Spadezer's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Dawnglide]

There's so much potential here. I may not say much since there are already some really good reviews that could point out a few things that even I can learn from.

I was listening to a couple of other of your songs before this one, and this one stuck out a bit more than some of your piano pieces. I'm not saying their bad, there's good stuff going on. But this track sticks out a little bit.

Some of the pads and the composing is cheesy, like Mario Golf for the Gamecube, but with a little mixing, adding some dynamics, changing up a few of the pads, this could be a boss piece (just noticed, I don't think this is metal in the slightest. Way more electronic than rock).

After listening to the track a second time, wow, there is a ton of cheesy 90's electronic flavors. Not just in pads but in some of the composition. If you listen to the Mario Golf stuff, you'll hear the same bass rhythm with the 8th and two 16ths.

But, after everything is said and done, this track caused you to gain another fan. Because, there a lot of really cool stuff that can come out of this. Once you get you synths down and your mixing, that ability you have to compose could do some really cool stuff.

I'll keep an ear out for you.
-Spadezer-

LunacyEcho responds:

Hi! Thanks for the review!

=> cheesy =>

The thing about using cheesy tropes in music is that it works. I've definitely done my fair share of super-cheesy music (The Flute Song being my magnum opus in that field), and I think the reason I do it so much is because I'm lazy. These are tropes that are widely used in tons of music, and I just happen to have observed them and reused them. I've never taken any consistent music theory classes, so I just copy what I hear, and the cheesy stuff is only cheesy because it's used so much.

=> metal =>

I agree! This isn't metal at all. Still, the general feeling the song has (especially in the rhythm section) sort of has an indie feel, which a subcategory in the "metal, rock" category of genres in Newgrounds.

=> bass rhythm =>

It's one of my favorite driving bass rhythms, and as usual, I didn't come up with it. I'm sure it's been used in many places and I've heard it unconsciously in many songs, but the first time I remember listening to the bassline and thinking "hey, there's an interesting bassline I can use" was from a Waterflame song.

Thanks so much, Spadezer! I really admire your work and hope you can participate in the next NGADM so we can hear more cool stuff from you too.

[The Archive Is Still[WIP]]

Not bad in my opinion.
I'm always happy to hear people actually playing their instruments in their music. I'd do it too but I (1) haven't messed around with recording too much and (2) have nothing to record with other than a laptop mic. I can edit the computer fan out of the mic, but refer back to (1).

I don't hear stuff like this too much. It sounds like you've really tried to put an effort into the chord structures behind the composition. It's relaxing and kinda psychedelic in a good way. It doesn't sound like that easy of a piece to play. I can get the intro to Metallica's Nothing Else Matters down but I'm out of practice, but this isn't about me. Now that I think of it, it sounds like you didn't do this all in one clip.

I like what you did at 01:23. I wish I could have heard that effect you did more than that once. Even if it was only twice. It's a nifty thing you did and I want to hear it again. Being really nitpicky, I hear some noise/buzzing starting at 00:44. It doesn't hurt the song, but like I said, I'm being really nitpicky.

It makes me feel good, and I like what you did. Keep it up, and keep up the good work in college as well.
-Spadezer-

secantwave responds:

You are certainly correct that I didn't do this in one clip. For one thing, there are two guitars playing for most of this piece; but also, in order to get takes as close to perfect as I could, I split it into sections. I'm still not entirely satisfied, so I'll probably rerecord it after some more practice.
I too was really happy with the effect at 1:23. If the piece had been longer, I definitely would have tried to include it again, although even as it is, I think it feels a bit weird as the only electronic effect, so I may try and insert a variant somewhere else.

Thanks for the kind words!

[redemption]

This is why I follow you. Your atmospheres go to a place that not many people can recreate. This is deep stuff. The reason why the emotions aren't being screamed at and in the face is because they aren't ones that you shout out regardless of how deep they go, but these are the ones that can't be translated, let alone shouted. Like at 02:40. I can think of someone elderly or to be more relatable, myself sometimes at college. It's the feeling of someone who's tired of doing what they can or doing what they should, and is grieving to just return to doing what they want. What makes them feel happy.

Yeah good song. Not many complaints if you haven't noticed. Thank you.
-Spadezer-

johnfn responds:

Hey, thanks for the really kind review Spadezer! I feel like I'm hyper aware of when I'm living up to my own high standards and when I'm doing stuff that's disappointing, but it's always frustrating because there's no real way to force inspiration and creativity to happen to a piece that doesn't want it to happen, ya know? Anyway my point is, I'm glad you liked the song.

