ObsidianSnow's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Imagine THis (House)]

Freakin Epic!

First thing I saw when I hit the link was the score - 4.35 at the time. Then the music came on, and I immediately knew something wasn't making any sense. Really, this should be at at the bare minimum 4.60. We all know that the missing 0.40 would be the work of the notorious and soundsystem-lacking zero-bombers, but lol we artists can't change that.

About the song itself, excellent use of patches - everything sounds like it was fated to come together, just the way that relationships go in fairy tales. The ebb and flow is spectacular, transitions are perfected, and variations fit very, very smoothly together.

I'm assuming from your picture that you use Reason - I do too. And it's always a bit of a surprise for me when I come across stuff like this, because it's the kind of thing I attempt to do, but tend to fall short of.

You've got talent, and damn, do you use it. Excellent work!
5/5, 10/10, favs.

Power to you, John!

[Perfection - Mjattie]

Tasty!

This is great. Really different from what you usually do, and damn, it's smooth. I think this is definitely one to be proud of. I really like the way that the flow seems to hop along... lol you just caught me bouncing in time to the music XD

The phrasing is terrific, and all the little variations and additions that occur along the way are awesome, too. I've been listening to it nonstop for about ten minutes now (progress bar is out of sight)... and I haven't once caught where the loop ends yet, so really slick job with the looping.

People keep saying that it's repetitive - I say not really. As I said before, the variations and background additions keep it from getting boring. I could listen to this looped for hours. So just ignore the complaints about overrepitition.

Not much else I can say about this one - and I certainly can't say anything negative. As the name implies, this is Perfection.
10/10, 5/5, favs. I'll be putting this on my mp3 player for sure.
Outstanding work here.

Power to you, Mjattie!

mjattie responds:

thanks man ;)

[Dreaming with pianos]

...

woah. This is an excellent mastering and effects job. Works really well for just chilling, I gotta say. The parts all have a really human feel to them, too - did you use a keyboard to record the piano? It really sounds like you did... Makes it so much more real. Such a nice flow, too.

...but I'm beginning to repeat myself now. I'm just so lost in the music.

Outstanding work - 10/10, 5/5, Favs. Tasty.

Power to you, Stalagmite!

Stalagmite responds:

thank you so much! i really appreciate these kind reviews! yes. it is all live keyboard music. i recorded it about an hour ago.
however there is a light vocal track behind, also playing the percussions. but the piano, strings, flute and synth air are all live play. :D:D:D
i was tired and inspired. i am glad you can appreciate it LOL. :D:D:D thanks so much

[Awakening of Death (DEMO)]

Woah, what?

Once again, astounding use of effects! So many excellent little background images going on... the atmosphere created here is exceptional. When you say this was a long job - I think you're making a bit of an understatement. You must have put a lot of effort and time into this, and it really shows. Your timings are perfect, too. I love this piece, and I know I'm going to be checking back regularly for the final version.

Power to you, Skippy Fox!
...And btw, Drums + Screaming mob = AWESOME ;D

[Await]

Perfect.

What more can I say? You've really got something here... You have some real musical talent, silencefreedom. Nice work.

Power to you, silencefreedom!

silencefreedom responds:

I just a guy that love to make some music for more than 2 years (too short). Just a unknown musician in this community.

Thank you for the comment! :)

[[CE]- I'm Yours (Acoustic)]

Woah...

That was great. You did an awsome job with this, and yes, I was singing along. It's a great song, and I'm glad someone made a version of this for NG. Really well mastered, with great balance and realism. I'd give you a 10, but my standard policy of ratings says I have to subtract one point for any lack of originality. I couldn't give it 5/5 , but I didn't want to lower this song's score, so I declined rating it.

This was awesome.
Power to you, Completed Emotion!

[Rush Of Fire]

Good... good...

