Rich209's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Action / SciFi trailer]

Good, but I have a few comments. The solo violin sound is a bit too harsh for me and is very hollow sounding. Its not pleasant at all on the ears, maybe try a marcato sound instead. I also think the entrance of the violin at around 1:09 seems a little off. Besides those few little negatives you got good work here. The cello sounds pretty decent and when the other strings that enter sound good as well. Overall good job.

lantaren responds:

I was going for a very hallow violin sound, harsh was pretty much the intended effect. Supposed to sound like the violin is being played very forcefully I agree that 1:09 is a bit strange, but it made the most sense out of any transition into the next phrase.

[Qingjing Jing]

Overall the piece is pretty decent, but I really think you need to add more variety to it. It sorta got boring for me after a while. Some ways you can achieve variety is adding more chord changes or adding a new rhythm. Like when you transitioned to your second section that was nice, but when you went back to the first section at around 2:45 I thought you were going to take it too a new place, but you ended up just repeating. I dunno, I don't usually listen to the "world" genre. So take my criticism with a grain of salt.

[Space Quest II]

Nice. I really liked the intro, especially the comm chatter. I wish you had included more of that throughout the piece, which I think would of given it some more charm. Otherwise the overall sound is good.

[Ocean of Loneliness]

Good work. I really like the environmental ambiance of the ocean in the background. The piano melody was nice, but one suggestion I may have is bringing down the piano an octave. The upper sound makes it pop a little too much in my opinion.

[Kim Calls]

Not too familiar with this genre, but good work! I definitely could see this being played at a party.

[My facsinationss]

The genre sounds correct and overall it sounds good, but there are several places that sounded very off to me. For example right about 1:00, the melody sounded pretty bad. The notes you picked did not mesh well at all. And since that repeats those places too. There is also some questionable synths that you've picked that do not mesh with everything else. I liked your piece, but there are just some places that do not currently work.

[Promise]

I thought it was okay. The chord progression you have here is pretty good and the content sounds original, but the instruments sound bad to me. This might just be because you lack the funds to have higher quality sounding instruments. Which is fine for now, but I think if you want to really get some listeners you need better stuff. Check out East West they have somewhat cheap quality stuff.

CeeeX responds:

I think the most painful thing is I´ve mainly used East West for this piece to make it sound so cheap x´D

[Sci-Fi Alien Opening]

Cool piece! Enjoyed it. I think there could have been a few more chord progressions to give variety, but its not a huge thing. You did the acceptable thing of just changing up the instrumentation which kept me engaged. I wish the strings were a bit louder at 1:20 though. You can barely hear them. Other than that you have a nice piece.

[Diana's Theme]

It was a okay piece. From the beginning to about 0:55 sounds off. The notes you've chosen just don't work well. Harmonically speaking its almost random at best. What I think would work better is taking your main theme and having your bass line play it at the beginning. Overall you have some really good ideas, but they just don't fit too well together. Another example is the melody that starts at 0:55. That is quite nice, but the bass sounds really bad. Maybe use pizzicato instead of those really harsh marcato notes. There are several other places where the articulations you chosen just don't seem to fit in. You have some mixing issues as well. There is almost no dynamic contrast and if you had them they could easily make your piece sounds a hundred times better despite the issues I mention earlier. Although these are my opinions and not the rule, I think they could really make this piece something special.

asid61 responds:

Thank you so much for your review!
For the beginning, I was trying to provide some kind of contrast to the main chorus, but I'll play around with the beginning and see what I can get.
I'll see how a piz. Bass line sounds. Listening to it now, I can see that they kind of blend in the with teh main lines too.
Mixing is new territory for me. I'll run a few searches and see how mixing works.
Again, thank you so much for the input!

[Knights of the Cross]

Very nice piece. Could easily see this in a Stronghold game. I also really dig the extra sound effects you added in your piece. It really helps create the world you're making with the music.

SoundChris responds:

Thanks a lot! Glad you enjoyed my little piece, my good sir :D