[404]

Hurray for organ! This sounds like it was a sweet piece to play. Coming from a jazz band trumpet player, this sounds like a really fun piece.

I'm concerned about the section at 01:21 though. It was tight and there's good detail, but the composition seemed a little lacking. But the organ saved it afterwards. Shout out to the drummers: awesome job!

*sigh* Such smooth music. Keep being funky.
-Spadezer-

camoshark responds:

Hey Spadz, Camo here, glad you liked our song, t'was a blast to work on, if a bit stressful towards the end! ^^'

I didn't know you were a fellow trumpet player, seems like a lot of people on this site were all this time without my knowing! XP

I have to agree with you about the segment at 1:21. The truth is, this song ended up only about half of what was originally inteded for it, but due to time restraints, musician vailability and irl issues, it had to be cut out, and this bit specifically suffered from it. There originally was supposed to be a guitar solo but, again, time restraints being as they are, it didn't make it in.

Maybe in the future you'll be able to see a final version but for now, it'll have to be as-is.

I'm glad to hear you liked the organ! You'll have to thank Skye for it though, I didn't even know this was going to be an organ until I heard the finished product!

I'm also glad you enjoyed Pat's drumming I'll certainly share the sentiment with him! :P

Once again, thanks for the review, and let's hope we make it into the nest round, 'cause we've got BIG plans for it! :P

[Your Father's Blade]

I wasn't sure what to think of it for the first half. I was getting worried cause I'm listening to this late in the day and all the reviews are like "this is awesome" and I was like "I hope I'm not missing something". Then once it got to 02:20 I was like "Ok I got it now".

So a little slow and quiet at first, but this is a really emotional piece. I like it. Oh, and it also helps when I turn the volume up in my earbuds.

Well done
-Spadezer-

EvilRaccoon responds:

Yeah, I don't go too aggressive on the compression because it will destroy the quality. If you listen to a lot of score music, they do tend to be quieter than the usual electronic track. So you'll find most of my music quieter than the loudness war that Newgrounds has on ;)

Thanks for the review.

[Hope]

It's good to hear good metal on this contest. Man I want to dig out my F-ZeroX game for the 64.

Peace out and rock out!
-Spadezer-

PirateCrab responds:

It's good to hear good comments! GET IT OUT F-ZERO IS FUCKING BADASS.

[Escape]

This is stuff that fits in MW2 and Battlefield 3 gameplay. I like listening to your stuff.

Mattashi responds:

Thanks Spadezer :)

[FFX Battle Theme (Piano Cover)]

Beautiful playing. I'm kinda jealous of people who can play stuff like that on a piano.

Respect
-Spadezer-

LucidShadowDreamer responds:

Thanks Spadezer!
Believe me - I'm jealous of people who can play better than me too XD
That is why I'm striving to get better :p
Btw, you make cool stuff :D

[NanoFields]

As soon as it got to 00:08, I'm like "Oh my gawd" for the rest of the track. The rest of the piece I'm like "it's Samus, and a fighting mech, in a really dark part of paper Mario....... SO COOL!" Heh, it's so hard metal without being metal ( ... that would make it industrial then wouldn't it?)

A problem I have is at 02:18. It sounds too empty between 02:18-02:32. I think all it needs is another synth in unison but an octave lower maybe. It's a very short of the piece that's missing a little something, but you fix it really quick in the song. It also seems like the melody synth you have doesn't stick out in the foreground. It starts in at 00:21. Maybe if you turned down the apreggiating synth a tad and give the melody more attack it might be a little more appealing.
But man, this is still pretty sweet to listen. I can't find anything else wrong with this, and I don't want to find anything else wrong with this. The percussion and all of the sound fx are so sweet, the bass synths just works so well. Oh man the percussion groove is sweet. With all of the other music I've been listening to here, I'm used to it being twice as fast, and then you bring this along and I'm almost bashing my head into the computer with how I'm headbanging.

Much yes
-Spadezer-

LunyAlex responds:

Thanks a lot for the tips and kind words. I'll definitely have a look at both that specific segment and the main synth. I do have the negative tendency of trying to make a lot of elements leveled equally in a song to fake the impression of extra complexity (I don't do it consciously, but in retrospect, it's quite a bad habit).

Thanks again and I'm really glad you liked it!