MaestroSorrow's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Retro Tune]

Retro slamming : D

You weren't joking with that retro feel eh?! I love it! That plucky synth is what made me think retro, I can almost imagine myself playing like world championship pong to this! Oh man, people GET OUT OF MY WAY!!!

Thats right, i'm here and proud, and a pong champion back in it's day.

That plucky synth also made me thing of the song "Popcorn", don't know if you know it, but yeah!

The break down you had at the beginning made me think of things slowing down and then these robots came in and put on some top hats and did... retro things that robots do.

Back to the song.

Your mastering and equalizing are all impressive, nothing clipped, nothing competed with each other, the synths and the sounds worked well together. You've got a lot of things morphing, changing and moving, and thats a skill I can respect, it takes work and patience and I feel you have those.

Moving onto the next pieces. Good work FoD, keep up the good work, and keep em coming!

Father-of-Death responds:

Wow!

one long review you got there pal!!!

I worked oh so hard on this piece and was scared to put it out here on NG. I didn't think it was good enough. But you made me feel good about my choice! =D

thanks alot man! this review means so so so much!!!

[High Voltage]

Impressive!

Now this beat was damn impressive!

You've got some sick SICK synths going on here. The energy coming from this piece far surpasses the other two, however with such energy I felt were some lacking points.

Equalizing, this songs synths are all over the place, I heard quite a bit of "smooshing". The bass was awesome, the guitar that came in later played a mean brutal streak. Impressive in it's nature, again the equalizing and mastering of it was off.

You remind me of my own progression, you have some very interesting, and powerful ideas, it is merely the mechanics and technical aspects of the song you are lacking.

Very nice, keep up the good fight! Keep them coming.

Striker028 responds:

yeah, this song i guess is a little too much like high voltage. next time i'm definetly going to quiet it down a bit. like i said in my other response, you definetly know your way around a song and are probably one of the best reviewers out there. you have no idea how much i appreciate ppl like you coming around and doing stuff like this (or then again, maybe u do ^_^). too bad ur thread got locked, but gl with the 1k anyways

[The Road Ahead]

Interesting

I liked the melody work here, the arpeggiated notes worked well in giving off an adventurous feel, those string chords that came later NAILED that image home. If anything, it were those string chords that finalized the image, and made the songs description true.

The percussion in this song was a tad weak, it is my only complaint. While the strings were playing the snares, hi hats, and claps disrupted the flow of the piece. I would also highly recommend reverbing those percussional notes as they do tend to perform better and sound more realistic when done so.

You've got great melody work in this one, again it was just the percussional stuff. Otherwise, I hear some pretty good potential in you!

Keep up the good fight! Keep them coming.

Striker028 responds:

Thanks dude :). I agree, since this was my first track I just used the four default instruments that FL 6 gives you when you make a new file. I wasn't too good at percussion at the time :P. I appreciate your review, and ur 5 even more XD. Thanks again for the kind words.

[Memory Lane]

Impressive!

Heh, I don't usually associate happy memories with such a nice twist of synths, but for what it's worth they do the job perfectly in portraying a carefree, happy vibe.

The mastering in this song is very well done, you have some potentially frequency raping synths (or sounds that take up a lot of space) and handle them rather well. There was some volume issues in my opinion, but nothing to the extreme, no clipping, so that was acceptable.

I felt at some points there was too much going on, but mostly it was pretty good.

I liked the sliding synths you had near the end :D. It was only there for about a second, but it was pretty good.

Nice way to end it, brittle, fragile, but intact and happy.

Ace ;).

Striker028 responds:

Once again, I appreciate your kind words. You seem to know exactly what a song needs, and that kind of knowledge comes only with experience. I can tell that you've got a lot of it. Thanks for your time!

[_-={The Metal Visage}=-_]

The story behind this song

This is perhaps the most complex story i've tried to tell via Audio, and I wanted to share this story with everybody. Of course if you don't want your images to be tainted by this story I would ask that you first tell me your own impressions (if you want to of course), before reading mind, as i'm sure the two stories would differ greatly.

