S3C's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[dance of fireflies]

OH SHI- I voted UP THERE

this sir, is perhaps the most beautiful piece on NG. i've listened to it atleast 10 times in a row now.

Reminds me Pandora forest in the the Avatar film. Or Macalania Woods in FFX, during morning rise.

The instruments are extremely well balanced and varied and it's cool how the melody extends into eccentric different instrumental parts.. I like compositionally how you created lots of 'space' between the individual parts, and kept the piece as a whole very interesting. This piece could have been ruined by just throwing in "filler" notes but there's an adorable light, airy quality to it like a dance of fireflies.

The flute and pan-pipe lines where indeed very lyrical, as well as the harp and shamisen parts. Good sense of dynamics.

I think the swelling heavy vibrato strings were a great instrument for the chords/padding.

The piano and the synthetic choirs + other elements do subtle wonders. And I LOVE the chord progression that hits at 1:44.

I really enjoy the ethnic percussion bits and the rolls that you incorporated into indivual parts.

And you even spiced the track up with some tasteful guitar licks with a very complimentary harp.

....and it even all loops perfectly.

sir, this is a fantastic piece which I have absolutely no criticism for. I really appreciate you posting this on NG, and this is the type of music that I hope I can create one day.

Thanks!!!

[Redwood's Furnace]

ooh,, this is swellll

this is a great piece of music with tons of fresh and fun elements.
it's got a lighthearted, cartoony feel but a sophisticated instrumentation and real catchy groove to make for some great electro-funk (if you can call it that).
I love the muted trumpet (?) paired with the brass chords, the smooth rhodes keys, vibraphones, boomy bass, and processed beats and vocal samples.
Sure, their could be more subtle changes in the chord progressions and the main melody, but the sequencing of the individual riffs were masterful and flowing throughout. Any more drastic developments and I'm not sure how well this would work for a menu/selection theme.
If that was what you were going for that is- I definetly think this would work perfectly during a scene with rotating cars, selecting various funky paint schemes and off-the-wall special powerups.
Aside from that, I can't think of any criticisms for this track. Great, crisp and clean mixing as well, and LOTS of energy to get the user pumped up for the race ahead!
I have to ask out of curiosity- how much of this track is made with loops and how much of the riffs are programmed? It doesnt matter either way as the sounds you incorporated were put together very creatively. Keep up the style and stay original!
I should probably use more line breaks lol

SHADOWFOX2 responds:

Whoa time to sit down by the fireside for this review :]
Electro-funk eh? Never heard that one before, but considering what it is, I can't disagree!
Sunspot and Redwood were both made for a game in which you customize your vehicle in some...sort of a menu!
But you're right, I didn't want too much action and dynamics in mood or else it would defeat the settings I wanted to convey.

I agree with you again, along with cazok and Ozzy, I should've put more into it, but I was drawin' blanks.
I really did mean to change up those vocal samples I really did!
I also had more planned out for this thing, but the idea wasn't complete and the deadline was rolling up; I didn't want the game to go with just one track!
The track was already 3:30 long, so I took what I had and stopped and didn't touch it again.
Who knows, this track may go through a revision in the future if I remake some tracks.

Programming...
Eventually all of them loop, as if they didn't you'd be guessing forever what mood was intended for this piece.
You pretty much hit the nail on the head with the "processed beat" and vocal samples.

-The main kick, snare/hi-hats/cymbals, ePiano, strings, bells, scratches and snap/claps was me just using raw samples and filtering accordingly from scratch

+The acoustic bass, mute trumpet, regular trumpets and violins was me taking the samples and slicing them up and changing pitch so they sound like they belong, which to me is the most difficult and time consuming, but is rewarding when done right :]

*Last but not least, the vocals and filler percussion had to have been the two that I spent the least time on. I basically spaced, sped or slowed down the sample so it would go along with the rest of the music and fill the cracks.
I've also found out that vocals go GREAT with music who'da thought eh?

