S3C's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[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

[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---

[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.

[-Jazzy Song-]

hardly jazz i'd say

there's nothing "wrong" about your instruments (other than they sound fairly GM standard...but I applaud the conga percussion usage!) , melodic ideas, or tempo haha :P. it's mainly your overall approach to the composition. for one, there isnt much of a swing feel (if you use FL, set your quantization you never change keys, ideas are a little bit too repetitive and underdeveloped for jazz. For example, to give this a more jazzy feel, I'd write a chord progression for a organ or piano, one that incorporates chords of 2 or more keys. and then with the sax melody modulate to the new key make sure to hit the newly introduced tones, and use the bass to emphasize the new tonal centers. Also, I'd use less of just minor and major melodies (and the pentatonic patterns where a good touch in here), but use modes instead, Dorian, Mixolydian, and Lydian scalic approaches would be a great start. Superimposing blues tones and passing tones gives your melodies more color too.

That was pretentious of me, apologies -_-. If you have no clue what I am talking about google Musical modes for a start. maybe for modern jazz it could classify as jazz however. but genre aside, I still give the song a 6, for an aforementioned reason low quality sounds (try using multiple soundfonts, google specific instruments. theres more realistic sounding sondfount equivalents over the ones you used in this track for FREE), un-connecting, sporadic drums (conga rhythms are nice, but the drumkit parts dont flow well, you seem to stop and start the ride rhythms awkwardly, and the constant quarter note kick pattern in the start doesnt sound too well in context of the piece :P) and lack of chords...'cause you didnt have a single chord in here :P

Keep it up for sure though! I try to be completely honest in my reviews, so I apologize for being harsh. and I probably used to many parentheses too. 5/10 and 5/5.

Step responds:

Ahh, a review from the best audio reviewer on NG, thanks XD. Don't worry about being harsh, I'd much prefer a 5/10 review as long as yours than a 10/10 one-liner. It's my first attempt at jazz, and after it exit the front page without a review, I was sad that it didn't have any reviews and didn't know what to work on in Jazz and if I was doing it right, but thanks to yours, now I can start. I'm usually pretty good when it comes to percussion (although I'm bad at everything else...), so I'm glad you liked the congas. I see what you mean by swing feel, maybe it's the alternate melody I used here which had more of a swing to it, but the main melody consisted only of quavers and crotchets. When I learn a bit more music theory, I could try and do the chord progression of changing to different keys as you explained. So, I'll try and look for better quality instruments, add chords, give a shot at the musical modes you mentioned and work on those kicks and rides (which I completely agree that they aren't in context, but since I never heard professional Jazz before, I thought they would fit). Thanks for the great review, when I get better in music theory, I'll surely make another Jazz song using your awesome suggestions. Keep up the harsh work :P.

[Kw- The Rise (DEMO)]

euphoric

instantly caught my attention. i have been coming to your page time to time but dont think Ive ever left a review.

that short melody theme that you start with is a keeper, but really what grabbed my ears was how will the saw synths combine great with the sharp acid synths, which Ive become a fan of (and is included in my full track for the EP, which you graciously reviewed :) ). the acid works great both rhythmically and melodically, while the saw synth outlines the melody. bass moves well, and its nice to hear that it too, carries out a more complex rhythm than the typical, straight offbeat eights pattern.

mixing and sound design is crisp too, like the clean reverb on the acid, and the subtle echoes on the saw pad. I normally detest supersaw like synths, but in here it sounds quite nice, not too abrasive and well filtered. Drums fit in well the clap and kick fit in like a glove.

i would prefer a more rhythmically complex (maybe slice a loop or two, high-pass and layer it on top), dynamic, less compressed hi-hat line. i might be too harsh in this aspect as I said something along these lines in multiple reviews in the past haha.

the only complaint with this track is not necessarily within the track itself, just with how you auditioned your track, i would have personally would have condensed the drop section for the time of the demo, and give a good eight-ten seconds more of how the track sounds when it has a steady groove with the kick pumping and all ;) the five note melody that you only had in during the intro, IMO would be something worth showing off and developing more for the demo.

so good work, you indeed should be proud of this trk :) (and hot damn- 36 hours is a LONG time! i'd imagine what you have lined up so far is superb!)

nightsurfermusic responds:

It's most certainly a work in progress still... I'm fixing up a few things here and there.

