First thing I'd like to note, the mix is awesome, although that's hardly surprising considering the work you did on my track! We can clearly hear every voice, the singer, albeit occasionally a bit flat, has a wonderful voice, and you show that you definitely have some skills on that guitar.
Now for the song itself. It's important to take into consideration that I'm hardly familiar with the genre, but from what I can hear, the only major complaint I have is that the song is lacking in highs. I think it's got to do with your guitar tone, since it seems to be lacking in upper harmonics. As of right now, the entire song sounds very small and compact, so that might be something that needs to be addressed in future songs.
The only other complaint I have was already mentioned in Step's post, so I won't bother going into detail over it, but that ending is quite anticlimactic and fishtailed. Might just be a personal thing, but I think it was a tad too minimalist, and perhaps a tad lazy.
In any case, that's pretty much all I have to say! One major gripe and a more personal one, but marvelously executed, so all around great track!
Hehe thanks for the honest review. The ending was actually was semi intentional, I didn't think it was too bad but I guess that is just personal taste.
I'm sorry, but I cannot let this slide. I'm sorry but there's so much wrong with this track I don't even know where to start.
First of all, lemme break it to you: this is unquestionably CLASSIC ROCK, NOT JAZZ. There is not even ONE element in this track that could even remotely be considered anything close to Jazz, and no, including a saxophone in your track doesn't magically make it so.
Secondly, this has got to be one of the most poorly produced tracks I have ever listened to. I mean, the effort is commendable, but in the end the song makes me physically sick to hear. the background elements are about 50% lower in volume from the rest of the track, the female singer's volume is MUCH higher that her male counterpart, no instrument has the same amount of reverb, and don't even get me started on THAT GODDAMN AWFUL SAX.
Not only is it completely off-pitch, but for an instrument that's literally in the title, it's played like the player is 8 years old. It sounds like he only knows ONE scale, and doesn't even know that one that well, with the occasional wrong note. I'm sorry, but when you base your song entirely on telling me how good your sax is, I expect a minimal level of experience on the instrument from the player.
Third, how is there no drums in this track? I mean I'm really not the guy that can't listen to a track if there aren't drums, far from it, but seeing as this is a standard Classic Rock song, and there's a steady rhythmic pattern installed already, I don't see why this wasn't included other than the fact you might not have had a drummer available.
Lastly, while I do appreciate the singers' performance, I couldn't decipher half of what they were saying because of the mix. Written lyrics could/should have been put in the author comments, if only to understand what the hell was going on.
In any case, sorry if I sound a bit harsh, but production is, to my eyes, essential in the creative development of a song, and I'm also very critical when it comes to Jazz. Hope you learn from what I wrote and that you'll improve in the future, as it could improve your sound tenfold!
Samuel, hi, thanks for your in-depth review of the track, it's much appreciated. I appreciate the constructive criticism, and that you took time to do this, rather than just slate the whole track. I agree about the sax, and the mix. Though I'm a fairly successful pianist, I don't tend to delve into 'jazz' much (or classic rock as you stated), so this is definitely a learning curve. I have to admit, the sole thing I contributed to this piece was the piano, and since you didn't mention that, I'll just believe that it was alright, hah.
I'm usually not a low voter, in fact, this is probably the lowest rating I've ever given to a submition.
But there IS a reason why I'm giving this such a low score, and that is that this is pretty aweful.
First of all, this song is nowhere anything NEAR classical music, or even neo-orchestral film music stuff you hear today. THIS IS POP MUSIC, AND NOTHING ELSE!
The only "orchestral" elements that could possibly exist in this song would be the "flute", if you could even call it that, and the things that try to look like strings.
The chord progression is pop, and even then, it fails to even BE a progression, because of the occasional drum breaks in the middle breaking the structure.
The flute barely manages to play the tonics, OVER AND OVER AGAIN, and still manages to do occasional off key "harmonisation".
