Out of Options

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Out of Options

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Author Comments

Well, this is one of the more minor songs I've done lately... Minor chords all over the place XD. Took me a while to make, especially the melodies; I quite like the melodies I made here ^^.

This uses the SGM V2.01 soundfont for the piano, the Squidfont Orchestral soundfont for the strings and a miscellaneous soundfont for the xylophone, along with hip-hop drums made with drum samples I downloaded. I also did some humanizing here, just a quick job of random velocities, some strumming on the chords and a main automation pattern where the tempo changes slightly at times throughout the song. Also, I know that the piano sample doesn't sound like a piano that much; that's intentional -I sort of like this piano sample; it has that dark and sinister feel to it. I also found out (I know that I probably should've found this out ages ago but anyway :P...) that when you turn your drum beat patterns to wav, they very noticeaby sound much clearer, so all of the drum beats (not the drum transitions like the one at around 0:05 [the two hi hats], but all of the beats) are wav files :D.

It took me ages to think of a name. It started with 'Idea' because I didn't know what to name it, and then it moved on to Lost in the Apocalypse, and then to Lost in the Labyrinth, then Out of Options, then Last Ditch Effort and back to Out of Options again (thanks to Darklight17 who tried to help me think of a name, thought of Lost in the Labyrinth after I thought of Lost in the Apocalypse and gave me some constructive criticism), so I hope the name's OK. By the way, it may not sound like it at all, but this track is actually 170 BPM :P. I don't know, I guess I just seem to work better with faster tempos :P.

Anyhow, enjoy the song, and please vote and comment. I reply to all reviews, and review back if your review is helpful :). Enjoy!

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McSpeedster2000

2022-07-08 17:41:16

You running out of options?

Buoy

2012-09-27 17:28:23

Oh hey you're using some new sounds and the melodies aren't bad at all. They're a bit simple and banal at times but i kinda get where you're going, especially with the woody whatever instrument, it doesn't sound all that much like a xylophone. Pretty tight drums, nice. They're still too soaked in reverb though. The song doesn't start to drag on until like 1:40 so that's good. And the strings are kinda nice.

so hey! cool.

This isn't hip hop, what are you talking about.

Step responds:

Of course this isn't hip-hop. I was an idiot back then :3.

Some of the melodies aren't too bad, I agree. Others are just repeated too much and sound amateur. But at this point I am getting somewhere.

Strings are from a string soundfont whose name has escaped me. Yeah they're not so bad!

O-Prime125

2009-12-17 01:54:59

Ayt!

Hey m8!
This is good yeh, but recon you could im prove with the beats! Paini is too loud for th start, adding more beats would make it sick ;)

Step responds:

Thanks for the review! I'll see what I can do about adding those beats ^^. I don't see what you mean by 'Paini is too loud' though... Oh well, thanks again for the review and the good score :).

DundurMifflin

2009-12-15 17:13:36

Definition of Average.

Its not great. Its not bad. Its not good, but its not annoying. Its in that strange limbo in between that we call "average".

The introduction to the song was fantastic. It felt like it was really shaping up. The strings, while fitting, didn't seem to "sound right". Maybe its some chord mishaps or just my ears mishearing things but to me the strings seemed, while appropriate to the piece, seemed to just sound odd. Also, the woodblock-like noise, or xylophone, or whatever the instrument was, was incredibly out of place for this song. This piece is very melodic and dark, but that sound makes it sound almost comical with its sharp and ugly contrast. I would advise using either a violin or some sort of wind for that part other than that "woodblock".

The middle of the piece, as is the introduction, was very nice. It helped break up the song from being too repetitive while still seeming to fit its place. However, while I can notice the changes in the song, the entire thing still sounds very similar to the rest of it. I don't know why this is, but I think its most likely the repeats of the chords.

This song has great potential. It would probably go up another whole number grade or two if it didn't have annoying woodblock which is my main criticism. However, even without that, it would still be very average, and not very memorable. This is probably because of the huge amount of songs similar to this.

This genre (piano/strings with hip-hop drums) and trance/techno seem to plaguing newgrounds lately with their presence that they're becoming commonplace and unoriginal.

Step responds:

Wow, thanks for the great review! I'm not really that good at this genre - I seem to do better on the electronic side (i.e. Dance and Trance) along with tribal as well, so there'll always be a lot to improve for me in songs like this. I think the intro was nice too; it was the main reason why I decided this song had potential. As for those strings, I don't think I messed up any chords... Maybe it's because these are very slow strings which take a while to get to their full volume and end up messing the background. Whatever - as for the xylophone, or woodblock, now that you mentioned it, you're completely right. I wanted a high instrument to give that sort of 'hopeless' feel to the song, but a xylophone clearly wasn't the best choice. Maybe I'll try a pan flute. Yeah, I guess these songs are pretty generic - well, I'll try and aim a little less on generic genres and more on something new ^^. Thanks again for the great review!

TheMassEffect

2009-12-15 17:03:22

moving track

nuff said :)

Step responds:

Thanks ^^.