madboss's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[_-={These Angels of War}=]

Grand and epic

Hy there maestro - sorry for the late review but I got stuck in some work recently ... but as I can see you'll have to spend an awefull lot of time if you want to response to all of the reviews.

But to the song: the start grand. The use of brass was great. Also the choirs were outstanding. After the start was a small part that really had some arabic motifs - as the drums had in the background. The last part is a mistery for me: what kind of instrumnets or instrument-combinations did you used to make it? Anyhow it gave another arabic twist to the song.

Nothing else to mention: greatly composed, dinamic and epic. Congratulations!

MaestroRage responds:

Hmm lets see. The instruments near the end were solo violin with Dizi flute combination. The Dizi flute is of oriental origin and has become one of my favourite instruments. My only problem with it is the fact it has a somewhat limited range (barely 2 octaves), which I guess isn't bad, but i'm used to throwing notes up and down octaves like madness!

In any case, i'm glad you liked the piece! The choirs were quite a feat in themselves, mixing this and that, and very soon I plan on adding more to my library. Always on a hunt for more instruments :D.

Thanks for the review ^^

[_-={The Metal Visage}=-_]

Another fantastic piece

Hy there Maestro!

Again you made a crystal-clear sounding and uplifting track! I bet that it'll be used a lot of times by flash artists.

Unfortunately I can't imagine any story to the track just some pictures flashing into my mind in random order.

So let's see the song itself:

Nice beginning - the electronic effect was a bit strange from you and I thought no you'll try something different but then the string came in and made clear that you'll bring up a full classical piece again.

Great bulid up - the full sound before the rushing action part is uplifting and epic: the moment before the storm.

And than a laugh: and the action starts. A simple but effective part you made here. Did you used a bagpipe or this kind of instrument in the background? I couldn't hear it clearly.

The ending with that choir is nice altough I think you made better choirs than this - I think the Spread of Chaos had some better ones if I remember well. But this one was great as well - brought the mood that you wanted to share.

So there's nothing else left to say: congratulations and keep up this amazing quality in your work!

MaestroRage responds:

It's true madboss, the choir work in this piece wasn't great, but it wasn't meant to be. Simple long notes to emphasize the feeling. It was also meant to be significantly longer, but I didn't want to cut up the song and risk having people know only half the story. My aim with this track was not the music itself, but I wanted to share the story, and so with that as my goal, I tried to build it all with this one piece.

The instrument you heard before the laugh was actually a high pitched violin.

I don't mind if you didn't see any image to the piece, I don't expect the track to invoke stories or the such for everybody, we all know music is a very subjective craft, what one may think is amazing, another may think it crap, and so forth. I'm glad you wrote the review and let me see your thoughts anyways, thank you for that.

Thanks again for the review, i'm glad you liked the piece madboss ^^.

[Shadows of Fire]

Great!

Hello ConSoul!

This is a great piece of music you have here! Great orchestration - when the orchestra is going with the choir and with tha fast string it's absolutely great. Some parts reminded me Danny Elfman. So this music has a great feeling.

The work with the fast strings is great! I liked the staccato brass as well. The whole orchestra sounded alive. The beginning was one of freaking one. But then came the action. Great job!

What program did you use? Because the whole song sounded alive and really clear.

So 5/5 from me - keep up the good work!

ConSoul responds:

East West Quantam Leap Symphonic Orchestra and Choir is what I use for the strings, winds, brass, choir, and some of the percussion.

I mix everything up with Audacity and I use WordBuilder to put lyrics to the choirs.

If you'd like a more detailed synopsis of my equiptment just visit my site!

[The Picture Player]

I love this one!

Well hello there again Bosa. Looks like you're a really fast composer. It's not long time passed when I reviewed Vu Bakveesh (The Hard Worker)and now you already have two new ones.

And this time you got my points with this one. I could absolutely imagine a story for this. The story is this:

An old man is trying to find a film tape - he's falling all around in a comical way. Than he finally got the whole stuff working and starts to watch a movie from his good old times - from the cheerull times (I mean the piano here - loved it.) The detuning of the melody was a great effect made me imagine this story even better.

When the slow string part came in I can imagine that the old man is starts to feel sorrow for these times that passed or the movie has raised beloved and painful memories from his past. Maybe he's a world war 2 veteran and he has remembered his comrades after watching some cheerfull films of the good old times with together.

The last part with the bagpipe was really uplifting - like the old man would smile and think: rest in piece brothers I'll join you when my time comes and we will meet each other...

So Bosa: this time the contrast in the track worked out really well for me. I loved it - again as always the slow string part and the slow dramatic melodies were great and uplifting. And this time the cartoonish/comical music was fitting to the whole composition as well. So you got my 5 that's for sure. Great job!

Bosa responds:

Thanks, man. I originally meant it to be comical to hopeful, and you matched the story quite well. This took some work, but I managed to play it out perfectly and the way I wanted it. I'll be sure to check out some of your stuff.

-Bosa

[_-={Dark Skies}=-_]

Not bad

But I think you have certainly made better tracks. My main problem with this song lies in the drums: they are too soft and jazz-like for this serious classical track. The cyms (or some metal percussions - I can't decide) are not too bad but still with these drums and snares are not giving the energetic feel that you promised in your description.

