Random-storykeeper's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[REFLECTIONS (ft. Staintocton) // AIM 2024]

AIM 2024 Judge Review

I was listening to the little WIPs you were posting in the NG Audio Pub Discord and was looking forward to listening to the final entry. Going for a jazzy piece with rain ambience is quite evocative of the art inspiration. That 5/4 pattern feels almost waltz-like and it does a great job at evoking the feeling of taking a walk down some quiet streets at night.

The mixing on most of the instruments seem fine to me for the most part. I particularly like the way the ambience sits as a pleasant background layer - noticeable but feeling like it works within the context of the piece. The one thing that bothered me was that the flugalhorn solo was quite loud compared to the rest of the instruments doing solos. It really took me by surprise the first time listening to it. Composition-wise, I love the atmosphere and chords especially from the piano, and I wish there were some more moments where the piano gets to shine or present some quieter moments, perhaps even some improv, during the middle portion of the piece. This entry is short (and I understand it was quite close to the deadline) and I think there are more opportunities here for some additional sections, particularly with the piano.

What really stood out to me in this entry was the use of an actual soloist for the flugalhorn. Was that solo mostly improv, and how many takes did the soloist do? (just curious) The horn itself sounds amazing, just too loud in the mix as mentioned before, and I really love the final section where it plays alongside the xylophone and guitar. There was something about it that felt a little more distinct over using a sax solo for a jazzy piece - I love sax solos too but I really love what was done here in terms of the instrument choice. Overall, this was a comforting and pleasant listen that does a great job at conveying the atmosphere of nighttime, in the rain while walking down a sidewalk.

Staintocton responds:

Hey! Thanks again for listening!

For the flugel, I ended up sending two different solo takes, in which the first one was primarily used, with occasional chops of the second. The ending bit of copying the melody before going into a bit of fiddling was my idea! :)

In total, it probably took me maybe 20-30 attempts to record everything, that last bit only took me one or two.

[Chocnoon - Transcendence ~AIM~ (DLXVI)]

AIM 2024 Judge Review

The setup for this entry is quite nice. I enjoyed the synth playing that A flat - G - E flat pattern against the piano at the beginning. It gives this sort of space vibe while the piano adds that sort of emotive, atmospheric layer. The chord progression is also quite good; there is this sense of movement and the way the phrase ends lends itself to some looping, which seems to be well-inspired by the art.

While I love the setup, I feel like the track drags on for too long. The first half is satisfying to listen to as the layers are being added in and that soft melody plays at 1:17. However, by the second half, I feel like the chord progression starts to wear thin. There's just not a lot of that gentle sort of moving of layers that was so prevalent in the first half of the track, and I feel like once we cross the halfway part, I'm just waiting for the music to end. The repetition of the chord progression makes sense for the "looping" aspect of the image, but I really wish there was more detail in the texture of the music and the production instead of the same ideas being repeated with just a key change. Generally, the track is very flat production-wise once in the full set of instruments, and any sort of dynamic transitions like the drum roll into 4:15 felt like it was leading into nothing.

Another suggestion would be to spend more time in the intro, really playing out the piano and some other light ornamentation and layers and cut off some of the repetitions in the second half. I think the first part with the softer melody works well, and if this built up to a melody in the foreground that then moves to the background, it would feel more engaging while still being built upon the looping chord progression.

[AIM - Radiant]

AIM 2024 Judge Review

I like how you approached this inspiration - a pixel art landscape - with synths and a happy sort of hook. The little filter sweeps also play into the idea of a sunrise effectively and I like that you did go for something happier in sound for your composition. Although there's one main hook, you do progress it through the use of dynamics and having different synths take it on.

Unfortunately, my biggest issue with this piece is that the one hook is not that compelling to listen to for ~3 minutes. It's a little too buoyantly happy to the point where it comes across as saccharine and having these more intense sounding synths (with a super thick bass) and trance beats makes it feel more aggressively happy, which I'm not really sure is the intention nor is it something that seems inspired by the art. It doesn't help that every bar of that main hook primarily has a similar kind of downward contour, ending "perfectly" at each measure. I do think the joyous sort of tone is something that makes sense for the art, but this felt more like overshooting.

The setup is there - as mentioned earlier, the sound design and dynamically building upon a melodic idea are present in this entry. I really wish the one main melody it keeps repeating was something that was a bit more toned down and more warm and inviting. Personally I would think that a landscape with a sunrise, being generally associated with the start of the day, would be gradual and bright while not being explicitly just happy. Maybe it's my adult brain kicking in, but this entry sadly does not work for me at all, with or without the association with the art.

