Thetageist's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Corpse Moth]

Man, this is intense. It’s got a great mix of horror soundtrack and avant-garde contemporary classical. Seems like you’ve got a good grasp of knowing both the standard rules of music and how to break them well. Nice work!

LD-W responds:

Ayy thanks!

This was one of my earlier orchestrations, mostly just having a fun time messing around with different approaches etc. At some point, I'm keen on doing a much more up-to-date counterpart as an evolution of the idea of this track.

[Ahh]

You’ve got a song called “Ahh”? I’ve got a song called “AAH”! I’ve gotta take a look at this one!

I love the instrumentation, but I agree with @Dynamic0 - it could benefit from a melody being introduced somewhere in the buildup. I also expected the buildup to lead somewhere, like a bass drop type of thing followed by a more intense section. Since this is an experimental track, I get that you didn’t quite know where it was going, but I think it’s got potential and you should definitely revisit it!

seeko29 responds:

Yeah..I don't know how to make beat drops...I didn't know that I was a making a buildup, I'm kinda new to making music, maybe this does have some potential! The problem is, this was made in Beepbox, and when you save a file, I can't really get it back to add something to the saved song, but, oh well.

[Work in progress (Now changed.)]

Definitely still a work in progress, but you’ve got a good sense of rhythm! I’d suggest you modify the EQ (probably take down the treble) and mixing to have a less grating sound before you begin, though.

seeko29 responds:

Okay then, thanks for the review, mate!

[SquigglyVA Demo Reel]

The troll scream made me almost laugh out loud in public. Well done! You’ve got a great and expressive range of character voices!

SquigglyVA responds:

Thanks so much! Always a good time when I get to go goblin mode!

[The Megastructure]

Sounds amazing! How do you create ambient stuff? That's one of those things I struggle with.

MechanicalMantis responds:

Thank you so much, this was made in vcv rack with some ambient modules. Vcv rack is a really cool playground for this sort of stuff!

[2017 Demo Reel]

Pretty good! I love the addition of the grunts, coughs, and wheezes - these were all executed very well! The lower voice needs some work, but otherwise, really great demo! If you’re still active, I’d love to have you as part of a collab project I’m working on.

rebekahamberclark responds:

Thank you! :) I've sent you a PM.

[Biscuits and Gravy With Elon Musk]

I didn't know you did voice acting! I happened to see your name in the Fashion Police credits and started looking for a demo reel.

You should post a demo reel of character voices or something, just to show some of the different things you can do. I'm trying to search for voice actresses for a project, and that'd help me figure out if you'd be a good match for any of the characters!

Anyway, the delivery of this is great, and I love the humor in the script.

DrSevenSeizeMD responds:

All I have right now is an awful blue yeti mic. I just ordered a brand new XLR that I ran by @VoicesByCorey first and he approved! So I'm hoping I can do more voices work soon and it will be better quality.

[Frebb OST: Spin to Win]

I like the concept behind this, though I feel like it could be made more compositionally strong - at this point, I'd rank it below Palmtree Path.

Some of the parts of this feel a bit generic, samey, and/or underdeveloped, and I feel like they'd benefit from the introduction of an overarching melody, a little harmonic fleshing-out (instead of the background instruments being in unison all the time) and differentiation between different sections - perhaps a modulation is in order? The sax part starting at 00:08 also sounds a little random and incongruous, with notes that stick out as weird to me.

What'd you use for this, out of curiosity? I love the percussion, by the way.

AlmyriganHero responds:

Honestly my biggest regret with Frebbventure's soundtrack is just that I pushed myself to make a new theme for basically every level and major character battle. I feel like it all works decently enough as ambient noise when paired with the often dense and atmospheric visual style, but I might've been better off putting more time into developing a smaller set of themes. I haven't counted, but there has to be 100+ tracks at this point (at least if we're counting the time and effort that went into unused ones.)

As for my program, I use the Windows version of LMMS. It was what a friend recommended to me a long, long time ago.

[Golden Hour Lament]

Beautiful composition! It definitely conveys that sense of peacefulness and deep emotion, which is something I don't think is easy to get right.

Tiny nitpick: Do your string and flute VSTs support different articulations (slurring, etc)? If not, I'd recommend finding some from Spitfire - they have a cool function where you can switch between different articulations easily just using out-of-range notes in the MIDI. I think using those might make it sound a bit more natural.

GlowBoyMusic responds:

it dooooes but doesn’t do those things right. (Yikes.) I will be investing in waaaay better strings as well as tools over the year. I am working with the little things I have at the moment, but eventually I will big stuff up when I can!

— Glow

[Supernova]

Absolutely love the mixing of different textures! Definitely gives the spacey vibe you're looking for.

Tiny nitpick: I think the high melody instrument around 00:57 sometimes isn't 100% on the beat and it feels a bit incongruous with the rest.

GlowBoyMusic responds:

Thank you for the review! I shall keep the last bit in mind! To be fair, there was a slight delay in the recording that couldn’t be patched out properly, but its close enough! (I need more VSTs…)

—Glow