stunkel's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[An Augmented Infiltration]

I was listening to this for a while before I realized it was a loop. So that means you had a great loop :p The song sounds really awesome dude. I love the epic cyberpunk electro sounds (not sure what to call them DX) But I love this dude. Great work!

Neon-Bard responds:

Thanks dude! Initially this wasn't going to be a loop, but after a while of listening to it I liked the idea of looping the song so that it feels like a constant 'action' sequence!

[From The Heart]

Here goes your review :3

The first part of the song is smooth and relaxing. The melody that starts at 0:24 with the fast piano, this is just me, but I think this is where you need a more defining melody. It isn't much of a melody or a hook... It needs something bigger and catchier. From the piano electronic style I assume you were going for, you would need something bigger.

This song would really improve from some structural changes. Structure can be the most important part of a song. Your song is obviously building the entire time just about, but it needs build up much faster and to get to a much bigger point. It builds up slowly enough where it feels like background music. You also should try adding some variety to the song, it was building for sure, but it needs a little variety. I think you could keep the same style you had here, but maybe add more instruments. Be creative! Add some arpeggiating staccato strings! Add some chimes! The song can be a little bland at times so adding in little grace notes with a smooth piano melody.

The song stays at one level just about the entire time. It's almost always at a medium level of epicness the entire song. Try dropping the instruments and go into some solo piano part, go into a sad part. Or build it up a bit more to make it more suspenseful. Make your listeners get chills when they listen to your music. When it stays on a medium level, you aren't showing how diverse you really are.

I'm not sure if that was as long of a review as you wanted, but there you go :P Just some things this song could improve from. Nice work though!

3.5/5 star review
5/5 star rating

-Stunkel

JJM121 responds:

Thanks a lot for taking the time to write this. :D And yeah, I still have a lot to improve with structuring and trying to integrate multiple emotions. That was some really good insight on what had to be improved.

Though, I was kinda going for a slow, emotional song to express who I am but it could use more tuning as always.

Thanks again, stunkel. I really really appreciate it. ^^

[The Empire]

Well, you managed to make something kickass again... lots of dynamics and change ups in emotions. It has a the "Samulis" feel to it :P It has a few repeating themes which I really enjoyed. I don't really have any complaints. The only thing I would say. IF ANYTHING, is to maybe let the song go on a little bit longer so the bells or whatever sustained instruments were playing would ring out a bit more. It sort of just cut out the ringing abruptly. Yeah that's the littlest bit of feedback i can give haha, nice work man. And good luck in the contest :D

samulis responds:

Hehe, yeah... At that point I was pretty much fed up with trying to export the finale... :/

Thanks for the review, man! Good luck with your entry.

[Begin Questing]

Traiangles are the best in my oponion too

But I would have liked to hear more piano

DahDoctow responds:

thanks for the happy

[Village Folk]

Small Village Butt.

DahDoctow responds:

hi ,

[~SW~ Astral Nation]

Well, everyone is posting incredibly long reviews on here, so I'll do my best to live up to what they have written. I don't leave reviews very often so sorry if it's not so structured or too much babbling and having no flow. But here it goes!

This song is interesting, you decided to create a story or some sort of score with each part of the song. Pretty original idea, kinda inspires me to write something like that... And for the most part I could imagine the vague (not a bad thing!) storyboard of the song. First hearing this song, Steps "Ecosystem" came to mind instantly for some reason. I'm not sure if that forced this on me, but I felt like it made this song feel more jungly than anything, and I think it was the use of instruments that lead me to that, but again, that's just me. Particularly at 0:40, I guess I just imagined it to be a little less tribal, and more of a development phase. Not exactly sure, but it really isn't that big of a deal to go on about it.