The drums are saddeningly bad, alternating between random fills and aweful accompaniment. THE ACCENTS GO ON THE 2's AND 4's, NOT THE 1's AND 3's!
The string are probaly the only part on wich I'll accord points. I like the harmonisation you chose, and the occasional tensions reated by keeping the previous chord's notes were pretty tasty, though occasional tensions didn't
fit.
I'm sorry if this critic seems hard, but being under the classical category, and having 22 votes and a score of 4.54, I feel like I had to judge your song as hard as a regular classical composition.
Please don't take this personaly, I just hope you'll get a lesson from this and take a bit of time understanding what you did wrong.
Cheers,
Samuel Hébert
P.S. PM me if you need any more detailing on improvable parts in your song.
thanks for the review. it was just a test really. I have no idea why i put it in classical, if anything i would have put it under misc... sorry on my part. thanks again.
Thank you for putting such a great recording of one of my favorite songs ever on Newgrounds.
I seriously wasn't expecting anything like this when you said you were going to do modal jazz. I thought you'd go with something cheesy like Blue in Green, or something like Maiden Voyage.
I will most likely make myself a little solo out of this recording, given that I now have proper software and hardware. Wich me luck, I'll send you a PM when it's done!
Wow, I'm flabergasted by what I'm hearing, I honestly wasn't expecting something nearly as good when I clicked your link on the RRC!
It's got a classic 80's feel with the sound quality and the choice of instruments, I wouldn't have chosen the pan flute for this, but it does really give a clear refference to that era.
Speaking of wich I should mention that the song is awefully similar to Vangelis' style, more precisely this very song : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYeDsa 4Tw0c
I guess it's ok, just sayin', and it IS one of Justin's favorite composers afterall...
Next on the list is the most evident I believe, The song either ends too abrubtly or, in my opinion, is simply not long enough. The last idea you had was great and could have been much more developped, perhaps by adding more instruments, mostly brass (but then that's just my biased opinion :P) to really bring the song to a climax.
But as a concession to that very thesis, I've got alot to learn from you in orchestration, as you've mastered the art of manipulating themes in such ways that you can use a basic melody and devellope it through an array of instruments.
I myself am going to get myself a book on the subject you might be interested in, Samuel Adler's Study for Orchestration, wich explains in detail everything you need to know about every orchestral instrument and theoretical composing.
Second to last point: Choice of instruments. While most of your choices I approved, some are in my opinion open for discussion, and I'm mostly speaking about the pan flute.
I'm thinking that you enjoy the pan flute (having put some in our collab), and I'm fine with that, but I find it's use in this song a bit incoherent, in the way that the approach you used felt more like one of a normal flute, wich then have been much more lyrical, instead of the straightforward approach of the pan flute.
The instrument that most tired me thought is the "exotic drums" you used. Being a latin drummer myself (amongst a few other things), it really tires me to hear the western conception of that very drumming, and I can't help but feel the need to make them take consciouseness of their misconceptions.
the djembe sounds you use are used as tenor drums, and the bongos are used as high-pitched drum-rolls, and are simply not used at their full potentials.
You can always PM me (or just call me, you know the drill) if you want any info, I'd be glad to help!
And finally, last point : choice of chords. I must say, never in my life would I have thought the most overused chord progression in the last 40 years could possibly sound so fresh used in a completely different context! Seriously, if it wasn't for the fact that guitars plucked those chords in the beggining, I would never have thought it out, and overall it simply sounds great.
Still, it really is the most overused chord structure ever used, so I don't really suggest straying along those lines for too long, espetially considering the classical nature of the song.
Wow, that was a ridiculously long review that lasted my entire evening... Oh well, gotta love helping out fellow composers, and YOU are most certainly worth that time!
Once again, congratulations for making such a great track, and work on those endings!
Wow dude, this is one of the largest reviews I've ever received. That makes two massive reviews after one day. That's awesome, so THANKS!
I'd do my usual 'quote paragraph 1 - respond - quote paragraph 2 - respond' style of responding to reviews but your review is just too darn big :P. I'll quote certain parts of it then...
