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Author Comments

SkyeWint: AND COMPLETELY OUT OF LEFT FIELD COMES... This. A complete madhouse of funk jazz speed stuff. Man, this was fun to write and a total nightmare to organize. I'm going back to my nice safe electronic stuff after this :(

Just kidding, of course. While it might not sound like it, I actually wrote a little less than half of this. The main theme and the descending arpeggios were my idea - camo took it and made... this. I had to touch up some stuff at the end, but still. Not as many little tiny details in this, just a bunch of crazy jazz from some awesome live musicians and a few electronic things.

Always wanted to sound like I was composing on crack.

Apologies for the poor sound quality in the pseudo-sax. For whatever reason, there were no musicians available to play the sax part live. Had to make do with several not-as-good sounds instead. :(

Also apologies for the late upload. Computer problems, my graphics drivers crashed while doing the final mixing less than an hour from the deadline. Also, that was when I got the last samples from Kor-Rune and Nimble.

==========================

camoshark:

Oh my, a jazz track from a jazz composer, never thought I'd see the day! :O

In all seriousness though, this was an insanely fun project to work on! I could finally throw in some of the stuff I've been trying to incorporate in song since forever, and obviously working in familiar territory feels great.

I really can't take too much credit for this one though, most of the intro and ending were done by Skye, and I obviously can't take any credit for the AMAZING performers we had this session, namely Nat and Pat, two amazing guys whom I deeply respect and hope to have the occasion to work with again next round (*crosses fingers*)!

Now obviously, I need to mention that this is obviously in lower production quality from last round, and that's simply due to the sheer complexity of the track and organizing recording while still only having half of the song written (which was true up until the very last day, believe it or not). In the end, I wasn't able to find musicians available to record all the parts, so we had to improvise a bit and make due with what we had.

All in all, though, this was still a blast to work on and, regardless of if we get past this round or not, we've already got our eyes on our next project (which we'll be sharin gmore of when we get there, depending on the outcome).

Thanks for tuning in, and I dearly hope you enjoy!

==========================

Special thanks to Kor-Rune and Patrick Bureau for the live guitar and drums, respectively. kiss kiss

Extra thanks to Nimble for extra saxophone sounds, even if they're layered.

Special message from Kor-Rune: "hi"

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samulis

2014-11-05 15:17:08

This is a NGADM Round 3 Review.

First, here's a breakdown of your score:
Production: 18/30 (Average)
Composition: 27.5/30) (Great)
Instrumentation: 13/15 (Great)
Originality: 9/10 (Great)
Interest: 13.5/15 (Great)

Total: 81.0/100 or 8.1/10 or 4 Stars (Above Average).

Rubric (w/ rough judge notes and explanation of categories/score):
http://www.newgrounds.com/dump/draw/1bf2f7bf24ec92d1d83524315a3ca657
=========
The Good:
- Great composition! Really enjoyed the melodies, harmonies, and flow. There was definitely a lot of detail insofar as the writing is concerned.
- Instrumentation was quite solid, although I could have seen more use of other horns to flesh out the horn section (a 5 horn band perhaps).
- The actual playing on the live parts was clean and well done.
- Yep, sounds like Camo finally got off his bum for this contest. :P

The Not-So-Good:
- MONO drums... They sound like they were recorded with a single SM-57 on the other side of the room... very thin, no presence, very weak. HUGE loss in effectiveness of the song... and the saxes... yeah yeah, you know.
- I felt the mix wasn't very tight. Some of the instruments were way in my face (guitar, that clicky clack keyboard thing, etc), others were a mile away (drums, bass). Bass was weak, sounded less like a bass and more like a chill low pad, need more pop and impact.

Keep compos(ed/ing)!
-Sam

camoshark responds:

Hey Sam, glad to finally read your review, I was starting to think you might have forgotten! :P

Regardless, I agree with pretty much all you're saying, except for the bit about expanded brass arrangement. What we were going for this round was a different texture than standard large-scale fusion arrangements, and we intentionally created very little harmonization, despite the fact that there were always two instruments playing the theme. It's a style of sound that is more common in more modern fusion songs, and it'll probably sound better when I actually get a live sax (working on that as we speak) to play.

Regardless, it's more of a matter of taste at this point, and I'm glad you kept it as a minor remark rather than pulling points off for it. We're working on making a version 2 for this, and all points mentioned here and on other posts are being addressed (what with being blatant production errors due to lack of time and all), so expect a big upgrade in the next few weeks.

