

[Aerith's Theme [FFVII]]

In need of dynamics

As a fellow Edirol user, I can tell you that if you can get the piano patch note-velocity to be -20, you get a much softer sound out of the piano and not that hard, tinny sound.

The piece you have here is well done and well put together. It's just that the note velocity needs to come down to give it a softer sound that this piece needs.

CelestOrion responds:

Thanks for the input! I'll be sure to do that, and I'll re-upload it when it's fixed!

[To The Unhallowed Ground]

Very good

I use Edirol Orchestral as my main VSTi as well, but I could never get the damn thing to work in FL Studio, which is fine. I use Nuendo 4 instead.

This piece is very well layered and composed. The only thing I would say is that it could use some dynamics variation, but I'm not one to talk. That's one of my pitfalls in composing as well, for the most part, and I know that FL Studio makes note velocities a bit more difficult to work with.

Great job on the piece.

CelestOrion responds:

For Edirol Orchestral on FL Studio, import it into the VSTi folder, and add a channel. Select More, then scroll down to Orchestral. From there, you want to select what instrument will be what, and track away. ^_^ Thanks for the great review!

[{Vic} Son of Sun (rmstrd)]

Interesting piece

I really like how you've used synths to musically paint the picture that the title of the piece implies. It shows quite a bit of creative talent in you.

The piece is elaborate and well mixed/compressed.

Great job!

ZOMGBIE responds:

Thanks man. It was tough trying to expand this song and there are still some things I'm not too happy with, but I'm glad the result was satisfactory. Thanks for the review.

[Icarus - Dream of Flight]

As a fellow composer...

...I can say I greatly appreciate the work you've done here.

Your piece is full, not leaving anything to be desired in its composition. Although if I had to guess, I speculate you're natively a guitar player or have at least given some effort into playing guitar, only because I haven't known many piano players who were concerned much with modal scales.

I can hear the John Williams influence in here as much of the thematic layer of this piece sounds as though it was inspired by Williams' "Hook" score which would only be appropriate for a piece dealing with the atmosphere of flying. When you mix the jazz elements in, the piece takes more of a Noriyuki Iwadare sound (the composer to the "Grandia" games).

The mix of the piece is flawless. While I place most of my focus on the composition of my pieces, I still have much to learn in the realm of mixing to perfect my mixes. But hey, music composition/mixing in general is an ever-growing and ever-learning process.

Congratulations for creating a wonderful work of art.

sorohanro responds:

Hey, one of my favorite musician writing a review ...
I'm also a guitar player but when i started this I had trumpets in mind (intro) and the rest came by playing keys.
Thanx for the very nice review

[Dreamland]

Nice ambience

Aside from a difference in mixing style (like I would have layered reverb on the piano), this song was very well composed and executed. You guys sound good together.

therookie responds:

Thank you for those kind words ^^
I didnt have any part in the mixing though.

[Life as a Breeze]

Great song, but not so great title

Trust me, I won't say anything about the title other than that it doesn't really fit the piece at all. However, that's not to say that the piece itself isn't good quality.

The compression was well executed, and it had a nice sound to it, although the percussion solo in the middle of the piece seems a little drug out (but that could just be me). I would definitely layer just a tad more onto what you have already; it's nice. Also, set up some song structure, because the whole last half of this piece is completely in another world.

Other than that, great job.

Vertigo1986 responds:

Wow thanks for the review! this will defenitely help me out when i go back and revise it!