OK... so... where to start.
...
That's not how you spell flabbergasted xD.
But thanks. I rarely request in the club but when I do I make sure it's one of my best.
"I wouldn't have chosen the pan flute for this"
Yeah, that's the thing... Some people like the pan flute in here and some people don't. I pretty much only used it to carry a melody in certain parts and since I use flutes too much I thought it's a good idea to go for a pan flute instead :P. In any case I can't really change anything in this song because I lost the project file, even though all of these helpful reviews are making my gut instincts literally scream at me to edit this track.
"Speaking of wich I should mention that the song is awefully similar to Vangelis' style"
Cool, I'm being compared to Vangelis :D.
Yeah I noticed the approach is quite similar actually.
"The song either ends too abrubtly or, in my opinion, is simply not long enough."
I agree that it definitely needs to be longer, but hey, Echo and I had to make this for a game which required like 20-30 songs like this so cut us some slack xP. I ended it like that because I had to make it loop with the ambiance at the beginning, and I couldn't think of any other way, except by just slapping on a fade-out.
"perhaps by adding more instruments, mostly brass"
Psh, says the trumpet player :P.
"I've got alot to learn from you in orchestration, as you've mastered the art of manipulating themes in such ways that you can use a basic melody and devellope it through an array of instruments."
That's exactly what makes this song stand out from my other songs in my opinion. It's a good thing Echo and I used so many instruments to keep the melody going or this would no doubt become repetitive.
"While most of your choices I approved, some are in my opinion open for discussion, and I'm mostly speaking about the pan flute."
Yeah, the pan flute... I think some people might not like it because of the sample we used. I have a better sample as a soundfont and an even better one in Ethnoworld 3, but like I said, I can't really edit this track :C.
"the approach you used felt more like one of a normal flute"
I see what you mean. Generally whether I'm using a flute or a pan flute I still compose the same way, which is a bad habit I guess lol.
"The instrument that most tired me thought is the "exotic drums" you used."
Yeah I'm no export at using exotic drums and all that stuff. I'll have to message you on MSN (if I ever find the time to sign in...) so you can help me out on that, if it's OK with you.
"I must say, never in my life would I have thought the most overused chord progression in the last 40 years could possibly sound so fresh used in a completely different context!"
Haha, it was Echo who wanted to use that chord progression. He was all excited because we managed to make an overused chord progression fit well in a song like this, and whenever we joke around and I tell him that it was my editing which made the song so good he'd say 'no it wasn't, it's my chord progression' xD.
But OK I have to admit that if it wasn't for Echo this wouldn't be nearly as good as it is.
"Still, it really is the most overused chord structure ever used, so I don't really suggest straying along those lines for too long"
Got it, I'll keep that in mind.
"Wow, that was a ridiculously long review that lasted my entire evening..."
Wow man, I really appreciate that. Thanks!
"Once again, congratulations for making such a great track, and work on those endings!"
Will do. Thanks a million for such an awesome review, I'll keep all of your suggestions in mind! Thanks again!
Oh and in case you didn't get the five times I already told it to you, THANKS!! :D.
Thanks for review.
I think trumpet would fit there very good, I even plan to record one, but the main reason of making this is to provide a backing track for others to put their solos :)
I look forward to hear your solo.
The Sanshi intro was pretty deacent playing, thought maybe playing a bit more rubato (playing with a free tempo) would've helped making it more expressive.
My main problem with this song is the pitch. Now listen here, I'm well aware that eastern music uses a different temperament, wich for a country as far east as Thailand would be so off that it would make western men bleed their ears out, but even there I'm still sure the segment at 1:30 is still terribly off pitch. It really hurts the song since the rest is really great (tought I didn't really like the druming at 0:42, but that's just my point of view, no points taken there.)
Off pitch? No, nothing's off pitch, what you're hearing is either the bass line clashing with the guitar riff or the weakness of the guitar showing through at that spot (both are done intentionally).