The good points: the female choir was fenomenal (almost like an opera) - as the violin was. The whole melody-flow was dinamic and energetic - that showed the problems with the drums even more. So with the melody and it's instrumentation. Your beloved bells are still giving the epic edge - as always.

Now as I'm listening to it for the fifth time I could imagine this stuff under a fast paced chase scene or some martial art-like fight. So this song definitely has potential.

I understand that hard hitting drums are really difficult to put under a complex classical theme - I'm having this problem at the moment with my upcoming prject so I can understand your problem - but some suggestion: how about some deep drums with long reverb and some tipini or conga drums? After my taste some toms would be also fitting to it.

So summing up everything: the instrumentation of the percussion section after my subjective is a bit to soft for this tune (altough I must underline that I don't know the songs purpose) - but beside this everything is fitting greatly.
I think this is still a really good audio - so keep it up!

MaestroRage responds:

there are in fact some heavily reverbed toms in here, they are hard to hear, because so much of the low end was taken up by the brass. In order to let you hear the tom rumbles and hits, i'd have to severely smash them loud, and then that would be an equalizing nightmare and it would distort the song like crazy school X_x.

The percussional side was meant to be a tad jazzy, having burrowed the flow of the percussions off some metal influence I got while listening to some metal tracks I decided to try and incorporate it in here. It was not as you know, a huge success, but it was an interesting turn of events.

The primary emotion meant to be portrayed was that of a vivid, lively, brutal fight between some heroes and a powerful dark figure. At that point you must consider which side you want to lean on.

Energetic dark battle, or deep ruthless battle. If you have deep ruthless, you do not have room for a lot of high end and fast paced elements, if you go deep ruthless, you are not supposed to move too quickly, and things are supposed to sound very tense and dark.

The jazzy percussional was meant to liven things up, keep it moving faster, more fluent.

In any case, thank you for the review madboss, i'm glad you liked it, I look forward to that project, do pm me when it's done ^^.

[The Lord Of The Rings|Remix]

First LOTR-Trance remix I've ever seen...

Wow... I've never heard from anyone from a LOTR remix. I'm really familiar with the score and I could figure out which theme did you use for the track.

(I give it only 9 because it's not finished yet and a bit too short in this way - if I could I'd give a 9,5)

Man it's booming! Great! But I'd suggest you to make a more constant melody not so dotted like this because it's more difficult to realise the theme.

But if you leave it in this way it will be also a booming stuff - it was just my suggestion. So great stuff I'm eagerly waiting for the full one.

P.S.: pls check out my stuff if you got some time. I'm rather in the classical section - but some opinions from people in other genre is also greatly welcome.

Dr-Dajova responds:

Well, im just glad that someone likes it, due that most ppl recordnice this to a classic piece :) I just wanted to boom it up a bit ^.^

[_-={Brotherhood}=-_]

I imagined somthing else om this...

... we can see only grey smoke and waveing flames... a medieval town is in flames... and than a mans siluette starts to take shape from the wall of smoke. He wanders trough the destroied town with shock on his face... he can't belive: everything is destroied... everything is gone...

So that's about my story now about the song itself. Nice minimalistic approach altough I havent heard oboe and fench horn in the song but still nice job.

The violin and chello sound gives a great medieval feel of it. It's to pitty that you havent made a grand-ending for the song after the arising sound I was waiting to a full climax... but that was the end of the song. Still nice job though and after my vision I think this song has rather got a dramatic and tragic edge than a brotherhood like friendship theme.

MaestroRage responds:

It's been too long for me to respond to these reviews. I apologize madboss, there really is no excuse, it would have only taken me a minute. Oh well, better late then never right?

The image you present is one that is indirectly related to the feeling I wanted. This brotherhood I envisioned was one formed with pain and suffering. More like they all understanding what they have gone through and building bonds off that.

A grand ending you say eh? I didn't really want to make an energetic end, or stray too far from this laid back feeling, this sad, slow, pace. Oh well, maybe one day.

In any case, i'm glad you enjoyed the track madboss, thank you for the review, means a good deal to me!

[Final Conquest]

Good job!

Üdv néked! Jó dolog magyar arcokat látni az NG-n, fõleg úgy, hogy még eggyel sem találkoztam:)

Nos meg kell mondjam, jó kis számot pakoltál össze! A minõsége igazán remek. Milyen programot használtál hozzá? A dobok, meg a kórus igazán remekül szólt, bár a nõi kórushangokon érzõdött egy picit, hogy hangminták - de a férfi kórus bitang jól szólt.

A szám hangulata szintén nagyon frankó. Igazi conquest-es hangulata van, bár ahogy felépítetted, nos az egy kicsit túlzottan ismétlõdõ. Tehettél volna bele néhány kiállást, vagy szóló hangszeres részt, vagy akár néhány komolyabb dob-szólót. A felénél bejövõ váltás érdekes, furcsa az elektronikus-hangzású break-beat egy ilyen témájú dalban, de nekem tetszik.