BREAKSWHONEEDSBREAKSNONOTMENOBRAKESHE RESCREECH............................
..
Thanks for your very thoughtful review S3C I appreciate it :]

[As Time Goes Flying By]

welcome back bud

I feel like its been too long since I've gave anyone a review. So I might not be able to pick a whole lot of things out or might overdo my assertations haha. But this track here is pretty slick and reminds me of your postings circa 2007. This track has an overall ethereal, echoey feeling, with a very flowing, fairly complex melody that seems like it could go on forever. I like your instrumentation (as usual) with the nice delay on the plucked guitar/strings and the smooth, droney pads and the ethnic flute (which could have been used more IMO). You've always had a good handle on reverb effects and creating an interesting, deep atmosphere. I like the smooth volume automation in the beginning and end. Perhaps they can loop better into each other tho I feel you could have added 1 more section to this track. Otherwise, compositionally solid track, I like the drum rhythms (tho there could have been some interesting fills utilizing tom drums and other auxillary percussive bits) in the section when the guitar isnt playing) and the bassline fits well(but I too, feel this was used too sparsely). I would flesh out the bass part near the end of the track, and start another section with the other patterns playing over it, and perhaps include a lead in this section (such as the flute).

When the guitar exists, the track feels too empty to me. Mostly just the section for the flute solo. I would add more accompaniments to that section, more percussion (perhaps with a similar delay effect to keep a consistent dynamic rhythm), keep the bassline going and perhaps even change the notes on the pads a bit.

The mixing is good- once again I like the effects you use in here. I feel the bassline could be more audible to round the lower registers of this track out and perhaps add just a dabble of reverb to the drums to make them sound a touch more authentic. Aside from the FPC stock samples(understandable- I know you lost your sound drive) I think some ethnic percussion bits would work great with this track. lol, I must suggest that a lot to people on NG. of course these are just future suggestions when you re-expand your sound library.

anyways, solid track once again dude, thanks for the message!

send me a pm, tell me what else is up!

Twistedtechnology responds:

wow, this review has been up here forever and i havent responded yet lol. my bad. Thanks for the review!! I believe i've already sent that pm though XD

~Twistedtechnology

[{Kavi} Fly to You]

great

i feel like i'm at a gaybar or something

[The Chill [FINAL]]

ambience and progressions

Here is an honest review man. I have lots of stuff for you to think about, but take it with a few grains of salt ;)

The kick is pretty much a sub with too much reverb- IMO not suitable for trance. You need something that reaches the mid frequencies and can be heard outside of the subbass frequency range more.

There is way too much filtering and subtractive EQing going on. Either that or you need some samples that fill out the dead space some more. This track is pretty much just bass and lower mids. The reversed crash you use in the intro is pretty much the only sound outside this range. I can mostly just feel the bass and the kick, two instruments that I would definetly like to hear in this track. The kick on the beat and the bass on the offbeat. Highpass the pads some and the other synths to clear up more room for the bass and kick, so you can hear and experiment with their interactions.

Repetition. Assuming your patterns are relatively small and reserved for one instrument and short riffs, you certainly should be using more than 12 patterns in the track. and if that, more than 6 automation clips to dynamically tweak synth settings and FX levels more. The pads could use more changes throughout but if you throw in more elements that isnt always needed.

Groove. Your track doesn't have a distinguishable groove and little rhythm qualities. There is no snare/clap drum, no hi-hats to keep the track rolling, and your melody plays the same consistent rhythm throughout. More diversity please! Again, simplify it down to just the bass and kick drum. Add a snare. Add hats. Add some of the experimental percussion ideas (like you have with the hat thing in this track already) slice a drum loop or two to create a more interesting rhythmic blend. And then use fragments of the melodic idea on the lead and phrase it different before you get into the consistent pattern.

Delay FX can also create catchy, dynamic rhythms but the only audible delay in this track is on the lead synth.

Mixing: Why not have a mixer track for the pads and lead, and every other channel within the step sequencer? Lose the preset FL limiter on the master (so your track will sound less flat), focus more on the volume levels of the separate channels and stick with subtle, light compression on the master if anything.

Diversity: There needs to be more synths and samples in here man. There is too few elements and changes going on for a five minute track. You should try including more than three synths. More drums, less filtering, and more rhythm. Develop more of an intricate structure to your track so it doesnt sound like your just jostling around patterns. Layer your kick, snare, and hats, with more than one sample to get a more fresh sound that doesnt sound like you just pulled something out of the stock. but this isnt always necessary....just like the rest of my advice, if you dont like it.

