Reviews for Omniwitch

[SkyeWint]

Here's your round 3 review! It'll be a bit harsher than your previous reviews once more. Harsher the closer to the end we get!

The Good:
-This is a pretty cool jazz/rock fusion thing with a lot of little awesome bits all over the entire place.
-Oh my god that intro. Is so awesome. I love the piano and stuff, it sounds really cool. I would have LOVED if you developed the ideas in the intro specifically.
-You certainly did keep the crowd-pleaser arpeggios.
-Chord progression for most of it is pretty awesome.
-Mixing's a lot better this time around particularly compared to your round 1 song.
-I particularly like the little 'suspension' (can't think of a better word) at 1:01-1:03 and later in the song. Granted it was a bit odd and offsetting initially, but on later listens it was better.
-You really got more creative with the different instruments you used in this song which I REALLY liked.

The Not-So-Good:
-If you remember, I had said that this has a lot of little awesome bits all over the place. Unfortunately, if it were a sentence, it would be an extremely long run-on sentence because it has no periods throughout most of it and goes ALL over the place. There is but a single word I need to say what you need: Transitions. Won't go into specific places, because the issues with transitions are basically throughout the entire song.
-Keeping with the analogy of the run-on sentence, it then ends abruptly in the middle of a word. Needs an ending rather than just a cutoff.
-Unfortunately, after I had listened to this a few times I realized 90% of the melody is in the chords. Other than that it's mainly arpeggios. More real melodies pl0x.
-Few nitpicky things about the intro: The ride coming in at 0:11 is a bit too loud IMO. Also, the chord you used initially at 0:21 seems a bit too... typical for what you've been doing - that's not bringing down your score, but still.

Overall: Using what I said earlier in the review... This is a pretty cool jazz/rock fusion thing with a lot of little awesome bits all over the place but it's a run-on sentence with no periods and only a few commas occasionally pausing the flow only in the middle of a sentence rather than between each section so it sounds like you're trying to say a lot in one veeeeeeeeeeery long breath so I hope that cleared up the problems with. 8/10

[Buoy]

I dunno. I might have a particularly weak point for your style since I'm consistently giving you scores so high even you don't agree with them, but I feel bad about it at all and I honestly don't feel that it's an overstatement to say that the stuff you come up with in a couple of weeks challenges the stuff of established prog rock/metal bands.

My old praise remains: the instrumentation is absolutely glorious, from the absolutely authentic sounding drums via the playful latin jazz piano to the layers and layers of tight, squeaky clean and impressive guitar playing. There seem to be more chord progressions in this entry than the other entries this round combined. I thought the flow was great as well - sure, there are a whole bunch of abrupt and unexpected transitions but after a few listens I find none jarring enough to throw me off.

This time around your submission is one major issue away from jackpot, and it's a composition-related one, for this track certainly tests the listeners endurance and attention span: the song just keeps on going and going and going at full steam with hardly any change of pace save for the occasional roadbumps (i.e wonky transitions and triplet grooves). It's like the musical analogy of a stream-of-consciousness essay with stunningly beautiful prose that doesn't actually convey a big coherent meaningful message, but has an overarching feel and certain recurring ideas, and ends up being a hell of a ride in the end.

9.3/10

Kor-Rune responds:

Wow Buoy c: thank you so much for the kind review! I think I should try to find a new approach to transitions though. I think BTBAM is already doing the whole abrupt thing XD

Thanks again Buoy y r u so nice

[Step]

This is an NGADM Round 3 Review.

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The same jazz rock metal crap huh? Well, I think crap is the last thing it is. As usual, you impress the hell out of me with your superior hold on composition, amazing mixing and skilful guitar playing. However, unfortunately, compared to your other submissions this isn't really on-par, and that reflects in the score I'm giving you this round.

Well, starting with the good news, your production is out of this world. I actually think that despite everything, this has the best production from all your competition submissions so far. I'm hearing similar mixing choices to those of your older submissions but this has a very clear mix with virtually no compression issues at all. And those drums! Fantastic; you managed to achieve a wonderfully good punch from your drums. Fantastic bass too. And on top of that you've got amazing guitar playing, and it makes me regret quitting guitar haha. In those aspects your song certainly excelled, in my opinion.

Your composition, in most aspects, is as usual very very good. I absolutely loved your chord choices and your wacky composition just makes everything sound so unique. You manage to achieve some pretty amazing atmospheres too, especially in the intro, at 2:22, and towards the end. And there are some really really cool parts like the piano solo that appears somewhere in the latter half of the track (which I absolutely adored) and the ride cymbal pattern at 5:26. I love how the song goes into a relaxed and chilled atmosphere at 3:44 too. And even though the guitar's the main instrument throughout, you throw in plenty of different sounds in there that really buff up the composition and atmosphere, such as the pad at 4:26.

However, this suffers the exact same problem as your Round 2 submission; it's probably even worse this time round. I'm hearing some compositional components that occur more than once throughout the track that help to tie the music together, like the melody at the beginning which you repeat again at the very end (or maybe I'm just imagining stuff) but unfortunately the song is just too chaotic. It's playing one thing one minute and another thing the next. The different sections in the music are very audibly different. It's like you've got absolutely incredible music skills but you're not using them to make something coherent and unified.

And it doesn't stop there. Some of your transitions were a little off and disrupted the flow. And some just didn't make any sense at all. Like at 5:26, you're playing that chilled ride cymbal pattern, and then bam at 5:31 some guitar shredding comes in. As much as I love the fact that this is so unpredictable and therefore it provides a really exciting and intense listening experience, it can get too unpredictable to the point that it isn't coherent at all and doesn't make sense. And the ending is bad... or rather lack thereof. It just ends like "right, I'm done here" and stops. Again, this doesn't make much sense to me.

Your amazing production and ridiculously good guitar playing and composition saved your score this round, because if you weren't so incredible at those you'd probably have gotten something like a 6.5 from me. You're a really really good musician but this song's a bit of a miss for me, compared to your other works.

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SCORE:
8/10

Kor-Rune responds:

Agreed, this was super scattered brained, I'm not happy with it either. I keep trying to cram so many ideas in one track, and it can't be ten minutes or longer since I've only got the two weeks to make it. I just need to write shorter and more tied-together tracks, and not be so bound on being technical and goofy. My transitions are so abrasive and uncomfortable, I'll try and work on that. And the two week deadline kind of decided that outro.. XD I realize I can't do these things in two weeks. I gotta chill

Thank you for the fantastic review, I appreciate it! C:

[biggeridiot]

I'll be honest - this isn't the kind of music I know very much about, so you can probably ignore this review right now. But given that, I do think the intro could have been more artfully done. It kind of jumps into the crazy/intense stuff too suddenly. I was really settling down and enjoying the start, and then I kind of got hit with the organ by surprise. I can really appreciate all the intricacy and hard work you put into this, and you have a incredible amount of ideas and themes packed into this. But also along those lines it's kind of hard for me to pick out a certain theme throughout. It seems pretty random to me. Great ideas, though - just maybe need to go with just a few of them and keep the flow going a little bit longer, at least from where I'm sitting. Keep it comin' man!

[Metaljonus]

I agree with everything sorohanro said. Seriously awesome stuff! \m/