S3C's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Vivifi]

This piece has an interesting, open texture with creative instrumentation. I was skeptical how much the synth would do for this piece given the introductory orchestral sounds, but the airy synth pads and percussion are incorporated nicely. The harmony develops nicely, the plucked strings are well varied, and the composition brings out mysterious fantasy-like themes well. Nice ending. I think the piece could be a bit stronger if you brought in some organic symphonic sounding percussion shortly after the synth toms, to bring the piece forward. They would be an interesting compliment to the melodic percussive style of the piece. The sound quality is decent (good job with the delay FX) although I think the glockenspiel sticks out a tad too much. Good work!

LukeMJones responds:

Well thank you very much for your comment ! Very open and honest, I like the way you can describe my music better than me! When i go back over the piece ill have a listen out for what you have said about the glockenspiel and see if i can find some nice sounding percussion that will mix with the track. Thank you again !

[Cow Rider]

I think it was a sea cow actually, but either way it was awesome. Like this song.

LexRodent responds:

Glad you like it.

[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! :)

[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

[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
px

[Sonder]

dude bombass tune n***a! I voted up there! glad to see you used my blog .gif as your icon that I recommended you use for your tunes back from several months ago, LoL! You could intertextually augment this fine work of art by including the official tumblr definition for the word sonder: the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk. Thanks for naming this tune with that word lol....I always appreciate broadening my vocabulary!

To me, this song is the definition of hip. It clearly exudes good qualities, while not being overly pretentious or too obscure to be considered hipster, LOL. my favorite aspect of this track is how you juxtaposed the swing drum rhythms with the simple yet effective melodic lines on the retro-esque synths. The tune starts off cold and fairly empty, with an underlying bittersweet tone throughout, the tune as a whole gets progressively more warm and refreshing until it reaches a complete, fulfilling finish; in essence: a sonder. Would work great with one of those new-age enlightenment-inspirational YouTube videos made by millennial college chaps. Keep up the great work!

SineRider responds:

Appreciate the review! Yeah I admit I got the name from that definition haha! Also I love the gifs you post, I really enjoy bokeh photography

[chrolspach123vox]

HOLY CRAP! after a 5 year absence, with classics such as "Bringing Saxy Back", "Heroe Worship", "linearcargo", "65% incomplete", "things snoball", the most creative musician on NG has returned!

not your best work IMO, a bit too sparse in the instrumentation department, and oddly structured for my tastes, but definitely a solid piece. Love the warbly, processed drums, great lyrics, and that gentle but evil saxophone line. The lush, reverberating, ominous instrumental section at 3:00 is like your signature sound...

please continue to post more, and if you leave again, let us know where you upload your music! I still have your stuff downloaded and listen to your old tracks!

11-8-20 EDIT: damn, updating a review 7 years and a day later...just hear to say awesome stuff. Profound message in weird times. And I still really like what you did with the drum sampling.

snoballandthmonyshot responds:

nice one chap. glad that someone has been listening to my notes. will have to trawl your stuff soon, I expect big tings. I don't have my tracks anywhere else mate.
Px

[A Curious Encounter Preview]

it's an interesting piece, that bodes well with the masquerade imagery, I'd agree with one of the reviewers who commented on it being reminiscent of Danny-Elfman's works; the piece has a playful, slightly mystical quality to it. I like the space you leave between the motives, and your usage of phrygian cadences (at :16 and the end of the piece). The contrast is nice between the lively string introduction and softer second half of the piece with the flutes and harps. My foremost suggestion would be to bolster up the instrumentation, the first half of the piece could use a contrabass to round out the opening string lines, some high-mid register orchestral percussion such as castanets and/or tambourines could accentuate the groove. Then you could mirror the part in A.) after the soft interlude by complimenting the strings with some brass and or woodwind instruments, IMO bassoon and clarinet sections would fit well with the theme of the piece. The intro could use more varied dynamics, but now I'm just nitpicking...

yeah, the strings are probably too loud in the second half of the piece, but I think it's partially due to the violins patch you are using, it's too aggressive. Maybe the lower velocities have a more delicate layer? If it's available in your library, try experimenting with another marcato or staccato patch. using a viola section (or even solo violin- since the second part is less thick in texture) may be slightly less abrasive. I'm not familiar with symphobia or what the deal with combinators is- but you should be able to manually turn down the volume for each patch within the kontakt plugin. if the combinator is the problem you could always open up a separate channel (or clone the same one) and send it through an individual mixer channel, and adjust the volume externally from there. although seeing as how you used Reason prior to FL Studio, if I'm remembering correctly- you're probably a master already and know all this lol. If you don't use midi controllers as your primary method for sequencing the notes and patterns like me, you're going to have a blast with FL lol

AshleyAlyse responds:

I want to add tambourines to this song so bad! However, I searched for hours and could never find a tambourines vst that you didn't have to pay a fortune for. :( Kinda broke at the moment, hehe. Also, I can't run too many instruments at once on this computer, the sound glitches like a mad man.
I opened the "tool" window for the symphobia plugin and my, oh my, I have no idea what in the world to do! Hahah! It's so confusing, it's probably going to take me a while to get used to this new software. I really don't know much of what I'm doing, I kinda just play with something until it sounds decent. :) Thank you so much for the suggestions! I will see if I can do a few of the things you suggested! I appreciate the time you took to review my piece, thank you. :)