I like this... made me a bit nostalgic of the North American version of Final Fantasy III. Unfortunately, that could also be a bit of a bad thing. I know you said that you were keeping it game-ish with your MIDI's, but I think you might want to consider doing a few things: finding some better patches, playing with the current patches a bit, or just dropping back completely into full-out MIDI feel.

It just sounds too much like something that would come out of my old, yellowing SNES, while also sounding like a half-hearted attempt at making it sound real. I don't mean that as a huge critisism, but a relatively small one - I think that you should essentially either try and make it much more realistic or completely MIDI. The mix of the two sounds is just confusing.

The song itself is great - I think it works really well for the situation you've described.

Power to you, Diniden!

Diniden responds:

Hey thanks for the advice. I completely agree with you and had this in mind when I made it. My problem is I don't have money for anything really that great and I also don't really know where to look in the digital world for programs with good samplings to use for orchestra etc. Do you have any programs in mind that would have better samplings that would either be relatively cheap or free? I can even break away from MIDI samplings if you know something good.

Main reason for the MIDI also is the power tab program works with a music staff (a lot of other programs just use the annoying piano set up) If you know of a better sampling program that uses a staff that would also help me a lot.

Thanks again for your reply : )

[The War of 3016]

Ummm, what?

This almost sounded like you were about to completely tear this song to shreds and then turn it into some kind of insane techno piece. Then it got to about 20 seconds in and I realised that it wasn't about to go anywhere.

I get the feeling that you're really new to this, so I'm not going to destroy you with my review. Instead, I'll say this: keep practicing with whatever program you're using, look up some tutorials for making music with that program, and then when you think you're ready... come back to this piece, and bring it back to life - by that I mean you should start the song the same way, but about 2 or 3 bars in, DESTROY IT and make it into crazy techno.

You do that, and my next review will be glorious. Because everyone who heard this song in their childhood feels a passionate hatred for it, and watching it be mutilated and turned into a breakdancing frankenstein would be friggin' epic.

I look forward to what could potentially come next.
Good luck.

[The Last One]

Mmm...

It was great, but I have to bring up something that I hope will make a big difference here. Your vocal patches are fine, but there's an issue when you use them the way you have - they have an exessive release time and a not quite enough of an attack time. It makes them stop sounding like real people. Try playing around with the settings in those departments a bit. Hopefully this will bring more attention to how awesome this music is, and less to how the voices sound like bad MIDI's - which I don't think they really are.

I really liked this. A couple tweaks more and you might catch me drooling... lol

Power to you, silencefreedom!

silencefreedom responds:

That was what I want with the vocals, actually I used Vocaloid for the vocal but sound freaking weird so I changed to Symphonic Choirs for more realistic.
The problem was my Kontakt Player didn't work in Sibelius and FL Studio so I switched to Samplitude Pro for the notation parts. Really hard to use.

I glad ya like it and thanks for the admits! Love your stuffs too!:)

[The Heavens Cry]

...

This is indeed a brilliant ambient piece. I really have no suggestions for this one. I think that to change this at all would be to taint it. This is another of your songs that I've found that I suddenly feel compelled to add to my upcoming flash submission (the other was Return of the Knight, if you haven't read my review there already). You just seem to have a style that matches my vision of the storyline. I really hope I can put this one in there somewhere... I'm rapidly increasing the potential file size of the game... o _o It's likely already to be at least 15-20 mb, which would mean that it would have to be reviewed by NewGrounds staff... Nonetheless, I feel that this song fits, and I will do everything I can to make it work.
10/10, 5/5, DL, favs. Again. You're really getting to me, here.

Power to you, SkippyFox! (seriously, please make more!)

SkippyFox responds:

wow thankies! 0.0 Hey if you wish to use it on any flash or such, go ahead! XD i just make my songs for peoples enjoyment and relaxation of possible and if you can get some use of it in there... go for it! haha X) thanks a lot for the review, it means a lot to me ^-^

Ps, i will surely check your game when you get it here ^_~ XD