siteml's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[T.E.O.M. - Grustler (Produced By TheEyeOFMusiK)]

I was thrown off by the category, I will say lol. I don't count myself among fans of rap or hip hop, but this piece sits well with me. The reason for the half star off is a slight muddiness - probably due to a lot of reverb, some overcrowding at times, and the drawn out sub bass bits aren't helping the situation. Speaking from experience here - the more reverb you put, the fewer instruments you should have going at any one time, or you risk audio mush. One tip to deal with that sort of problem that I learned about a year or so ago is to *mix in mono*. Yes, mono. Any sort of muddled sound will show up in force when you do that, and fixing it will be a lot easier that way.

Either way, keep up the good work :)

[Hyear, dius MARIA]

Especially circa 1:39, I get forcibly reminded of the likes of Enya or Enigma. Sublime harmonics. Well done! I do think your confidence level affected you especially early on in the piece - and I know where that comes from! Do your best to conquer that :) (and I say that as I am getting my feet wet in singing for my songs myself xD) You definitely opened up so to speak later on, and ... goodness... did that blossom :)

On a side note, I wish I understood the words! (not why the half star less, that was for the early part :P I try to keep my 5 star ratings scarce to make them extra special! ;P)

Cheers and keep going. Excellent stuff!

Troisnyx responds:

Thanks for the review, meep~
I did link the WP article to Hail Mary / Ave Maria and the text of the prayer translates to the Hymmnos lyrics above. I'd hoped you'd be able to find the translation there.

Otherwise I concur, it was fear of angering the upstairs neighbours who were previously in there and it was just frightening for me back then, because I'd been known to be interrupted mid-discussion, mid-anything if I was too loud for her. These walls are paper thin, so I don't doubt anyone can hear me sing. After a while when I'd got going I threw all caution to the wind.

[PancakePocket - Blast-Off]

I understand this is a different genre than I usually deal with so take it with a grain of salt, but I would move the first "blast off" to just before that quiet phase when piano comes in. Dramatic effect. The incoming piano would make it sound like you are actually sending something off into distance as opposed to just capping off a buildup. As far as the melody... I come from the school of thought that it trumps all, so I am not too enthused by the repetition, but I do recognize that it is widely acceptable within dance/trance genres. I would also say that the compression (I am more or less assuming that is what is causing this) is making this a constantly near volume limit spectacle - keep in mind that will distort sound and make it hard to listen to at times. Otherwise not too shabby. I do think you have taken some of the things I have said in the past into account :)
On a broader scale, be brave - do not stick with just one simple melody leading the whole tune; use variations, use different melodies intertwined and other little tricks to make the piece cohesive, longer and more rich in interesting bits. Yeah, learning some music theory if you do not know any WILL help. If you know some, go back and dust it off. I keep going back and trying things from the basics every now and then only to find out I have so much more to learn T_T xD

Cheers, and keep going!

[Shooting Stars [Happy Hardcore]]

Great job! I can see the lead easily being replaced by a singing voice, and that usually is a sign of a solid melody. After checking the original, I see how that came about ;D You lost a star for two reasons, though:

1) 0:55 out of nowhere you introduce fast paced/heavy drums that seem off beat to the rest of what is going on, and that made me cock my head and go "wtf?". It's easy to have that happen if you leave the melody to also serve as a rhythm keeper and do some irregularities with it - and then try to introduce drums, especially mid-phrase. Two ways to deal with such cases is either ease into it with a more sparse beat and build up to the part after the pause, or you could just use a beat that matches what's currently going on, even if it changes in the next section - the latter could amplify the epic feeling of going into the next section as a bonus! Either way, the sudden appearance of those drums was a bit of a no-no. This was my biggest issue.

2) Possible mastering issues and transitions: Pauses can be effective, but if overused it can kill the magic of the piece, too. Not a big gripe here, but I'm thinking the 2:00-2:32 part could have used either more sparse (or lighter) drums or even dropping them altogether, and rather than a lead-in pause have a descending filler melody to retain the intensity coming off the chorus (ascending could work, too). The mastering issues I'm seeing is perhaps just too much crowding, especially with the chorus - it gets overwhelming to my ear when for the duration the volume meter stays put near 0db. Crowding can be solved in multiple ways - putting parts into different registers and timbres and/or EQ-cutting them are two major ones if you do not want to simply take out parts or play with their volumes (some sidechaining is nice too, though I generally can't be arsed to do it and stick with other methods xD).

Like I said, #2 is not major and fairly subjective - but since it may help you to consider those things I thought I'd elaborate :) #1 however does break the magic of this piece for me somewhat. My best tip there is to think of the drums not as the time keeper but as the spice to the piece, if you were to think of the music piece as a dish :) The right spices in the right amounts make a dish delicious! ;P

Hope this helps, and keep up the great work!

PancakePocket responds:

This is probs the best review I have ever gotten, thanks! Yeah, I agree with you on the drums and the pauses!

[Siege]

Really nice if you want to sit back, relax, tilt back a glass of [liquor of choice here] and enjoy a moment of time just like so :D

RaceTTar responds:

thank you siteml

[Siege!]

This is one weird rating considering what I'm about to say.

What are you using to make the music? The samples, expression and dynamics of the piece leave a LOT to be desired.

I've revamped a few of my own pieces that sounded close to this level of ear-bleed sound quality-wise, into pieces worlds beyond what the original seemed to have been imagined as. The limitation of the tools can be a very rough damper on enjoyment, especially if one feels uncomfortable using them to produce.