Thanks again for chiming in!

midimachine

2014-10-17 02:05:36

really fun composition!
the organs and epianos sound awesome. bass tone is really nice and creamy too. kor's playing is top notch and you layered him in really nicely.
the drums are exceptionally played, but the mono recording is such a let down - really sucks out a lot of the energy and takes away the separation between instruments. render gets cut short at the end, bit of a rookie error there.

i didn't really dig the main theme (i guess it was the main theme?) but the playful little motif in the middle was really cool, albeit a little too drawn out imo.

would've been much nicer with a stereo drum track and a saxophone that didn't sound like a keyboard demo tune.

camoshark responds:

Sup midi, thanks for the review!

You know what, I hadn't even realized up to now that the drums were all centered! They are far from mono, I think there were about six or seven separate tracks total, so I guess that was also overlooked during production...

The rest has already been said to death already, but not pointing it out would be overlooking the elephant in the room.

Thanks again!

headphoamz

2014-10-15 15:31:57

Starting off with that awesome percussion work – first thing I noticed, it sounds great! Very driven, colorful, and energetic.
Your composition is excellent. Absolutely stunning work – but the way it was presented just felt off to me. Kind of like having a rare steak in front of you, but only being able to eat it through a straw. I would have loved to hear live instruments. That would have really given the song its oomph. The saxophone in particular became very 90’s-Casio sounding after a while and dampened the originality of the composition. I know you guys had to make do without live instrumentation, and I totally understand how difficult it can be to work with live recording, but the VSTs do make the song less organic-sounding and greatly impact the overall tonality. One of the main reasons I love jazz alone is for the way the instrument is played, and it's so very hard to replicate that on a keyboard.
Awesome organ, though! The chords are great here. I can tell you guys went for a prog jazz piece and, as I said, you nailed it, compositional-wise. Do I hear a little Thelonious Monk in those progressions? Wonderfully executed and cleanly played.
The other reviews have said your melody was a bit aimless, but I don’t think this song really needed a melody. I felt your constant variation of instruments and chords was enough to maintain great interest – I was always wondering what was coming down the pipe next and your notes never disappointed.
This is a track that just bubbles with creativity. I hope you revisit it with live instruments; that would be amazing to hear!

NGADM Round 3 Score: 7.9

camoshark responds:

Hey Elspeth, glad you could join the party! :)

"Starting off with that awesome percussion work – first thing I noticed, it sounds great! Very driven, colorful, and energetic."

I'll have to pass on your words to Patrick, but thanks!

"Your composition is excellent. Absolutely stunning work"

:)

"but the way it was presented just felt off to me. Kind of like having a rare steak in front of you, but only being able to eat it through a straw."

:(

"[Stuff about live recordings and the sax being bad]"

Lol, yeah, can't really review this song with mentioning the elephant in the room, can we? I'll certainly agree that having real instruments and/or actual humanization is what MAKES this kind of song, so I can't really argue much on the matter. Since this was out of our control though, no real point in debating on the matter.

"The chords are great here. I can tell you guys went for a prog jazz piece and, as I said, you nailed it, compositional-wise"

Quite honestly, even though our respective tropes would seem to indicate otherwise, most of the really jazzy bits were done by Skye, while I put my efforts into the more proggy/funky bits. I think most of the credit here needs to go to Skye, and he started the whole concept and pooped out the intro in less than a day!

"Do I hear a little Thelonious Monk in those progressions?"

I can't really speak for Skye for obvious reasons, but Monk's always been a big inspiration in my music, so I wouldn't really be surprised if you can hear some resemblances. Our main inspiration though, was the Brecker Brothers, specifically "Some Skunk Funk", which you may or may not have heard of.

"[stuff about melody]"

I'm glad you perceived it a bit differently than the others. While I'll certainly agree that our song lacks a consistent thematic element, I'd argue that it's not really something that's very present in both the jazz and the prog world in general.

Both of the genres have the common element of horizontal composition, which rely more on movement rather than a centralized theme.

Many thanks for the kind words, and I'll keep you in the know when we get to put out a final version with actual instruments.

Cheers

Neon-Bard

2014-10-15 13:42:23

This is a NGADM review.

-----

Wow! Now this is different from everything you guys have done so far. This must have been a blast to write, but I can only imagine how much of a pain it was to mix. There's just so much going on that I have to commend you on keeping everything tied together. Major kudos for the tight mix by the way! I really like the energy this track has. Every instrument jives with the next, creating a real blend of what a wild live performance would sound like. Another thing that I should note is that I appreciate how you gave each instrument the time to shine. The sax, drums, keyboard (etc.), all have their own little solo or portion where they just go crazy! Love that! That being said, I would have liked to hear more of an emphasis on the bass.

My biggest gripe lies with the composition. It seems kind of aimless at times (ex. 2:00 – 2:39), but I think the 'madhouse' aspect of it works in a strange way too. I feel as if there were too many ideas at play here that were stretched far too thin. That being said, the ideas and patterns that you guys incorporated were great. The 'false' sax was a little jarring, and I think it took away from the overall performance of the piece - but it did the job admirably. Lastly, and this is a small thing, the conclusion was cut just a hair short at 3:20, it would have been nice to hear the cymbal trail off for a few seconds more.