Thanks for one hell of a review man!

[Psybot - Digital Spirit]

I'd have to respectfully disagree

with the below poster, i havent heard all the synths in the world (but I'd like to say I've picked up a half-decent ear for detecting sytrus presets over the years), but they sounded fairly fresh to me, and the track is mixed quite well. I like how the beginning synth has a nice wet delay effect to create an atmosphere. the bass is quite smooth and low, and in general i like most of your synth ideas, they all compliment each other well- the automated filtered saw pads was kinda unoriginal during the break section, but what can you do. The old schoolish sounding synths sound nice, and I really like the lead you include halfway through with the smooth LFO filter. Drums also sit nicely in the mix. Catchy melodies indeed that flow nicely, and good work with the sequencing so the track doesnt enter an overly repetitive state.

-Mmm, a swing feel in a 4 to the floor song just has never matched my palette personally :/

-i think the track would be better if you threw in a (or a more distinct) snare/clap other than in the transitioning parts.

-the overall composition was kind of generic. Once again, good melodies and flowing structure, but you really didnt do anything interesting with the rhythm- i would work more on thickening out the hi hat line, i know you got the rides flowing in the chorus sections, but I would prefer more variety in the rhythm.

So all in all, solid track, well mixed! keep it up Psybot!

Psybot responds:

Thanks for your review =D

I like it alot ^^

[\Psybot/]

[Luvsounds]

lol

wow man i love this song. this is my favorite track off your ALERT soundtrack. i've had this downloaded on to my PC and have been listening to it for as long as I can remember. cool that you posted this.

jim-ether responds:

Thank you.

[Monodisc - Bar 303]

Very good!

probably not the premiere choice of most NGers, but it's definitely my bag of tea. good to see an experimental tune reach the top 5, congrats.

I like how the subgenres that you listed in the description really mesh together nicely. nice jazzy drums, and the IDM snippets that linger in the background with the overall ambient atmosphere throughout the track. great job. this track actually reminds me a bit of Gillenium's stuff. not sure if you heard him, but he's another prominent ambient artist on NG.

The drums are top notch, the quality sounds very authentic, dynamic and well mixed. are they loops put together or did you just manage to grab some great samples? the mixing overall is very good and clean, great volume levels, like the reverb difference between the drums and the synth and other electronic FX. if i was to perhaps throw in one pointer, i'd say make the panning on the background FX more apparent and widen the strings/pads a touch more.

compositional aspects are superb, the hi hat and cymbal rolls where very enjoyable, the melody rolls along nicely, and the strings harmonize with it quite smoothly. great use of rests and spacing to let the FX and reverb sift into the atmosphere. overall the piece was very relaxing and well structured. I like the build into the ending, the transitioning was great, love how you end on the open chord and after a brief moment of silence resolve the melody, unexpectingly.

only reason why a gave this track a 9 was because I felt a piece of this magnitude could use more development. maybe have a bigger more defined break section, throw in some more of those processed vocal sounds that you utilized in the intro, integrate more glitchy rhythms and possibly sift in synth to carry out a counter melody. if you feel that would disrupt the power of the beautiful ending in this track, then please disregard what I said :)

anyways, great job dude. keep it up!

tijnn responds:

Thank you so much for the kind review.

I can tell you that the drums are written in addictive drums. It's a VST, which means that i did not use loops, and placed every drum sound. I'm glad that you like the overall sound and mixing, i spent quite some time thinking about it.

About the idea of a bigger, more defined break section, or throwing in more sounds or FX, maybe even vocals....

It's meant to be a background song, and i know it won't do well when it's in your face on a newgrounds page. But when you listen to this, while looking at nature, or whatever you like to do, to sink away in your thoughts...

Then this is a track you might enjoy even more.

The emptiness is what gives it it's power, i have actually tried adding more sounds etcetera but it didn't feel right.

It's also great for tripping, heh. (:

But thanks for the review!