Another awesome piece. I'm going to say something more substantive here because I copped out on my last review hahahah
This song is just filled with a lot of awesome ideas. I'm going to list my favorite here: The end of the melody at :27 really caught me, because it seems like it's directionless but then it is justified really nicely at the end. Dat arp at :41 !!! (Reminds me of gerudo valley from OoT!) The beautiful higher range piano at 1:08.
Minor nitpicks. The piano seems to have been EQ'd weirdly, like it has no bass at all. I think with some more powerful bass this would be a little better. It's really quiet, just crank up the gain somewhere.
Slightly more substantive thoughts: Well, you called it jumpy because of the left hand, but I actually feel like jumpy adequately describes the entire piece, which may not be a good thing. It feels like it moves between great ideas a little too fast, like an overenthusiastic friend excited to show me things - I almost don't have enough time to appreciate the last thing by the time I get to the next one. Also, the great ideas are scattered in with some ideas that aren't quite as great.
I think this is an easy thing to fix - just make the song a little more repetitive! (How often have I given that advice?) If you were to repeat your good ideas, I think the song would flow better. I also have this problem where you're going between moods too fast, like it goes from sad -> mysterious -> open and happy and then back in any variation really rapidly. Allowing repetition to stretch out the arrangement of the song could help here, too.
The other thing I wanted to point out is that the chord progression is quite tricky to get a grasp on. Actually, now that I relisten, there is no repeating chord progression! Maybe this is why I was having a problem... haha. I guess it's again a problem of lack of repetition then...
Anywho... great work. I complained a lot but really (as evidenced by my score) I think the piece is great and your composition is really inventive. This puts you solidly on my list of people to keep an eye out for ;-)
=> Yeah, I like that place too; when I came up with it (quite long ago now) I remember being pretty happy with it.
"Dat arp at :41 !!! (Reminds me of gerudo valley from OoT!)"
=> That is probably my favorite part! I love Gerudo Valley, so it might be that some element of it has snuck into this piece :D
"The beautiful higher range piano at 1:08"
=> It's funny that you like this part, since it is actually one of the worse parts imo, but that might be because of the poor mixing :D
"Well, you called it jumpy because of the left hand, but I actually feel like jumpy adequately describes the entire piece, which may not be a good thing. It feels like it moves between great ideas a little too fast, like an overenthusiastic friend excited to show me things - I almost don't have enough time to appreciate the last thing by the time I get to the next one. Also, the great ideas are scattered in with some ideas that aren't quite as great."
=> I agree with you on every point. The fact that the transitions are so sudden and that the song lacks repetitivity are also reasons for the composition's name :) When I made this song, I spent no time on caring about actual arrangement, I just let my hands follow their own will, and took every idea they gave me without qustion (tip: one shouldn't always do this). Ofc, that is just running away from the criticism haha :D
"I think this is an easy thing to fix - just make the song a little more repetitive! "
=> You know, with all the different parts in this song, I could at least double, probably triple the length of this song, without it getting too iterative. I mean, the beginning is never brought back! The only things that repeat, are 1: that jumpy left hand. 2. that odd transition at 0:50 and at the very end. I might follow your advice and expand upon this some day!
And yes, I've noticed from the previous reviews that the mood switches very abruptly too! I actually had some difficulty realizing this myself, since I wasn't really (if I recall correctly) in any special mood when I made this song; I was simply feeling creative. So whenever I listen to this song, the only thing going through my head is: oh, it's this song. That is almost sad... This might be a good song for people with short attention spans though XD?
"Minor nitpicks. The piano seems to have been EQ'd weirdly, like it has no bass at all. I think with some more powerful bass this would be a little better. It's really quiet, just crank up the gain somewhere."
=> Actually I don't think it's the EQ, I think it's some other thing I used (Probably too much air and too little bass in UpStereo). What I should have done though, is EQ the lower register of the song, so you're still right. I didn't think about it, but now that you mention it, there is pretty much no real bass sound in this :D
"The other thing I wanted to point out is that the chord progression is quite tricky to get a grasp on. Actually, now that I relisten, there is no repeating chord progression! Maybe this is why I was having a problem... haha. I guess it's again a problem of lack of repetition then..."
=> Oh, you noticed :D Well, almost. There is actually some hidden repeted chord progression, but it's pretty subtle. Well, if one wants to be nitpicky, many of them are variations of the same chord. That is, F might be replaced with F7 or so on.
In the beginning this progression is played twice: D minor, Bb (flat, I mean), C, F and A. However, the time given to each chord varies a little. If you count the right hand you might make those chords D minor add 9, and so on, giving the illusion of no progression.
