50Steaks's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[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.

[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!

trevor8 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.

[Allium]

Alright that’s one of the better of these types of beats, and for being someone who only started making music 2 years ago, I’m thoroughly impressed. I will say one thing: you need to go on discord and message a GD moderator to be whitelisted, although I will scout you nonetheless because this deserves to be heard.

Rainful responds:

Thanks for the kind words! I'll dm a mod :)

[9. Toaster Love]

This reminds me of the Wikipedia article on cock and ball torture; the heavy metal-esc screaming fits perfectly with what this character is actually doing in the song, which makes it quite interesting to listen to. Unfortunately you do get knocked down for making me wince every time he says a word (lyric-wise), but the weird and creepy outro is so random and unexplained that I consider it to be a representation of the remains of this dude’s destroyed cock.

guyfromKillerRAT responds:

I definitely do like to hear interpretations of things I did in songs without verbally explaining. I believe that your interpretation very much does sound like something I would do. Is it true though? Well, I'll leave you to decide that.

[carrier]

Wow. This blew me away, not just because it sounds so different than what you usually post, not just because it is in 6/8, but the structuring and melodic blending you use here is not of the ordinary. This is genuinely something I could just randomly hum the melody of, similar to a lot of classical music. The percussion is actually my favorite of all your songs so far, it’s great. The time signature really is the “signature” of this song and it was executed really well. I see some producers attempt a 3/4 or 6/8 time only to make a 4/4 track with swing, but this is anything but that. Also I love that outro that you can tell is coming, but only subconsciously so. Really really well done here, as always, and I’m glad to see you try something a little bit different.

trevor8 responds:

thank you so much!

[TGRI - Phantom over the Ocean]

What? I never reviewed this? I could have sworn I did. Anyways in the review I thought I posted, I talked about how I had some “strong opinions” about the piece of artwork associated with this song, despite the song itself being really good. You’re really getting better at creating progression and integrating different musical ideas. Not to mention, it feels like you use at least one new instrument every song; here you used the organ. It’s a good soundfont for the organ; to be fair, it could use a touch more reverb. Either way, the atmosphere that the art attempts to encapsulate is emulated really well here. The melody here isn’t quite as melancholy as I thought it would be, but that’s fine I suppose. I was expecting a wistful, almost nostalgic vibe, but it came out as more of a mourning tone, which is also fitting. Overall, really well done yet again.

Tangerine responds:

I'm running out of new instruments to use D:

[|21| PRINTIN' (yELLOW) COLOURS]

I fail to see how this or the other four color songs correlate at all with the colors you gave them: I would imagine this one being blue, for example, because it’s chill and smooth. Either way this is probably your best song because I have a soft spot for atmospheric tracks recently lol.

PartyBalloof responds:

I was never good with associating something with other things, thus whenever I do an analogy my friends have no idea what I'm talking about!

[TGRI - Frosty Breeze]

And this is where I forget that you guys are all upside down. The Christmas season is usually associated with snow, warm fires, and Christmas trees, all of which is just not present in the Southern Hemisphere. Imagine having Christmas be filled with days to the beach and tans.
About the song, I really liked this one. It must be strange naming a Christmas themed song frosty breeze having never experienced a frosty Christmas lol. Either way it’s executed really well here. I will say the flute hanging around leading up to the outro was a little artificial sounding, almost like it was a post production addition to pad out the song. But that’s entirely made up for by the surprising accelerando at 2:13 that really ups the intensity, followed by the most overture parodic (a parody of… is parodic even a word?) section where the same 8 not3s repeat with cymbals at a faster tempo. I’m glad to see it randomly here because it brings a lot more immersion with the second half. Of course the first half is simply leading up to that though so it did fade into the background a little until then, which isn’t a bad thing at all. Overall really well done here of course, and I’m glad to see you take more advantage of the software.

Tangerine responds:

gomp

[TGRI - Neon Lights]

This is interesting. If you remember I’ve tried jazz songs twice now, and neither of them have been what I really wanted out of a jazz song. Louisiana was an ok start but lacked any real substance and Idaho was just a failure all around, so this might be what I’m looking for in my jazz song perhaps. The melody isn’t the catchiest thing you’ve ever made but it still works well, and the development and percussion in the background is what sets this apart.

Tangerine responds:

Jazz is probably one of the most trickiest genres. It's so flexible so I tend to feel lost at first and only start to grasp the essence of the song around the second phrase.

" so this might be what I’m looking for in my jazz song". This song is in between regular jazz and cabaret. Regular jazz embraces clashing and dissonance whereas cabaret doesn't. Cabaret is probably the cleanest genre of jazz (in terms of dissonance and clashing). If you wanted to make a song like this then I would recommend using lots of jazz. I remember seeing a pretty good brass sample when I was watching a friend make a song on fl studio.

[Ravenous Sandstorm]

I can tell you’ve taken a lot of inspiration from game soundtracks with this one. Like your other songs it has an absolutely incredible atmosphere that puts people like GRmusic to shame in my opinion. The use of sound effects, especially when you’re just starting out, is amazing. I don’t know where you learned these audio techniques but they really almost carry the song. The guitar is nice but the lack of a real outro is a concern. One thing I do see you being able to do in the future is creating an extremely intense song (DnB, dubstep, or something else) that works hand in hand with the urgent atmosphere your tracks contain, as in the intro, bridge, and outro would rely on your atmosphere but then there would also be a pretty major drop in between. I could see that being the next logical step, and it’s one you are working towards especially with the previous track you made. Really nice work here and can’t wait to see what you have in store for the future.

OrangeFluff responds:

Thanks for this wonderful review, it was such a pleasure to read it honestly :3
And you are right! I would like to create an intense track that would be consistent throughout without breaking the atmosphere, it sounds like a hard task but I'm woking towards it :D
Also I agree about the outro, I should've worked more on it, I just was tired of working on this track already so I decided to stop o-o
Anyways, thanks again, have a good day! =w=