SymbolCymbal's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[I Love Him]

i miss being 12 years old, sitting in my soon to be foreclosed house at 3am drunk on budget rum screaming into a microphone not caring that i had work in a few hours because when your 12 you have all the energy in the world and you don't care if you get fired. Life's only meaning at that age is to have those magical moments. At 12 years old life is just serotonin dump to serotonin dump. Now i rarely get those feeling of happiness. My life is much more stable now but some would say now my life has more meaning. i literally save lives for a living now but im more numb than ever. i sleep during the day and work at night seeing people only at their worst. On my nights off i sit lazily and watch television sometimes taking naps out of pure boredom. The moments that get my heart pumping are only those of extreme fear and bubbling over the top frustration boiling into rage. i haven't written any music in years. my computer update destroyed my software and i cant afford new software since all my money goes into basically getting to work, eating at work and getting home from work. It all feels thankless and not worth it. Just last week i had a man spit at me because i made his tourniquet too tight preventing him from bleeding to death because he got stabbed in the arm and was spraying hot bright red blood everywhere. A part of me wanted to stomp on his skull until the crunching stopped. But instead i wiped the spit off my face and kept administering care and taking vitals. Then i sat at home in the dark watching infomercials because i was too lazy to see if there was anything on netflix. my life is consumed by extreme moments of inner panic and rage only to be equalized by long stretches of complete apathy.

What im try to say is don't stop making music. You are too damn good at it to stop. It would be a waste.

BANAGARANG!!

Quarl responds:

You are one hard mofo David. Emergency responders are over worked, under paid, mandatory, and should get their own holiday. Naturally you'd have to work on your own holiday but think of all the happy/angry lives you'll be saving <3

I also miss being 12 years old. Sitting around my college dorm room, drinking cheap tequila, and dreading a future with no real direction because I graduated from art school. Talking about getting married and having kids with someone I could never support unless we decided to eat my art supplies and live in a van under a bridge. Ah yes, being 12 :')

Fuck that guy that spit at you. I bet he was a weeb born from incest. He probably spent his 12th year drinking anti-freeze. As always, thanks for drunkenly engaging in that sample pack. Never thought I'd use the "BANGARANG" but here I am in my 30th year still drinking tequila and opening that sample folder.

[SmithCommaJuan]

Holy shit! I thought i was having a stroke! i was burning toast (like ya do) when i heard a pitch shifted version of my voice. This gave me a solid 3 seconds of anxiety, other-worldly fear and intense panic.
Thats my voice in there!!! i made a useless sample pack of cutup phrases while shitfaced on rum recorded while just fucking around in a stikcam chat [with spikrod]. blew my mind that you used it. im gonna have to go thru my old external now just to be sure. That is definitely my "fuckin" but my neurosis is clawing and biting at my brain like a trapped rat.

btw track is dope as fuck, after i settled down i actually listened to it and enjoyed it a lot

Quarl responds:

OMG I've been wondering who that sample pack was. I've been opening it for years and sprinkling some of it into tracks. Off the top of my head Panic Attack and Suicide Haiku.

I'm so glad I finally have a face and a name for the folder. I should have guessed it was you :D

[The Meaning of Life Is Paradox]

i am totally standing on my bed windmilling to this right now

Quarl responds:

Not gonna lie. I saw someone do that once in Half Moon Bay. You haven't lived until you've seen someone spin their dick like a champ.

[Sting of The Jellyfish]

i grew another 12 appendages, cant hug anyone without killing them and started shitting out of my mouth because of this track .. sick stuff dude

Quarl responds:

lol, you just keep getting stranger and stranger. That or the hormones I've been taking are making you appear more and more masculine. Either way: love you dude! Full homo. Hope your life is going as hilariously awesome as it was when I last left you hanging in NYC!!

[I Have A Secret]

This so filthy. i just vomited black glitter all over my keyboard.. Seriously dude. this is amazing. 5'd faved

Quarl responds:

lol, happy birthday!! :D :D

[Television]

awesome time changes. abrasive fluidity and a great use of spoken word bjork. Absolutely love this track. At around 3:40 i love the way you broke things down. Always love your stuff dude.

Quarl responds:

Love you too man. I miss the East Coast :c

[Incredible spaze (NAC)]

Very very good composition

I especially like the lead line at the beginning and towards the end how you have it coming on the beat and then on the up beat.
You have alot of layers going on here and it really does add a nice 8 bit epicness to it.

I even hear those little add ins you put in to accent where the notes go in the scale by jumping 1 or 2 octaves higher. at the end i was hearing an 8 bit bass with a high frequency tossed in? it was barely audible and only one long note on the upbeat 4 times in a row. Im sorry if none of that makes sense. its hard to explain an 8 bit piece and let the reader know which synth you are referring to. i love that tiny little keychange you made at around :37. totally reminded of ending a level in a space game

Even though this is a very short piece you definitely composed it in a way that would add urgency and give the game player something nice to listen to. Music for an 8 bit game should be catchy and the more it loops the more you notice the layers involved.

As a game loop this is awesome.

the reason for the 8 is because i had to take 2 points away.

1 - for its lack of percussion. You did have some 8 bit synth laser vibrations in there but i was still longing for the static-y impacts and explosions that would accompany the percussion in a piece like this.

2 - Not necessarily the3 length of this piece was the problem but i do believe that you could have added some more song structure to it. once the 55 seconds was over i was left hoping there would be some subtlety about to happen. drop off a few synths and bring out a lead line nice and bright with very very soft simple undertones and build that back into the main theme THEN have it loop.

All in all i really enjoyed this and i think it would be great for an "invade the space station" type game. Hop off your ship with laser in hand battling robots and station crew to find the secret space coordinates to find the evil dude and make it out with your ship after you plant a time bomb.

good stuff

Calamaistr responds:

:) youre the absolute first to notice the laser vibrations :D
Your review means alot to me because really, you truly listened i can see that in your review.
You noticed all the details and minded the composition and thats all i wish for :)

Yea the length is very very short but i wanted to keep it compact, the longer an 8 bit track is the less memorable. :)

Thanks man.

greets -cal.

[HAI SYMBOL]

Perfect

ALMOST EXACTLY what i had playing in my head for the part this is going into.. Thank you so much dood

Bad-Man-Incorporated responds:

Glad you can use it. :) Thanks!

[Good Morning Baby]

Soft Spoken and delicate

This is a wonderful piece.
The beginning is nice and somber, very sad but it songs through the piano nicely.
I love at 2:30 when the pace picks up a bit and it starts to get feverish and more rhythm paced. It adds an urgency to the piano like a poem being read aloud passionately.

This almost sounds like you had just jumped behind a piano and played from the heart. i still cant tell if this is improv or written music but either way it has a lovely cadence and sway to it. Like a sad lullaby.

The slow rise of intensity that starts at 5:30 is great it slowly just keeps getting more and more passionate until the ending note. i love when a piano piece does that. i like the ending how you had played it in loose time to add the feeling of the end.

Great work
5'd 10'd

FatKidWitAJetPak responds:

Im love it when people actually read music as a poem, and see how it was played with passion. Normally this is described at its best using instruments such as violins or pianos. I did a lot of improv in this song, playing from the heart, but I wrote the main tune a while back and finally got a chance to play it.

Thanks for your kind words man, its reviews that really keep me going.

[[Speed Rap]- Fastest Rap]

KICK ASS

Good shit dude. reminds me alot of The-O

JonH2O responds:

Oh, The-O. Yes...Hm.....I'll figure that out later.