JessieYun's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[The Drunk Violinist]

Honestly, if Pirates of the Caribbean film added more drunk Jack Sparrow inside an actual pub with harpsichord, this should be a good fit for the scene, hahahaha! Really like how you played with tempo and time signatures. Trippy music, and I liked it a lot!

Everratic responds:

haha, that would be an interesting scene. I'm glad the time signature changes sound good, I was a bit worried about how that would be perceived because I don't do it very often. Thanks for the review!

[Crystal Winter]

Glad to be able to hear your composition again! This is wonderful piece, gives me a bit of a sad "Edelweiss" vibe into it. I don't know why, but I think it's because it's so beautiful! You guys should do more vocal collaboration like this!

LucidShadowDreamer responds:

That's an interesting comparison, but I can hear what you mean with the soft tones of Jordi's voice! I also see the similarity with the tone having a hint of sadness, despite the beauty. We're planning on collaborating a loooooot, so no worries on that front ^____^
Thank you for listening, and for leaving your thoughts!

[Isolated from the World (old song)]

NOW we’re talking cinematic here! Some mixing & mastering is needed here and there, and some instruments are a bit robotic/tinny, but other than that, it’s good! Well done :)

Albe responds:

Thank you JessieYun!! Yeah they sound pretty robotic cuz I never changed anything in this whole year (I'm still looking for the project lol). I wish I can have enough inspiration to do something like this again, this was a good experience. Anyway, glad you liked it ^^

[Sing]

Very organic, original, and full of emotion. This is the kind of music we sometimes really need to listen.

[Blacklander Ballad]

Sounds like it's from a fairytale soundtrack, very simple and memorable melodies. Beautiful!

[The Sky Above Yukingdom]

Gives kinda "Married Life" vibe from Up film haha. Very nice chords, beautiful piece!

Everratic responds:

Thank you :)

[[•] AIM - Digital Blackout]

= THIS IS AN OFFICIAL AIM JUDGE REVIEW =

This is based on my own AIM scoreboard alongside with first impression when I first clicked on your track, which is very important for your new listeners who will listen to your future tracks. For Upside/Downside reviews, I listened to your track twice to pinpoint a bit more, the scores(points) are from listening only once. Take this review as a grain of salt, please don't take this personally. I don't want to tore anyone down, I want them to become stronger. The judges have different views on your same track, so just take it as another point of view. Like I mentioned in the AIM Discussion Thread, a badass judge here, giving you a constructive review.

'Comments' section on the overall track (From Scoreboard) : N/A (I'm very sorry, I haven't got the time to write it down for you.)

Upside AND Downside:
Basically in my headphones, it was very comfortable to listen, very nice mixing among the contestants in my opinion. No clippings, clean instruments, full-sounding synths and bass, nice drums. The melody was not very memorable unfortunately, but you did a good job with variations, so there was at least something to explore in this track. The interaction with the artwork was very nice too, connecting nicely with the cyberpunk night feeling from both the artwork and the music. The chord progression overall wasn't bothersome, but I don't like the chord progression in 3:12 section, I think you could create better root chords in that melody. Need specific pinpoints? The most "meh" chord I found (in my ears) was in 3:32 and 3:36 (honestly that one was tolerable, but the next one is not good imo), going further into 3:38-3:41. That really perked up my alarm ears. And overall, the music doesn't seem to tell the story. Like... It does goes on with musical sentences, but it doesn't have a specific idea of what this music is about. If it had some kind of musical storytelling based on the artwork, your score could have been much more higher. Congratulations on making into my Top 20, nonetheless.

ETA : I forgot to mention, you gotta fix that click sound at the beginning.
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SCOREBOARD WITH DETAILS

Art Interaction : 2/3
As I said, the relation with the artwork and the music was nicely fit, but only mood itself, not the story.

Overall Music : 3/4
Comfortable mixing, nice instrumentations, and good variations. The score clearly cut off in some uneven chord progressions and not very memorable melodies, as I've mentioned.

Structure & Variation : 3/4
Good variations, telling you thrice haha. The drums are bit repetitive though, and it doesn't have a very surprising variations, but you had good general structure so nice work on that, nonetheless.

