S3C's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Lv1 - Terror In The Air]

Another nice one!

Wow, you're a pretty solid composer. You're Mac submission enticed me to check out your other works.

First off, what libraries/samples do you use? They have just the right amount of genuinity to fit like a glove in a video game.

I love the ostinate melodic line in this one, the timpani rolls that leads right into the low, extended piano note.

The part at 00:41 was real nice too, really good flow, interesting to see how it tricks the listener and goes right back into the slower section. The little sublte ambient bits that your programmed in were an enjoyable listen, too.

The whispering FX was a nice addition to help augment the creepy, horror atmosphere, and I'm glad you took them out around the ending half, or else, using them so much would detract from their value IMO.

I'm sure this is just in its WIP stage? I'd suggest doubling up on the main melody theme that plays throughout, on a higher register instrument, like a flute, maybe if you're going for that cartoony feel, throw in a xylophone melody :D Strings are pretty much filler in this piece, but do their job, i'd love to see you write some parts for the higher register strings in this to "thicken" out the sound. This is a great piece so far!

blacknote responds:

Hey there, thanks for checking me out. I'm currently using Reason 4.0.1 with a large variety of sample packs, but most of the samples heard here in this track are part of Reasons default libraries.

Things with this project were left in limbo, so it's been left this way, but I thought as it's halloween I'd upload it anyway. I'll definetly have a play with it at some point though. Thanks for your review!

[MAC - Rise To Freedom]

short and sweet

Hey, I really, really like this piece man. I don't even think it needs a generic "its good now make it longer" plug, (not to say that a longer version wouldnt be cool :p) I feel that you sequenced the ideas real well and packed in the necessary emotions for the entire 1:16. Very cinematic. You got my attention from the start with the synthetic, floaty pad, the piano and its thick reverb creates a nice atmosphere by itself. The short phrasing was nice too. Paired with the lush, deep strings, the piano and choir voice created some really interesting and moving harmonies. The unresolving, dissonant chord that you ended with was a nice, unexpected touch, like a piano flying into the night, its boundaries and destination unknown...Excellent job blacknote. Quite a score here!

blacknote responds:

Hey there, thanks for reviewing. It's good to see you enjoyed this despite the short length of it. I went for ambience combined with melody. I thought as it's a short piece to leave the ending sounding "open". Thanks again.

[Requited (Club Mix)]

git down with yoself!

...# I really enjoyed this track man! 10/10 for sure

the synths are fucking amazing, not only do they sound nice and blend together perfectly, each adding to the progressive house buildup exceptionally well without taking too much away from another. The pitch bending work was freaking crazy! Did you use the sliding tool or modulate the pitch wheel or something else? All the melodical lines were great, love the funky complex style.

Beat was great, love the club samples plus the ethnic (but not really percussion), especially the shaker rhythm, extremely catchy and well planned out beats, certainly seems like it took a shitload of work. Subkicks were placed effectively in the beat progression. I have ADHD and certainly wouldn't be able to keep focus another to make such an awesome gradual buildup ;)

Oh. I thought it was don at 4:44. Love how it comes back in :P

The only thing I can critique on this bass. I love the gritty distortion, but it feels just a tad to overpowering and "thick" IMO. Once the subtle bells come in, it would be nice to hear more of their subtle power :D

Also that synth with the crazy vibrato/pitch bend, it would be nice to hear it have a solo part right before the bass enters, like it was in the first version of this track I think?

Anyways, brilliant piece man. It's flawlessly put together and interesting, and that's says much since its almost 8 minutes, eh? Downloaded to listen to in my car :D

[Halloween FX]

CRISPY

I'd put that reese on my toast for breakfast.

Exceptional selection of sound effects. Freakin epic filter swell in the intro.

THe reese is grainy and SICK as hell, love the ambient side FX, excellent job with the panning, and the slow LFO on the sub was uber-powerful. Leads were freakin great too.