MusicBySpektral responds:

it's alright, I agree that it definitely has some rough spots. Thanks for the review :)

[AIM - The Bean Bee Meets Another Bee]

AIM 2024 Judge Review

From reading your description and listening to the track, I can tell there was a lot of thought that went behind the compositional choices. That feeling of meeting someone is a strong concept to build a piece around, and the MIDI acoustic soundfonts help to create a sort of folksy, woodsy atmosphere in a video game sort of setting.

The main struggle I have with this piece is that I feel like the B-E-E motif is very underused. It takes up so much of the composition, but it's played in a way that is so straightforward and one-note that it's hard to really connect it to the intended emotions you describe. I would have liked to hear this motif played around with more, rhythmically, sonically, maybe with some harmonies, etc. While there are some moments in this track that do play off the B-E-E motif with the same contour but different pitches (0:33 for example) and the chord progression beneath the motif changes, it really does feel like there were more opportunities to be more creative and less on-the-nose with the development of this motif.

I like the idea of approaching this art from the interaction of the bees and what they are feeling. Having one of the bees being shy and buzzing in and out of being social could have been explored in the dynamics for example, or perhaps introducing moments of dissonance where the bee "tries" and then "fails" and "falls back" to its "safe motif". You have a good approach for concepts, and I'd love to hear them be conveyed more in the music.

[AIM - REDHOT]

AIM 2024 Judge Review

I really like the hook in this track. It feels more low-key but I like the way the main idea develops throughout. While your other entry has more of an instantly catchy hook, I like this one is more of a slow burner and it gets better with each listen. That low sort of soft tone that plays throughout conveys a sense of heat and that plays well into the concept. Combined with the melodic, chopped up sounds that seem to glide up when played, this entry does a great job at reflecting the tall lankiness of the character against the red background. I'm not familiar with the franchise this character is from, but I can tell the aspects of the image were drawn for inspiration here.

While I like the way this track progresses and its strange and engrossing hook, I feel like the ending section could have had some more impact. I enjoyed the way you build upon that same sort of rhythmic, almost screechy sort of sound and bringing that back in after that soft piano line in the middle section at 2:37 was cathartic. To hear the outro be nearly identical (if not the same) as the first seemed unsatisfying compared to how the rest of the track kept building off its ideas. I just wonder if ideas from the previous sections - basslines, the soft piano, etc. could have been incorporated into the conclusion to make it sonically different other than being less filtered from the start.

The balancing between the softer sounds and the noisier synths was well-executed. It helps that there's a lot of mix between the soft and the noisier elements and for the most part, a lot of it flows naturally without feeling stilted. Besides 2:37, I also particularly love 1:10, where we first hear that main hook start jumping up in range. These moments of repeating the hook and incorporating it with varying ideas and textures actually makes for a very engaging listen.

[AIM - Nekomimi Station]

AIM 2024 Judge Review

What I love most about this entry is how replayable it is. There's a lot of quick passing off of instruments and a rich sound design that it's fun to play it again to pick up extra bits in the texture that might have been missed on an earlier listen. It's surprisingly detailed given the simpler pixel art, and I think it adds this sense of chaos fitting for a piece about a train station. Amidst the somewhat frenzied composition is a throughline with instruments seamlessly flowing from one to another that puts me in this perspective of someone sitting at a busy train station, watching people pass around me and rushing to make the next train.

There are a lot of times when the piece will hit these syncopated beats or pulses, which I think helps to create that sense of the aforementioned throughline as the track develops. The piece has a great sense of when to put in the bass and take it out, when to be more melodic and when to be a little crazy. If there was one thing I could nitpick, I think the quick chords could have been a little snappier when hitting those "pulses", but it's only really the only thing I can think of after listening to this piece multiple times.

Overall, this track does a fantastic job of capturing the essence of this art with the business of a train station during peak hours, and that combined with its cuteness from the wildly moving sine wave shows a lot of inspiration was taken from this art to great effect. Admittedly, I didn't really get this track at first, but over time it just had me thinking about it a lot and significantly grew on me. Wonderful job!

H20ghost responds:

Thanks for the kind review storykeeper!

[AIM 2024 - Beach Side]

AIM 2024 Judge Review

What I really like about this piece is how lazy it sounds - not in effort, but rather how it evokes the feeling of being sprawled out in the hot sun on a beach, laying back, not really doing anything. It's a chill piece that feels specific to the beach setting. The idea of using the phone as melodic percussion is neat and I like that you incorporated this central detail into your entry. It adds an extra touch of distinctiveness amidst the beachy vibes.

