Aalasteir's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Impossible - OST Madness: Sierra Nevada]

There is a terrific classic Madness energy; the kick and snare are great, with good side chaining. The mix is well-executed—great song!

@Zaderlon, how did you discover Madness?

@Zaderlon, why did you choose to create music?

[Visions of What's Above]

The vibe is super dope; the drums have an interesting cadence, and your vocals are very personal.

@CheemMan, how did you discover Newgrounds?

CheemMan responds:

Hey! So glad you enjoyed the song! If you wish why not check out the rest of the album as I release it?

And this to answer your question, I've known about Newgrounds for awhile but only started to upload to it in 2021 when my friend introduced me to making music (literally first song ever made). So yeah.

Have a good day!

[Trumpet Guys becomes an anime villain]

Awesome energy! You have a great voice!

@Nerostratos, how did you get interested in voice acting?

Nerostratos responds:

Thank you! Pretty sure It started in highschool when I realized I could do a pretty decent Carl Wheezer impression and my friends at lunch would die laughing whenever I said the most unhinged things imaginable XD

[Purple Earth]

Great and atmospheric, and thank you for releasing your song royalty-free.

I'll be excited to see the animated project!

@TheJayJay, what was the inspiration for your song?

TheJayJay responds:

Pretty much everything I make is royalty-free.

Actually, MetalSlayer gave a playlist of songs for me to take inspiration from. If I recall correctly there was a Beatles song, Jimi Hendrix song and others that I can't fully remember. But most notably one of the songs included was 'Echoes' by Pink Floyd, which was the main inspiration. I pretty much went "What if this song had a structure that was more similar to a pop song?"

So uh...yeah. thanq yuo

[MICHAEL SWEATER | CREATIVE BLOCK #184]

Great episode! It was funny and featured lots of good discussions about business and comics. I agree that overthinking can easily damage one's work. The way I prefer to read comics is that they are more visual than focused on dialogue. I also fully agree that people's lives would be much better if there were an established habit of eating healthy foods instead of over-processed, sugar-free foods. It has been proven that these lead to negative health outcomes.

[Dystopiatech - The Reskinner]

It’s such a bummer when creatures escape and start harming people.

@Durinde, what is your writing process for creating skits?

Durinde responds:

Usually a concept of an idea will come to me while I'm away from the studio. I'll tend to play around with it in my head and script it out quickly when I get to the studio prior to recording. Usually there's a key phrase or idea that I latch onto, in this case I think I was watching a video about game development where they were talking about reskinning character models and I thought it would be a neat horror type concept if "reskinning" happened "for real"

[I's on me]

Your song makes me very happy! It has such a rich atmosphere and positivity. Wow, I am amazed by how much depth there is in your composition.

@FreakFormal, how did you get interesting creating music?

@FreakFormal, what is your approach to creating songs?

@FreakFormal, what VSTs do you use?

@FreakFormal, what does being an musician mean to you?

FreakFormal responds:

oh wow I'm not used to getting reactions thank you so much 😭 as far as your questions um lemme think

For reference I just turned 20, but I've been actively playing and creating music since I was around 12, my dad is a musician who plays and record for his church so I would always check what he does and ask questions, but for the longest time I would record on garage band with my phone, often using the mic, holding it out to my physical piano, Drum set or guitar I had. Alot are actually on my YouTube, always gone by Freak Formal, I don't even think their half bad for what they are lol

I usually make a beat or a variety of instrumentals and take a walk with my note's app, listening for like an hour brainstorming ideas, usually with a theme already in my head. For "I's on me" it was actually melody first, where I came up with the first passage and chord progression and built momentum straight from there it took me a day to fully write it, it was exciting I loved it

I use a TON of free software and vst's, CakeWalk is my main daw with synth1 being my bestfriend, thanks to seeing ninja muffin use it, I did recently get PolyMax synth, one of the only vst's I have that cost money which is riddled all throughout these new sets of songs I'm pushing out soon

This one is a tough one... I think for me it's creating emotionally raw art that's as honest as you can make it. While maintaining a sonic sound you like. But I've always been more interested in Songwriting than technical performance, but I've put a TON of music theory hours I definitely know what I'm doing in that department, it really does make writing songs easier, at least for what I like to make, very indie pop

Thank you for your interest I have like 9 songs I'm putting out soon for an album so there's more if you're interested! Very excited I'm trying to experiment with tons of sounds.

[Sea of Troubles - Sleeper Build]

Wow, excellent track! Really like the background; hey hey hey.

