EmperorCharlemagne's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[HungerForMore-Metaljonus]

Well-made, and appropriately enjoyable

Sounds great, feels great, has a nice melody going for it...

This is just all around fun and cool, which is characteristic of your work. Gotta love the dark energy going around this piece.

Awesome job!

Metaljonus responds:

Thanks man!

[-- [Kos] Rise Of The Argonauts]

go go argonauts

I like the sound of your instruments, on how they have that SNES/Genesis vibe about them in their metalized tone.

I think the comp. is fairly standard, and alright by most means.

Here's some things that bothered me though:
-while i didn't mind the arpeggio repeated so often, I think it could have stood to be a bit softer, because after a while playing it at the volume kinda was grating.

-the horn bass towards the middle could use a little muffling, i think. couple that with a softened arpeggio and I think you're golden.

Here's hoping you keep on getting better!

Kosmiker responds:

The instruments on this one are from Korg wavestation if I'm not mistaken.

Those are very good advices. I'll take them!

Thank you :)

[Nobody but Clouds]

this ain't too bad at all

I would've added some reverb and softened that click-click-clicking drum thing you got going on... It sounds out of place to me in its current form.

However, halfway through the song got better.

Not bad; keep up the good work and keep an ear out for things that stick out like a sore thumb.

Shiroah responds:

I'll do my best, thank you!
Should I submit a reworked version of this track?

[PG & Rucklo - Chant Remixxx Yo]

this doesn't fake the funk on a nasty dunk

This is both hilarious and addicting at the same time.

Great audio sampling!
Is the triple X for sex????

Rucklo responds:

the XXX is what you want it to be, baby ;X

[The rise of -]

Well done!

Part John Williams, part Gustav Holst is how i see this.

Very cinematic and very film-score-esque (though I guess that was the express intent), and it does everything very well within those parameters whilst at the same time having a distinctive flair and style to it. This is not easy to do, but in this song it is MADE to look easy.

I have no real complaints here; everything is executed with above-average skill and dedication.

Continue with the great work!

Tomppaah responds:

Thank you very much :) Haha, makes me happy to hear that you think this was made to look easy :D

John Williams <3 My hero

[L'olonnais]

not bad for a first sub!

This is pretty tight, and I like the melody a lot.

However, what made me give you a 7 as opposed to an 8 is that this song suffers from some technical issues, mainly that when things get too loud, it starts to crackle and pop, which is pretty jarring.

It's important to fix this problem early in your musical career!

If you use FL Studio, this can be solved by turning down the main volume, or turning down the volumes of the various channels causing the cracking. Filter effects are important too.

If you're not using FL, than the above still generally applies, but obviously with the terminology of the program you are using.

You're off to a good start- keep up the good work!

RoyalRave responds:

Yeah man, you're right, the recording is far to be perfect, but we don´t have any idea of recording at all, the recording was raw (no compression or anything similar) and we did a mess with the volume.

Thanks for the review!

[-RG- Beams of Hope]

Well done!

A very simple and well-meaning melody is accompanied by some very good sounding instrument samples (though the drums could use some reverb or something, they sound a little flat).

I noticed this track is used in a submission... Good job on being featured in something- this means that someone obviously liked it a whole lot!

I admit I like it a whole lot too. Keep up the good work!

Raven-Guard responds:

Thanks for the supportive review. You're right about the drums, This isn't the first time I've made my drums sound too flat...

The guy who used it in a submission is an NG friend of mine, he used at least 5 of my submissions by now xP.

Thanks again for the great review!
--
Supersteph54

[(MD2010)-phathom (demo)]

so far so good

Saw the post in the ad thread, so I decided to give this a go.

My thoughts:
Though I think the attack at :26 or so is a little too abrupt- you should try to smooth out that section since it feels like it jarringly jumps from section A to section B.

I don't know how to explain it, other than I would try to make that more seamless, myself.

Also, in your synths and sound effects, what would REALLY work out well is if you added more sweeps, etc. You know, where the sound goes from one end (left) to another (right)? Everything kinda falls in the middle here, and I think you can stand to pan things around a little itty bit in order to bring out a richer sound here.

But so far this doesn't sound too bad; the style is certainly there. I think it mainly needs technical clean-up. This requires a lot of hard listening.

superuberinsaneausm responds:

thanks! ill defintaley take the advice into account

[§Arbiter§ - Path of Heroi]

Some things to note

-I kinda wish you did a bit more with the strings than relegate them to a rhythmic back-n-forth. I mean, it's not like it doesn't fit, but to me it feels like something of a wasted opportunity

-the flute section as well as the horn solo around the 2 minute mark both sound kinda flat and mechanical. Obviously they aren't going to sound like the real deals (no one has a personal orchestra!), but in the future, see if you can tweak some things around to bring out a richer sound in them. The trumpet/horn whatever in particular sounds like it lacks a good punch to it, and reviews saying "[the horn] doesn't fit" confirms my statement.

The melody for the most part plays it safe and doesn't take any risks, but that's not like it's a bad thing. The African drums are a nice and expected touch for a piece like this, though like other reviews said, you should sometimes change up rhythms and timbres and whatnot to keep your song exciting.

This is sure to go over very well with most listeners and lovers of orchestral music. I hope you keep on improving musically as well as production-value-wise.

Arbiter responds:

Hi Emperor Charlemagne (interesting name, to say the least).

I understand completely your points about the strings, but I feel that I don't really have to have the strings as a melodic voice in every song - and in this particular song I felt that they would fit better as a backing, and I really wanted to try out this form of arpeggios - so where this might not seem like the best course of action due to the repetition that comes with it - I still felt that they fulfilled their purpose.

The second point of criticism that you bring is valid as far as the flute goes, because it was completely untampered - but as a fellow composer you must of course realize that at certain points there's not a whole lot you can do when you are limited to a predestined set of samples.

The melody of this is like you said, a rather safe bet - but that's mainly because as previously stated - I focused more upon the string sections of the song to test out this form of arpeggation. As for the drums, they're consisting of 8 patterns played in different velocities and rhythms, as well as cut up to be in different orders - but I see your point that when they're not prioritized in the song that I should perhaps also change up what samples and drums I use.

I have every intent to continue on developing as both a composer, and a producer - and I thank you for a long, detailed review.
And I am in no way attempting to seem defensive in this reply, merely trying to explain/justify my choices.

--Christian S.

[Redwood's Furnace]

Pretty damn good

It's hard to pin things down exactly- everything builds and molds upon each other as the song progresses and it just gets progressively good as time goes on.

If I can criticize anything, it's that the muted trumpet lacks depth and substance to it. It sounds pretty tinny and out of place with everything else going on in the song.

Other than that, though, I say: Good job, this is one bitchin' track.

SHADOWFOX2 responds:

I sorta kinda completely disagree
The muted trumpet lacks depth and substance because it's muted haha
Being muted gives any instrument a tiny voice, but aside from it being repetitiiiiiiiiiive as crap I think it fits the rest of the track like a glove

I'm not sure if you wanna try to imagine this track without that trumpet
I do agree with the progressiveness of the track, but I'm gonna have to learn how not to bore people with it as well
Anyways, thank you very much for your review!
It is much appreciated and I will consider the weight of the mute trumpet from now on