Now the good elements:

-Bassline sounds nice, good progression
-Pads are a good idea
-That consistent pattern with the modified hat or whatever it is would be a nice rhythm to incorporate in different parts of track
-Track has somewhat of a flowing sequence
-Decent melody

6/10
5/5

jbarnett responds:

Thank you so much for the review. I would also just like to remind you that this is ambient trance, so it's not meant to rely heavily on the main melodies. The kick was one of the more difficult elements to produce, because I just started with the standard that comes up first in FL. So if you know what I'm talking about, that is quite a bit of a change. And the reverb is only on full during the breaks. I will try to use a high pass sound on more elements, but how would I go about bringing out the kick? Would I just add another EQ and pull up the treble a bit? And the synth? Would you just want to hear more "sawyness"? I would gladly adjust this to your standards, but I really don't have that extensive of a knowledge of audio production.

PM me if you would care to explain in more detail.

thanks again for the review

---jbarnett---

[The Sun ( Apollo )]

very interesting..

I like this track a lot, it has an interesting blend of melodic ideas, eccentric synths, and a non-standard trance beat. The arpeggio synths with various delay/echo settings creates a diverse atmosphere which works great with the outer space/solar theme. I visualize the intro with the long phasey pads as a spaceship heading towards the sun, and when the arpeggios start rolling the spacemen with extremely (obviously) heat-resistant suits leave the ship and are floating around the suns atmosphere, gazing at its beauty. and when the melody enters around 2:00 the spaceship suddenly starts to malfunction due to the intense flames of the suns while the crew tries to get back into the ship and escape back to Earth (or whatever planet). A couple crew members get completely dissipated in the process. The contrast with the hard hitting gated saw synths develops a different mood from the starting point of the track and works with the new melodic ideas.

now what holds back this track IMO is the weak drums and the lack of the buildup from the ambient intro.

The drums are way too quiet for my tastes, that can quickly be solved by throwing them through a maximizer or harmonic exciter of sorts. The kick is practically buried under the mix when it is one of the foremost elements in a trance track! I know this goes away from the typical trance style but I believe the kick could use more mids and overall amplification of dB. The snare could be snappier (perhaps layer) it more. You might be using too much reverb within the track overall, which can lower the volume and dynamic qualities.

As for the hats, I would develop a more consistent rhythm to match the rapid moving bassline underneath the other hat samples. A percussive, high passed arpeggiated synth areas would also work well IMO. I would also looking into panning the hi-hat samples to separate positions as well.

The buildup into the main meat of the track was a bit of a disappointment. You caught my ears with the previous melody and the filtered bassline seemed interesting, but there wasnt enough energy to lead into the next section. You could have placed a crash cymbal at the end of the snare roll (which could have definitely used a crescendo!) and include some filtered resonant sound leading up to this section, which is done a lot in trance tracks.

But otherwise, I really enjoyed the premise of the track. oh and brownie points for the whole tone dream-space sequence around 3:08 mark ;) the average person wont know what I mean by this, but good job!

downloaded + favorited

[Kriminal Intentions]

Syntrus is a bad ass electro thug

He likes to innovate rock influenced ideas with newer aged instrumental ideas (a la synth). Seriously, great track here man. It's got the gritty rock ideas with a pimpalicious hip-hop groove.

I don't think a real guitar would augment this track too much, if that would happen to be an idea proposed for this clip, the synthesized guitars add a distinct character that organic instruments may just not be able to bring.

My only qualms (minor ones) with this track are some recognizable sounds and not enough variations of teh drum patterns. (I would also have liked this to be a bit longer personally, but the ideas went through their course quite well through the two and a half minutes). I can hear some FL pack hip hop drums, and perhaps a bass, but really its all good with me because they mesh exceptionally fine with the track's premise. Perhaps if you sampled a hip hop track or grabbed some more of this style's oriented samples and put them together you would obtain a more unique sound in this department. I will say that the hats got pretty thick tho. Also, I think the snare would work good with some reverb, in the second half of the song.

I also feel the drums could use more than 1 or 2 patterns, I would like to hear more work with the snare hits, and perhaps some messing with 16th notes and maybe a light crash hit too more flowingly move throughout the transitions.

