Miyolophone's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Pheidippides]

Damn, that is quite a feat! I barely even know where to start.

Well, first off, a general overview of the song: you were able to make an 8 minute piece not very repetitive amazingly well. There were some parts that I personally felt went on a little long, but honestly I've heard 3 minute pieces with more repetition— including my own— and I would probably chalk that up to my own personal pace for rapidly shifting music anyway. It did remind me of EnV, as you said, but only stylistically. The melody seemed original, unless I'm not thinking of the song. And I like EnV, so... good job...

For the record, I loved the retro part— I felt it was just what the song needed to keep me interested, because I had (after all) already sat through 3 and a half minutes of the same melody. All the synths and other sounds were great... not much I can say about that, as you know.

I'm gonna put in some suggestions here, but I'm not taking off stars for them because their just to try to elevate your music to a new level of awesomeness: first of all, I'm impressed that you used that same melody and chord progression for 7 minutes and 56 seconds, but I don't think it would've hurt to have a key change, or even a new theme somewhere, just to mix things up and give it a certain flavor that I think it could use. (I know I'm one of the few people who cares about that sort of thing judging from other Newgrounds reviews, but whatever.) Another thing you could try is harmonizing with the melody (having the melody overlaid above the original at intervals), which might or might not mean anything to you, but if you're curious on how I'd be happy to explain.

Wow, this ended up being a really long review. My point was, you've come a long way from Kraken, that's for sure. I'll be outraged if you don't get as famous as EnV someday, at this rate. Keep it up.

Cheers c:

MollusK-Music responds:

Haha, thanks! I'm really glad I was able to keep you interested and that this was pleasant to listen to. I've been looking into trying to add key changes to songs for a while, but I've never been good at transitioning from one key to the next. Now, I'm not exactly sure what you mean by harmonizing the melody. I mean, I think I have an idea, but I would be really interested to hear about it, for future projects. So, if you want to share your knowledge on that, I'd love to hear it. I'm glad you liked the retro part as well, that was a total 'pioneer's voyage' for me, musically and sound design wise as well. Luckily all retro music is square based, so that made it real easy to design the sounds. The drums are just made with white noise, anyhow.

I'm happy to hear that I'm improving and I plan to keep doing that. Maybe some dubstep or more future bass next.

Cheers c:

[Sad Machine Remix WIP]

I really like how it's turning out! You should definitely bring back the piano part at the beginning, because it was really nice :D

I liked the sounds you used, especially the percussion (probably because I can never handle percussion for some reason), but my issue with them was that the non-melody instrument starting at 0:11 felt too loud compared to the other pluck sound that you have, but that might just be me. Anyway, I like how it sounds so far, keep it up man!

Cheers c:

MollusK-Music responds:

That's certainly fair, seeing as I was intending to make it the driving force. I will definitely work with it a little bit to see if I can't get a more balanced result. The percussion originally felt completely wrong with the rest of the song, but all it took was to move the sequences a little bit and it seemed to fit perfectly after that. I also took into account the advice to use more complex percussion.

Thanks for the feedback, dude. Cheers c:

[An Astronaut's Daydream]

Okay, we're going to skip the pleasantries: this was fricking amazing. I'm a fan of future bass, especially Jumper, who's style is similar to this (and that's one of the highest compliments I can give you, trust me). It isn't particularly "catchy" or melodic in the traditional sense, but that's okay, it's not required. The sidechaining is epic, and all of the sounds were really amazing and fit the mood really well. If you don't mind me paparazzi-ing you with a few questions, 1) where did you get the drums from? 2) are all the synths from Serum? If not, what else did you use? and 3) what was that awesome Time Lapse-like water drop sound you had from?

Anyway, my only criticism was that the outro was, like, 3 times longer than it needed to be, and in general the piece was somewhat repetitive (there weren't really distinct melodic sections that you might find in really excellent future bass. I refer you again to Jumper; "To World's End" is a great example of the distinct sections thing). But I can overlook that because this is so fabulous.

Cheers man c:

MollusK-Music responds:

I really appreciate the compliments and comparison to Jumper! Before I get too much Into anything, I want to let you know that I am in the process of remastering this and changing the parts that sounded a little odd. Also the repetition is being worked on, and almost done. I am planning to do a whole lot more future bass and I hope to get better each time, so if this was good then I am clearly improving, so thanks again. That really motivates me.

Now to answer your questions:

1. They are all a little bit changed by myself to sound better in general. The kick came from a pack I have as well as the clap. The little rim-shot I used to replace the snare is stock in FL and I also used it in "Inner Machinations" The hats are also stock and given some effects.

2. Yes, every sound in here was made from scratch in Serum; Bass, Chords, Pads, Plucks. It is my absolute favourite synthesizer, without question.

3. It was from an FX loop I've had on my computer for a while. It has a bunch of vocal chops, and other sounds, but the droplet sound stood out, so I simply chopped it out of the other stuff.

I don't ever mind answering questions, so it's not trouble at all.