The story begins with a young man waking up in a labrynth. Darkness closes in on him with only faint linings to make out for the walls and hallways. Ignoring his eyes he uses him psychic "hands" to feel his way through the labrynth. He was here to prove himself a champion to his academy. He reaches out into the darkness and feels nothing, senses nothing. He walks calmly into the labrynth.

He senses something!

It was only for a fleeting moment, but definately another presence was here. A strong presense, one that matched his strength. He begins to jog around. The presence wasn't trying to hide itself anymore, until at last with a final hit to his mind he realizes who it was.

It was somebody he didn't know, yet he knew. His mind felt familiar, but the mind was so dark, so warped and bent for destruction. It leads him, he's running until at last he finds himself in a dimly lit arena. He see's floating on the other side a person with a metal mask. No eye slits, or any other feature, just a circular metal mask to hide everything.

"Who are you?" he asks this person.

And is answered with laughter.

Suddenly mental hammers fly around our hero. Quick with both feet and mind, he reacts accordingly sending shockwaves and disarming hammers that would strike him. Both forces move around very quickly, our hero's mind frantic and filled with a fevor. Yet all he could sense behind the mask is a calm black storm brewing behind what seemed like a gate.

With a sudden blow, our hero is thrown hard against a pillar, smashing both his arm and pillar.

The masked one floats slowly to his direction and stands over him. Reaching out he lifts his brother and breaks into his mind.

"This is me, this is what they left me to become, a monster, a servant to test the accepted, and today, you have failed for the last time!"

With a swift strike the masked one takes the life of his brother and leaves the limp body at the center of the arena. They would come pick up the corpse, and he... well he would wait for their next champion.

That was the full story, I hope you enjoyed it.

MaestroRage responds:

As a last note I would like to claim that the story was in fact much larger and detailed however, with space limitation comes the need to cut and cut some more ;). Well this is still a large bulk of it, so there you go!

[Jazzy Solo]

Sweet

This is such a soft, gentle piece Soundshifter. I gotta be honest man, for battle of the bands? Don't they want highly energetic, crowd tearing apart kinda music? This is going to make people sway back and forth, hug each other and so forth. With vocals this is an excellent EXCELLENT piece.

I could hear some laid back percussionals to this, like triangle ping, maybe a wind or gentle rain sfx... man the thought gives me shivers...

otherwise really laid back and sweet. I needed a song like this, calm my nerves down. 5/5 from me SoundShifter, i'd like to invite you to listen to a piece of mine sometime ^^. Keep them coming!

Soundshifter responds:

thank you so much MaestroSorrow. i was thinking of making a full band-ish version.. which i probably will, and I'll let you know. as for the BOTBs part.. i played a similar piece last year and because it wasn't super heavy but percise.. they gave me first place lol. man thanks again :)

[The Fall and Rise of a He]

Impressive...

Hey General_Leo.

I decided to take a trip on down to your page, to see what you were up to. I feel you have alot of potential, and hearing this song, I have reaffirmed my initial thoughts.

The melodic line is really something else, I don't think i've ever really heard anything like it before.

That really fast flute trill playing in the background near the beginning of the snare segment, was quite fascinating. I realize that should it have been made louder, it may actually serve to create chaos in an otherwise fairly organized piece, so I am glad you kept it at the volume you did.

The piano's melody was what I refer to when I say it is really something else.

The flute near the beginning, before the snares, that was very pleasant also.

Lets think of some suggestions...

Well I don't think I heard spiccato strings, and I really think some short string stabs in the background playing along with melody, especially around that brass would have made it a tad bit more epic. Like for example, I felt that if you had spiccato strings instead of that piano melody when the snares came in, it may have served a great purpose, especially if you layered it with another octave of the same melody.

I swear there's a choir in there somewhere, but in the orderly chaos I cannot hear it properly, I hear it in the end when it's dying out with that piano, but I feel that is not nearly loud enough to give the song any real distinctive choir attribute.