Mixing & Mastering : 2.5/3
Honestly, there's no participant who eventually received a perfect score, so consider yours as the highest score among the contestants. For you, the reason I took 0.5 away was the mid-range sounded a bit squeaky, there's bit of a too much compression/EQ, I think.

Instrumentation : 1/1
Nice instrumentation, as I said. Perfect score on that one.

Total : 11.5/15

[A Distant Saga (F-777 & Wyldfyre1 & KTRECORDS)]

Hey, why haven't you asked me for a collab? xD Just kidding. This is great, awesome chord progressions, instrumentations -- despite the fact it's from 2010 (which basically the instrument sounds quite tinny). This needs serious remake with a bit more better melody and satisfying impact, and I mean it.

[AIM - Level One Start ~ Alien Landscape]

= THIS IS AN OFFICIAL AIM JUDGE REVIEW =

This is based on my own AIM scoreboard alongside with first impression when I first clicked on your track, which is very important for your new listeners who will listen to your future tracks. For Upside/Downside reviews, I listened to your track twice to pinpoint a bit more, the scores(points) are from listening only once. Take this review as a grain of salt, please don't take this personally. I don't want to tore anyone down, I want them to become stronger. The judges have different views on your same track, so just take it as another point of view. Like I mentioned in the AIM Discussion Thread, a badass judge here, giving you a constructive review.

'Comments' section on the overall track (From Scoreboard) : N/A (I'm very sorry, I haven't got the time to write it down for you.)

Upside:
The most interesting thing that I figured was the time signature that you used, I guess it’s 6/4? You created the melodies nicely with this one, and I give compliment on that because it’s not easy to create decent melodies on it. I could hear the melodies from the instrument pretty easily, although it wasn’t very memorable. I don’t know why, but I think it’s because it’s a bit too long in my opinion. But aside that, nice instrument changes for the melody, good time signature use.

Downside:
The downside was pretty much everything aside melodies and time signatures, unfortunately. The instruments sounds very limited, they all sound very weak, and they don’t have much impact during those two minutes. It was more like a sitting boat, than a venturing ship. And we want venture. Use various velocities, impacts, and more stronger and weaker instrument uses. The chord progression itself was a bit uneven, especially the chord melodies (0:48), those really sounds like you just copy and pasted them in triad. If you did, it's not a good method, try to make it sound more harmonized, because for me, it’s not as you might think.

In my opinion, the whole atmosphere sounded like a fantasy rather than a Sci-Fi, mainly I think it’s because the use of Marimba (0:38), I wouldn’t suggest you to use that. The melody in the 0:36 section also played the big role in setting the mood, as well as the instrument setting, it doesn’t really gave much “sci-fi” feel for me, unfortunately. So that was a big downside with the artwork interaction scores. I also wouldn’t recommend making loop music, because it sounds unfinished. But that didn’t affected my score eventually — I was just a bit disappointed.

_________________

SCOREBOARD WITH DETAILS

Art Interaction : 1.5/3
This was a very big and unfortunate cut for you. The instrument choices for the mood in the artwork could have been better, in my opinion.

Overall Music : 2/4
I fixed my score to half out of perfect based on the upside & downside, and I think it’s unfortunate because the downside is basically one of the main points that I’m looking at.

Structure & Variation : 3/4
Why did I gave you 3 scores out of 4 after all these criticisms? Even though melody sounded long, this actually helped in improving your score. Melody variations, it's also good choice for me. But in the future, I think it’s okay to add more repetitions on the melody as well, to let people memorize your melodies. Make sure to balance that out though (and I know it will be hard…)

Mixing & Mastering : 2/3
Decent mixing and mastering, no critical problems were found in my ears. Although I thought it would be better to EQ a bit on the instruments to make it sound less tinny. And as I said earlier, it does sound empty for me.

Instrumentation : 1/1
I honestly wanted to give this half points, but your various instruments on the melody gave less thought that the instruments were limited. So give thanks to your current instruments you have.

