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Miyolophone

39 Audio Reviews

33 w/ Responses

Really jammin' out to this! Your use of sampling and rhythm is super engaging— it's impossible for me to resist bouncing to the beat. Great work!

Nice track, Zyzyx! It's been a while since I've dropped by so I thought I'd take the chance to give you some compliments and suggestions.

+The mix the whole way through is really good. I don't have any criticism there.
+The vocal melody is really, really good, except for "our scars" imo because the pacing of the line suddenly drops a lot and it feels like we've hit a mudpit that's slowing us down or something. Also your singing is really solid except for "heart," where you audibly break a bit...
+Lots of very fun chiptune drop fills! Very VR-y.
+Thank you for changing up the chord progression. It's a pet peeve of mine when a chord progression is used all the way through and it just makes the whole track so much cooler.
+3:08-3:11 is really clever. I'm glad you did that.

-Not sure how I feel about how quickly the vocal chops enter in the intro. I might give the guitar a bit more time to shine on its own.
-The future bass chords felt like they were lacking some heft, compared to what I expected from the last measure of the buildup. The problem is that you have two consecutive measures that are bulding up to that giant chord stack you have by being sort of anticlimactic and giving a feeling of falling into the drop— waiting, and then waiting some more, makes the whole thing kinda lose momentum. tl;dr- I'd either make the buildup keep gaining energy until the chords, or to have some kind of impact instead of/along with the future bass chords.
-The sudden motion in the piano 1:43-1:46 struck me as very distracting because it immediately disrupted the calm of that section.
-1:59-2:00 is cool in theory but imo it's executed kinda weirdly and ends up sounding very dissonant and jarring. Not sure whether this is because of reverb or something, or that it's just way too sudden.
-The guitar got kind of distorted in the outro— not sure whether this was from audio stretching or if it was intentional, but idk I found it not ideal
-General notes on the lyrics: ideally you should have the same rhyme pattern in both pairs of stanzas, but you don't. The first pair is -A-B -A-B, but the second pair is -A-A -B-B. I think making the scheme consistent would make it just a bit stronger! Also "With hearts so binding/blinded by a thousand chains" doesn't make any sense, lol. Also, see note on "our scars" above

Overall excellent track! It's crazy how professional you've been sounding lately. Keep it up!

DJ-Zyzyx responds:

Wow you're very nitpicky xD i like nitpicky tho. Yeah the distortion at the end is a bitcrusher. I don't exactly see the problem you have with the drop, but I appreciate your criticism. I've heard this song so many times I kinda lost a sense of the mix.

thank u m8 <3
~Z

Love it! The DnB switch-up gets me every time I hear it, and great sound design/choices as usual. Excellent work guys!
...also nice outro lol

Zelgeon responds:

hahahahahaha love you man <33

not in a gay way** xd

I'm usually really happy when I inspire people, but it's super hurtful when they entirely surpass me and make me feel inferior. Thanks a lot for that dude, way to ruin my day

Onefin responds:

Dude that's how I felt about you last week

“There’s got to be a way for us to get to know each other” I can hear Jordi’s pain

I enjoyed this one a lot!! I was getting some strong future bass vibes, even though it’s clearly not future bass; the glitch drops were immensely satisfying and the ELO-ish strings that entered during the breakdown in the middle made me smile.

My main issue with it was its predictability— the chords themselves were really cool but they went to the same place, every time. It stayed interesting, so in the end this wasn’t a critical flaw, but nothing ever happened that truly surprised me. Maybe I’m being overly picky on that front but it is finals and I expect nothing short of magic >:(

Other less important issues:
-some kind of sketchy lyric writing spots, including (unfortunately) the eponymous lyric— you put the stress on “come” rather than “on,” and in a song with so little lyric variation that kind of sticks out uncomfortably.
-overall excellently mixed, but I found the claps that entered after the midway breakdown (arghhhh Newgrounds give me back my time stamps please) were pretty jarring. Maybe that’s just me?? Can’t tell.
-there were a couple of very abrupt transitions between the sections— I’d try to point them out but since there are so many freaking sections and I don’t have my precious time stamps I’ll just hope you know which ones I mean D: they generally involved dropping almost everything out and then suddenly throwing them all back in
-I don’t really know how I feel about the ending so I’m just gonna say it’s cool and move on