@many-monkeys, how did you become interested in creating punk music? And why do you think you've gravitate towards punk music?

@many-monkeys, are there any musicians whose work inspires you? Why are you inspired by them, and what qualities do you enjoy in their work?

@many-monkeys, what is your favourite advice on creating music?

many-monkeys responds:

Call me A.R.,

I grew up in a rural city in Ontario as a Jamaican immigrant, I didn't really relate to country music that much. Grew up at the height of pop-punk with green day and blink182 ruling the airwaves. I was a skate-punk and hung around with that community, so it was the soundtrack to my youth.
idk, its just my fav thing to hear, i like honesty. I liked that politics was important, in the music bc that was/ is an interest of mine.

I love Death From Above 1979. They are local to Toronto, their music is uh, funky, lust driven.
I love the Dead Kennedy's. Their music is catchy and powerful, brash and groovy.
I love Single Mothers, from London Ontario. Drew is an excellent story teller/poet. I like that he makes fun of intellectuals, while being a sophisticated poet. Contradictions and Irony is lovely. the old records are so raw and charged. I like anger.

My advice with creating music is, challenge yourself to make music that makes YOU EXCITED. Search in yourself the kinda of sounds and ideas that would make you intrigued. Personal. Then. Then...
Listen to music that everyone likes, stuff that is universal...
Take the time to see what you can learn from both of these disparate ideas to make the most unique and accessible music possible...


Thanks for the interview i suppose :3

-A.R.

[Siberg - 80085]

Yes, yes! Great bass, and I’m a massive fan of background atmosphere, which adds so much to compositions, especially when done well. Your house track has an excellent bounce.

@Siberg, how did you get interested in house music?

@Siberg, what is your opinion on mixing bass?

Siberg responds:

i like a lot of different genres of music but house is a good viberson my dude.
and idk what my opinion is on that but i'd say mixing bass is important.
yeah nah yeah gotta do that.

[Pleasure Castle Remix]

Your piece has an excellent sense of adventure, and you encapsulate fun and positive energy exceptionally well. I absolutely like it! Fantastic structure and great mixing! The instruments are well-panned and complement each other excellently. Very energetic!

@octopus58, how did you get interested in creating music?

@octopus58, how do you decide on your instruments?

@octopus58, in your opinion, what are some bad habits that musicians develop, and what are some ways to overcome them?

octopus58 responds:

Thank you so much for your kind words! I worked really hard on this so it means a lot :D

Also to answer your questions in order:

I got into creating music because I had a large interest in it since childhood. I had a lot of musical toys since before I was a year old, including simple cheap toy keyboards and such. I would play some things and remember them for later which is approximately when I pretty much started making my first melodies. When I got a little older, I started mapping down a lot of the ideas I had in programs like LMMS just because I wanted to hear the music I was thinking about instead of just keeping it in my head. Shortly after when I got interested in making games, making music became even more important as I wanted to score a lot of things myself to give people the atmosphere I'm looking for more accurately. But I still often just make music for fun, I love to bring my ideas to life!

As for instruments, if you mean for this remix specifically, I decided to go for a blend of realistic rock guitars, fun synths, and even some of the original instruments used in the original track! I didn't want to just recreate the song, so I wanted the sounds to be mostly new, while still being tied to things like the original melody and so on. The guitars were the first thing I added because they were important to get right, and then I played with some KORG and Arturia Analog Lab instruments to see what would sound cool and went from there! If you meant instruments for my songs in general though or the ones I physically play, let me know and I'll happily answer that too :)

The last question is a bit hard, I had to think about it for a bit... I feel like there aren't much bad habits with music, especially as you're learning, but one I definitely can say though is depending too much on motivation. Motivation is a massive key for every single creative outlet in art, not even just music. However I feel like sometimes a composer will start something, lose the steam, and give up or move on to something else. It's not the same for everyone of course, and I'm not saying my view on it is objectively correct, but I feel like it's important to learn how to push and really make your gears turn to continue and try to finish that track. I feel like almost every composer who worked on music long enough has a couple to a bunch of unfinished tracks, but overcoming this habbit at least keeps the number of unfinished tracks to a low. One thing that helps me is taking a small hour (to day at worst case) break if I'm really not feeling it, and then coming back to it. I'll smack my keyboard around trying to find or make a cool sound until it gives me a creative idea (whether that's for an instrument I want to use or a whole melody I want to implement). Sometimes I'll even look at pictures that make me happy to give me a little boost with creativity haha. Just try to never give up!

I hope I answered all your questions!