Total : 9.5/15

TebyTheCat responds:

Thanks for your review,
The choice of the instruments and their qualities is something that I'll search about it and try to improve on. I also felt a bit of emptiness listening to my song, but I wasn't sure what was causing it... But now I think I'm headed towards the right direction, thank you!

(Also, the unusual chord progression was a deliberate choice, I thought an alien world would be full of weirdness and unknow behaviour, so a chord progression that have you always going to and resolving in unexpect places would match the feeling of curiosity on an alien world...
...Or at least was my intention, perhaps I didn't achieved it well enough XD )

(Also also, the time signature was mostly 3/4 but I did some shift between 3/4 and a polyrythmic 4/4 over 3/4 (not completely sure how to describe it) around 0:48 onwards ... if you were curious)

[AIM - Losing Control]

= THIS IS AN OFFICIAL AIM JUDGE REVIEW =

This is based on my own AIM scoreboard alongside with first impression when I first clicked on your track, which is very important for your new listeners who will listen to your future tracks. For Upside/Downside reviews, I listened to your track twice to pinpoint a bit more, the scores(points) are from listening only once. Take this review as a grain of salt, please don't take this personally. I don't want to tore anyone down, I want them to become stronger. The judges have different views on your same track, so just take it as another point of view. Like I mentioned in the AIM Discussion Thread, a badass judge here, giving you a constructive review.

'Comments' section on the overall track (From Scoreboard) : "Very nice use of sound effects, and that's basically it."

Upside:
What did I most liked about here was sound effects, obviously. I see that you aimed for this to cover your music with beautiful decorations. And I liked it, a lot. Good creativity, too. I especially loved the door creak and BOOM sound at 0:56, that one definitely perked up my ears. Although all the sound effects seems a bit random and out of sync (I’m talking about the heartbeat, sometimes it fits, sometimes it doesn’t), it does seem to tell the atmosphere you were trying to go. I’m honestly a fan of adding some sound effects into music because that helps you tell the story, it’s a good tool. But I'm not adding a score just because you just added sound effects, you added it NICELY, that's what it counts.

Downside:
The downside was music itself, unfortunately. So, basically, from the start to 1 minute is a pack of sound effects with a simple synth melody with strings and a bass. Musically, it’s too repetitive and not very surprising. That’s because the melody is a bit less memorable, and the chord progression is dissonant overall. It goes on and on with more pluck melodies that doesn’t match perfectly in harmony. Shall I pinpoint it to you for the most obvious ones? 1:08, 1:21-1:32, 1:53, 1:58, 2:00, 2:10. 2:19-2:27. I’m sorry, but this track tells me you need to work on more observations of how chords and harmonies make together to make good music. Listen, listen more, and keep listening. You can learn by theory, but you can’t achieve it fully if you don’t listen to the good inspiring tracks around you. That’s what I would recommend for you.

_________________

SCOREBOARD WITH DETAILS

Art Interaction : 2.5/3
Basically you added some sound effects that relates to the art itself, so high score on that, definitely.

Overall Music : 2/4
I fixed my score to half out of perfect based on the upside & downside, and I think it’s unfortunate because the downside is basically one of the main points that I’m looking at.

Structure & Variation : 3/4
Why did I gave you 3 scores out of 4 after all these criticisms? Do give thanks to your sound effects, because they saved your track. Lots of different sound effects covered up so many repetitions from the music. It really did in my ears, your decorations worked!

Mixing & Mastering : 2/3
Decent mixing and mastering, no critical problems were found in my ears. Although it does sound a biiiit unbalanced between the sound effects and the music because I can’t hear the melody perfectly when the sound effect plays. And also, I thought it would be better to EQ a bit on the synths to make it sound less tinny.

Instrumentation : 1/1
I honestly wanted to give this half points but once again, your sound effects saved the day. Those are sometimes considered as “instruments” after all. At least for me. Ever “mise-en-scene” in the track I figure, are ALL instruments.

Total : 10.5/15

SI-7 responds:

Thanks a ton for the critical feedback, I really appreciate it. I think I'll start by studying tracks that inspire me, to figure out why they do, and start working on developing more interesting melodies and chord progression.