Buoy's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Sleep Wrapped in Love ~ T]

This is a really beautiful version of the original, the piano in particular. Adding your own vocals is a great way to make it your own, and apart from a few off notes and the thin recording it sounds fine. You've changed the time signature and done major changes to the melody as well, but the chords and the general melodic quality is still there, so the original is still recognizable.

[Sitting (Acoustic Cover)]

You've managed to turn an originally glitchy and gloomy track into a clean, beautiful piece with a sorrowful vibe that strongly reminds me of early 00's Porcupine Tree. The different string instruments combine to a lovely smooth twinkling texture. The vocal harmonies are perfect for this. Still, it keeps the same mood and intensity throughout and doesn't have that bit of magic that would take it to a whole new level.

[FD - Dreams]

Okay yeah this is a fantastically elaborate version of a fairly forgettable track. There's just so much new content and it's all of great quality. I got a mild headache from listening to the original but you managed to take out the important part of it. The spoken parts are very disturbing and add a whole new layer and backstory to the track.

ForgottenDawn responds:

Thank you very much for your review, I'm glad you enjoyed it. :)
Happy Pico Day
//FD

[Black 'n' Decker Fanny Wr]

what the fuck

GoreBastard responds:

Indeeeed!

[-Spacewalk-]

So glad to hear that the piano is now genuinely playing by the same rules as all the other instruments. The echoing thing at 0:32 was great. This has a nice drive to it, nice drums that are varied and still sensible, and even good melodies in some places. The metroid prime thing MIGHT be because you use the same midi-like choir :) Transition before 1:46 was lovely. Sweet! Nice way to start the year

Step responds:

Yep, this is when Blackhole12 told me to get rid of that limiter, and I'm so glad he did!

I'm proud of the main melody in this track; sometimes I milk it too much and some parts in this kinda suck, but the main melody itself is quite decent. And the drums are all of a sudden so much better, yeah, and I started using drum filters properly.

I did overuse that "stop playing the song for a bar" transition thing though :3.

[Hell's Remedy Demo (2009)]

Hi Echo, just stopping by on my quest to review all of Step's tunes. This is quite a bit nicer than what he's been able to come up with by himself until 2010! :)

[-Ready for Battle-]

Yay for a recurring theme! Even if it's out of key half of the time! I too am looking forward to the point where you get EWQL. Your instrumentation is coming together, with a bunch of different instruments complementing each other in a nice way.

Step responds:

Mhmm the instruments are actually complementing each other rather nicely here, especially in the "question-answer" melodies. Even if the instruments sound like absolute crap.

I think this might be my first every full orchestral track, so it may just be what started it all! Now listen to Morning Horizon, the NEXT orchestral song I did except with East/West instruments, and not only did the quality improve tenfold, but the melodies magically start harmonising, the music magically starts to make sense and it's actually NOT THAT BAD.

[(MSCI) Ending Credits]

Same piano volume wildness again. I don't know how or why you're doing this to me.

There's actually some mildly complex and sensible stuff going on in the piano, sounds like you just drew it into the sequencer though, since it's so heavily quantized. Everything that's going on feels pretty random, like why are you switching between completely different drum patterns every fourth bar, that's disorienting.

Step responds:

"Same piano volume wildness again. I don't know how or why you're doing this to me."

Blame the limiter in the master channel, not the playa.

The reason the drums are changing beat all the time is because I had the same obsession with variety that I have today, except today I make sure the variety makes sense and back then I was like VARIETY VARIETY VARIETY.

[Night in the Forest]

Piano is more subdued this time. Sweet.

at least that's what I thought until 0:19 when you just brutally increased the volume of it so it sounded something like ONE OF THOSE FUCKING FEVER FANTASIES WHERE YOU HEAR VOICES THAT GET LOUDER AND LOUDER AND YOU JUST FEEL AWFUL BECAUSE YOU HAVE A FUCKING FEVER AND YOU CAN'T SLEEP

I'm done with this.

neat unintentional dorian mode at 2:14 though

Step responds:

Hahaha I love this review. I can imagine you listening to the piano all subdued and you're all content, then the arpeggio comes in and it starts getting higher and higher in volume and in the meantime you put your arms out and you're like "no no NO NO WHERE ARE YOU GOING, YOU WERE FINE BEFORE, GO BACK TO HOW YOU WERE NO NO NO SCREW YOU STEP"

I kinda like the melodies in this track, despite it being so old. They sound pretty cool when I play them on my piano, and I might just record myself playing them with my newfound microphone and make a whole track out of them. I dunno!

"neat unintentional dorian mode at 2:14 though"

WHAT DO YOU MEAN, I KNEW EXACTLY WHAT I WAS DOING.

[Cries of the Tormented]

Woah that was such a cool intro. And what's up with the nice drums. The bassline is a bit off at 0:57. God that piano sucks so hard. How did you manage to make such a nice intro and then ruining everything with the piano. Now it's harmonized in fifths what are you doing. The second time around I can hear it would be a decent riff if it was a lot more silent. And the arpeggios that appear in the last part are cool. Still large amounts of overcompression but it's not as bad as last time.

Again, this would be a really cool track if there was a lot less piano.

Step responds:

"Woah that was such a cool intro."

I knowww, at this point in time I realised how awesome choir intros are and I think I might just make another (except not compressed to infinity and back) for my next EPIC-epic song.

"Now it's harmonized in fifths what are you doing."

Echo did that stuff man. Let me harmonise it, he said. I'm Grade 8 music theory, he said.

"Again, this would be a really cool track if there was a lot less piano."

Well, "really cool" for crappy NG techno standards!