50Steaks's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[The Good, The Bad, and the Insane]

As someone who’s never played and barely heard of Brawlhalla this makes me want to actually figure out what it’s even about and look into it. The incredibly dramatic intro helps set the tone for the rest of the song, with already really nice use of brass and choral parts (although for some reason, the chorus seems slightly out of tune, too flat I think). I’m getting images of an mmorpg with Vikings and Nordic warriors with this one, not gonna lie. And then we get to my favorite part: 1:40. It provides a very well-timed break from the madness of the precious parts and leads really nicely into the next section like some sort of AJR song. The piano has a similar tone shape as the staccato brass in the next part, if that makes any sense. If that was intentional, I’m really impressed by your ability to do that properly since it has seemed incredibly difficult to me. Excellent dissonance usage at 2:30, and then the key change at the very end increases the energy. To further that feeling I might have increased the tempo just a bit near the end to make that section really stand out from the earlier choir part.
Overall, really good job as always. I can’t wait to hear more remakes of the themes of characters I’ve never heard of.
P.S. sorry for the late reviews, I’ve procrastinated on this for a while.

Tangerine responds:

Haha, I'm doing free marketing for Brawlhalla. Short run down, it's a fighting game that I adore.

I am glad I was able to set the scene well with the intro. The more I work on my songs, the more I realize just how important the intros are. A stellar song with a bad intro will drive a lot of people away.

At 1:40 with the piano and the brass, I didn't actually do too much mixing to get the piano and the trumpets to work together. Since they came from the same plugin library, they were already blended together well. But one thing I did do with the brass, was that I tempered with it to try and get that sweet spot right before the brass gets harsh. If that makes sense. Because I heard it is done a lot in the style of what I was going for.

Oh yeah, I forgot about tempo changes. Haha, I should probably try playing with the tempo more in the future. I am glad you liked this song.

Haha don't worry about the late reviews, I have done the same to you except way worse. Also, it's probably a good thing you reviewed this so late, it was an utter mess on launch.

Oh and also with the choir, I'm not too sure. I don't hear anything being out of tune. Maybe it's the violent vibrato or maybe I've heard the sample too much.

[Chorus of the Sea]

You're going places. When I was 13-14 I was absolutely awful at making music sound like the way I had envisioned in my head, and here we have an eighth grader whose composition skills are comparable to and surpass many adult producers I have listened to. I will say though, it is a little repetitive and more variety in synths would have been nice. Great work though especially for your age.

burningmagma responds:

Thank you very much! Since I purchased Kontakt 7 and Zebra Legacy on my birthday a few weeks ago, I can guarantee you that there is variety to come.

[Toby Fox - The Legend (BrainETR Remix)]

Well this is interesting. As someone who also made a remix of Jevil’s theme around the time of chapter 2’s release, I can say that you probably outperformed that song lol. Regardless, I do think you could have applied some sort of effects to the instruments to make them sound less… basic/dry? There’s some new harmonic components in here, especially the introduction (which is the best part of the song imo) and the end of the climax. I also liked the outro, but the song as whole did get a little repetitive in the middle which is unfortunate. Good job though.

BrainETR responds:

Thanks for the review! Yeah I’ve learned a lot more about mixing since I made this remix, the instrument usage here is very bare-bones

[-Haunted woods-]

This is actually my favorite waterflame song, believe it or not. 1:29-2:09 in particular is genuinely a bop, and edges this song out over final battle for me. Also this whole song brings me a ton of nostalgia.

[BawJreaker reamix]

This is the best thing I've ever heard

[Cold Island Swing]

Side note: this song was months old before I uploaded it.

[Tobu - Seven remix]

Dude the beginning is SO GOOD and then it just sorta falls off at 0:30, I suggest you remake this or something…

Snikio responds:

hahaha I agree

[Testes And Pennies]

Seeing this get frontpaged gave me an idea. What if, every year on April fools, Newgrounds frontpages only audio posted within like the past week that would ordinarily never be frontpaged or gain any attention? Audio that’s amateurish, bland, and empty? Or just flat out shitposts like this? I think that’d be a good way to get new or inexperienced artists a shot at a quick hit to fame.

[A Halloween Tale - Full Symphony]

I’m a huge fan of this. I adore that someone else on newgrounds also makes 4 movement symphonies (a type of music that I adore since you can do so much with 4 distinct sections that all fit together). Classical music has always been my favorite, and this showcases why.

I love the winds here, and the percussion as well.

VociferousMusic responds:

Thank you very much!
As you already may guess, classical compositions are my favorite, too. :D

[Barbaric Raids]

Well my original review was deleted since my fat fingers hit the refresh button. It was a doozie of a review being almost 1000 characters long but I’m just going to sum up what I said. So basically I said that I really like the song and I think it hits every mark besides the harmony aspect, especially in the climactic sections. Also I was confused as to why the percussion drum player went to sleep after the first minute or so when he sounds so good. But I did mention as well how much I liked the brass in this, especially the trumpets and low brass, since they’re under a really good soundfont. It still has the classic tangerine sound to the whole thing, just updated and modernized. Overall great job on this and the front page was well deserved.

Tangerine responds:

Thank you haha. It's a shame your original comment didn't get posted. As for the percussion, in the cinematic section of the song, I still have the same drum I used in the intro, it's just quieter and I opted to make the deeper-sounding drum more present.

If you're talking about why the percussion player stopped playing in the middle section of the song it's because too much of a good thing makes it bad. Sometimes you have to have quieter sections in the song to make the big parts have more impact. I felt like if I kept using percussion throughout the whole song, it would spoil the chorus section.

I recently got myself the Horns of Hell plugin for orchestral brass and I've been having a lot of fun with that, so that may be why the brass sounds high quality :)