Setu-Firestorm's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[The Wizards Tower]

Very nice!

Loved the pizzicato strings with the woodwinds. The glockenspiel is one of my favorite instruments for carrying that "magical" sound.

Concerning your tutti, it does have a slightly hollow sound. In listening closely, it does sound as though you have most registers filled. I would check to make your your cellos and basses are an octave apart and not in unison. I can hear your trombone triads, but their volume is very low. Throughout most of the tuttis, you have many instruments playing octave melody, which is pulling away from the harmony a bit. Believe me when I say that this sort of thing is what I find frustrating in orchestration myself. You want a melody that sounds strong with many the instruments playing it, but you need some nice strong harmonic triads to bring out the harmony more.

I would probably not have the tubas and upper trombones playing the melody too; I would keep them strictly in harmony so you buy back some of that support power in the bass. Really all you need for the melody are the violins, flutes, and probably some forte horns.

That's just my opinion, anyway, based on my style of composing. What you have here sounds great!

[PF4- Reflect.]

Very interesting composition

You have a very good sense of melody. Furthermore, I like the way that you changed up the inversions of your chords in the chord progression so they wouldn't have the same conventional root-inversion sound.

Later on, you have a very nice finesse with both hands together, which in a flowing legato piece is not always seen...at least not in most contemporary pieces.

I just feel this piece could have been a bit longer. Other than that, great composition!

Calamaistr responds:

Thanks, most of my piano music comes from the heart, not from the hand im afraid (need to be honest here :) ) though i can play the piano i composed these tracks in fl9 unless otherwise stated, dont know if that makes it worse or better..
;)
(if its any consolation, most tracks i make in fl9 i can play live if i needed to)

Thanks for your review and thanks for the compliments.

greets -cal.

[Solar 2 - Mind Over Metal]

Flawless in every way

This piece has a very professional caliber to it. The composition is interesting, has a very J-rock inspired sound to it while being independently interesting. The mix is even perfect throughout.

[[TA] A Matter of Time]

Nice composition, rough mix

While I'm digging the composition you have here, the mix needs work. It sounds, though I could be wrong, that the drums are all one track that had the same compression added to them, which generally results in a muddy blend of drums.

My suggestion would be to always mix your drums from MIDI to audio separately (one channel for the Kick, one for Snare, one for Hats, one for Cymbals, and one for Toms). It does create a little more work, but hearing compressed drum tracks sounding independently altogether gives a much cleaner sound. I also tend to add slight reverb to only the Snare.

The guitars are mixed alright, but I would put a slight limiter on them to cap off certain frequencies.

By the time the piano came in, everything sounded like a great big puddle of mud, and I say that as respectfully as I can. There's nothing wrong with your music; it's just the mix that needs attention.

The composition is great; I especially like the lead you have going into the beginning.

thunderboltAutopsy responds:

Yeah, it is only one track of drums. GP6 doesn't like it when you have too many tracks so I never really worked that way. I'll definitely give it a try, though, and see how it works out. I've always had trouble with mixing - GP wasn't originally designed to make nice sounding songs but rather to write tabs - but I'll seriously consider your advice in the future.

Thanks for reviewing!

[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

[The Drifter's Tale]

Very well composed

According to your NG profile, I deduce that you've at least been composing for a year. What you have here is actually quite incredible given that circumstance. I did not have multiple instrument tracks in my pieces until I'd been composing for at least 3 years. Until that time, I was mostly just doing piano pieces afraid that I would fail at orchestration because I lacked experience and knowledge in it.

This is where you started already digging in. Not only does this piece exhibit musical competence and coherence, but it shows that you have the gift of knowing what you want to hear and are in the process of learning what tools you have to work with to make it happen.

For you, my friend, I would say all you need is to keep doing what you're doing, and the longer you go at composing, the more you'll try new things and experiment, and you'll begin to hear your pieces evolve into full orchestral scores.

[Battle of Supremacy]

Good Work

For its genre, it works pretty well. It seems more "drum-n-bass" with a string lead than a classical piece that happens to have some electro-styled synths and drums.
The piece sounds more suited for an action sequence than an actual definitive battle (which is what the title somewhat implies, but that's just a matter of interpretation).

What I would do, and this is just me, is layer in more instrumentation. Maybe some french horns to either add some lower strength or to complement the string lead you have going on. This piece could be meatier with some more instruments, but again, that's just a preference in composition process. This piece is very good standing alone by itself.

Keep up the good work!

[Sunset July]

Very nicely done

This is the first time I've come across your music on here, and I'm already quite impressed. You know how to create an ambience without compromising by layering things out of place.

The mixing is very good as well.

Very well executed.