Reviews for Orchestral Theme 2

[Mrmilkcarton]

So thin :-/

I'm no orchestral master, not really a composer (yet*) but you've got a song hidden under some high quality instruments. So why the 7? It's your use of reverb. I'm not saying you do it in every song you've made but a fair share of them have this similar style of mixing/mastering/reverb.

You are hiding some very powerful elements in your song. Just because you have great instruments doesn't mean they don't need work of their own. Your drums are covered in so much reverb they lose all the power they had stored up. Its not a bad idea to use one reverb for all the instruments (using a send channel) but how much you let the instruments have is a matter of preference and taste. Honestly I give my drums little reverb and if I do I make sure the reverb doesn't mask their low end and power.

In my honest opinion you have too much reverb on the Staccato Strings. I never felt Staccato strings should have alot if they are a big portion of the driving force. As of right now I feel like I'm sitting back and listening to it as if I were in an audience rather then being engulfed in the music. Could just be another preference of mine but, completely up to you. If people like it/buy it you are obviously doing something right.

So in short, in the future I'd like to hope that you would take into consideration how much reverb you give each instrument. Their placement in the song and how they can bring the listener to a more tense or emotional feel.

Good luck in the future.

Gravey responds:

Good information here. I've been playing around with things trying to figure out what I need to work on in order to improve my sound. I'll definitely keep your suggestions in mind in the future. Good stuff here for sure.

Thanks for the review.

-Gravey-

[ErikMcClure]

Generic

While a lot of people are mistakenly saying this song sounds like Gears of War, the only reason it does is because Gears of War music happens to be the most recent very popular generic soundtrack. This song is very good - however, it is not particularly original. For me, the beginning reminds me of a Babylon 5 soundtrack. I'm sure to others it will sound like any song that happens to use this extremely popular tension motif. Thus, while the production in this song is very good, and the atmospherics and transitions superbly crafted, the melody is not a strong point.

Also, as Nick said below me, the amount of reverb used in this is extremely excessive and goes so far as to blur the mix. It might work better to remove some of the reverb and try to bring out the instruments in a stronger performance. FL studio 9.1 just came out and it FINALLY has some good convolution reverb, which helps create nice sounding reverb without requiring abhorrent amounts of it, so you might want to give that a shot.

7/10
4/5

But hey, at least I didn't give you a zero like that guy trying so desperately hard to sound intelligent (and failing miserably).

Gravey responds:

It's what the client asked for. As for being unoriginal, this was a sound I came up with all on my own. I've never even played the games this has been associated with, so to say I simply went out and tried to emulate someone else's sound is faulty.

Maybe this sound isn't unique to the rest of the world. But for myself its something I came up with without outside intervention. Therefore its unique to me, and people are paying me to make it. So I think it stands to say that its obviously not just another Newgrounds hack job.

-Gravey-

[Calamaistr]

reminds me a lot of paprika

the scene with the chairman riding, well only the start.

Back to your track:
It has a nice horn or whatever it was playing a bit of a eastern thing at the middle ..
Sadly the progressions are rather dull, and keep ending in much overused combinations, it makes this track very generic even though it has some nice tension overall.

[ZIMsponge]

Gears of War

I don't know about you people but this sounds a lot like Gears of War. The instruments the way the notes play. All of it sounds like Gears, this guy just changed around some notes. The beginning of this song sounds like a song from Gears of war but then in the middle changed up a-bit. Good job, but next time be more original.

Gravey responds:

It's kind of funny you dock me points for being unoriginal, mainly because you think this sounds so much like Gears of War. I've actually never played Gears of War, nor listened to the soundtrack. So to say I'm unoriginal isn't really fair considering I'm not simply taking a certain sound and trying to copy it. This is just a style I've come to create on my own based on many influences in my life.

Sorry you didn't like the song, but I'd argue the fact that this is just regurgitated Gears of War music. It might sound a lot like Gears of War, which a lot of people have said. But I've had no real influence from Gears of War. This is just a style I've come up with all on my own, thus for me its an original sound.

-Gravey-

[Iwannahamster]

McNally Smith

This is the worst example of orchestral music I've ever heard of it. When I was 14 I went to a music club in my school and I learned how to make music there and I know that this is not good because I have been trained in music classically. There are no arpeggios in this song, because it is not good. Why are you making music when you have not been trained? you need to go to music class and get a GED.

Listen to my music to see what I mean, you will hear arpeggios and things that are classical, because our music is educated. You have no musical education and it is apparent in your scores. There is no reason for this to be on the weekly five, this should sound more like heaven rd because that is real music, this is not good music. Try sidechaining the bongo drums. There are no signs that you even produced this outside of garage band, it sounds like some amateur R&B music that was created by a man who thought he could rap. Why do you even bother uploading this? I think you have potential, please do not get me wrong, because I think you are capable of making good dance music, but you can barely hear the bass drum in this and because of that it is not good music because you are not equalizing anything. Please lower the volume on the string instrument that I hear. I do not know what it is called.

Like I said, I think you have potential, and also I am classically trained because I went to school for music and you are a good musician at heart but you NEED TRAINING!!! Please consider this, because you could be a hero if you tried. Maybe. I think you should keep praciticing (captain) and you will have synthesizors. I know that they are expensive because they are electric but you will see that they sound much better than acoustic instruments like chell-o's and bases.

Also, what drum kit did you get your clap sound from? I want that vst because it is good for dance music, but not for this MIDI-sounding music.

Anyway, keep pracitcing, and diagnose our music to learn more and you will see how structure and music theory is becoming of you. Do you know?

IWANNAHAMSTER

Gravey responds:

Sounds like something Helth would say.

-Gravey-