shrugo's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[School of Torture Reboot Theme]

Excellent job with the guitar work.
The only thing I find flaw with in the song is that the children laughing samples seem to cut off very abruptly and don't flow as nicely as the rest of the song does.
Fix that and you've probably made the song as great as it can be!

Lodmot responds:

Thank you very much for the feedback. :D

[Vectorverse (Song 1)]

This is interesting. Some parts have a very NES Nobuo Uematsu sound while others have a very Takashi Tateishi sound. And still others have a Robert Fripp type sound (around the 1:33 it starts).
I like hearing so much variation in a song, especially in a loop which potentially goes on forever. It keeps the listener interested.
The one complaint I have is the way this song loops. It almost sounds like ends before starting over. If the end of the loop were more seamlessly connected to the beginning of the song, this song would be almost perfect!

WarmanSteve responds:

Yeah, the person who asked me to write this wanted an "intense" NES sounding tune, but I have a hard time hiding other influences some times (I LOVE KING CRIMSON). And I'll admit that the ending was kinda a cop out, but I couldn't think of a way to cleanly loop it at the time. Thanks for the review!

[Kim - Experiment #8]

It's pretty great. I love you sense of melody. The song sounds a tad slow though. Like maybe up by 10-15 bpm and it would be about right. In addition the drums might sound nice if they were a little faster, but with a bpm increase that might be solved. Keep up the good work.

Kimken responds:

Yeah! I tried that on the midi file and you were right. It did sound better with more BPM! Perhaps i will re-record and fix the whole song later, since i got my headphones fixed :)

Thanks for the review!
-Kim

[Lavender Town (Shift7Remix)]

Pretty interesting what you've got there.
If you haven't already, you should check out the Lavender Town song in Gold/Silver/Crystal, which essentially does the same thing you were attempting.

AmpersandKiD responds:

Thanks! You're right, I forgot they changed it in G/S/C.

[Mansion Hopeless(Gametime)]

It's not bad, but it is a bit repetitive. I understand that video game music tends to be repetitive, but it does feature a decent amount of variation. This is closer to like a hip-hop or rap type track. Also, the build up is very slow. Something about game music that I really only just realized recently is that except for a few exceptions, the music should have a relatively short build-up and then immediately play a decently catchy melody. Exceptions would be major boss battles, which can take a while to build up, and certain area songs (which might never actually build up anywhere).

liljchosen responds:

Go check out the original mansion hopeless that I made. It is a hip hop beat indeed, but video game hip hop. This version is the same, minus the kicks and all, it's for those that want a different experience with the same track, but thanks a lot for the review. I do indeed need to work on the variations in the gametime versions instead.

[Dawn of Fate]

Pretty good stuff here. It's obvious to me that the percussion was a labor of love, but I feel like the rest of the track could have used some embellishment upon the original (making it your own or something) but it was good nonetheless (it helps that I love that song).

deliverance84 responds:

"Who are you boatman" You clearlly listened well, you got it bang on somehow, I did spend way more time on the percussion than the melody. Since kingdom hearts remixes seem to be well received here, I might try and go crazy on this one. Thanks for the review.

[Initiate]

This has a great feel for rhythm! I don't necessarily approve of all the choices of instruments, though. I would suggest switching some of the piano parts onto a simular instrument that has a little more umph, like a rock organ of some type. (Mainly the stuff before the halfway mark. The stuff in the middle is fine as it is; it creates a nice dichotomy.)
I enjoy the freedom you take with your chord progression. It's nice to see someone mixing it up a bit.
Also I would try and find a more full sounding drum instrument (VST or Soundfont or whatever). The one here sounds a little bit weak, but your choice of drum composition is actually very nice.
I do like your bass though! It reminds me a bit of some Genesis-era stuff!
I forgot to mention that there are a few parts that I really like in particular: 0:51-1:15, 1:19-1:26 (this part has a very strong Justice/Daft Punk feel that you only really find in French House! Very good stuff there) 1:33-1:52

I'm not so sure if this would fit into a game very well, but I can't say for sure. It definitely would work for some games, probably a platformer of some type (I'm thinking Sonic gameplay for a boss battle). As a song, though, it is very nice.

Croirefly responds:

Thanks so much for the full review! It helps me become better and I really appreciate it :)

[Nocturne-Strolling Search]

Pretty good. My main complaint is that this track lacks some melodic variation for a good portion of the loop. I would suggest messing around with building a little tension more around the :30 mark a gripping melody line.
This would fit well for some kind of racing/surfing type of game I think, actually.

NocturneLabs responds:

You're absolutely right. I'm going to reopen the file and put a melody in there :) I threw this together the first time in about 30 minutes, and didn't catch that it was lacking. Thanks for the review / listen ^-^

[MZ3 "Scrapped Beat" HG/SS]

Very nice! It's got a bit of a Shogo Sakai feel to it and a pretty bluesy feel as well.
Also reminds me a bit of Jun Funahashi!

MasterMarioMX responds:

thanks man! these things tend to be a Little like this.

[Catacombs (8-bit)]

Very nicely done, it reminds me of some post-DOS era games like the very early Elder Scrolls games.
One thing I particularly enjoyed was the way some distortion crops up around 0:22 and 0:30. Not sure if it was intentional, but it works very nicely for the atmosphere you've got going there. In fact, I might suggest using more of that in this track. Don't get too comfortable with it though, too much and you've got something that just sounds grimy, and it definitely won't work for every track you make.
Great job, keep it up!

bp-abby responds:

The dissonance was intentional. Thank you for your kind review!