Reviews for Main Title Heroes

[Step]

This is an NGADM Round 2 review.

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Well, the first thing I was delighted to see was that this time you actually made a full-length idea, and not a small almost experimental track with little content. This is, in fact, entirely the other extreme. It's long and crammed full of sweet ideas and content! Other than a slight generic feeling I got from this track, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Some aspects of it are really professional-sounding, especially due to your clear mix, great interplay of different elements, and, of course, excellent instrument samples and sounds. For instance, 2:16, while being a pretty typical transitional element in this kind of music, sounded phenomenal, and what followed was a great 7/8 section with immaculate percussion work.

As I said, there are some great ideas here, full of detail that I can only truly appreciate when I turn my volume up. For example, I love the atmospheric pad you use at the beginning, the saw synth in the background 1:07, the way the brass staccato plays along with the percussion at 2:21, the many reverse effects you use in the track, and so on. I like how at 3:18 you, in a sense, brought all of the different ideas of the track together, such as the single notes of the piano from the very beginning and the drum beat from 1:07, all layered on top of your fast-paced background from 2:21. Solid composition overall, and immaculate atmosphere-building.

I'm not quite sure about the track's production. As I said above, to truly enjoy this track, I had to turn up the volume a lot. Surely enough, I checked your waveform, and the only form of mastering you seem to have done is a quick normalise at the end, because there's a lot of unused headroom due to a spike in the waveform at the very end which hit the normalising threshold. Even when I turn my volume up, I still feel that the instruments are all confined towards a limited range of frequencies and could've spanned a more expansive range of the mix. I'd like to feel more low-end boom from the drums and a sharper high-end.

This track is a bit lacking in production, despite being clear and pleasant to listen to, and it's a bit generic, but overall solid!

Score: 8.3/10

[steampianist]

Hey benjerman I promised myself id drop a review

Man I felt I just won by sheer luck if you had more time on this track it couldve been an awesome close shave. the intro was really good and I love all the ideas but I guess the 2nd theme just felt abrupt and disconnected but its an awesome effort considering the time you have left

But ill say this if you made a longer version of something like saharan sunrise or clicky I wouldve gotten nervous. simple yet and I as I said in my news post Magnetizing or captivating. There is nostalgia and there is this addictive element as well (though im not sure what it is). I really think this sort of music is your forte (in my opinion at least)

Anyways thank you for sharing my track and keep composing awesome songs

TheBenjerman responds:

Hey, thanks for the review! And I think you won by quite a bit more than a "close shave."

Cheers, and keep making awesome stuff!

[bassfiddlejones]

This is an NGADM Round 2 Review.

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What I liked:
-Very cool introduction.
-I like the staccato strings a lot.
-Very funky with the drums!
-Great thematic ideas.

What could have been better:
-Some sections were too long, like the initial section where the drums enter.
-Some mixing/mastering issues, especially with the electronic sounds in the second half of the piece.
-The second half of the piece is disjointed, and the ending was a bit underwhelming.

Overall I really like this piece, but I don't think it reflects your full potential as a composer. Great job!

Score: 7.5/10

[MichaelJ]

I like some of your ideas, especially what you have going on at the beginning.
I know, and I'm sure you know that an intro sequence for a film wouldn't normally be 4 minutes long. It sounds to me like you crammed a few different ideas into this piece, and they don't all work together. Keep at it!

TheBenjerman responds:

Thanks. I'm not writing a regular intro sequence though, I wrote a main title sequence, a la any of the Spider Man movies, James Bond films, etc. (not the amazing spider man). The idea is to feed all of the major musical themes to the audience during the credits so they have something to latch onto later on. I definitely crammed a bunch of themes in there and if you think they don't work together I might have to work on my transitions. :/

4 minutes MIGHT be a tad long, but in my experience they range from about 3-5 minutes.

Thanks for the review!

[SkyeWint]

Hi.

The Good:
-The piano at the beginning is pretty darn nice, it has a great feel to it in the way it switches the harmony. The pad in the background just makes things better.
-I like your attention to detail in the staccato strings as well as the drum's snare, changing the sample a bit for more intensity. I particularly like the attention to detail in the piano at about 2:10

The Not-So-Good:
-I feel like the drumset is completely out of place here. It doesn't feel right.
-The transition at 2:16 is honestly one of the worst I've heard this NGADM. It's very sudden, doesn't fit, and sounds like you just spliced two different pieces together.
-The second half of this is far worse than the first half. It furthermore has little to no relation with the first half except for the piano and drumset toward the end. Beyond that, the mixing and realism are both inferior.
-The ending is very disappointing as well, I feel you could have 'completed' the piece in a much better way.

Overall: Score of 6.4/10. The second half of this simply fell on its face and took out a point and a half. The other problems are extremely minor by comparison.