Thetageist's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Lapis' Battle Theme (SjälTale )-LapisTheWolf]

This is some pretty interesting music, even though it doesn't sound energetic enough to be much of a "battle theme" to me. The Undertale sound effects were a fun touch (psst, by the way, because of those you need to mark that your track has 3rd party samples in it). My favorite part is around 01:15 - it has similar vibes and even similar instruments to Terraria's nighttime music. It sounds like the synth doing the Megalovania-esque thing comes in a couple beats early at around 1:44, which means it doesn't always line up with the other stuff. But otherwise, really nice work, and I hope you return to this idea later!

Shady Cicada has a few videos on making video game battle/boss theme music, maybe those might be helpful?

LapisTheWolf responds:

ok thank you!!

[Mettaton Dance Sequence - LapisTheWolf]

It actually sounds pretty good, but not necessarily for the purpose you intended it for. I'd consider this more ambient background music for a minimalist game, rather than something I could dance to. I think it's because there is very rarely any kind of percussion or any other strong indicator of where the beats are, and when it is there, it's pretty quiet. If it is supposed to be truly ambient, as the tag suggests, maybe it'd be good to name the title something else or explain the intended context in the description? And if it is meant to be dance music, I actually found a couple tutorials for how to write dance music on YouTube - I'm not sending any links because I figure it'd be better to just let you find the one that works best for you. Hope this helps!

LapisTheWolf responds:

ty!!

[Pure Light (Själtale) - LapisTheWolf]

Hey, you're actually starting to get somewhere here! I can tell that you've got a recurring melody in the piece, as well as an amount of structure! I'm thinking what's needed here is more of an intention with how you use the structure, like what's going to be the arrival point where you go all-in, that the audience will remember afterward. There's also a little bit of musical rambling in the melody and subsequent piano line around 2 minutes in - I recommend you do research on how phrases, cadences, and harmonization work in music, that would help you provide the melody with some structure. Musictheory.net is always a good resource for learning music concepts and how to implement them in your songs. But yeah, it's definitely improving! And the first part of that melody actually kinda sounds like Undertale music :)

LapisTheWolf responds:

TY!!

[Tear's Theme (SjälTale) - LapisTheWol]

A nice peaceful song! It'd probably go well as background music for a cutscene, but if I were to judge it as music to listen to by itself, I would say that it needs to have more of a memorable high point somewhere, or a memorable melody or riff - that's generally what keeps people coming back to a song, or at least that's what will keep me coming back. Again, since this is meant to be a theme song for a character, it would be very useful to have something unique that audience members will remember and mentally connect to that character. For instance, if I were to play Megalovania out of the blue, you would instantly think of Sans. I can gather resources for you if you want to bolster your melody-writing skills - I know where to find them. :)

LapisTheWolf responds:

Thank you!

[Sonic Burned Edition Boss (Megadrive Cover)]

It is completely valid to make music that is as technically accurate or inaccurate as you wish!

I love what you did with the different instruments here! It definitely sounds like it'd come from a different game franchise than the Mega-Man version you made earlier - I'm not sure which one at this point, but it is really cool!

themaskedmonocle responds:

oh yes, i used sounds from Battle Mania and Thunderforce, mixed with sonic. Thanks for the review!

[Character Select - Megadrive]

I wanna play as Vixen!

I really like this little tune! It's got a memorable melody and I love the upbeat accompaniment as well!

themaskedmonocle responds:

i made it really short and sweet like in King of Fighters 2000 (justifies making it short!) It was literally a looping second lol but it worked.

[Claire's Theme(SjälTale) - LapisTheWolf]

Hey, I'm finally getting around to reviewing your audio stuff! Yay!

I love the cool effects you use, a lot, as well as the structure of the song - how it builds up and then lets go. A couple things I'd like to mention, from a compositional standpoint. One, the song does feel pretty repetitive in a couple of places because of just how long you use the exact same chord progression and the same kind of musical elements without making very noticeable changes. Two, there doesn't seem to be a very clearly defined melody here, which I think adds to the feeling of repetition, but I'm also pointing that out because most of Undertale's soundtrack has very clearly defined and memorable melodies, so if you would like your music for SjalTale to sound more like Toby Fox's music for Undertale, I can help you practice writing melodies. Overall, you've definitely proven that you can use whatever software you have, but I'd recommend you work on the actual music writing itself. (Or at least, that's my diagnosis for this piece - I'll look at more later to see your improvements from here!)

LapisTheWolf responds:

tysm! Also some of my newest stuff is on my channel. I don't post music here that often. - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqoc0tjrfhTCVFCU3ukwZJQ

[Sonic Burned Edition Boss (Megaman X3 remix)]

I like this remix, you did a great job of making it sound like Mega-Man music and using the instruments in a way that sounds good! Also kudos to you for having a SoundCloud (it sounds like a really good platform, I'm looking into getting an account there) and letting the author know about your remix!

themaskedmonocle responds:

honestly it isn't, you get alot of scammers bothering you and you don't get alot of exposure. You have far more luck on here. And thank you, sometimes you just gotta make somethin lol

[Halls of enchanted ebony]

I don't know the original (there was a Monster High video game? I mean yeah, of course there was a Monster High video game). But this is a really clean-sounding 16 bit cover of whatever it is! I can imagine that you accurately captured the expected cheesiness of the original. How do you make these things, just curious?

themaskedmonocle responds:

oh! there's these things called soundfonts, its a file with a bunch of instruments from retro soundchips or specific games. if you have something like FL studio, you just select it from a list and it will have a library of goodies. You can tweak and make your own, too.