I was looking for some nostalgia, went to Wayback Machine to look at Newgrounds as I found it in 2007 (the redesign before this one, I believe), just hit March 2008 hoping that some stuff was preserved that I could still view. I was hoping to be able to use the old audio player, you know, the one with the Badger and Angry Faic and other visualizations that weren't just random colored lines attacking each other? So, like I said, I went to March of 2008, seeing it had a lot of captures. This song happened to be on the front page on the date I selected… title looked promising, and saw it was "general rock", so I figured, "why not?"
I tell you what, you just took me on an awesome blast to the past unintentionally, both in style, and in this site. And you just found yourself a new fan. :)
Love it, not really anything to complain about. Lovin' the classic riffage, drums aren't too bad, though the kick could be a little louder. Other than that, rockin' out, lovin' it. 9/10
I've had moments like that, hearing riffs or melodies in a dream. Problem is, I can never remember them long after I wake up. My initial solution was to record myself humming it. The result? I end up sounding like I'm drunk humming a song. I'm even so out of it I even gave myself a disclaimer at the beginning. XD
Thanks, man! I ALWAYS have problems with the drums and mixing in general, but I'm still learning so I promise I'll get better at it. LOL
Usually the dreams don't stick around, but the riffs and the ideas do, even if I don't immediately notice, they just find their way into my writing. I hear you on the whole drunk humming part: I did the exact samething one morning and I could not tell what the hell I was singing. LOL!
Not really. XD
I love this! For some reason, this reminds me of Sonic 3's Ice Cap Zone... not the music, just the zone itself. One second... *plays S3 Ice Cap silenced with this in the background* Holy crap, that IS very fitting! :D Fast-paced in the beginning, bit of a breakdown for some calmness, still enough action-y awesomeness to keep you listening, then back to the fast-paced bit... and then the re-introduction-- wait a sec. This is a loop?!?! I've been listening to this for ten minutes!! Damn you Supersteph and your epic compositioning skillz, mesmerizing and distracting meh!! XD
Yeah I guess this WOULD fit in a Sonic game. But what would I know, I've only played Sonic Colours haha. And one old Sonic game whose name I can't remember.
Really glad you thought it looped seamlessly. I think it's the most smooth loop I've ever done, largely because I thought about doing it around halfway through the track (rather than what I usually do which is finish the whole track and then try and tack on a loop), so I was able to work the structure around to my favour.
Also, I'm Step now, not Supersteph. So call me Step unless you want me to start calling you cdjproductions :3.
Good composition? Indeed. (Like usual... :3) Not necessarily all that sneaky-sounding to me though. In my opinion, the major key signature kind of kills the sneaky mood in a way. You know, it sounds a little too happy... mostly in the end. It worked for the intro, but ending it, well, I'm not sure. That's just me though. Still nice-sounding. :D
Rather than major, this is in lydian, which is kinda like major except with the fourth note sounding a semitone higher. Yeah I see what you mean, although I mainly wanted to add that major chord at the end to signify that whatever sneaky operation went on, it has been done. Yes I have no idea from where I come up with this stuff either :3.
I'm glad you like it! Hope it does well in the contest. I'm not very happy with it but my other contest entry has a messed-up ending and frankly I don't think I'm even going to place since there are only four spots and at least 1001 talented participants, give or take.
14 is what I want to see get finished the most... I thought that one was started from late 2010? ;D
Bunch of stuff to work on, and all of it is pretty freakin' sweet. Though I've been waiting on that New Day for a looooong time, dude. :)
Hehe yea, the first FL-save is from november 2010. I guess I didn't render it before 2011.
Of course I could work on all of them, but I got no ideas left. I knew you would like to listen to all the stuff I (almost) never talked about. :)
Half-assed messing around gone good? Yes.
This will need a remake sometime soon dude! Sounds freakin awesome for just screwing around.
Super rock intro, followed by the clean "Doumaaa" guitaring, followed by more distortion, followed by an outro that leaves us all wanting more. MOAR I SAY!!!
lol respect, aweesome review :D yeaaaah moar is so hard, takes so much time when I really wanna make songs out of these things.. Thanks for another cool review CJ and it's nice to hear you enjoy the "doumaaa guitaring" ;)
oh and I just remembered, I did come up with another overdrive riff the other day, I think I might make something quick out of that one and post it
You and your orchestral genius... I swear dude, if I had half the talent you had... well, I don't know. But it'd probably be awesome.
