Spadezer's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[I Want To Save A Princess]

I had no clue what to expect when I saw the title. Not even 30 seconds in I'm like "...Sweet!"

Pretty original and everything is so clean. With a fun theme and cleverly mixed instruments and synths, I was rockin' out to this tune the whole time through. I could almost imagine vocals going into this too.

5/5, and downloaded.
-Spadezer-

Mattashi responds:

Wow thanks Spadezer! I'm happy you enjoyed it and were rocking out xD
If you have any hidden singing talents feel free to add some vocals! :P

[Jazzimprov]

It ran out of piano memory after 8 minutes! I'm sorry I won't be able to listen to all of this. (LSD is fine for a nickname is it?)

But for jazz, usually the blues scale in any scale is a safe bet. You can make a lot of cool pieces in that scale, and what you have is fine from what I can tell. Especially since improve is the soul of jazz in my opinion. Jazz band was the best class in high school.

There's a good amount of emotion that shines through when you do this, and don't worry too much about how bad you are at this. First of all, you did this in one take. If I did this in one take it wouldn't sound as good as this. Secondly, especially with a solo instrument, the emotion makes half of the piece, and you've got that.

Just a few quick thoughts for ya. I enjoyed it.
-Spadezer-

LucidShadowDreamer responds:

Hahha, no , it was not the minutes of this piece itself that caused it XD
I already had about half an hour or so stored, and some of them using several intruments...
Don't worry about not listening to all of it; it's very samey the entire way through :3
LSD is a fine nickname indeed ;)

Yeah, I ran with the blues scale precicely for that reason :p
I've always liked improvising, although I was horrible at it when I first started. I'm still not very good, but I guess I'm slowly improving :)

I think that the one thing I've always had and invested into my piano paying is emotion, which I agree is one of the most improtant things.

Thanks Spadezer!

[Heartsteps]

There's not much more that I can say aside from what LSD has said already. Just to be nitpicky, I would've tweaked the melody synth at 00:55 in my opinion. But your production quality has improved. Be proud of that.

Now that LSD has mentioned it, your style shares some similarities with Johnfn. I love what you're doing.

Be awesome, be more awesome, and repeat.
-Spadezer-

LunacyEcho responds:

=> tweaked the melody synth =>

DARN IT! I spent so long working on the sound of that synth. I guess that the majority of the time, the reverb on the synth was too high, so I tried making it sound less reverb-y. It sounded good to me, but I guess it could've been brighter. Also, it probably should've been in a higher octave. Well, live and learn. :D

=> johnfn =>

Oh, wow. johnfn is one of my favorite musicians on Newgrounds, if not THE favorite, so I probably absorbed some of his musical ideas when I was listening to his pieces. Yikes.

Incidentally, this song was heavily influenced by a johnfn song - http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/563874

Thanks for the review!

[No Joy Here]

With a bit of practice, you can make some pretty sweet orchestral. The reason why I say this is the ending starting at 02:04. You can put so much emotion into a simple piano piece. I was kinda listening to this off to the side in a different tab, and when that section hit, I had to pay attention. You nailed it.

The other thing I really like about this as I'm really listening to it a second time. It sounds like it's in a major key, and it sounds sad. THAT'S AWESOME! It's either that or you're in a minor key but the chord progression stays in major keys most of the time. It's geeking me out.

I feel like there's a little too much going on in the mid-frequencies (like there's a couple of instruments with too much reverb), but you're composition brings in a lot of emotion.

I think you should do more orchestral. I don't care what Gommi says, this has some good composition. Even if the orchestral bank you have isn't the most professional (which btw sounds better than my library) you can make some sweet stuff in this genre. I'd imagine that if you play around with orchestral off and on a bit more, you'll start getting pretty good at it. You don't have to if you don't want to, but this is good stuff for your first orchestral.

I guess take this with a grain of salt since I'm not a judge and I wasn't paying attention to the mixing of it much, but there's is some brilliance going on behind the music notes. I like it.
-Spadezer-

[Impulse]

I've been finding that throughout the contest, you've made the best homework study music in my library now. You make beautiful themes and the amount of detail you put into your songs give it a lot of depth and this one is no exception.

You stick with a main theme and you give it some cool variations. There's a point or so you turn into some dubstep stuff which gives the main theme a nice break. The melody is a bit simple and I think you could have used a better synth, but that's just my opinion. You still manage to make it work with what you're doing throughout the track. The quiet section 02:39-03:56 is where I like the theme you have best. I hear some orchestral drumming in there too. Not something I'm used to hearing from you. I like it.

There's my two cents. And I can't wait to see how you pull the next round off.
-Spadezer-

garlagan responds:

thank you Spadezer!

[Oak - Champions]

Heh, after downloading the song I noticed it said the genre is blues. I don't think that's right.

Anyway, nifty piece. The composition feels really simple, but the balancing and mixing is done well to my ears. Maybe the chord progression should have changed a bit more to keep it more fresh. Still works for good study music when I'm doing homework.

Listen, check
Rate, check,
Review, yep,
download, why yes.

Well there you go. I even enjoyed it a bit.
-Spadezer-

[Borghild]

Just a quick review:

I feel like it's too empty IMO. The atmosphere you create in here is quite calm. I like how you utilize the flute throughout the piece. The composition is simple but leaves something to be desired. Overall, it's not a bad listen but nothing really jumped out at me to grab my attention (probably not the intent of ambient pieces but I'd imagine that ambient pieces can still make you want to listen). Again, just opinions.

Be awesome, be more awesome, and repeat.
-Spadezer-

ScottJacob responds:

I can see where your coming from i think, though it was always my intention to keep this a calm and restrained piece. Just a nice ride out into the country lol. I don't think this is necessarily an ambient song or not, i just thought it would fit best in there instead of dance or dubstep haha.

Thanks man, i appreciate the opinions

[so metal]

I really like the beginning of this. Not something you would expect to come from a metal song. I could tell where it was going though, and it had me really excited. And then when the metal finally entered at 00:59, I had a hard time hearing the main guitar lead. The backup guitar seemed a little to overpowering, and the drums didn't feel like they were punchy enough. One suggestion I have that could help: maybe take the lead guitar up an octave when it's playing the main theme (like at 01:00). I bet it will make it a lot easier to pick out once everything starts playing at once.

I like what you're doing at 03:04. It's a really cool blend of what the beginning theme was, and what your metal was doing. I feel like it started entering the rock ballad genre at this part, which isn't bad.

It also feels like when you were trying to play the main theme at the 01:00 section, it also sounded a little empty. The only thing I can think of is that if you quiet down the back up guitar and have it play a little longer it might help. But I'm not an expert in the metal genre, I just occasionally listen to metal.

I like where it's going, but it needs a little work.
-Spadezer-

lantaren responds:

yep, everyting you're saying would probably help, actually. I'm no expert on the metal genre (though I listen to a lot of it) and I'm certainly not the best when it comes to production, but I'm glad that you liked it. The hard part is trying to get everything that I want into the song, without altering the sounds of the instruments to work together better (as that would lose even more depth, I feel) and just trying to control it (especially my sloppy playing). Definitely one of my favorite projects so far, but it does need a lot of work.