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ChioBam

56 Audio Reviews w/ Response

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I need to start by saying that this sound pack is delicious. Holy guacamole. You are one of my favorite living composers. The main reason is because you know how to paint a vivid picture with only sounds. Computer generated sounds at that, not even real human expressiveness. The balance is smooth, the voices are warm and brilliant, the harmonies are the right kind of dissonant where I don't feel like I'm sitting through a Berg piece, but you're definitely creating an intensity and discomfort.

There are definitely spots where you've captured that classic Russian sound, but I feel as though you may have been able to implement slower interpretations of Russian dance rhythms or something like that to really give it an authentic cultural flavor, but that's only a passing thought. Your choice of go-to intervals and bass-lines do a good enough job of creating that atmosphere.

I love what you do, Chris. Never stop please.

SoundChris responds:

Thank you cery much, ChioBam. Your words really make me happy friend :) I always try to create a vivid musical scenery. Even i stil only have virtual instruments and no real orchestras (i really hope that will be possible someday) i do think that the virtual ones are created to surrogate the real ones. So its important to try to come as close tho the real thing as possible. Also its important to try to add some human touch. I never quantize. I draw all the cc command lines per mouse. Sometimes i draw a single bar over and over and over again until it sounds well for my taste. Such a track takes quite much time - maybe 30 hours of hard work. The composition itself only takes about 5 - the rest is the editing :D

I see what you mean with the russian dance rhythms / folk elements. I also was thinking of that. In the end i wanted to try out to combine a lord of the rings sound with russian elements and some atonal harmonies as you could find it in an alien movie - this was the result. Maybe that explains that the piece is hard to be categorized.

Again: Thanks so much for your support. I always love and loved your reviews because i do know ver well that you are listening very carefully and have a lot of listening experience. For me as someone who composes since about 3.5 years this feedback always helped me a lot to show me that i am on the right way. There is stil so much to learn and to improve. But thats something i never want to stop trying to do :)

All the best for you and thanks a lot for leaving your thoughts here,
Chris

I'm a bit late to the review party on this one. You have a ridiculous library of sounds, Step. Ridiculous. I'm so goddamn jealous. I don't know where you get the drive to work tirelessly on all the nuances that go into arranging and mixing.

There are so many subtle things happening within this arrangement I don't even know where to begin. I've said this time and time again, but your orchestration is phenomenal. You have a fantastic ability to break an orchestra away from tutti which I just don't understand at this point in my orchestration education.

The way you've incorporated the 8-bit into an orchestral setting is a pleasure to witness. I've never heard it done before, and I don't think I'll ever hear it done better than this. Bravo to you.

Best,

Chio

Step responds:

Oh geez, wow. What a review. I don't know where to start! Thanks for the huge boost in self-confidence!

Honestly, I don't know what tips/pointers I can give about the balancing of the orchestra. Thinking back, a lot of the stuff I do while composing is almost done subconsciously. Sometimes I finish a section of a song and think to myself "how the hell did I do this". I guess all I can say is keep on practising and racking up experience until all the tweaking you do on the orchestration becomes natural. I don't have any formal education on orchestration so I just try and judge by what my ear thinks haha.

That last comment really got to me. I really appreciate that. I'm sure there are plenty of excellent chiptune/orchestral hybrids out there though! (in fact, I was semi-inspired by this one, even though it's not quite as chiptuney as my arrangement: https://youtu.be/5tSTEa3G9Ng?t=9971).

Anyway, thank you very very much for the review!

You know, I don't think you've ever composed something (or arranged in this case) that I haven't thoroughly enjoyed, and I've been following you for a while. You have a very deep understanding of orchestration and balance with music, and as a composer that's such a skill to have. Things that are supposed to be in the foreground are in the foreground, and the things that are supposed to be in the background are in the background, but regardless of their respective roles in this mix, all of it is clear and easy to pick out, and that's a telltale sign, to me, of good orchestration and mixing. So a fine job to you. But, I'm no professional, and you're the artist; I'm sure you hear flaws that I simply don't.

