50Steaks's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[ᑫᵘᵉˢᵗᶦᵒᶰ Mᵃʳᵏ]

I always will know this song by its GD name, " M" since all the weird characters couldn't be displayed. It's also one of your best songs imo so there's that

[Cookie]

Love it, a little repetitive but it's so groovy it hardly matters. Then 3:04 almost makes up for it. I love this way more than I should.

[SSJ3 - Nuclear Fusion REDUX]

What a wonderful remix of flawless wings of yatagarasu

In seriousness, this is probably the best rock/metal song I’ve heard, or very near the best. The melodies here are simply incredible and the mixing is awesome. Probably my favorite of your work to be honest. Me love supersaws

Shiverwar responds:

First off, thank you for your kind words, but I must address that this is not a remix of "Flawless Wings of Yatagarasu". Both this and FWoY are remixes of "Solar Sect of Mystic Wisdom ~ Nuclear Fusion" from the Touhou franchise. Second, supersaws are pretty awesome, aren't they?

[Brawlhalla Menu Theme]

So sorry to hear you had to go to the hospital, and wow I’m really bad at keeping up with your songs right now. Hope you’re feeling better; I won’t lie though, the first 1:22 does sound like it was made by a drugged person.

In seriousness, while I wouldn’t go that far, there’s a pretty clear discrepancy in quality between that part and the rest of the song. It doesn’t feel like the beginning is going anywhere or building tension, which is ok for a menu theme but not when the rest of the song does that so well. That section of I had to guess is most likely the reason why the next song got front paged and this didn’t, which is a shame because this shows a lot of potential in the second half which I love. Imagine having a slower paced, melodic take on the melody like in the civilization 6 menu theme but in what I assume is a war game of some sort. And the outro, while it does come out of nowhere, is still a nice finish to the song despite the lack of a real second chorus (something I actually feel this song could have benefited from).
I understand this is your first dabble in these BH remixes, and you’d worked past nearly all my criticisms in the next song, making it much more successful in my eyes. Keep on doing this, I think it’s pretty cool that other people are being inspired by what I’m doing to start their own musical series. And I’d say I’m about 75% done with the finale so keep an eye out for that in the coming weeks.

Tangerine responds:

Haha yeah, coming back to this after a while of not listening to it, I definitely have improved a lot since. I am still rather impressed with how I did while drugged. I am glad I randomly decided to do this because by trying to replicate what professional composers do, I was able to learn a lot of techniques and how to make many different sounds with symphonic instruments.

Honestly, I'm not too bummed out with not getting frontpaged. Creating this is likely what led to my next work getting front paged. Also, as of me writing this, the song has 69 listens, so that's pretty cool (I have the humour of a 12-year-old).

Doing challenges like what you did with the states is honestly a fun way to go about music, and it brings extra motivation and drive when composing. I think everyone should try challenge themselves like that.

I am very excited to see what you do with your finale. It's been a long time leading up to this.

[The Good, The Bad, and the Utterly 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.