If I were to give a review solely on those parameters, I'd be generous giving 2 stars..... HOWEVER:

Then there's the composition. I've been working with ComposerCloud in FL Studio for a greater part of this year, so it's easy to take for granted how that great of a tool lends itself to easing composition challenges. You want performance nuances? No problem, just tweak one thing here, another there, and you're looking at just about performance-recording quality of your own ideas. When you're dealing with unpolished and often rough-cut and jarring sounds that need a lot of work to sound even acceptable together, it becomes easy to lose sight of the entirety of the piece in the process. This is also why my respect toward early game composers with limited hardware and software capabilities is just immeasurable. How the bleeping bleep do you even get to that level of awesome!?

And this, in my mind, is where this composition fits in. Yes, there seem to be some awkward blips, and I can see how the tools used may require different tweaks, but if this composition had the chance to be written with stuff at least approaching professional level... this would be a lot better, surely. Thus 4/5 :)

[∀malgamation - Spacial]

This one is better than the extended version, maybe due to mixing changes - or it could be the melody repeating too much.

Something about the timbre, or maybe frequency of repetition of the melody just doesn't sit well with me - it grates on me after a while. I understand the choice to use dissonance to make it "uncomfortable" - but repeating it too much could simply tire the listener, not just make it creepy/uncomfortable. I mean, it's the same 7 notes (4 notes descending, then repeating descent from first note, with what sounds like a slight alteration), only modulated to adjust to the changing chords. It doesn't help that it's all at the same volume (other than the fade out), constantly vibrato, very short, and plays very fast compared to the background, other than the chords. Maybe adjusting one note on each repetition would help (other than to fit the chords), or maybe simply making the instrument itself sound less sharp would do the trick. And thinking about it - it may be due to how it doesn't blend in well with the rest (it's nearly pure sine sound, while everything else is close to white noise) - if it stands out, you generally want it to offer greater variety than the rest of the piece - and it's actually what seems to have the least of it.

Otherwise solid, with rather interesting choices for the background (lo-fi strings, something that sounds like white noise, a regular alert-like sound barely peeking through the rest, and vocal/choral-esque noise later on). I used to work with sound samples of about this quality when I started, so this certainly brings me back a long while - and I sure heard that FL Mobile isn't the greatest in that regard (part of why I never got it), so all is good there :D I can definitely see this in a spooky scene, though with the melody remaining as-is, I wouldn't want to hear it for more than a few minutes, thus only 3.5/5.0.

As an aside, I know I can get super picky/critical, but I always do my best to bring in pointers for improvement (and that's how I get long winded, too, lol) and I will usually point out what was done well, too :D I prefer to receive thoughtful comments/reviews, and that's what (I hope) I dish out, as well! Whatever I say, there's only one way to improve: keep experimenting and creating more! Cheers.

[The Forgotten Plains]

Quality stuff! One note, however:
I can hear background noise in the recording - a fan or something of the sort. It becomes an audible difference especially when you go from your recorded audio to what I assume are sampled/synthesized sounds from a sound library of some kind. I recommend running your recorded audio through noise removal. For that purpose, I use Audacity - which is an excellent free sound editor. To do that in Audacity, just select a moment of silence in the recording, go to Effect>Noise Reduction and click Get Noise Profile. Then select the entire thing (CTRL+A works here) and go back to the same dialog and hit ok to do the noise reduction. It will remove any jarring persistent noise in the recording and make it sound a bit more like it was done in a studio.
Other than that, I love the atmosphere this piece provides! Kudos!

kcpm responds:

Thanks, that's very helpful advice! Damn, it must be my computer fan. I know you can also hear my arm rubbing across the face of the guitar and my chair creaking. I think I might just start recording in the bathroom or closet and padding the walls.

[FFVIII: Force Your Way Metal Cover]

I feel like the guitar is overpowering everything else. The bass and snare drums are strong, but the cymbals are maybe slightly too weak - maybe make some cymbal hits more pronounced? Some of the synths you use barely have any "say" - I'd advise going back to mastering and playing with the levels, maybe adjusting the timbre of the synths, because at times they feel more like an afterthought than an integral part of the piece. Perhaps the solution would be to notch the guitar down a little (and at the same time the drums so that they don't become too loud as a result) - again, I'd play with the levels and see where it goes. Thus why you lost half a star there. Otherwise some pretty sick stuff you got there - I'm a fan of FF music, so this was a treatsie. :) Hope this helps!

JDawg00100 responds:

Thanks! It's not very easy for me to manage 3 or 4 different synth/key parts with two guitar leads, rhythm guitar and drums all going at once, might just take a few more hours of tweaking to get it there. :P

[Drums Of Mordor]

This would have gotten full marks, but the drums.... as Shurrikane already mentioned, the transition at 1:10 could be better - but the drums don't get better, either. The drums are playing off rhythm for a good amount of time since they get introduced at that transition point, which is sadly distracting. To sum up: excellent build up, then awkward transition, and fumbled drums distracting from something that could have grown truly epic. Drums are ever meant as flavoring to spice up a piece, contrary to popular belief, and if not done right they WILL break it. (there are exceptions, but there's a reason they're exceptions!) Nail them, and they augment your creation; add them and fumble, and they will be noticed immediately for the wrong reasons. Do experiment with what drums can do for you in this and other pieces, and best of luck in your musical journey :) (it's my way of saying, keep up the good work - you're not *there* yet, but you've got things going for you. Don't EVER let the negative bits get you!)

BMBRJCK responds:

Thank you for the review! It is very hard to notice such things if you are hearing the track hundred times.
Thanks a lot!