I love the drum rhythm too, but the mood of the track for me asks for a beat that is more intense, such as including an 8th or 16th note rhythm to really incoporate a faster groove. just my personal taste anyway :P

Fav'd hope to see you submit more awesome content! you rock man :)

axeFX responds:

Yea.. I made that filter swell from scratch! Epic indeed

[Aeronautics]

im gunna suck ur penis regardless :) (platonically

FREAKIN AWESOME SONG BRO!

man, tons of great and unusual elements in here, makes for a totally radical piece.

the IDM beat rocked, great rhythm, love the fast retrigerring of the little thin rim hits, good choice of the kick, and I like how you placed a rest on the last measure of the rhythm. Softness, nice range of dynamics fits perfectly with that atomsphere.

Choice of sounds was great, excellent nasal and delicate pad that sounds awesome throughout, the piano was beautiful and I love the usage of the synth guitar.

What I really dig about this track is that it doesnt have a distinct theme that I can pick out, but it's aesthetics lie within the melding of the complex intracies and melodic ideas that harbor beautiful and unpredictable chord progressions, where both the piano voices are sequenced together very creatively. The melodies are so serene and smooth yet at the same time it feels a bit formless, yet blends great with the consuming and airy atmosphere. Very relaxing with just a tinge of quirkiness at the same time. I think were eye to eye on the description of this track!

insta-favorited. seriously i havent a heard a gem like this on Newgrounds in a while. Kinda reminds me of Glib. my favorite Mac submission in the contest so far!

Quarl responds:

wow, I'm really glad you liked it. I don't think I ever heard glibs stuff.

[Phatt Bass Anthem ( Remix )]

really not my thing...

i like the more "deep" melodic trance over the anthem themes with supersaws or whatever you call them, but this track is hella masterfully produced. Great sequencing and the mix was crystal clear, decent use of automation swells, nice rocking bassline and catchy rhythm schemes. The drums are energetic and really help carry the flow of the piece.

i guess I can throw out some of my previous statement. The section with the pads was great, but by itself the texture needs another melody during that section like a heavily reverbed piano (lol cliche)

I liked most of the track, just everything but the supersaws and the intro. The outro makes up for it, but does feel repetitive, although its perfect to lead into and mix right into another song. well, i got nothing else to say...if you make the top 5, congrats :D ill help ya out ;)

[drum and blues]

great concept

great concept but you ruined it with those generic saw leads (personal qualm). Definetly feel the feel for blues in here, despite some of lead melodies were boring and predictable, though I really loved the piano parts, shaker percussion parts paired with the breakbeats, and the big sub sandwhich :D

Stan-SB responds:

mmmmmmmmmmmmm sub sandwich

[*Stranger in the Desert* [RMX]]

Yo Yo Yo

hey pretty slick track here man :)

sytrus presets or not, they really mesh together for a nice mood (except the crunchy saw synth, way overused). I really like the sounds on the leads are thick and flow well in the background. I'd say at one point youd want to look into synthesis and start tweaking around to get more personal sounds.

Breaks were pretty nice, some decent patterns, also like the hi hats in the backgrounds, good rhythms here. Also like the panning on the short chopped up parts.

The "call and response" part at 2:00 was a good move, havent seen that used a whole lot in DnB.

Melodies are really floaty, bassline moves well, I thought the lead on the flute sounding synth could have been constructed a bit better, just is asking for a bit more, and the way you rhythmically structured it feels really awkard and choppy. The synth string progression were really nice, and you bought in the main melodic theme in quite well, I liked that bit.

5:12 needs a bit more energy, start automating FX on the drums or something, bring in a killer new synth or that main melodic theme and give it some variations to really put the power into that part that it needs.

Some of the swelling FX utilized in transitions rocked though!

Overall, main criticism, look into a synthesis tutorial somewhere on the web. Otherwise this is a solid track, you put the tools you have to good use. Keep up the good work!

Jenni-Harry4eva3 responds:

Alrighty! Respond time! Here goes!~

Totally right about sytrus! It fricken rocks :3 Thank you, Cerebra!~ ;DD Yeah... sorry about that. I just like that raw and crushing bassy synth there. Sorry about that. It's just so appealing to my ears X3 Yesh, the leads do flow very well. Exactly the way I wanted it to be :D It's the main part of the entire remix that stands out for me, besides that crunchy bass. Sure! I'll looking to the synthesis someday. But I'll keep messing around for now.