Either way, very well done. 5/5

Step responds:

Wow, thanks for the hugely encouraging review! You're very perceptive. The idea of balancing foreground and background is something I ALWAYS pay particular attention to. I think I've become very accustomed to making that kind of separation, and even though I'm not perfect at it, I think it's one of my stronger points. However, it also makes counterpoint very hard for me, since I'm used to having one foreground voice and everything else accompanying it. I find it hard to balance instruments together when there's no clear foreground/background separation I can make, if you get what I mean.

Anyhow, thanks for the great review!

Your orchestration is beautiful, man. A+ work as always.

SoundChris responds:

Thanks so much ChioBam - i tried my best in those intense 2.5 days :D

Granted this is a collaboration, what you create never ceases to be an authentic and immersive musical experience. There is a great deal of variety to be found in these three memories, and they capture your descriptions quite well while creating a unique set of colors. Thanks for the upload.

5/5

SoundChris responds:

Thanks you chioBam for your support and kindnes - highly appreciated good sir! At the beginning we wanted to do 3 independent short pieces but since we had to hear thats against the NGADM rules we had to combine all the tracks to one single piece - which was hard. But in the end i think we did it. Thank you very much and all the best!

So lanky.

samulis responds:

An interesting choice of words.

While I'm not a pianist, I can say that your distinction between the voices is very clear. The voices carry the prevalence over one another at a very appropriate level. Your dynamics are very tasteful, and the performance is itself is an enjoyable listen. Obviously there are the discrepancies you yourself would point out, but they're all minor and easy to get past. Very good.

SoundChris responds:

Thanks a lot! I always try to work out the voices as clear as possible to interpret a piece as logical as possible. This is very important in my opinion - especially when interpreting bach.

Glad you liked my interpretation :D

Best wishes!

You never disappoint, Chris. I love this. The piano and the violin both carry very separate forces within them. The piano a disjointed character sort of off the rails, and the violin calm and in a constant forward motion. I really love it. All of the subtle grace notes carried by the violin in its gorgeous flowing solo are tasteful. And the applause! Hahaha. Excellent. I feel like you may have answered this question in a previous review I've left on one of your pieces, but where do you get these VSTs, and what program(s) do you use? I cannot get a sound this beautiful for the life of me.

Many thanks for all of your submissions, Chris. Have a great holiday

-Chio

SoundChris responds:

Hey there ChioBam,

thanks a lot for your nice review - you are so kind to me! I am really glad you liked it. I have used the 8Dio studio violin, the violin from EWQL Gypsy and the alicias keyes piano from NI. The orchestra is quite simple - i think it was symphonic orchestra from EWQL.

I wish you a merry christmas and a happy new year. If you ever should need my help / advise for a composition or something just pm me :D

All the best for you!
Chris

P.s.: If you wanna know more about which vsts i use you can see any on my NG account page - i think it has been a post a few months ago - so you have to switch back for 5 posts or something.

I still can't believe how well you improvise. This is a skill I've been working on for a while and I've still not come close to this. Really great work, man. Never stop what you're doing.

BlazingDragon responds:

Thanks so much! If you haven't already, you should definitely post some of your improv work. :)

Haha, somebody seems to know their theory, or at least their harmony. I really, really enjoy your use of of functional chords when they happened. At around 1:15 (I think) you improvised a secondary leading tone through a diminished chord, which is awesome in that it was improvised. I really enjoyed the structure of this too. Your improvisational chops are just astonishing. Spectacular. 5/5

BlazingDragon responds:

It's great to find someone else who knows their stuff!

When I took music theory classes, it seemed like most of my class mates were bored and hated it. I tell you though, I loved it. Every time we learned a new concept like circle progressions, secondary dominants, borrowed chords, neapolitans, augmented sixths, tri-tone substitutions, modes, or anything else, I'd run to the piano and see if I could write a song using the new harmonic vocabulary. I'm still pretty lousy improvising outside of the key of C unfortunately, and my technique is minimal for a pianist. I don't know my arpeggios and just barely finished learning all my minor scales. I have a lot of awesome, sweeping lines in my head when I improvise, but I can't pull it off. So I mostly rely on memorable melodic lines and beautiful harmonies.

Haha, look, you got me ranting! This is what happens when music theory gets brought up. XD
Thank you very much for your review, and Merry Christmas!

I am a disciple of music.

Age 31, Male

Composer, Performer

New York

Joined on 12/29/09

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