CloakedSoup's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[alone at last]

I really like the sound of this. Excellent sound design/orchestration throughout. I liked the percussive pulsing combined with unique soundscapes that blended together quite naturally. Everything felt fairly organic and it sounded like all the elements had some space to breathe and intermingle in interesting ways before the final climax at around 2:34. I also liked the outro at around 3:21 with the mid-low ranged brass clusters contrasted against the noise combined with the melting string + choral parts. Overall, excellent work here.

Deemo-R responds:

Thank you! This kind of gestural writing was never my strong suit, so it's fun to get to play around with all of these odd textures and atonal masses. This was edited down slightly from a longer film scene, because one section felt like it totally killed the overall pacing. I'm very standard with my harmonic language (just my tastes), so the clusters were a nice change of pace, haha.

Thanks a ton!

[Tree Frogs In A Five-Dimensional Oasis]

Great track! I felt it was perhaps a bit overdrawn near the end/carried on for perhaps a bit too long considering the repetitive nature. Regardless it was still rather well crafted and addicting to listen to.

Around the 0:46 mark it actually reminded me of the original Spyro the Dragon OST on the PS1 which I absolutely love! :D

Baumarius responds:

Yay, thanks!

It used to be 30 seconds shorter, but I've listened it so many times that I just wanted more song lol

[Tasting the Bitter Cold]

WOW! Given the description this piece is very solid! Writing 4 1-2 minute pieces in a day sounds crazy! Basically just taking a basic idea and just going with it. Excited to collab with you when you have the chance. ;D

Deemo-R responds:

Thanks! It is crazy, writing at this speed is the antithesis of how I work and I'm struggling to keep energy up with each new piece haha. Basic ideas for sure are the way to go (at least for now) to avoid using up every idea in a single track. The orchestra got pushed back on a bit so the rest of things have gotten a bit more hybrid-sounding.

I'm super excited to collaborate as well! Working on clearing some space for it this week!

[The Arctic Sanctuary]

Fantastic! I love the mix of minute dissonance in the piano chords with the solo oboe and pitched percussion in the background. That kind of orchestration/ensemble reminds me of the original Ori game music. There's also a subtle climax in the middle with the oboe solo; I especially like the feeling of coldness that the string arrangement gives with such a wide gap between the violins and double basses.

Overall, I think this would work as excellent game music! Excited to see what your next assignments or personal stuff sounds like! :D

Deemo-R responds:

Hey man, good to see you still around! I definitely feel like I lifted a light tuft of Ori ideas with this one - I just finished Will of the Wisps last month and went to a virtual event Gareth Coker did with Guy Whitmore on the music and audio implementation for that game, so it was fresh in my mind. I'm glad you like how the track sounds! I do love how subtle string textures can really change the whole vibe of any orchestration - it reminds me that I still have a lot of things to learn on the production side (which I've always been neglecting to practice). The main thing I worry about with this track is how clear the landmarks are; I think it would need maybe a bit of testing depending on how many loops it goes through on average + the ambience of the area. It's really just a concept track so I didn't worry so much about that at the time! Thanks so much for your review and I hope you're still doing great out there!

[Glassworks | Opening]

Wonderful interpretation!

Phonometrologist responds:

Glad you think so. Thank you for taking the time to let me know!

[Futuredread (Old Draft)]

This cured my headache (No joke).

LD-W responds:

brb selling the WAV to big pharma to use as a headache cure

[Searching the Azimuth]

This was really nice. Everything from the opening choral bit with the sub bass thumps to the mid section with all the arpeggios and lush pads. I also liked how the ending contained some elements of the opening with the synth voices, but was more sparse/quiet. Omnisphere has some really nice sounds; I might have to get it one of these days.

Deemo-R responds:

A late response, buuuuuut - I have nothing bad to say about Omnisphere, I absolutely endorse and recommend it to anyone that considers it! Glad you liked it, I always liked ambient music back when I started writing, but I haven't really gotten myself to do much with it these days. It felt kinda right getting to do a track like this again, even if a bit rudimentary in some aspects; concert music has been getting me down a lot and I love reaching out into different areas to feel revitalized! :)

[Showdown!! [SSS]]

Why are ratings so low? This is awesome! You totally got the vibe down I think. The mixing is pretty solid too. Everything is really clear. From a composition standpoint it's perfect too! Congrats on writing such a solid piece of music! :D

Deemo-R responds:

Urgh, sorry - one of those is my own, lol. I was showing a friend the finished file on my phone and he asked the same thing (sitting at a 1.38 before), so I showed him that I could rate my own submissions and didn't change it afterwards. I'm glad you think it turned out nicely! I've always been pretty self-conscious about how unstructured and disparate my compositions have been in the past, so it's a bit relieving to hear that this one came off well. Thanks so much for the kind words, and I hope to be hearing some more of your work soon as well!

