AndrewRG's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Like a Boss(Brostep)]

Hey MrKle1n,

Fun song and interesting to listen to. I have to admit, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me musically, though. I'll throw out a couple suggestions that I would like to see for your piece here:

1.) The percussion sounds out of sync at the beginning and in places throughout the track.
2.) I can't tell what key the song is in - try figuring out a chord progression and melody that stays within a certain scale.

Like I said, it sounds a little weird, but it was fun to listen to. I do like many of your choices as far as samples. Your 'wubs' sound decent too. I hear potential in you. =)

R4R

[A Rural Village Afternoon]

That's quite a good sound for Finale. I'm going to have to look into the VS library.

Very nice piece. I can visualize it being used exactly how you suggest.
No real criticisms. I might suggest bringing down the volume of the strings just slightly in a couple of the most dramatic areas, but I do very much like your use of dynamics. It's not too melodic that it would get annoying listening to loop-after-loop in a video game. Good use of dissonance and chord structure.

LeoMDK responds:

Hey, thanks for the rating/feedback ... I got a selection of VSL instruments included when i bought Komplete 9 ... they include enough to build a standard orchestra, which is nice. Finale works well with VSL instruments when you use the keyswitch library made by a user (they are available at the VSL website under "user area"/"needful things". The VSL instruments and the user-made articulation keyswitch library make Finale sound much better. The only frustration I have with Finale right now is the company's reluctance to make FInale a native 64-bit program, so I still have to mix Garritan instruments into the orchestra where I can in order to save RAM.

As for the piece itself, I tried to use dissonant chords & mixed-meter/syncopation to create interest while keeping the melody fairly simple and almost secondary.

I'll consider the string volume ... maybe the volume is a bit distracting for a background loop?

[Final Fantasy VII Theme]

Hey CelestOrion,

Very good arrangement! I'm curious what software you used for this.

My only criticism would be that it could use an overall rebalancing in terms of volume and dynamics - especially with the strings. There are a few instruments missing - brass and harp licks, etc.

I would appreciate your criticism on my arrangement of this. Good to see someone else has arranged this song!

CelestOrion responds:

I perfectly agree with you. It definitely is missing some touches that I never got around to adding. This is one of the first tunes that I did getting into digital arrangement, so it really doesn't hold a candle to some of my later works, but glad to know that you did like what was present!