Now what is just awesome about this song, is that it has so much damn variety! I can find so many genres in this. I feel secret agent, jungle, tribal, future... just too many to name. Just the amount of different instruments and variety... just awesome. And being diverse is a great thing to apply to your music, so nice on that :3 I was a little surprised when you said you only used 38 tracks... I know that already is a lot, but by how many different parts to the song there are, I expected way more. But that doesn't matter, it all sounds awesome and the little stuff like that means nothing :P

Now this song is just a masterpiece of a story. And I hate being critical after you spent a whopping almost 86 hours on a piece?!?! (WHAT?!) But there are some parts where the emotions could be a little stronger, I know that isn't what you were going for exactly since you had the story in mind. It only occurred in certain parts, but I didn't really feel the song hitting me so hard in that sense. It would have been nice if I was moved more by the melodies.

Now I'm just gonna babble on some random stuff that I enjoyed. Instruments are awesome, dynamics are awesome, so many ups and downs with the song and so much space and room for the imagination to explore. So much diversity, so much... so much... EVERYTHING! You have captured just about everything a song needs to be.

Soooooo overall, great work, just some minor tweaks, but they were all opinion based so it might just be totally biased to what I look for in a song. And good luck in the Dreams of Splendor contest, you will be a very tough competitor!

4.5/5 stars
5 star vote

-Stunkel

SkyeWint responds:

Hey there! I'm a bit too tired to respond in depth to your review, but I'll respond to what I can think about.

Not surprised it reminds you of Ecosystem initially - that part is based off of Ecosystem.

Only 38 tracks? xD ONLY? That's as if I said "only 86 hours" - I normally only have something like 12 max. Keep in mind though, that's not all the percussive instruments. The sounds at about 3:18 or so are all grouped, so is the orchestral percussion.

Yes almost 86 hours. Want a screenshot? I'm totally fine with criticism though, that's great. I'd love to know what parts you thought could use stronger emotion. Personal stuff is still useful to know even if I disagree with it.

Thanks for the great review! (yes it was great)

[As The Phoenix Rises]

Wow. This is awesome man. Glad you managed to pull off a song like this for Dreams of Splendor! From what I have heard, this very well might be your best song yet. Love those small build ups and the overall theme of the song. Very well mixed and very powerful. Again, those East west instruments are just awesome. The ending was just gorgeous, your instrumentation is just truly awesome. The only complaint I have is that it seems to build up a little too much in the song. It's always going up (I do the same exact thing, it's hard to resist) but a little bit more dynamics like dropping all of the instruments and then going back up into a build. Awesome work though dude. And best of luck in Dreams of Splendor!

Neon-Bard responds:

Thanks! I'm glad I was able to as well! :)

It's good to know that it was mixed appropriately and that is had power to it. That to me means that I was able to show, through music, what I was feeling. The ending was something I struggled with at first, so I'm glad you think it had some beauty to it.

As for the constant build-up...I would have to agree with you. I think my emotions overtook the basics of song structuring, and I ended up wanting things to get bigger and more astonishing to show my revelation. Unfortunately, it became the backbone of the song in terms of theme and so forth, which isn't necessarily a bad thing...but I could have added more variation by dropping certain volumes or removing instruments accordingly.

Again, thanks for listening and for the review. It means a lot! :)

[End of January]

Nice work man. Sorry you were in such a slum :/ Glad that you feel a bit better now though! this sounds very melancholy with a hint of winter. Very unique environment you give off. Love the sound you give off. And again, EWSO sounds amazing :P Great use of it. Nice work man

Neon-Bard responds:

Thanks! Yeah I'm glad I'm out of that, thankfully though I pulled through. Looking back on making this, I think I was more focused on making a melancholy sound than a sad one, despite being quite upset. Anyway, I'm glad you thought it had a 'unique' environment to it, that's always great to hear! :)

[Great Heights]

Epic work dude :D Love the Drum N Bass and Orchestral combo. That solo violin is awesome. Drum fills and piano are great in the song. Glad to see you did some orchestral stuff, it turned out to be really awesome. There is a nice full sound throughout the entire song and I think you really nailed this one. Good luck in the Dreams of Splendor contest dude. Awesome work :D

ChasingPresence responds:

Why thank you, good luck to you to :)

[Horizon]

Nice work man! :D

Geoplex responds:

Thanks :3