Description: TL;DR: This is an awesome song that took a LOT of work, time, and CPU.
Overall, this thing sounds like it's for the intro of some epic movie that takes place in the medieval era, and there's dragons and wizards and trolls involved in some way.
I'm not really sure how to give any criticism on this, being this good, great composition, awesome use of orche-- HOLY SHIT THIS WAS MADE WITH A DAW?!?!?!?!1? (Joking of course, already read the description. ;)) So I figure I'll give some vague ideas for a possible movie or Flash or something.
First minute is like your "so and so productions presents... in association with blah blah blah pictures... and music by Stephan Wells... yada yada yada pre-title credits... TITLE IN BIG LETTERS!!!"
The middle seems like a "we are now showing several views of the town this story takes place around," and see a shadowy figure run past the camera for a split second, we switch for a few more views, then we see them again; it's a young boy around 12 or something who later turns out to be the hero or something.
Then the ending is like he catches up with his best friend who later sticks with him for most of the movie (and dies near the end from a self-sacrifice or something), they have a small conversation before we switch to the town square or something, where they meet with someone else just before someone runs in injured for some mysterious reason...
Man, I just read all that, and realized if I can make all that up, why can't I write a freaking 5-page essay?!
Anyways, awesome work, man. Stuff like this is why you're on my favorites list. :D
Hey man, thanks for yet another detailed, large review!
"You and your orchestral genius... I swear dude, if I had half the talent you had... well, I don't know. But it'd probably be awesome."
Haha thanks! A lot of it comes naturally though. I don't know much music theory and all I know about making music is from personal experience, rather than research. So yeah, even though you call it a talent, a lot of it is just thanks to over three years of experience.
"Description: TL;DR: This is an awesome song that took a LOT of work, time, and CPU."
Yeah I could've just written that :3.
"Overall, this thing sounds like it's for the intro of some epic movie that takes place in the medieval era, and there's dragons and wizards and trolls involved in some way."
Did someone say Skyrim?!
"I'm not really sure how to give any criticism on this, being this good, great composition, awesome use of orche-- HOLY SHIT THIS WAS MADE WITH A DAW?!?!?!?!1? (Joking of course, already read the description. ;)) So I figure I'll give some vague ideas for a possible movie or Flash or something."
Lol thanks!
"First minute is like your "so and so productions presents... in association with blah blah blah pictures... and music by Stephan Wells... yada yada yada pre-title credits... TITLE IN BIG LETTERS!!!"
The middle seems like a "we are now showing several views of the town this story takes place around," and see a shadowy figure run past the camera for a split second, we switch for a few more views, then we see them again; it's a young boy around 12 or something who later turns out to be the hero or something.
Then the ending is like he catches up with his best friend who later sticks with him for most of the movie (and dies near the end from a self-sacrifice or something), they have a small conversation before we switch to the town square or something, where they meet with someone else just before someone runs in injured for some mysterious reason...
Man, I just read all that, and realized if I can make all that up, why can't I write a freaking 5-page essay?!"
Wow, it's awesome to think that my song made you think up all that! It's also great to know that my music sounds like it'll fit well in a movie, since while I'll probably be a programmer or something when I grow up, I think film scoring is really cool.
"Anyways, awesome work, man. Stuff like this is why you're on my favorites list. :D"
Heh, good to know! Thanks a lot for the awesome review!
Good remix, not getting the dogfight feel though..
The original is too upbeat for that kind of thing. If you ask me, this sounds more appropriate for a Christmas-type song. Quite honestly, it sounds that way to me.
The brass and guitar are a bit too loud, and the drums aren't loud enough. I might suggest using a better rock-sounding kit. The rhythm sounds good, just not right on those drums.
If you want more of a flight/fight type thing, heavier drums, moar power guitar, more minor chords. This sounds good, but it doesn't sound the way you describe.
I always love me some good rock loops, bit of synth included. But the lead guitar blares over everything. Even that out. And the string bends go a bit too high after 0:34. If you don't mind, try to avoid that. But a promising start nonetheless. Good luck dude.
