The composition is beautiful! I would love to hear this fully fleshed out <: Of course, step got most of the problems listed out. Other than the odd strings and thin piano, it is a gorgeous composition!
Real Title: Coincidence to Meet You Here
Made in 2 hours at most, due to health issues.
It is unfinished, and the last parts are like "WOAH wtf this is ugly." Also, the last chord you hear was supposed to go back into the weird sounding piano part, but in a symphonic and epic way. The ending would be a big epic-ish rendition of the beginning harp theme.
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Oh well, I'm just glad I submitted, even if this is what turned out. >:)
I'll likely go back over this once the contest is over. So much potential in this.
Ohwell!
Submission to NGADM round 2. Holy hell, this was quite a ride.
So, the concept is two people promised to meet up at a certain spot on a certain day. However, one of the two got caught up in a crazy journey and nearly didn't make it.
However, at the last second, the one waiting sees the other in the horizon, waving at the other. The person looks dusty, but relieved. Both parties smile.
The composition is beautiful! I would love to hear this fully fleshed out <: Of course, step got most of the problems listed out. Other than the odd strings and thin piano, it is a gorgeous composition!
Haha, thanks! It's an honor to hear that from you. =)
Been tweaking with it for a while; everything up to the piano is the same, but beyond that...it's pretty much completely different now, haha. Just have to see where this takes me. =P
This is an NGADM Round 2 Review.
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Sorry for the late review delivery! Your song was pretty much at the bottom of the list and I've got lots of stuff to do so it's been hard getting through all the reviews. The NGADM may be tough on you competitors but it's tough on us judges too! :P
So yeah. I'll start off stating the obvious. The melodies are fantastic, or at least the melodies in the first half of the song. They are honestly gorgeous. I love the melody at 0:20 to bits and the way you highlight it with that string passage at 0:39 is just genius. The perfect fifth interval is my favourite interval and I'm hearing lots of that over here so maybe that's why I like the composition here so much haha. But yeah, very good composition. Your sounds also sound pretty good with each other this time, unlike in Round 1 where the mix was basically a blob.
And you actually made an effort to humanise it this time. I'm hearing plenty of slight variations in timing mainly during the intro. Now that is what I'm talking about! I don't know if you did it on purpose or it was just a result of rushing to get this done (which would be ironic because it actually made the track sound better) but whatever the case I'm sure you hear the instant improvement, realism-wise. I swear that if I didn't know otherwise I'd almost think the harp at the beginning is recorded from an actual harp. Cool bird-chirping at the beginning too.
Now for what I dislike about this. As I'm sure you know, the first half of this track is the one that's actually worth listening to. You might've in fact noticed that all of the compliments I had for this track were confined to the first half. The second half really isn't that good as you know. The strings in the second half are just... bleh. Weird, and they have these super unnatural stops.
Some transitions were quite abrupt too, like the transition to the piano part. The piano part in itself was pretty ugly too since while, as usual, you had good melodies, the piano sound was unrealistic and odd-sounding. Don't get me wrong, your melodies towards the end were fine, but the strings are clearly very rushed. And, of course, your samples in general sound pretty bad. I certainly commend you on actually making them fit well with each other now and making them sound realistic, but unfortunately, apart from the harp and to an extent the birdsong, you don't really have such good sounds. You are one of the people on Newgrounds who, I believe, deserve my East/West samples more than I do haha.
Overall, this is actually an improvement over your Round 1 submission in certain aspects. You're a super talented composer and maybe if you had more time you would've really turned this into something amazing. I'm almost tempted to steal your melodies here :3. We should totally collab sometime. And I hope your health issues are gone now!
*is happy that he finally finished all the NGADM Round 2 reviews*
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SCORE: 6.5/10
Heehee, thanks! Your review made me smile. The intro's "humanized" tempo changes were purposeful, but it made everything after it a bit hellish to record. I had to play the piano in such a way that it would get back on beat and AUGHRA ;=; it's such a pain.
And yeah, as you can tell, I use default for everything. I only own software; nothing else. No sound plug-ins or anything, as I can't figure out how to use them.
Getting in depth with how the whole "improving the sounds of the instruments" aspect of said software...well, I have no idea how to do that, and those free tutorials are above my head, haha. I'm going to try and wrangle some legit college level lessons on mixing, and see where I can go from there. Without such knowledge, I don't think fancy VSTs would help much. XD
(I can do some decent stuff with Sibelius' limited abilities, but it's because everything is up front and easy.)
As for collabing, that would be fun. However, upon file transfer, you'd be like "WTF is this person doing." Heheheh.
NGADM 2 and stuff.
It's a shame you couldn't finish this, because most of this sounds really good. I was really impressed by the beginning, it was very well composed and nearly gave me shivers.
Unfortunately, after the first 40 seconds or so, it went downhill. The instruments felt like they were badly humanized and timed, and while the piano section sounds great on its own, it felt really out of place in comparison to the rest of the song, as everything else just sort of stops when the piano starts. And the last section... well, you said it yourself, it just sounds ugly.
I'd love to hear a reworked version of this, elaborating on the beginning section. It's unfortunate, but the second half did kind of undo the great feeling of the first. 6/10.
I'm glad you enjoyed the intro, that was my favorite part, haha. xD
A lot of the transitions I wanted to do simply didn't make it in (EG: the piano part was better planned). I completely understand your points, and honestly agree with all of them; as sad as it is, much of it wouldn't be an issue if I had been able to start sooner. xD
The beginning section was also going to be the end, by the way, only vamped up and all emotional and stuff. :V
Aw man, I would really love to hear this turned into an epic, fleshed out song, because I'm hearing little cues and ideas that would be so amayyysing if they were revisited after a turning point of sorts. Such a lot of potential. As it stands currently, yeah it's pretty underdeveloped and doesn't get to say much before it ends. You should do it sometime.
The samples feel very midi-like here and make the song sound a little bland overall. I imagine that with some tempo manipulation, better samples and more expressive playing, this tune could have conveyed just as much emotion as say Bosa's entry for this round.
And the mix is nicer than last time! Probably just because you have fewer instruments and less intensity but it's a good thing still! Heh. Anyway, overall this is freaking good for 2 hours.
7.5/10
Woo! I'm glad there was a lot people got from this song, despite the circumstances. I actually have figured out a whole scene for this, and if I could gosh darn animate I'd go ahead and make the whole thing a small movie. xD
And yes, I'm fairly certain I'll revisit this some day. Just don't have the ability to right now, haha, =P
I loved the intro and melody! The overall feel was awesome, and the composition was strong.
However, I wasn't found of the production quality itself, and the sample usage was weak.
Thank you for the review. =)! I'm glad you liked the ideas that I had. And yes, sadly mixing is my obvious Achilles heel. :( Although, could you go more into depth about sample usage? I'm not sure what you mean with that.
Please contact me if you would like to use this in a project. We can discuss the details.