ARGMusic's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[A Journey of Friendship]

Amazing piece!

It's always nice to see an orchestral%uFEFF piece, especially one as well done as this. ^.^

The movement at 1:46 is lovely, but I feel the samples dulled the full effect of the solo viola, and made the low end of the mix a bit muddy. The transition at 3:23 is awesome, and I loved the sliding strings throughout that movement. :) Loved the celesta @ 5:46, very nice touch to the end of that "cold" movement, but wished the french horns were an octave higher during the theme afterwards.

Overall, the orchestration was extremely well done, but the final mix was limited a bit by the samples used. You still get a 10/10 for producing amazing music though. ^.^

TheBellmaker responds:

Thanks for the review! I also saw it on the channel :P I guess I respond here then.

I don't know why, but I just really suck at mixing. I've been playing with EQ settings a bit to separate out the instruments, but I really do need work. Unforunately, Edirol doesn't allow me to separate different instruments to different mixer tracks :'(

Thanks for the review! I'm glad you liked it.

[Cally's Theme]

Not bad

Not bad, but it feels like it's missing that moderately quiet driving bass that would really make it move. Didn't really make me think of horror, except for a bit around 0:15, mostly it reminds me of some moment of supernatural discovery--like finding the Jumangi board, or meeting ET. It's almost authentically 80s, though! :)
5/5 9/10

[We Run And Fight]

Awesome.

Great song--you definitely deserve the title! ;p Though, I do expect a pirate remix, because this song could easily be made into a pirate theme rivaling that of any Johnny Depp movie. ;p
5/5 10/10

[Purple Clouds]

Beautiful.

Really, really lovely piece--can't wait to hear the live version. :)

Are you inspired by Nobuo Uematsu or Mitsuda Yasunori? Or japanese pop at all? The progressions in the first part really heavily reminded me of some of their work (and consequently, stuff I play, as I'm heavily influenced by both).

Only issue I have is there seems to be -a lot- of reverb at 2:14, could be scaled back a bit. But otherwise, excellent piece. 5/5 10/10

TheBenjerman responds:

Thanks! I would have responded sooner, but I seem to have missed this before now!

I've certainly heard and enjoyed both composer's works, but really only in passing. I do look up to a number of the composers at Square Enix though, and I am influenced by classical Japanese music in general.

And I can understand how you would get the idea from the chord progressions. A lot of popular Japanese composers are very into added-note-chords and mixed-modes.

And yeah, there is a lot of reverb at 2:14, could be excessive, but I kinda like how the main accompaniment comes out of the ambience of the previous section.

Thanks for the review! I'm going to have to check out Square Enix again. ^_^

[d.F10 - Puzzles -rmx wip-]

Nice ambient piece.

Feels very ambient to me--I feel like I'm in some kind of puzzle solving game or something. No particular emotions pop up for me, but there's a nice blend of instruments and it's very easy on the ears.
4/5 8/10

[FF7 - Battle Theme Remake]

Reverb! >_<

Sounds great, but has too much reverb, making it sound muddy. :)
4/5 8/10

[Hitler And His Talking Vagina]

Ha!

For some reason I think this should've been an Easter Egg in Fallout 3. >.>

[Hazard Pay]

Excellent piece!

Nice stuff. Reminds me of a conversation between the hero and the girl after some big action moment, and they're preparing to make a big move against the bad guy. I love how silky your strings are--are they East/West?

I know dynamics is an excellent thing to preserve for a film score, but for NewGrounds purposes, I would've hard limited the piece a bit to bring the overall volume up a tad--for many people it will just come across as quiet.

Overall, an excellent piece. I would consider moving it to the Classical portal though--you may get more views from others who do similar music. :)

5/5 10/10

TheBenjerman responds:

Thanks a whole lot!

You are correct about the strings! EWQLSO Gold.
Good call about the dynamics. I was still in "movie mode" when I submitted this. :\
And it has been officially moved to classical!

I really appreciate the feedback! I'll have to review some of your stuffs.

[Business or Pleasure? [Loop]]

Back to business!

That hard saw is fucking awesome. lol When it pops in at 0:15 I was hit with instant awesomeness. ;p I also really like the melodic thing that pops into the background around 0:46, very progressive. (Although, I'm not a big techno/house/whatever guy, so I don't know what you guys call that. ;p )

Overall, excellent work.

5/5 "Back to business." 10/10

djInTheDark responds:

Well its hard to be progressive in a loop, so I guess thats a good thing. ;) The saw is very specialized, I didn't want some run of the mill sound for it, I wanted something at least a little new. For the melodic-ness, it really just needed a back beat for it to continue the overall structure without removing the saw to get from one place to another.

Thanx for the review!

[Olympus Is Falling]

Sounds great, though slightly monotonous.

Sounds great--doesn't strike me as trailer music, but I'm sure it could be edited for that purpose. It actually reminds me of a boss battle. Feels a bit monotonous sometimes, but otherwise it's quite good. Love the guitar sound--maybe it could use a lead guitar in a couple parts to add interest? Good work. :)
5/5 8/10