Now that the critiques are out of the way I tell you what I like about this track:

-Delicious synth ideas. You've always impressed me in this department. I love some of the light vibrato synths and the LFO filtered arp synths are fantastic. That sound around the 00:55 mark was also sweet.
-Guitars work and sound great. The maintain some of the characteristics of a real guitar, while including some clever synthesized effects. Such as the subtle panning on the rhythm guitar. And the lead worked great as well.
-The melodies work fucking great, I especially like the catchy bass and rhythm guitar chemistry.
-Also, no complaints on the mixing. Sounds are clear, the bass is well defined with the kick.
-I think you've made some strides in making your tracks a little less repetitive. Not saying that was a problem with some of your previous tracks, but you've included some intracies within this piece which IMO keeps the track interesting for a longer # of track loops.

btw, I made a post on your blog last night only to find out you deleted it when I hit submit LMAO. basically, I was just trying to say find solace in the group of people who DO enjoy your music, as it's common knowledge that you cannot please everybody, that will always result in failure. I'm not sure how many fans you have on NG but that should be enough consolation for you to keep submitting here. Assholes will be assholes. And people who try to turn music into some type of competition need to realize at the end of the day, there are no winners in music. Just packing up gear at the end of a gig. Saving project files and closing programs. Re-charging Ipods and shutting off speakers. There are no losers, either. Anyone who says otherwise has a tiny penis. I'm done.

Syntrus responds:

Thats an I'm with syntrus T-shirt If I ever seen one. Yeah the thread went away I have to really think about it.

If you want the inside scoop

Syntrus has a facebook profile.

"Assholes will be assholes. And people who try to turn music into some type of competition need to realize at the end of the day, there are no winners in music. Just packing up gear at the end of a gig. Saving project files and closing programs. Re-charging Ipods and shutting off speakers. There are no losers, either. Anyone who says otherwise has a tiny penis. I'm done." I was particularly touched by this part :3.

I am really happy you came by and checked this song out dude!

[Drew Pickles, a WIP]

chicken weenies

its almost like someone threw the inner contents of a roland 808 into a bag of popcorn and served it to GO. excuse me i think there is something seriously wrong with my head

kjhsdgf responds:

:o
that's how i made this song.

[Introversion_by_Slunchy]

very creative

I love your sounds here man. you remind me of two of my favorite electronic artists on Newgrounds, crud and jim-ether. first visual that came to mind, a bunch of sea creatures swimming in outer space...while I sit back and watch from my spacecraft/restaurant/hotel

the beat is really creative (i love how you divide the rhythm parts that would normally be part of the bass-snare-hat beat and place some of the notes on abstract drums such as the 808 snare rims and clicking and synthetic open hi hat sounds) and got my head in a groove, great work with the patterns, and the subtle glitching FX. In fact I think you did an awesome job with including a wide array of effects all around. I really like the main heavily reverbed synth and the melody line that plays throughout, works great against a hectic background. The lo-fi arped sound paired with it compliments the main melody nicely and the bassline works wonders. Sounds like you've even got a small pad/hit (or is it just an "artifact" or feedback from one of the synths?) to fill the gaps in certain places.

I give you an 8 because some of the EQing needs some work. On the drums, I felt like you made some attenuations that were too big, sounds like you might have been "smiley face" EQing and leaving some important parts out- the filtered sound definetly worked here but IMO its overdone. Like Reaper83 said, you might just be subtracting too much of the derivative dry sounds. Sounds like you might also be looping all or most of the drums in one mixer channels, as they all feel to me like theyre sent through the same wide automated bandpass filter, so if thats the case I would devote more attention to processing the individual drum sounds after youre done sequencing the beats. more specifically i feel the snare could bleed through the mix in parts. The sub is also massive (which sounds overall sweet), but that area is a bit clogged, so I would go through some of the other mixer channels and high pass the lower freq ranges that arent exactly needed.

-I would also give that pad/hit sound more stereo depth, add a bit of EQed high range to round out your sound.

-for the ending, you could loop right into what content you have in the intro, and then work in that airy atmospheric elements you talk about in the comments, and slowly fade the drums or continue to add more FX until it becomes a garbled mess, and just end with the synths playing your theme ideas. just an idea..

so great style man, keep up the good work and genuine creativity! keep experimenting, you've got a unique and interesting style.

kjhsdgf responds:

yeah, i made the majority of this song when i was extremely inebriated, and didn't even give it a second look before posting each update :P
yeah with a lot of the "smileyface" EQing, i used peak controllers instead of autoclipping it, so it's not very synched, and i didn't spend too much time on EQzing, i guess i shoulda done more of that (although i'm not very good at EQing, seeing as i'm self taught, but i'm looking at tutorials)
i like your ideas, and i would use them, but i lost the soundfile when my old computer had to be trashed (i couldn't move files, it was really bad),
so now i have a better computer, but none of my old songs are there (and i had a good number of songs, too).
that's why i REALLY hate how i got some attention for this song after it got deleted.