Anyways, this was overall some awesome work, definitely gets a 5 from me! Best of luck guys :D

johnfn responds:

<3 

Honestly, the more I listen to this piece, the more it impresses me— especially basically everything 1:07-1:30, which is just one wild compositional surprise party after another. I know I've said this already, but incredible work, and a well-deserved victory in composition. Usually piano pieces like these are frankly kind of dull to me, but this went so many interesting and satisfying harmonic places that I never lost interest.

GGWP, LSD! Please continue to be awesome!

LucidShadowDreamer responds:

Aww, thank you!

After repeating the same melody (with variations), I thought I should come up with something new before the end part. I got lucky and just heard those silly modulations inside my mind and thought they fit in perfectly! Thus, I tried to find them on the keys, and I think it went well enough ^___^

It's not the first time I've been told by someone that they generally are bored by many piano pieces, but that they enjoyed mine! Conversely, others tell me that my tracks can be unstructured or too flowy/similar. I'm just happy to do my own thing, and even happier if you and others found them enjoyable!

Thanks a lot, and congrats to you as well, for the thrice in a row victory! :3

Actually enjoyed this one quite a bit, especially the chord progression. Loving the squeaky toy sounds!

That said, few criticisms:
-The sound effects need a bit more thought in how you add them in— If the musical portion is too sparse they can be really jarring rather than contributive. (This especially goes for the "yeah!" it seriously startled me a few times haha)
-Speaking of sparsity, tonal elements seemed to spontaneously drop in and out without warning. Chords would leap onstage, say something short, and then leap off, leaving me all alone with the ambient sounds effects and the percussion. Don't do that to me! I get lonely easily :(
-Also, the kick could stand to be louder. Like, 5 times louder. Plus some more sidechaining might be nice.
-The piano is suuuuuuper dry. Don't be afraid to turn up that reverb! It gives your sounds a lot more body, especially acoustic ones.

So on the whole, a cool track with a lot of potential that had some basic mixing and arrangement issues. Should be easy enough to improve in future pieces.

Cool work!

This is pretty sharp, man! Solid job, I hope you make it to the next round :D
A few of my main criticisms:
-Weirdly, one of the things that bothered me the most were the drum fills at 0:37, 0:50, 1:54, and 2:07. Not only did they feel out of character of the piece overall, which in general was kind of laid-back with respect to rhythm, but also they were exactly the same every time. (I'm also assuming they were loops, which I'm not a fan of to be honest.) The mid-drop tom fills were cliché but not as objectionable in my opinion
-In general I though the bare-bones, no-bells-and-whistles feel of the track was pretty neat, but a couple moments felt a little too empty for my taste, especially the first few measures after the brass stabs at 1:30 and 0:13 (which were sick by the way) and the moment after the first drop (I know there's that quiet arp but it's just not enough for me)
-1:44 was s w e e t but for some reason that specific bass felt too loud for me in comparison to everything else in the drops (again at 1:51 and 2:00)
-The ending was kinda neat but overall didn't feel very final. I was missing some giant chord resolve with the choir and brass and everything, not just some growls and a bitcrushed evil laugh
-There wasn't really a melody like, at all, anywhere, but I can overlook that considering the genre
All that said, I actually thought it was really cool, I just felt like it had some moments of potential that weren't quite realized. Again, I think a more melodic section between the drops (a real melody, not just chords, and longer) would have also given the song more interest value and also duration because it's kind of short.
Anyway, nice work, and good luck in the next NGUAC phase if that happens
-Miyo

GobSmacked responds:

Thanks man i really appreciate it that you took ur time and went through the whole song and constructively crticised it, i really appreciate that. And yeah I agree there were some points where i really didnt add to much or i was kinda lazy or felt like i had to finish the track asap. Ill try to keep improving!!!!

