Esn's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Star Wars: Cantina Theme]

Pretty good.

The only thing I didn't really like was that your right hand was sometimes too far ahead of the beat. I'm not sure if that was intentional, but it didn't sound right to me.

[Kheni - Silver corridor]

quality!

Thanks for your vote, Esn! You voted 5 for Kheni - Silver corridor, raising its score from 0.00 to 5.00.

You know, it gives it a certain extra meaning when you listen to it knowing that you wrote in a hall when nobody was around. The beginning was indeed very lonely.

I loved the harmonies that you used, particularly from 0:30-0:45. I'd really like to know what the chord progressions over there are... ;)

The instruments sound pretty good, too, although sometimes lacking that lifelike vitality... that's mainly why the score is a "9" - I suspect that it would've been a 10 if this was played by good live musicians.

Overall, great work! I'll have to check out your other stuff! (and you could check out mine if you wanted to, but the only thing that I've submitted is amateurish song that I wrote a year ago. Your choice ;) )

Kimken responds:

Thanks for the 5!

Only the almighty knows.. Actually I can't remember right now.

I've tried to make it sound as real as possible, but it's hard when you've got virtual instruments. Even though this actually does sound kinda real to me.
I'll try harder next time.

I recommend Desert Wind and "Don't know".
Sure, I'll do that :)
Thanks for the review!

//Kheni

[The Witch]

Great!

I wouldn't call this horror, and I'm thankfull for that; I don't really like traditional horror music. This is simply "dark".

It evokes a great atmosphere and is fun to listen to. Make more dark stuff like this, and play around with it! I'd love to hear something else in this vein. :)

[Tome - Red Sunrise]

Excellent

ok, first of all in my review to Centurion I meant to say "MORE ornamentation", not LESS.

Now then, onto this submission. Basically, I love it! I especially like the beginning, and the middle. It's very subtle and elegant. You're right, this would make excellent music for a flash by a talented artist. Maybe I'll try something one day... just don't expect it anytime soon - I've been working for something like a year on my first animation & it's still not released yet. ;)

Again, though, your ending is a bit weak and it kinda loses its direction... it doesn't make everything come together as it should. Definitely something to work on. Having just a single Oboe playing is not really the best way to end a piece, in my opinion... it doesn't feel like the story has really come to a conclusion; like there's been any revelation. This one certainly deserves a high score, though - you get a "5" from me. :)

By the way, since I'm new to this - is there any way that I can view my past reviews to audio tracks in the audio portal? It's just that I have no idea how to save pieces that interest me... with flash I often do it by reviewing the work, which means I can find it by searching through my reviews, but can I do something like that in the Audio Portal?

[Tome - Centurion]

My first review. :P

To be honest, I have no idea what I'm, doing - this is my first-ever review on the audio portal. I came here from your "Pissed Off" submission when I saw that you had made some music. I do have pretty good classical music background, though.

This is, in large part, very good. The reviewer who said that the drums are too loud does have some merit, though, mostly because there's one section where there are very few instruments playing and the drums are too noticeable. You definitely know your music theory, though. Keep working at it! If you're only 16 and already can make something this good, you have some talent.

There were two main criticisms for me to give. First of all, try not to repeat yourself quite so much - if a section of music has to repeat, add something a little different the second time (a new instrument, a different rhythm, a different ending passage - whatever) - it makes it more interesting to the listener. You were usually pretty good with that, but there were definitely some bits that could've used a bit less ornamentation. The second thing is the ending - frankly, I didn't like it... it's a bit cheap to have a classical music piece like this just fade away. Some closure would've been nice - restate your musical theme from the beginning, maybe, except make it bigger & better and incorporate some elements of your later themes, to make it finally come to a close.

I just have a question for you... what program did you use to make this? I use Finale myself, but unfortunately I have an old version (from 2002!) that only outputs MIDI files, so I can't upload any of my compositions to Newgrounds. I could buy the latest version, but I'm waiting for Finale 2007 which should come this summer. Hmmm. So what do you use?