Overall I am very very pleased with this piece General_Leo, I knew you had a flare for this kind of stuff, and it really showed through this piece. Great stuff.

easily a 5/5 from me, keep them coming!

LoneEagle responds:

Hey Maestro, i guess you beat me to it... i didn't really have a chance of sending you that PM lol.

The very fast flute was very hard to make. It was one of the final things i added to the song. Seemed to me like the brass and piano wouldn't make it alone and that it needed a litte something extra in the background.

The piano melody is really something else? In what way i'd like to know... i find it quite basic you know, just to give the song some structure and order.

You are right about the spicatto strings... hmm is spicatto the same as "pizzicato" strings? Cause i tried to put some pizzicato strings in there but i couldn't find the place.

Yes there is a choir in this, i can hear it pretty clearly from my speakers though. There is choir in the scond half of the song between the 2 brass segments and also at the end like you mentioned.

I am very pleased also with how this song turned out. Lol i don't have a "flare" for this... watch out!! it's an orchestral piece!
*shoots flare gun and calls for help

Thanks alot for the vote/review and especially the nice comments :D

[G0RtH & G-Rave - Dark Harmon1x]

Impressive

damn fine! Both of you did an incredible job. I really liked it. Sounds pretty phat, I assume that was G-Rave's doing, the man's a phat loving bastard ;).

The melody worked damn fine, everything flowed perfectly. I have little to say about this song that doesn't classify as ranting. SO yeah, i'll stop here.

Easily a 5/5 from me. Good work guys.

G0RtH responds:

Wow.... Thanks ^_^

[smooth house]

Neat.

hello Gobrowns1

I can see that you're abundent experience in making ambiant music has leaked out to this song. This song sounds much more ambiant then house, I think increasing the tempo, and mixing it up melodic wise, making that kick louder would have been good starts to making it a great house song.

The percussional beat was good, not the best, but pretty fine.

I'm sorry if these suggestions don't make any sense, i'm dominent in instrumental music myself, so I don't really know as much about house and electronic music as mich as I would like to.

The melody was a tad bland, thats what made me think that ambiant over house, for sure you need better melodies.

I would like to ask you to listen to my new track under the alias MaestroRage
http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/view.php?id=1714459

That is one of my better melodic tracks, I hope you'll listen and see what I mean. I'm not saying this song needs melody like that, but I do feel a better melodic lead would be better.

I'm fiving these songs, their scores are too low for what I feel they are worth.

Keep them coming gobrowns1

gobrowns1 responds:

thx dude... i kind of rushed this song... i know the melodey could be better...not housish enough...im working on some new " lounge " it be out in a few days i hope you check it out

[Lava Pirahna - Tribal Rock]

Neat

Hey DSMagnum.

Quite a song you have up here. I like the guitars, but I wonder, if adding more distortion to them would be better. The guitars sound like Hyper Canvas VST. Am I correct?

I like the feel of the song, flows quite well, and if i'm not mistaken it loops pretty good too.

The song feels a tad empty though, I would have liked to hear some kind of background support, either from strings, or some pads, just to fill in the silence you know.

Have you also considered using the reverb effects? I think the reverb would have worked great in this song.

Still excellent piece. May I ask you to listen to my new track under the alias MaestroRage
http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/view.php?id=1714459
I used reverb alot in that piece, I hope you will see the kind of effects reverb can have on songs.

4/5 from me DSMagnum, keep them coming!

DSMagnum responds:

The guitars are some that I made from a preset guitar in Garageband. I have tried adding distortion, but that would mean I would have to give something up. I could try something though.

As for background support, I only really focused on the drums and the bass. Those were the only things I was concerned about. I'll consider that in my next piece.

I have used reverb before, but I rarely have it very high. I normally keep the echo and reverb in my songs low.

About your new piece, I saw it the other day, and I quite liked it. I'll drop a review for you.

Thanks for the wonderful review! I'll keep what you said at mind.