I appreciate that the repeating phone sound was not in the foreground to the point where it could get annoying. On the other hand, having it be so low in volume with the other instruments taking precedence makes me wonder if it really adds anything at all to the full mix after its intro. I could still pick it up after multiple listens, and I wonder if this phone sound could have taken on some melodic or rhythmic development at the same time the rest of the composition develops. Otherwise, I feel like the phone could have just been faded out completely especially at 1:27, where the chiptune enters and sort of becomes interesting background texture.

I also think it would have been nice if the guitar had some more release/pedal to make the chords melt into one another, which could enhance the lazy summery atmosphere. But overall, I like that this entry feels like lying on a beach under a parasol, capturing that perspective of watching other people (or I guess just playing on a phone, as the art suggests). That combination of guitar, organ and chiptune is just lovely to listen to.

[AIM 2024 - Oh Shit I Didn't Know the Moon Could Hang]

AIM 2024 Judge Review

For both of your entries, I really like that you picked art inspirations where you could zero in on a specific aspect of the art to incorporate in the sound design. In this case, this entry focuses on using DS sounds because the moon in the corner appears to be operating a GameBoy or Nintendo device of some sort. I'm not super familiar with DS sounds, but I think the sound design here really helps to set the atmosphere and tone of this art. So many of the sounds are very warm sounding and for the most part, I love the composition that goes along with it. The main hook is super catchy and encapsulates this feeling of a nighttime outdoor scene. It's cute and cozy - even the DJ-sounding scratches work well to add a bit of a cartoonish vibe, which also seems directly inspired from the art.

As much as I love the composition, I was really surprised at the decision to have a pad in final third of this piece completely overwhelm the melody. I'm not sure if it was a deliberate choice, considering the rest of this entry does seem to be mixed fine, but the super loud pad is quite distracting and feels like it should have been part of the background, not the foreground. If you wanted the pad to get overwhelming, it would have made more sense to have it start in the background then gradually make its way forward instead of having it overtake the return of the main melody (which the piece had already taken a break from with its middle section).

But overall, I enjoyed the chill vibes and the beautiful main hook that gets stuck in my head. I hope you'll remember to share some pictures of the setup, as I find it interesting to see how recording processes are done, and it's something I don't know very much about at all. Wonderful entry!

[AIM - Manitoba]

AIM 2024 Judge Review

I think this entry does a great job at conveying this feeling of a melancholic roadtrip, yearning for simpler times. The repeating chiptune melody against the I V vi IV chord progression with that fast-ticking chord progression really works to give the piece this forward motion moving along a long road continuously, which works given the image is of a highway sign. I'm curious what drove you (no pun intended) to select this specific artwork from this artist's collection, particularly naming the piece after the location the highway sign is based off of. To me, this entry takes inspiration from the general vibe of the bright, blue sunny sky, but I feel like with such specificity in the title, there would be some semblance of Manitoba reflected in the music.

The sixteenth note drums provide a lot of good constant forward motion, and I think it would have been nice to hear some of this reflected in the bassline too, perhaps in a later portion of the track. Obviously not hitting every sixteenth note like the drums, but something like a constant syncopated rhythm that increases in dynamics but keeps the same root notes for the chord progression repeated - just a little more rhythmic counterpoint especially in the chiptune instruments.

Generally, this piece has a pretty great flow and I liked the chords that play on the offbeat at the end of the track. The melody also kind of dipping up at the end of the fourth beat was also a wonderful touch there, a sweet little flair without being jarring. This is a lovely entry and one that grows on me each time I play it.

[AIM - Jack]

AIM 2024 Judge Review

I like the idea of taking this ominous character with a simple name and turning them into someone who is clearly a pathetic loser trying to be a creep. The lyrics have some super dark undertones ("I'll peep / then you'll sleep forever"), but the music is so jaunty and lighthearted that it's hard not to love the little guy. Meanwhile, the vocal performance is so strained and slightly off-key at times that it actually conveys the character of Jack being a try-hard, and I like that direction of the song a lot.

The only main issue I have is that the vocals is too loud. It does kind of work for the portrayal of Jack, but I would like to hear that voice sit better with the accompaniment - it just kind of gets distracting and overwhelming compared to the instruments. I also think the second interlude with the xylophone solo at 1:13 could have been slightly extended or developed more leading towards the bridge. Having this be pretty much the exact same as the first interlude at 0:36 makes that lead-in to the bridge feel rushed.

I love the weird mix of instruments - the soft keyed bass, xylophones, organs that make me think of a sports arena - it creates this very strange atmosphere that feels very inspired by the art. Jack is a true enigma, and so is this song. Great entry, especially that outro!