Szóval egy kicsit túl sokat ismételgeted a fõtémát de alapjában véve jól szól a dolog és tetszik is. Szóval csak így tovább, remek kis szám ez. Ja és ha lesz idõd, légyszi látogass el az én lapomra is és véleményezd a saját dalaimat.

And to switch on to englis that everyone could understand my opinion about this song: altough it's a bit repetitiw with the melody the awesome quality of the instruments and the mood it creats turn the whole thing to an epic and great track.

mechanoid-9 responds:

Csá, én se láttam itt még más magyart, de jó tudni hogy nem én vok az egyetlen:) Hú, úgy hozzászoktam az angol értékelések és válaszok írogatásához, hogy magyarul sokkal nehezebben megy... Nos a program magix music maker 2005, de az csak az eszköz, mert a hangok a magix sound pool 12-bõl vannak. És igen, az egész hangmintákból van. Azért kevés benne a változatosság, mert az ilyen sound poolokon általában egy zenestílushoz viszonylag kevés hang van, csak összesítve sok. Ehhez a zenéhez felhasználtam szinte az összes hangot a movie score szekcióból. Ezért is van, hogy több ilyen zenét nem fogok tudni csinálni úgy hogy másképp is hangozzon, legalábbis ezzel a sound poollal nem.
Nos tényleg tehettem volna bele dobszólót vagy hasonlókat de ha megnézed még így is 4:57 hosszú, egy még ennél is hosszabb számot piszok nehéz úgy konvertálni mp3ba hogy jól is hangozzon, ezzel is vagy egy órát szenvedtem mégse sikerült jobb minõséget elõállítanom. Látom 10-et adtál a clarityre de a waw változat sokkal jobban szól. Nagyon utálom a 4 megás limitet...
Na mit mondjak még... kösz az értékelést, biztosan belehallgatok majd a zenéidbe. Jaj ne most ugyanezt írjam le angolul is? Megpróbálom tömören.
Now an english summary of my reply: I used sounds from magix sound pool 12 and put them together with magix music maker 2005. It's repetitive because of the small number of samples provided for one genre. I could have added different sections like a drum solo but even this way it's 4:57 long and it's hard to convert longer songs into mp3 and make them sound good. I hate the 4 megs limit...
Whew, definitely my longest reply ever!

[National Reqiem Remix I]

Hey, nice stuff!

I liked the whole concept behind the track! The beginning piano was nice and then you layered up to it the national anthems theme - nicely done sounds great.

Then comes the change: the whole glorious stuff changes to a war-like song: like a war machine would get into movement to rush down its targets. Really epic and great sound! Only one thing I didn't liked - that was the reaaaly high pitched strings. I think you should avoid these or at least make there volume lover.

Then the song slowes down: great! I loved it. Another epic boom - choir in the background sad and epic melody... But the high pitched strings coming up again... well the same goes here. Or you should maybe use another instrumet instead of string at that part like piccolos or flutes. The provide tha same high tone sound but not so ear-hurting way.

I'd also suggest to change the strings attack-level in the end part that they start with some fade in to make the feeling more sad and epic. In this way they are a bit to rough.

Summing up: this song has great potential. The composition and melody was perfect - I cound't find any negative things in it. So keep up the good work, you got talent!

ExpectExpansion responds:

Thanks for the input. I recently got a new vst for the strings, and plan to remake the song into a final form, aka the 2nd remix.

[_-={The Rite of Passage}=]

Great composition again

Well... here we are again: listening to one of the newest great audio piece of the maestro...

The start blow me away - I loved the harp(?) sound. The next upcoming percussion brought some tribe-ish or native feel for it - an exotic land's picture came into my mind like the Aztec or Inca civilisation in it's glorious days with their temples striking the skies above the trees of the rain-forest.

The flutes(?) melody was really close to Vangelis - 1492 Soundtrack but still staied original. I think you tried to bring some native feelings to the track with the exotic sounding woodwinds - when yes, you made a great job with it.

Maybe there is only one small thing I would mention: as I could hear properly you used the same melody quite often. I mean there was a melody and you havent changed it, just varied it's structure or plaied on other instrument. Well it's not really a problem I think because the track is varied enough and don't become repetitive.

So impressive job again - congratulation!

P.S.: I've got some new stuff around. If you got some time drop some revs. Tnx!

MaestroRage responds:

Hmm, I was wondering if anybody would catch onto the chords and harp being pretty much the same.

To be honest, I started this piece with just the harp loop, then added a layer on it, then another... and another, and when those layers became too thick, I took them out, and started again. And then merged the layers together. The melody on top of the constant chords and harp does change, rather drastically at times to hide the chords, but they just worked so well I didn't have the heart to change them!

This is especially true when the quick strings come in, the oriental violin sound (it does sound like an exotic flute, but it's not), was just SO damn good hearing to me, I felt it was my DUTY to use it again XD.

I didn't hear Vangelis, but now I am quite curious. I will have to look into it one day.

The image you got, was also very very interesting. To live a life in the shoes of that boy... I went on and on with it for nearly an hour, then had to snap out of it to get some work done ;).

In any case, Thank you for the review, i'm glad you liked the piece. I'll drop on by your page now.