The bass riff at that part clashes harmonically with the guitar a little bit. This is my artistic expression to represent the modern turbulence with Communism in Thailand (they think it's god-awful and don't even allow communist parties to participate in elections) as well as just a musical preference of mine that some things are meant to sound wrong.
Edit: Also, most of the music that I'm interpreting in that part stays at one quick tempo.
...you sir are so out of tune it actually hurts my ears!
But other than that, pretty good solo, some notes seemed to be out of key, except maybe if that was intentional, of course.
I didn't really like the part with fuzz, and it wasn't because of the actual fuzz. You were preparing a pretty good solo, and then at the moment you put on the fuzz, you hid behind it and didn't really do aything original after that. Truly saddening, but it's OK, it's Christmas after all! ;)
The first part made me think of Hotel California, and befor you put fuzz in the background, it kind of made me think of Pink Floyd. :)
Not out of tune at all sir, just way out of TONE. That's because my recording software is junk, and so is the pedal I use. I could have lugged my Marshall stack upstairs and recorded through that, giving possibly the best tone on NG, but I'm lazy (especially after the amount of eggnog I consumed). I absolutely hate fuzz, but since I put no work into this at all, I didn't care about it. Also, it wasn't prepared, it was improvised, I laid down a simple jazzy track and went to town. Also, I now have a new guitar to record with, so all my recordings will get better. I did mean to use out-of-scale notes, such as notes from Hungarian Minor and Harmonic Minor.
Thanks for the in depth review, I always like to know where I need to improve (though I always hate having to spend time to improve)
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year,
FROM CANADA!
I didn't really like the song, but I'll do some objective criticisme.
First of all, as my title implies, the song fits more under the Funk categorie than the jazz category, thought they are somewhat similar, but the instrumentation feels too acidic to fit in the latter.
Secondly, from the second half till the end, it's just a random set of chords played with the same rythmic. The main theme's progression felt like it was simply the fifth cycle with fancy effects around it.
Of course, those effects were quite classy, I'll give you that, put the song needs meat around those, otherwise the song is quite empty.
Anyways, to resume, verify you really are in the right category, and give a bit more meat, as it isn't just the chord progression that makes the song, and it can never replace actual structure.
Thanks for the review
I got to admit this isn't really jazz, but it's also not funk because funk is generally based on 1 or 2 chords.
The second half isn't a random set of chords, I don't remember how I did it exactly but it was something like 4 times a tone up, 4 times 1.5 tones down, repeated
It chose to keep the song simple and easy to listen to, that's the reason it's a bit plain
... if not for the clavecin (or whatever it's called in english), of course!
Speaking of the clavecin, it didn't really suite the genre, you should've used a luthe (once again, I've learned my instruments in French, so I don't really know instruments in english, sorry...) It was also overpowering, should probably be lowered down.
Nice use of conterpoints though, the pieces really fitted one in the other, it gave a really nice progression to the song, wich is what every composer who takes himself slightly seriously should be looking for! :)
The only negative aspect of the song is really that the clavecin that starts at 0:21 and the bass that follows really don't match the wanted style, sounds WAY too electronic.
If I were someone who hadn't read the author's comments (surely 50% - 70% of Newground's community) I'd think the song was electro with a nice classical intro at that point. And that cannot pass in my book.
On a more personal note, the string entry at 0:47 wasn't quite how I'd have liked it. Even if the song was in 3/4 the whole time, the main theme there felt more binary than ternary, and that detail bugged me.
So, for a quick recap, slight adjustments in style, instrumentation and volume, and of course length, and this song's ready to roll!
Ooh so you're French? I don't know what a luthe is and I can't find it on google(did you mean lute?), but I think a clavecin is a harpsichord. You are right, and when it comes in, it seems sudden, right?
Thank you very much for the compliments and I'll fix the volume of the "clavecin" :P and I'll replace the bass with a more realistic sounding one.
Jonas Wasilco~Din of War 
Plains Theme 