JeffHeim's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[-Orr- Nocturne No 2 "Twilight]

Great performance, beautiful piece, and nice sound! Without altering the raw performance too much, the one thing I like to do with solo piano midi performances is take the lower notes and pan them left by ~10 points, and pan the upper notes right by a similar amount to help create more clarity and width. This raw export does sound quite natural, though. If it were me playing I would have to spend a few hours making midi adjustments ;)

5/5

DavidOrr responds:

Thanks Jeff! The panning idea is great -- something I didn't even think about. Can I futz with panning and still call it a raw MIDI performance? Guess I'm the one making the rules, so I might play around with that.

Yeah, this read came out quite well. I found the PDF on my computer last night, and decided to play through it. I figured I'd play it with one of my sampled pianos (instead of the built-in sound of my Privia), and this is it. It's a pretty easy read -- otherwise I would have had to give it multiple takes.

Thanks for the input Jeff! :D

[_-={This Sacred Place of Ours}]

Lovely chord progressions and voices. Very nice voice leading and textures. I love the guitar in there too. Nice touch! Which voice samples are you using? I've been stuck on EWQLSO for the last six years and should probably think about investing in an alternative. If I may, I'd suggest using some suspensions. Suspending one note within certain chords half way into the next bar can make for even smoother, chillingly beautiful textures.

5/5 <3
-Jeff

[The Muffin Man - OST]

YES! Muffin Man! This is one of my favorites of yours. Such a funny cartoon, too :)

Well done!

BenTibbetts responds:

Thank you!

[-Orr- 2012 DEMO REEL]

Great collection Dave! A nice mix of romantic, energetic, adventurous, calm, sweeping scores here. Some very memorable melodies, all beautifully orchestrated.

Very good compilation, looking forward to hearing more from you :)

-Jeff

DavidOrr responds:

Thanks Jeff - Always a pleasure to hear from you!

[-Orr- Dark Horizon]

Incredible loop! I found myself on the third listen through before I realized it had looped. These new samples definitely do this piece justice. Great work, I'll be looking out for more of your music!

-Jeff

DavidOrr responds:

Thanks Jeff! I can't wait to get more comfortable with these samples so I can really bring out their potential! Thanks for taking the time to review :)

[{BT} Bittersweet Romance]

wonderful composition and performance

Ben- this is one of the most passionate works I've heard from you. Please write more!

-Jeff

BenTibbetts responds:

Thanks Jeff!

[Soul Destroyer]

Lovely!

Beautiful chord progressions and lovely guitar playing. Lovely musical moment. I only wish it was longer! May I ask, what was the inspiration behind this composition?

Great work!

9/10, 5/5

Oney responds:

nothing really inspired it, i made the lead first, thought it sounded nice and then messed around with chords. thanks for the review!

["Night Before the Battle"]

Awesome work!

I hear some LOTR references in this music. It is certainly powerful and emotional- perfect for a pre-war speech!

I think you could have used more reverb in the pitch-bended instrument around 0:18. Guitar sounds genuine, nice warm brass sound, and lovely touch with the timpani and gong! The gong sounds a bit too close to the ears, perhaps with added reverb or stereo enhancement (stereo-to-mono), the gongs could be placed more towards the back of the ensemble. Strings sound a bit synthetic, mostly because of the reverb trails. Nice balance overall. the solo instruments cut through quite well!

Great job! I know for a fact my first project on Cubase didn't sound half as good as this. 5/5, 9/10

-Jeff

BrokenDeck responds:

Hey! Nice of you to review this one too! Yeah it took me a big learning curve when I originally made this song. It was frustrting since everything was new, but I'm really glad that it sounded this decent. Cheers mate!

['11 The SuperBugs Attack]

Thrilling!

I loved the intensity and energy of this composition, and you do a great job of keeping the listeners on the edge of their seats! I was most impressed by the breadth of orchestration and quality of the percussion. My one comment for criticism would be that when the trombones have two 16th notes right next to each other (1:39 and 1:46), the first one gets crushed a bit. I'm sure this is a sampling issue which may ore may not be avoidable unless you were to find another trombone staccato sample. But this is truly a wonderful composition and you certainly have a unique talent for composing thrilling orchestral pieces!

Keep it up!
-Jeff

[The Rise of Evil]

James Bond!

I could definitely hear some influences of some more recent bond films (casino royale). I thought you did an awesome job of keeping the material fresh: after you've presented an idea, you don't dwell upon it too long, and you build upon and develop that idea into something new and interesting, while maintaining the structure of the composition. I was most impressed with the quality of the percussion which I have struggled with in my own works in the past.
Awesome work! it's a shame you've left NG :(