S3C's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Lowbrow Party]

Funny, creative piece, for sure. Nice piano work, sounds slightly ragtime influenced. not a huge fan of the voice but the lyrics are quite clever. The vocals are also on the sibilant side, I would run them through a de-esser. In fact, IMO, the compression doesn't mesh the best with the style of the piece. There certainly could be more contrast in the panning and dynamics of the piece. But the composition is certainly solid.

[Rise of the Fallen]

pretty dang cool song here! I agree with the Neo vs Smith comment below. The strings are quite Don-Davis esque, especially in the latter portion of the piece.

The horns and choir are a nice touch, the lines are a little generic sounding, but fit the piece well. On the darker side, with a tinge of foreboding. The electronic bits in the introduction really augment the song well and set up the symphonic parts nicely.

The synths add a nice contrast, both texture wise and rhythmically, and have a nice cohesion with the percussion, but they seem to cloud up the lower register a bit. Another instrument could double the small piano motif to bring out that part more. With that in mind, a bass drum hit mixed in with the tom fills during the part with the piano would work well too, I think.

The piece is very dynamic, and realistic sounding. The track builds up and loops perfectly! Great work.

[Isolation Song]

hey this track is pretty cool! has an 80s synth pop vibe to it. I like the retro sounding pad- and the ethnic percussion riffs. You could vary the panning of these sounds, though. The nature ambience was a nice throw in albeit a bit awkward. The bird tweets at the end was a bit too 'in your face'. The piece could be improved by having a lead line or a melody of a sort- the track was a bit on the short side and feels unfinished!

Domenstain responds:

Thanks for your response S3C! Yeah, I would've thrown out the nature feel though it was part of the theme for the album. I had a lot I wanted to do with this song, but in the end, I felt like it was great, and I may have my head stuck on it now, but I will keep your comment in mind when I make more music! :)

[Anuun]

very nice! spooky.

the track flows quite well; nice groove. Good mixing, the bassline and kick are well separated.

good sequencing. I like what you did with the hats and the short interlude with the break sample. How the subtle choir sounds gradually comes in was a nice touch. maybe use just 1 more piano pattern though to reduce some of the repetitiveness. Maybe doubling the piano in a higher octave would be a nice touch to end the song, with some staccato choir hits in the background. Would make the texture of the piece more diverse throughout. it's a great track!

[2015: Some things I've been up to!]

hehe, good to see you are still gracing NewGrounds!! sounds professional as always! Well it's certainly a well-varied demo reel!! Don't know where else one can find an amalgamation of sick tunes that starts off as a farm-land invaded by zombies, that transitions into a grand fair set in the BC era of some Mediterranean land, to some mixed meter metal-piano music, that cleverly becomes a cross between a 70s porno and a late 80s African American sitcom, to a Disney moonlight romance, only to be taken by surprise by some demonic sounding metal, ending on the theme for a march towards a mountaintop to seize a barbaric, tyrannical giant. Great work!!

[Kez Tha Kidd- Fire (prod. By FlameAlkahest)]

hell yeah...this beat is nice for sure. I like the 90s oriental kung fu film vibes...good inclusion of the "monk" vocal samples therein- it fits well within the trap genre. The bass hits deep, good hi hat rhythms. Nice use of dynamic filtering (a la the fruit love philter I'm guessing)

not sure about the vocals tho. You sound a bit too close to the mic. The vocals clip and are muddy. I would attentuate some of the lower end frequencies and put a small amount of reverb to make your vocals less raw and sit better within the mix. Having a downpitched backing vocal track was creative!

"I eat bread like a crouton" - i like this line lol!

kenhandra responds:

Thanks fam I kinda made the vocals like that on purpose for a more explosive vibe

[{NP}Xenon Difluoride (for Luneth)]

hmm...well it's not really drum and bass. There is no apparent no catchy, fast DnB groove (nor really any DnB appropriate samples) and the bassline is limited to a repetitive piano line. The banging kick drum is more fitting in with trance or some 4 to the floor genre. Some interesting synth ideas. The chord progression and melodies are on the generic side, but there are some decent ideas that can spring forward from all this. The dynamics could be tailored a bit more well (every sound seems like it was ran through a maximizer) and the song is a bit over-drenched in reverb. The tempo changes were a nice touch, the automations were on the predictable side but gives the track a level of diversity...I like how you ended the song on a half cadence.

[Hopeless (Acapella)]

Damn...the darker side of Cyberdevil that we rarely see.
I thought the last line was "cause you are worthless" :'(
Would make quite the morbid ending!! Good thing I read the lyrics after

Cyberdevil responds:

Yeah, it's a side I was wondering if I should upload or not, but hiphop's all about getting personal! And it gets better. Bit low volume on the last line indeed, I thought I'd added an echo but apparently I did something different. :) I mean, it's an intentionally ambiguous final line, of course! Never any different...

[the ancient window]

sick track dude!! I'm really diggin the sinister sounding Asian vibes in this one...the first portion sounds like a espionage movie set in a second world Asian country...perfect for a Jason Bourne flick. For some reason, this track also has a slightly similar vibe to Miles Davis' album "Sketches of Spain"...perhaps it's in the scales you use, overall openness, or the overall cinematic quality of the track. I like the Chinese instruments (cool guzheng! is that blown instrument a Shehnai?) with the opening pentatonic melodies, and how it evolves into a more middle-eastern type of melodic sound. Great usage of ethnic instruments!! Really enjoying the world percussion too, some real authentic-sounding samples.

The guitar stabs where a nice touch, seems like they would benefit from spruce of chorus FX or something to make them mesh better with the mix, and the line could use some more development as it progresses, perhaps flesh out the chords at some point. Not sure how I feel about the gradual pitch resampling at 3:30...personally I probably would have just 'stopped' the track there giving the impression that it had ended, and then bring in the rolling bassline in full force...The reversed bits are nice trippy touch in the successive section, I like the mysterious atmosphere the track creates. Perhaps varying the percussion rhythm up a bit or incorporating a higher-register percussive sound that plays a faster rhythm would be an exciting finish to the track...anyways, great work!! Has a real tight, different, interesting and worldly sound!!

snoballandthmonyshot responds:

hey dude, hope you are good.
yeh, like the feel to this one. did this about 9 months ago, the human gestation period, which is just about the right time to revisit and add some tweaks and interest. I got to the point with this where i'd listened to it so much whilst making it that i lost perspective and couldn't do any more.
the blown instrument is a common or garden melodica. the percussion is ableton lives stock latin percussion pack.
your suggestions are all good ones. the whole thing needs shaking up though i feel.
thanks for taking the time, will check out what you've been up to recently
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