50Steaks's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[mount bloodrest (2022 edition)]

Like this is actually cool sounding. I’ll give this a decent score for it being really cool sounding in the beginning, but I will knock it points for not being in time.

Mikas0Pikas0Pog responds:

Yea, the timing is shit.

[crystals]

You’ve retreated to the dark side and betrayed those who trusted you most.
In seriousness, I left a comment on your news post about this.

Mikas0Pikas0Pog responds:

You have forced me to change.
Let me choose what i need. (also beepbox is with customizable instruments btw)

[|29| It Took Long Enough!]

Interesting pattern, you and Tangeroni both went completely silent during January for the most part. January also has to be exam season….
Tax season is here though, so that’s fun. Also it’s just turned Valentine’s Day for me at the time of writing this, so happy Valentine’s Day I guess. This song is interesting, I’m getting serious Lit Fuse vibes at some parts, but I still haven’t touched those god awful templates that they give you. They’ve never been any good in my opinion and honestly, my most recent track is probably just better than it. Anyways the outro was kinda lazy (no offense) but the rest sounded nice.
Edit: the new banner is cool, much better than the old one. And whether or not you make music for a rhythm game really depends on the rhythm game; I am by no means an expert in those types of games, but do have a lot of Geometry Dash experience (although I’m still god awful at it all these years later). Most of the songs in that game have a strong beat and rhythm, as do yours, but they’re often also much more intense and more segmented/structured than your songs. Me personally, I think it could work in some games, but probably not stuff like beat saber or GD.

[Lunar Abyss (Dustified Remix)]

Wow. I can’t believe this is back up, I literally haven’t heard this in years. It’s just as bad as I vaguely remembered. It’s better than the albin3825 remix though so there’s that.

Edit: holy hell, this got 1k listens after I put it back up? That's genuinely insane. World's least deserved view count right here

[No Limits]

I like this song. It sounds nice and it’s mixed really well, but there’s a HUGE issue with it: the drums. If this was literally the very first DnB song, I would endlessly praise and commend the unique drumming pattern. However, apparently being a DnB song means you need to reuse the EXACT SAME PATTERN every single time. I point this out because you did it with your first two songs as well, only with different instruments. In a vacuum, this song is great, but it has been done before many times.

Lenxty responds:

Thank you, 50Steaks, for your comment and advice! :3

[Barrett's Privateers Singalong]

Alright I’ve come down to see what songs are on your account, and after doing some digging, I found out that the same song here is uploaded on all accounts listed as producers. I’m surprised you managed to work with these big names, and the song is really nice too.
I’m going to assume that the main voice is of none other than Tainted himself. Given his experience, of course he did a good job here, and the backup voices were nice as well. I also love the description, nice work.

Ceevro responds:

On this particular one...the main voice be me! Ya boi Ceevro! I had actually expected someone else to jump in and sing it better than I did, but it seems they decided to leave me there. HOWEVER...the master of the harmonies was TaintedLogic, he did the high male parts, and I literally duplicated his parts two octaves lower. What amazes me is how well the ladies harmonized without any part to follow...I know I'm not skilled enough to do that!

[Morning Frost]

Alright, well now you have forced my hand.
My uploads slowed down since 2020, and I was worried that I would lose the motivation to finish the project, but your quite thorough reviews became the thing I looked forward to the most when posting a song (for the most part). I’m glad you went and spent valuable time of your day to review all my songs (barring Kansas) and, as such, I have done the same (a while ago, but still I thought it would be a nice gesture).
Anyways, enough of that. This song completely went under my radar. You released it and nothing showed up on my home page at all, then you released the swing of things and I randomly found this. This is such an improvement over what songs I had to offer that were 8-bit for many reasons; it corrected all the things I did wrong. It’s super original, catchy, and something I would see as an overworld theme in some modern top down adventure game. Really well done here, and nice tempo change as well.

[TGRI - The Swing of Things]

Getting back into the swing of things, I see?
I’m sorry, the opportunity was too golden. Anyways, my opinion of this song instantly shifted when I heard you describe it as a jazzy battle theme. At first listen, I was unsure because I was expecting even more emphasis on the swing background harmony than what there was, and perhaps a harmonica to bring that feeling home. However, this uses brass more than those classic instruments, which implies a grandiose feeling associated with a boss fight. Two main issues with this song, despite how catchy it is:
1. The intro. Having JUST piano for like the first 1:09 gets a little repetitive. You mentioned this in the description, but this is repetition based on lack of variety rather than repetition of melody (I think you were right that the melody works well for the feeling of the song).
2. The outro, although this one is more of a personal taste than a real issue; the fakeout ending didn’t quite work for me, although I do appreciate you trying something new. My main hypothesis for his might be the fact that the piano at 2:45 just replays the same six notes as the melody at 2:43, just adding another measure to the melodic phrase. It might have been more satisfying if you instead just finished the phrase with those six notes instead of playing them twice. Anyways that’s really honestly a huge nitpick and, so you’ll still get the five stars for taking a well established type of music and putting your own spin on it in a fleshed out way.

Tangerine responds:

When a golden opportunity comes, you gotta take it. After listening to it back a little bit, I do see how it gets a little repetitive. Would you have any ideas on some things I could do? Bring the brass in a little earlier? add cinematic strings in the background when the melody is first introduced? I'll probably figure something out.

Yeah, the ending was a little rushed at the time I made this. I have a bad habit of holding onto songs for a while before I finally post them. I don't know why I do it. I just do. In my recent songs, I have been taking the endings much more seriously and I've put more thought into them. An ending is like the aftertaste of food. The food could be great, but a bad aftertaste will ruin the whole thing.

[At the Speed of Light]

I can’t believe this legendary song is already ten years old. There are millions of people today currently alive on earth that are almost in middle school that are younger than this; I feel old.

[automate]

I’m not sure how you keep pumping out these tracks, and they’re all bangers of course and just super fun to listen to one after the other. However, I also am beginning to notice that your style of music restricts variation to a certain degree; it kind of feels like all of your songs blend together, which is a double edged sword in my opinion. On the one hand, this is a very unique style of music and, if someone is looking for it specifically, you’re the only one who makes it properly consistently. On the other hand, if they’re looking for literally anything else, there isn’t much else to find. The reason I say this is because there’s a very tricky balance between variety and still keeping a baseline, and I also have been trying very hard to strike it. At first, I was solely trance/dance/techno, as indicated by the first 25 or so songs on my account. Then I decided I’d go completely off the rails after I released Wyoming and experiment with literally everything including discordant jazz, real instruments, remixing classical pieces (and remixing in general), and dissonant chords (note: I think you’d be really good at jazz music, but that’s just me). After that jazz thing I made I decided to tone it down and just start returning to my roots in the form of more electronic music, and I think I’ve found a happy medium at this point (subject to change). Point is, variety is the spice of life, and it would be really cool to see you try other genres or major variations on your favorite genre. Thanks for reading!

wilidacious responds:

thank you so much, i always love your analyses! i am definitely a creature of habit and branching out of my comfort zone has always been difficult. i consider everything on here as work in progress, and hopefully refinement? i am trying not to be cheap or redundant, but i absolutely agree that i have a cycle of about four or five types of sound design that i gravitate toward and it does keep me awake at night wondering if it is all blurring and what comes next. i have thought about taking a hiatus sometimes to sort of gain some perspective and space, but then i get really neurotic that i'll lose something in the process, or become preoccupied with something else entirely? sorry, i am kind of just wondering aloud here. anyways, i really appreciate your time and consideration.