Thank you for the breaks. Amen break is awesome all the way. And I got this clear cut and high quality version from a tutorial. Very good, so I thought I'd mess around with it. (The tutorial about making that kick/drum pattern was awesome. It even taught me about ghost snares! SO! I learned a lot about that.)

"Call and Response". To tell you the truth, I'm kinda relatively new at this, but I was researching drum and bass way before I started constructing songs. I'm glad this one came out successfully. But I learned that on my way into deep researching. I didn't exactly know what it was, but now I do! And I read that it was seldom used in most drum and bass tracks. I thought it'd might be nice to do that, plus that deep bass that goes along with it needed a companion XD When I test runned it, it just sounded so empty. So I added some prelim crunchy basses, and varied it up on the final production.

True. I thought when the flute and pad came together when I first started sounded completely heavenly. (Even the pad is called 'Heaven' XD) The flute is off by a beat, but it flows well later on in the song, which is weird o.O The choppy-ness and awkward-ness... well there's not much to do. I dun like follow that little patlette of dnb where you have to make intro 64 and drop down 32 and all that crap. I just like doing what I do :D

More energy at 5:12 huh? I'll try my best at that. I was even thinking about making some automations on the filters to swing some effects on there today o.O Weird. New synth... maybe. But that varying on the melody I will totally consider.

I KNOW! The fx my bro got are fricken awesome! So I modded them, and put some volume controls on them. Especially FX 3, that punch that sounds like a gunshot around 4:30 or so. I kinda imagined Zero using his gun there XD So I wanted to use that for most of my ending, and then at the outro, I modded fx 4, and made it fade out when it hit with the last crunchy bass and snare. {Even the one that sounds like an airplane sounded awesome!)

Sure! I'll look at some tutorials. I'm still researching and looking into it. Primarily basslines and reeses at the moment... Trying to construct decent or just off-the-chain kick ass. Thanks for your review! The tools on FL Studio really rock. Most are simplistic, others are just... complicated. But I'll find out sooner or later! Thanks ever so much! I look up to you as an aspiring junglist and apprentice (j/k lol) Your song is very inspriational to me. So I will try my best! XDD Thanks for the tips! I will use them in future tracks. Peace, and keep it mega-real!~

~[IZK]

[Chaoz Fantasy Remix -GSE-]

good but

you accidentally submitted it into RnB instead of DnB LMFAO!

GronmonSE responds:

Oh Christ, stupid R >:

<3

[Circuit Remade]

Solid track!

hey mitrox some awesome sounds going on through here. It's refreshing to hear an upbeat drum and bass oriented track on NG!

Great selection of synths and sounds in here man, I'm actually working on a track that sounds similar to this. The pad rocked, I love the stereo phasing effect, real soothing texture and swell progression. Some nice leads, and I like the crisp strings and bell accompaniments. Melodies were sequenced quite well, very cheerful, they go great with the lush background.

I wasnt too fond of the FPC drums, they just dont feel too suitable for DnB, maybe some layering of the samples, put it through some compressors and EQers, get a more refined texture. I do enjoy the beat though, nice variation of dynamics, especialy like the snare rim thrown in there, and the "vocal" sounding bit that plays on the 2nd and 4th beat was a good spice on top of the drum patterns. Maybe alternate between a ride cymbal and the hi hats every now and then, too.

Add a bassline in here too, I am on headphones so I cant feel much lower register pickup, but I'd add a sub in here, something simple, maybe an 808 deep kick or just open up 3xosc and turn the coarse pitch all the way down and boost the bass end accordingly.

The piano legato was great in the end, I felt it could be constructed a bit better though. Put one more note right in between the riff and ending chord, if your playing in C, i'd throw in a B to make a nice smooth ending.

Great track man! Wish it could be longer, but it feels like its done the job. Keep up the good work, I liked listening to this track man :)

Mitrox responds:

haha thanks man!

I have never had a review like this before, lol! (very constructive)
Well I probably could of used different drums, but I decided to use the FPC ones because of the side snare, but yea I could of used some samples.

It does have a sub bass but the volume was low.

Well I'm not really in depth into music like you are man.
It would take me years to learn all the things you have mastered.
I am very grateful for the review.

so thanks.