MmmThis sounds like 80s to early 90s pop, best pop music there is. (Quite frankly, today's pop music sounds horrible and it all sound the same. Listen to some Lady Gaga if you don't believe me.)
Okay, the piano intro... I kind of got mixed feelings on that. Like you said, some people like it, some don't, I'm kind of in between on that. The actual pop part after the intro was really good. Not really much for me to say, not that much needs to be said. It's uplifting and inspirational.
The strings suit this well, much better than every pop song that uses generic synth leads for that kind of thing. Would probably sound more fitting if the strings were more synth-like though.
Good acoustic guitar, also very fitting for this, and also not generically used. Sounds awesome with the rest of the accompaniment and gives a good sense of atmosphere. Not quite sure what kind, but I like it.
Drums? In a pop song? That isn't a generic trance kit? Holy tits, there's something worth mentioning! Very good use of your usual random samples from the net. How come you haven't made a full kit out of those yet?
Overall, a good 90s-era-sounding pop song. It makes the mainstream stuff (at least here in the US) seem even shittier than it already is. I swear, there are musicians here that should be inspirations to the "real" artists. How haven't you picked up a record deal yet?
"MmmThis sounds like 80s to early 90s pop, best pop music there is. (Quite frankly, today's pop music sounds horrible and it all sound the same. Listen to some Lady Gaga if you don't believe me.)"
Oh no haha I believe you. I remixed a Lady Gaga track once for a pantomime. Not a pleasant experience :P.
"Okay, the piano intro... I kind of got mixed feelings on that. Like you said, some people like it, some don't, I'm kind of in between on that."
Yeah, you can't please everyone! If I had continued the song, then perhaps the piano intro wouldn't feel so out of place. I was planning on making a few subtle repetitions of the piano intro's melody later on in the song so that the piano intro will feel like it makes more sense and not just something extra I added, if you get what I mean, although I lost inspiration and started to dislike this song. Ah well!
"The actual pop part after the intro was really good. Not really much for me to say, not that much needs to be said. It's uplifting and inspirational."
Thank you!
"The strings suit this well, much better than every pop song that uses generic synth leads for that kind of thing. Would probably sound more fitting if the strings were more synth-like though."
I never thought about that. Whenever I need an orchestral instrument I just go for East/West every single time :P.
I probably don't have that many good synth string samples, which is ironic. I've got more of the realistic stuff and less of the synthy stuff. Meh xD.
"Good acoustic guitar, also very fitting for this, and also not generically used. Sounds awesome with the rest of the accompaniment and gives a good sense of atmosphere. Not quite sure what kind, but I like it."
A member from another forum recommended that I add an acoustic guitar strumming in the background, so I'll have to thank him for that.
"Drums? In a pop song? That isn't a generic trance kit? Holy tits, there's something worth mentioning! Very good use of your usual random samples from the net. How come you haven't made a full kit out of those yet?"
Lol, glad you like the drums! I probably haven't made a full kit yet because of the way I choose my drum samples. When I choose them, I start like "right then, I need a kick", and then I look through my hundreds and hundreds of different kicks till I find the right one, and then I edit it a bit.
After that, I'll need a snare, so I look through the hundreds of snares. I like doing that and using a full kit probably wouldn't work because I'd just end up going to look through my hundreds of drum samples again, even though I've got a full drum kit nice and ready for me :P.
"Overall, a good 90s-era-sounding pop song. It makes the mainstream stuff (at least here in the US) seem even shittier than it already is. I swear, there are musicians here that should be inspirations to the "real" artists. How haven't you picked up a record deal yet?"
Wow thanks! I haven't actually looked for a record deal. I'm afraid I might get some massive bout of writer's block and not meet the expectations. Yeah I'm paranoid :3.
Really glad you enjoyed it. Thanks for the feedback!
AS2 programmer (in progress), decent at drawing things as well as animating, not really good at writing, and stuff. Lots of stuff. Insert more stuff here. One game in the works, need some help here and there, mostly with level design and enemy AI.
Living a Nightmare 
Polargeist 
Shady Operations 
WIP Collection (Part 2) 
Sanctuary 