Cheers to you as well c:

[Never Forget You (cover)]

This sounds really good, even though I'm not familiar with the song :D

My initial impression was that, while not boring in any way, it was very low-energy all the way though. Again, however, I'm not familiar with the song, and "low-energy" isn't an inherently bad thing in the first place, so I didn't take off any stars for that. I really like the sort of quiet booming percussion you have in the beginning, where did you get it from? (If you don't mind my asking, of course...) And the piano itself, of course, was very well done (as always).

One thing that I though I might change, however, is that in a lot of places, I felt the piano had to fight to be heard over some of the background pads and such. You might want to increase the levels on the piano farther above those of the rest of the instruments. But that was only a minor issue.

In general, I really enjoyed it, it was relaxing to listen to. Keep making music!
-Miyolophone

acxle responds:

Thanks! The booming can be found in the Orchestral Kit. And I purposely quieted the piano because I've always had a problem with high notes on the piano causing the scratching noise.

[Work in Progress]

This is good!
The beginning is really cool— I really liked the VR growl, actually— and the instrument you have with the melody is great-sounding. I agree with sYrge w/r/t the sidechaining, though, and also related to the chords, some of them sounded a little dissonant. That's not inherently a bad thing, but if you want it to be very harmonically smooth, you might want to change some of the chord tones so they don't aurally "rub" so much. Other than that, no criticisms that aren't just personal taste. Good start, man.
Cheers c:

MollusK-Music responds:

Much obliged, always happy to hear from you three. I do plan to address those points as much as possible in the finished product. I've actually changed the chords dramatically, so they are far less... rough, I want to say. They are more stabby and smoothly automated so they fade slightly from their initial hit. I'm tinkering with the plucks as well to make them a lot more smooth, and one of the layers traipses from side to side (left to right) over a 2 bar span, which gives what I think to be a nice subtle effect. I'm still thinking for names, so if you have any ideas feel free to pm me. Also, the sidechaining will be fixed at some point. I've been looking into it, doing my normal routine, but something unknown isn't working. It's a little frustrating, but if it's not tough it's not worth doing. Thanks so much for the feedback!

Cheers, man c:

[Jumper - Purity (2016)]

This was epic as usual, Jumper. No complaints at all about the electronic aspects. The mixing was great, the sounds were all right, everything fit. (Actually, even if there was something wrong, I'm pretty sure I'm so bad with VSTs and stuff that I wouldn't be able to articulate my problem.)

My one criticism is that, from a theory standpoint (since that's really the only thing I can judge), everything was very... expected. That's not really the best word, but, like, I could always sort of feel where it was going. This is all well and good, but I think the very best music has some sort of "kick," a change that surprises you, even if it doesn't sound out of place. A key change, a tempo increase, something like that (I felt) was the missing piece.

All that said, this was really, really cool, and my issue was really minor and somewhat a matter of personal taste. You gained yourself a fan. Keep it up, Jumper!

Jumper responds:

Thank you so much for that honnest comment. It really helps a lot since I'm mostly self taught. I usually have no idea of what I'm doing except when I know what I'm doing sounds good to me or it's something logical. I either go by logic, by ear or experimentation. So having some comments like this one once in a while makes me see what to improve and how to get there. Of course it's all subjective. It's all about taste but, I know there's a lot of room for improvement still. That's always good to know :D

Thanks a lot for your helpful comment, Miyolophone. Greatly appreciated.

[-Ascension [WIP]-]

Very cool! Electronic orchestral is my favorite genre, and you used the instruments well. I can see the Xtrullor inspiration.
My only criticism is that the piece builds really slowly and keeps the same 2-chord progression, which gets kind of tiring after 54 seconds of the same two bass notes. It could use a little more melodic/chordal diversity.
Otherwise, good! Interested to see how the whole thing will turn out.

Kyron20 responds:

Not sure if I'll continue this one... It gets really repetitive after a while (like you said) and I can't work out a dubstep part to it. Also, I have better samples now, and these sound kinda cheap to me. I don't know, I might finish it.

[MollusK - Inner Machinations]

This is pretty good! But you asked for helpful feedback, so here it is :3

Pros: The point of the song was to have the chords move everything along, right? Because I thought that was achieved really well. There was a nice variety in feeling throughout the song. And dose nature sounds doe :D

Tips: Some of the harmonies at the beginning kind of bothered me, not sure if it was the notes played by the bell thing or just me being weird...
It was kind of repetitive, it could've used a little more variation. Maybe modulate the chord progression up or something? Idk...
And the buzzing synth sound (starting at 0:53) felt a little out of place to me, but that could have just been personal preference.

Overall, pretty solid piece! Keep it up man :)

MollusK-Music responds:

I really appreciate the honesty. I am always looking for what people like, so I can keep doing it. As well as what people don't like, so I can change them. So this is really helpful for me. I agree that the beginning of the song sounded a little peculiar. More than likely musician's deafness got the better of me, which isn't uncommon.

I appreciate the kind words as well, it certainly gives me some motivation, as well as helps me do better every time. Thanks again c:

[Xenogenesis (cover)]

This is really incredible, especially for just GarageBand! Your use of the instruments (especially the piano) is very tasteful. And the chord progression change at 1:31 made me shiver a little.
Easily as good as the original, if not better. (Sorry TheFatRat :/)
Keep being awesome!