50Steaks's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[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 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

[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

[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 :)

[(#4) aging]

Jamuary is hilarious, nice job with that name

I do wish you made this longer and more complete, but I understand the desire to leave it as it is as that’s what I used to do with my older music.
I personally don’t make any music in the mornings — nearly all of my time spent on music production is in the late afternoon to night, and it’s not just for time reasons. I feel like after a long day, it’s nice to be able to relax and work on a song while forgetting about everything else for a while. It’s almost therapeutic in a way, and the songs that come out of that time are able to be listened to for the same effect (or at least, that’s the idea). Doing so in the mornings defeats this purpose in my eyes.

FL-DMD responds:

Oh yes I certainly am in the same boat as you. 90% of the time when I make music it’s in bed in the late evening/night with my AirPods in my ears and a microphone plugged in my phone. However with this Jamuary event I have only 1 day every day to challenge myself to begin and release a new track until the month of January ends. The purpose is to gain experience working under demand and learning how to adapt. This isn’t my idea, it’s something talked about in a post in the NG frontpage (one of those NG events thingies). For a year before I wanted to participate, so I am now.

You have a good way of thinking. When you said the reason you make music late in the day or at night, I didn’t really think of that. That’s inspiring!

Thanks for stopping by yet again! 😃

[Millennia]

My biggest question when it comes to þis is, why the use of þ, Quippic? Is it branding, a joke, or an actual speech pattern? þat letter is extremely archaic, and is probably used less þan ŋ.

Anyways, probably my favorite part is that of Dim. It has the best melody and a really nice lineup of synths as compared to the others in my opinion. And the best part of it all, in my eyes, is the transition from Dim into Scareev. The way the pitch of every instrument slightly goes off from where it was before helps it fade so smoothly into the next section that it startled me how well that was done. Really good job on this, everyone!

FL-DMD responds:

You’re totally right. There was a lot more consideration of each other’s parts to make them piece better as well and I think while setting that up we were able to have nice conversations alongside about each other’s work. That’s the beauty of it.

[(FLSM-short) - Gde je]

You make all your music on an iPhone? I’m a staunch supporter of the use of iPads for music production (larger screen means you can see more at once). Been using an iPad mini 5 for 2 years now, and I don’t plan on switching to phone or to PC.

People underestimate the power of the FLM app, but I think the best thing about it is the ease of use and portability. The difference in styles of our music prove the capability of this little daw.

FL-DMD responds:

Yeah! Fun fact, my second device to ever main FLM on was the iPad mini 5, but then I actually upgraded to an iPad Pro 2018, don’t get me wrong I love the screen size, but my phone has a more capable chip. I still have my iPad though and I do use it quite a bit 😜

I love what you said about us having the ability to establish our own musical styles ✨