[Migrating Winds]

Violin AND solo violin!?!? Damn boi! :P

In all seriousness, I really loved the textures you created in the opening. Did you combine bowed vibraphone with string harmonics? Once the violin began playing the melodic line it became really beautiful. The following rhythmic parts created a nice sort of contrast, but I think that the preceding melodic part could have been stretched out more or even used for more of a big climax. Overall really nice job! Some lovely textures and composing here.

Deemo-R responds:

Yessir, I thought the bowed vibraphone would sit pretty well with the harmonics (a minor second from the viola harmonic), and I thought it sounded pretty interesting in practice - although the accompanying strings have mutes on for the entire piece, which may have caused the harmonics to not speak as well as I hoped. The recording setup also picked up a lot of AC hum, which makes me sadpanda...

Totally agree with you on the brevity of the melodic content, though; I was planning to make a LOT more happen with the rhythmic section, including developing that melodic content more, but I had to settle for something shorter since the first section was so slow and ate up a lot of time. There's still some motivic unity, but I personally like having more direct references lol. All in all, I was really just happy to hear real people play this instead of the usual MIDI feedback!

Thanks a ton for the insight, Collin! Really appreciate your compliments! :D

[Letters of an Empath]

It's nice getting to hear one of your own compositions on here! I might argue that NG isn't the best place for contemporary classical stuff, because people here tend to shy away from stranger modern stuff like this (A comment about jazz having lots of wrong notes comes to mind lol). On the other hand, if you'd like to post 'sketchbook' kind of stuff here, then by all means go ahead! Just don't necessarily expect most people to know what's going on compositionally haha.

As for the piece itself, nice job! Some of the combinations of sounds were able to get were very nice. Especially the combinations of the viola pizz. with the plucked harp, they made for a nice background/accompanimental element against the flute. The main bit of critique I could offer would be to make the distinctions between the 'violent' sections and the calming ones more distinct. The opening REALLY caught my attention with the intense dissonance and sfz attack. Some of the subsequent sections still had a bit of that 'violence' but it felt like it kept getting weaker each time until it the two starting blending together a bit too much. I think you could have gone even more intensely with the 'violent' sections later on to really create contrast.

Overall, really beautiful piece! Always enjoy hearing your music! :D

~Collin

Deemo-R responds:

Thanks a ton, Collin! Honestly, I've considered the "audience disparity" issue for quite a while, but eventually I came to the conclusion that I might as well have something to post rather than nothing. The users of NG are relatively hands-off when it comes to content they aren't interested in, so I think it's a pretty safe place for some experimentation; perhaps not a ton, but I don't have a massive following to worry about here. I dually appreciate the comments I do receive on pieces like this, regardless of the theoretical knowledge they may possess - I think there's some value to be seen in those perspectives as well.

It's been a while since I worked on the music, but I remember this being a really stop-and-start writing process. Without getting into too much detail, the pieces were made for this theme, which was actually part of a project for a graduate dance group. What I originally sent them was a mockup of the section starting at 2:37, which they enjoyed. Following up on it with the full piece, they seemed to want the response leaning more on the side of "a response encouraging emotional recovery", so I kept the sections following the initial "violent outburst" a bit lower. It may have also been part of my thought process in development, but I can't remember too well. I do know that I ended up writing in the program notes that 0:37 was "the act of violence" and everything following it was the response of another person, but that was a bit of post-mortem makeup application, lol. The section around 3:40 is really the only other "violent" section I'd identify, but the whole recording around that part is a bit of a mess. It's both a funny and really sad story - sad for me at the time, but kind of funny in retrospect. Regardless, I think your point still stands - if I had brought more of the "violent" timbres to the table in certain sections (and potentially cut down on a few others) I think the cohesion of the piece would improve quite a lot. I wish it were easier to get players together for an ensemble like this, because I've heard quite a lot of beautiful things from it. The other student pieces were also fantastic, and some of them make me feel like I have a lot of catching up to do!

You're too kind, thanks so much for the constructive criticism! Always appreciated in my book!