Using the same rule, the one progression that repeats the most is: D, Eb, F and Gm.
The only other progression that repeats is: Gm, Eb, F, D.
All the other parts use those same chords as well, and the A is completely forgotten D: Which is dumb, because some A's would really be cool >:( Well, at one point there is an Ab, but that doesn't even fit too well!!!
Ha, now who is rambling XD Sorry for that, I went slightly off topic. Also, there are better ways of explaining that, but my knowledge about music theory is very lacking :)
I'm being even more nitpicky than you! Basically, you are right. There is not much repeting chord progression in this song :'D
"Anywho... great work. I complained a lot but really (as evidenced by my score) I think the piece is great and your composition is really inventive. This puts you solidly on my list of people to keep an eye out for ;-)"
=> Wow, thank you so much, I really appreciate it! I don't really see it as complaining, since you were right about every "complaint" as well! I'm glad to see that you enjoy the odd music that I produce! And sorry for the long reply... When I start writing, I don't easily stop :)
Man this is even better than my piece. I feel like I should write a lot here because you usually write a good deal but honestly its just great and I can't say too much more. I regret not coming by earlier.
You play piano really well btw. 5 years paid off. :D
Heyyyy!!!
Thanks for checking my stuff out, and for writing a review! It's much appreciated :D
"Better than my piece."
=> Then again, your piece was a real improvisation! This song was simply based on one, so I could think much more about how I wanted things to sound. Also, I actually like Snowy Night more than I like my composition. The melody in your song is much better imo :p
"I feel like I should write a lot ... it's just great"
=> First of all, thank you! And I'm just happy you decided to drop by! It's not easy to write reviews for all kinds of songs, and I often find that piano music is one of the most difficult 'genres' to write long reviews for :)
"I regret not coming by earlier"
=> Well there's no need to do that :') I was happily surprised to see a review from you now, so the time doesn't really matter ;)
Aside from that, thanks once more for complimenting my piano skills; I too think that the years of playing have paid off :'D
This is actually amazing for your first month of writing music. The biggest problem currently is there is way too much reverb spread through the mix, making the whole song muddy. Turn down the reverb and you should be solid. Also I don't like the piano, go download PIano One (it's free!).
The chord progression is really solid and edgy/dancy and I really like how you automate the sustain on the chords to open it up and then close it, makes the song feel like it's constantly evolving. Really nice chip arps in places that add a lot too. Overall really amazing for your first month, keep at it dude!
Yeah after that initial buildup (which is great btw) you're expecting to drop into something faster, but the drop is actually pretty slow and comparatively much emptier than the build. Once we get into like 1:00 it's pretty awesome though, maybe you could just drop directly into that?
I like all the detail work with the hats and speedy percussion.
My main complaint is that it's quite repetitive. After the first build and drop into about 1:30 I feel like I've heard the whole song, and then it just repeats the stuff I've already heard. Why not just cut it into a 2 minute song and be done with it?
Overall the use of samples and stuff was pretty awesome, I love the 1:10 section a lot. This song really just needs a little work on the arrangement to be awesome.
This is amazing. The composition is so so so great. For some reason I'm getting final fantasy vibes a little, it has that dark moody jrpg vibe a little.
The only reason I didn't give it a 10 is because the middle section with the arps felt a little mechanical and technical and jarred from the really emotional feel of the opening and final sections.
I think the melody IS better than some of the melodies from other tracks I've listened to from you. Of course, better doesn't mean best. KEEP WORKING >:D
I like all of the sound effects, I think you're doing a good job at getting dat ocean feel. My biggest problem is that I don't think this track coheres very well for some reason. I think that part of the problem is that the kick is so much louder than the rest of the track and it's knocking me off every time I hear it. The melody could be a lot louder too (perhaps on a instrument with 100% sustain?).
Still though I think it is a step up, so good job.
I think our tastes are very different in judging a melody. It seems like you pay attention to the emotion, while I pay attention to the catchiness or pleasurableness.
The kick does not bother me at all, but I understand this complaint since it's by far the loudest instrument in the mixer. I will work on balancing the kick more next time.
I disagree that the melody should have been louder because my goal was to make a song with a powerful drumbeat on top of a melodic atmosphere.
Ahah "Nostalgia Dreams" is an amazing name for a song. (It's so good that I want to make a song called nostalgic dreams now.) This, however, sounds nothing like nostalgic dreams. It sounds like I'm awake and excited! :D
So lets get the good stuff out of the way so that I can complain more. I love complaining. The composition is pretty great overall. I like the overall melody and the final coda thing at the end is excellent in that we've been building towards it the whole time. It feels like a coherent and complete song, not just a string of different ideas (which I sorta said last time).