No matter how you look at it, this is impressive when you consider how much work you must have put into this piece. The organizing, the mixing, the perseverance, all of these are things that deserve a big thumbs up! Well done, indeed! :)

Score: 9/10

camoshark responds:

Hey Neon, thanks for the review!

"This must have been a blast to write, but I can only imagine how much of a pain it was to mix."

Yes to all of that, although I can't personally attest to Skye's trials with mixing, as I wouldn't dare touch it!

"Another thing that I should note is that I appreciate how you gave each instrument the time to shine. "

Thanks! It mostly kind of happened, but I hate giving the spotlight to only one instrument, and use the different instruments' textures to vary the mood on top of the notes themselves.

"That being said, I would have liked to hear more of an emphasis on the bass."

Yeah, the bass unfortunately got the short end of the stick on this track due to time, which is a real shame, because I had a LOT of plans for it (like a pretty solid solo during the weird ostinato around 2:00, but more on that later).

"It seems kind of aimless at times (ex. 2:00 – 2:39)" / " I feel as if there were too many ideas at play here that were stretched far too thin."

I think that was our main downfall in this match up, quite frankly. We just ran out of time before we could successfully bring it back home, and a lot of factors played against us at the last minute, which further pulled us back.

The aimless bit at 2:00 was supposed to integrate a guitar solo and parts of a bass solo, but Kor-Rune couldn't manage it in time due to crazy time constraints (aka 4 hours LOL). Sorry again, Nat!

"The 'false' sax was a little jarring, and I think it took away from the overall performance of the piece[...]"

Ehh, not really much more I could've done beyond extensive humanization, which was definitely out of the question. I agree that this pretty much kills the song straight-out, but not much can be done with that...

"Lastly, and this is a small thing, the conclusion was cut just a hair short at 3:20, it would have been nice to hear the cymbal trail off for a few seconds more."

DAMMIT SKYE YOU HAD ONE JOB.

"[Concluding statement]"

Ayy, thanks for the compliment, I'm happy you liked it even in its unpolished state! Hopefully we'll manage an actual version some day, in the near future.

Thanks for the review once again!

MetalRenard

2014-10-05 08:17:53

This is a NGADM Quater-Final Review!
--
Admittedly I'm not the first person you'd choose to comment on a jazz piece since I don't really enjoy the genre to begin with when it becomes so technical and discordant as it does at times in this piece.
With that in mind I thought it safer if I stuck to what I knew and focused on the production/recording and performance side of things.
Honestly the out-of place, kind of fake sounding instrument really did stick out for me at times and kind of ruined my immersion. If you didn't have something fitting in this case, I would simply have left it out or replaced it with something I -did- have. It would have completely solved the issue.
Having said that there are some fabulous performances in this and you also did a great job organising it all, bringing it all together and mixing it. I bet it wasn't easy mixing stuff from so many sources and with so many different acoustic footprints (here, read "room verb"). In the end it sounds quite convincing and I did enjoy parts despite my aversion to the style overall.

Cool stuff guys, good luck with that other project of yours!

9.1/10

camoshark responds:

Hey other Sam, thanks for chipping in!

"Admittedly I'm not the first person you'd choose to comment on a jazz piece since I don't really enjoy the genre to begin with when it becomes so technical and discordant as it does at times in this piece."

If I had wanted every to like the things I do, I would've went with something safe like rock or pop, so don't kill yourself over it! :P

"With that in mind I thought it safer if I stuck to what I knew and focused on the production/recording and performance side of things."

...Well shit, better duck behind cover then. :X

"Honestly the out-of place, kind of fake sounding instrument really did stick out for me at times and kind of ruined my immersion."

It goes without saying in this case, since the entire concept was to go for something organic and acoustic, and so replacing it with something cheap like this was bound to not really work.

"If you didn't have something fitting in this case, I would simply have left it out or replaced it with something I -did- have. It would have completely solved the issue."

We honestly debated a lot over this, and we almost did, but again, since the sax part was only meant to be played as a sax part, replacing it with a synth wouldn't ACTUALLY solved the issue, since it'd instead have sounded like a cheap synth.

That's my take on it, at least.

"Having said that there are some fabulous performances in this and you also did a great job organising it all, bringing it all together and mixing it."

Many thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed them nonetheless! ^^

" In the end it sounds quite convincing and I did enjoy parts despite my aversion to the style overall."

I'm glad you managed to find at least parts of it enjoyable, considering your aversion to the genre. I'm also glad it didn't affect your bias too much.

Thanks for the review!

-Sam