This was neat to listen to, pretty different from your house stuff.
Great job at capturing the mood— overall, it felt very dark and cold, which based on the tags is what I assume you were going for. You had good spotlight moments for several different instruments: particularly, I liked the violin writing at 1:39, the use of horns at 0:39 and 0:49, and the flute at 0:59. The piano was a nice touch as well, even though I would've been maybe a little bored if I were the pianist playing it. Plus, I always like staccato strings (as you know haha)
Some medium-to-small issues I had: The volume increase at 0:39 was definitely too abrupt for me— a smoother transition might have been nice. And proportionally, the first 20 seconds were significantly too quiet compared to the rest.
The structure seemed a bit weird to me— the "biggest" moment in the entire piece was the section immediately after the intro, and then it sort of slowly dwindled and died, which is kind of cool in its own way, but ultimately felt a bit anticlimactic. It's a pretty short piece, so I don't think that's a huge deal or really something you could easily fix, but just something to keep in mind in future pieces like this (if you make more).
Also, I'm sure you already knew I was going to say this, but it's the same 3 chords the whole time. It really could've used some kind of change up at some point to keep it interesting, in my opinion.
All that said, I enjoyed this piece a lot, especially how well you got your image for the scene that it's based on across. Keep it up!

Kyron20 responds:

Thanks for the review Miyo! I can always count on you for insightful reviews, especially on my orchestral stuff.

The static chords were definitely my electronic side's doing. I'm trying to work on it, but I always end up going with the moment and it usually results in the same chords. Maybe you'll see something different next time.

Although I didn't credit him, this piece was somewhat inspired by Cryburger's piece, 'Blood Wood'. There are reasons for the strange structure of this piece, but I really leave the interpretation to the listener and prefer not to have a set story for it. One way to interpret that section is it being a way of introducing the dark mood. I'm not disagreeing with you on this, I do think it was a bit sudden and loud compared to the rest of the piece, but I just thought I'd point out that there was a purpose in making it that way.

The first twenty seconds were something I added as an attempt to make it longer. Otherwise it would have been 1:57 just like every other orchestral song I've made. It was supposed to introduce the setting or the ambience of the forest, but I think this song could have done without it.

Thanks for noticing the mood! The mood was something I really tried to reinforce. I was a bit hesitant with the horns during the louder section, due to the use of 'lighter' instruments everywhere else. I agree, the pianist would be a bit bored, especially with the same chords every few measures, but luckily there isn't a pianist!

Thanks for reviewing! I'll really try to work what you said into my next orchestral piece. I'm not making any promises, but It'll probably be sooner than you think!

This is good! But not perfect.

Pros:
-Definitely a tribute to High Score. It's impossible not to hear you channeling it, which was your intention, I guess, so good job.
-I liked the synths you used (at first). They were fairly close to High Score's, but not exact copies (though I do agree they were could kick in a bit more aggressively, even).
-The key change was a nice touch, though I wouldn't exactly call it "very seamlessly done."
-The mixing seemed good to me. I'm no expert on mixing of course, but I didn't notice any issues.

Cons (There are fewer cons, but the first one was definitely an issue for me):
-Okay, you're really kinda pushing it with the similarity to High Score. I know it's supposed to be inspired by them and all, but the chord progression and melody rhythm are alarmingly close and I can literally pick out parts of High Score and see exactly where your equivalent of it is (e.g. 1:36-2:09 in High Score has nearly identical rhythm and structure to 2:02-2:36 in this; the outros are almost identical). I'd love to see a bit more of your own take on the style.
-It's the same synths for all the main drop sections and melody the whole way through. The exact same. It could stand some variation there.

So yeah, this piece could really stand some shaking things up, but overall this is pretty solid work mate. Hope this helps!

DJ-Zyzyx responds:

Thanks to you're long response dude :3 yeah, so it is meant to be very similar to highscore. The chords and melodies are different, but I can see why you would think it's bad. Thanks for your feedback mate!! <3

dude why the jazz?
—————————————————————
if you want to use my music or have a business inquiry, please email me at miyo@miyolophone.com!

Age 22, Male

USA

Joined on 2/3/16

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