Honestly I only care about composition and melody and arrangement, so you're pretty much good. (You can think of the first 4 stars as for composition and the final one as for technical stuff, even though that's not true.) Still, there are a lot of technical problems with this song which detract from my enjoyment of the composition, so let's just go through the technical side and I'll point out some offenders.
Mixing: The beat sorta disappears towards the end. Cranking up the beat and making everything else a little quiet is probably the single biggest single thing you could do to improve this song.
Piano at 1:34: You should to vary the velocities on the notes. Right now it sounds like a robot is playing it, which is bad. Tweak the velocities to make it sound like a human is playing it. It sounds simple (and it is simple) but, if done right, it will add SO MUCH expressivity to the piano. I was amazed the first time I did it.
Trumpet sounds fake. I don't blame you. I never use trumpets because good trumpet soundfonts (that don't cost millions) are practically nonexistent.
Song sounds disjointed. This is a big one, so pay attention. Currently when people listen to this song they can't get into it, because it kinda jerks you around. This means you should work on your transitions. Consider the transition at 1:29. There's no indication that a transition is coming up at all, and then suddenly boom crash and a new instrument. This is really jarring. Put in a little drum fill before 1:29, or do some sort of lead in into the new section, and the transition will flow much better. Do this throughout the entire song and it will flow way better and be easier to get into the groove of. (If you want more on transitions, go talk to SkyeWintrest lolz.)
Too many instruments moving at the same time: Am I really about to tell someone they have too many melodies when I do even worse things in my own songs? Answer: yes. hahahah. Passages like 1:38 feel very 'unstable' (describing music is hard) because so many instruments are moving simultaneously. If you made the bass simpler I think the whole thing would 'stabilize'. Usually when I want many melodies going at the same time I follow some rules:
1. One focal point - It should be pretty obvious which melody you want your listener to follow, because it's the loudest. The rest should be quieter.
2. "weaving" - make one melody have gaps in it, and then bring in the other melody during those gaps. You don't have to do this, but it helps.
3. separation - Don't put two different simultaneous melodies too close to each other in frequency - they should never overlap. e.g. 1:33 in this song. Though there isn't a noticeable problem with overlap, they are still too close and it's a problem.
4. Panning. Use it. You could make some of your sections a lot more comprehensible by panning the instruments left/right. Definitely by the end it's practically impossible to tell what any individual instrument is saying because they're all overlapping. Panning can help.
So like I said... it's filled with technical problems, but the melodic and compositional side of things is strong. I think if you work at it for like 6 months or a year or something you could work through the technical problems and be writing REALLY good stuff. (I hope that's not, uh, discouraging or anything. Music takes work, but it's luckily a lot of fun too.)
(Composition -> This is prob why Steampianist likes you. Ordinary non-musicians can't really hear past mixing errors, so if they listen to a poorly mixed song they won't be able to understand it. But good musicians like steampianist can sorta hear the intent behind a song. You have good intent but bad mix. A lot of people have bad intent but good mix, but it's much easier to fix mixing than composition imo, so you're in a good position. ...I'm rambling a little bit here.)
Holy crap. Dat review. Well, let's take it from the top!
=> Nostalgic Dreams => Aha... yeah... it's not TECHNICALLY mine. Heh. Now I feel ashamed, sorta. http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=32208 <-It's from a game called Magic: The Gathering. Whoops. I think I gave "credit" in the audio file under the lyrics section, though. I named it as such because I was listening to it on a loop, trying to figure out a melody to add to it (which I'm not too good at). Anyways, I fell asleep and had this one dream that I hadn't had since early childhood. It reminded me of that card, so I knew I had my name. I get that it probably doesn't work for everyone, but I enjoy my little hidden details that not everyone gets.
=> Good stuff etc. => Thanks! I'm glad I improved under your standards as well as mine.
=> Mixing => Really? Most of the time, my drum beats are WAY too loud. This time, I used a slightly different approach to the drums and I get two comments chastising it. I'll take that under consideration.
=> Piano at 1:34 => Funnily, I did try and do a bit of velocity stuff, just not so much in sections such as that one. Next time I do something like this, I'm definitely going to thoroughly analyze the dynamics of piano music, since whatever I'm doing, it can easily be better. I see it too.
=> Trumpet => Okay, less trumpets. Noted.
=> Disjointed => Transitions are definitely something to work on. I never had very much formal training in music and all that (which is why I tend to make comments very un-terminologically (pretty sure that wasn't a word)), so I'm not that good at adjusting the various nuances of my pieces that would really make it work together. Most of my knowledge of good composition and good mixing comes from reading reviews such as this one, although almost never on my own work. Thanks again for that, by the way.
=> Melodies =>
• => Focal Point => The melody thing here was a bit experimental, seeing as I'm not that good at melodies anyways and I was trying something new. The focal point thing is what I normally do.
• => Weaving => I've never tried that before. Sounds like something fun to attempt in a future piece.
• => Separation => Interesting. I'm going to change something in the song I'm currently working on for this.
• => Panning => Well, you're the master. Panning is especially effective when I'm having a rough day and just need to lie down, close my eyes, listen to some music, and relax. Panning is not at all effective when I'm doing something else at the same time as listening to music, have one earphone and the other out, and miss half the song. Since I do the latter a bit more than the former, I don't do that much panning in my music. I guess it really fits the mood of the song. However, I'll definitely try and implement it in later music.
Do you really analyze your melodies and music this much while making it? I feel humbled by the process through which you make music.
=> So like you said... + Composition => Oh, that's not discouraging at all! I plan on making music for a lot longer than 6 months or a year. Thanks for the dash of hope. For some reason, whenever I begin to work on something, an authority figure always goes "You're doing one thing right and one thing wrong. However, it's lucky that the one thing you're doing wrong is a lot easier to correct that the one thing you're doing right." Is it just me, or does anyone else get that as well?
Thanks a ton for the ultracomment, johnfn! I really will take your words to heart and see if I can please you and everyone else a bit more with my next few pieces.
I felt so bad that I made you review 3 tracks all at once that I had to write this thing out hahhaha. Here we go...
I think the beat is great. The instrumentation (percussion) sounds pretty legit! Also, don't you hate how sub-bass is practically inaudible except on decent headphones? Like, my dumb macbook can't even play any sub bass under like C4. Which is everything. LOL. (In fact, even on my good pair of headphones your sub-bass kinda disappears at points and reappears at others. This is why bass is hard. I'm not judging you based on that though...)
I have two main complaints. First, that brass vst thing. Sounds so fake. It's so fake that you might just want to flat out replace it with something obviously synthetic, maybe some sort of synth or something. If you want to pursue the brass route, you could try to find a brass VST of some sort that you could tweak the attack (how fast the note comes in) on. The main thing that makes it sound fake currently is that the attack on every note is the same.
Second though is the melodies that the brass instrument plays. Most of the time they just feel very random and they meander a lot without expressing too much, and I hear a good bit of dissonance as well, e.g.1:22. I think that you should work on this. One big suggestion: add more repetition. I know it sounds counter intuitive, but you have a lot of good little ideas scattered throughout the piece and by repeating one of them more (rather than just moving to another one) you could add a sense of meaning and coherence to the piece. :37-:44 for instance you could repeat a lot (I hear it once more later on currently). I dunno if you listen to hip hop a lot, but a lot of hip hop essentially takes a single sample and loop it through the entire piece.
I definitely didn't get into hip hop until I was at least a couple of years older than you, but if you want to get a head start, check out something like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZWS6CITutY
First, notice that the backing is really as simple as I said, it's just a super simple drum beat, a bass groove, and (eventually) a super repetitive brass loop. It's really easy to overthink hip-hop I guess, but you really don't have to go overboard. Simple things can work really well.
You might hate me for saying this but if you stripped out the brass entirely I might have given this a 7 or 8. Sometimes simple is better!
P.S. "it's basically me creepily whispering into the mic about how water diffuses into and out of the kidney"
LOLOL this sounds like the best thing ever. Step aside Kanye :D
Thanks so much for the detailed review, which probably at least matches the reviews I made on your tracks in combined length! ;) Thanks for you advice about playing with the attack. I've been trying to get more authentic samples, but I don't have a lot of time or money to invest in that. I knew someone would comment about the lack of coherence. I wanted to mimic the experimental nature of some jazz music, but I'll try to add more repetition in the future. Believe me: hip-hop is probably my least favorite genre of music, although there are some songs I like in every genre. I think I often try to make my tracks too complicated and varied. I'll think about that more in the future. I don't hate you for craving simplicity, btw, and nobody was MAKING me review your tracks - I WANTED to! :D Thanks again, though, Johnfn! ;)
P.S. "Step aside Kanye." ~Yeah, a lot of my classmates made jokes like that too. XD
Jumpy 
Big Booty 
The Forgotten Past 
Love letter 
Sonar Eclipse 
Be$pin - Floating Hotel 
Delgith 
Lost in the Sea 
Nostalgic Dreams 
The Door - How's It Goin'? 
