Buoy's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Flashbacks]

First off (I'm posting this to everyone): Note that the scores might be a bit lower than what's typical for NG reviews - no one should expect a 10/10 unless their entry was absolutely incredible.

--

This is perhaps a cliched critique, but it's very clear that this piece doesn't intend to go anywhere - subsequently it doesn't get anywhere. That is okay most of the time, since the background pads and instrumentation you established early on sound pleasant enough. But it becomes painfully obvious during moments like around 2:00, with some very off notes and directionless pitch bending that pretty much sound like bad improvisation. The structure of the song is an extremely slow build-up that starts with a pad, then introduces guitars, flanged shakers and modulated percussion (a seemingly unedited copy of the "Electronic Drum Beat" loop from GarageBand, unfortunately. It's a very widely used loop), and then finally a drum loop ("Natural Drum Kit 09"). The ending is one of the laziest endings I've heard: a weak crash cymbal hit, with no prior warning except there being 8 seconds left of the song.

All in all, I can't imagine that much effort at all has gone into this: after laying down the groundwork with a bland pad (which never changes AT ALL) and adding some unedited percussive loops, it's only a matter of improvising a couple of minor key guitar tracks with no unifying musical idea whatsoever. Its saving grace is that the mix is relatively clear, and the instruments don't clash since their frequency ranges don't overlap too much. That makes it a perfectly listenable piece of ambient music, so I'm aware of how harsh this review must seem, but the song is so thoroughly featureless that I can't see any other judgement being fair.

6 points for sounds and instrumentation.
3 points for composition and melody/harmony.
3 points for theme/originality/other things that might impress.

Overall impression: 4.5

[XS - Leaving (Audio DM 1)]

First off (I'm posting this to everyone): Note that the scores might be a bit lower than what's typical for NG reviews - no one should expect a 10/10 unless their entry was absolutely incredible.

--

The first thing that hits me is that the piano is really, truly synthetic and lifeless. That is of course very noticeable when it's the only instrument currently playing. At points it's almost humorous to note how ridiculously hard you would have to press the keys to actually play the piano with such vigor that it creates the sound of the piano in this song. It's also heavily quantized, which only emphasizes the "obviously programmed" feel of the instrument. Beyond the basic chords, there are a few faster runs - which are a nice addition, but the problems above remain for those as well.

The drums hit hard enough - the kick has sufficient bottom end as well as midrange punch. The snare is nicely layered too. The way the hats are panned out is a nice touch, but it's panned so hard that it gets disorienting through headphones (though it sounds just fine on speakers). The cymbals are a bit quiet, but otherwise fine. None of the samples are anything out of the ordinary, neither is any of the programming.

I'm hearing very little other stuff to really point out. The only remaining instruments are a kind of bland synth sound that emphasizes the drum beat, and a bass synth that occasionally plays the root note. You give the listener the primary musical idea early on and never really stray from it or try to impress, so it does get a bit boring even within the first listen.

The few instruments that are present in the mix are mixed well, as every detail can be heard and no single instrument drowns in the shadow of another. So kudos for that, even if it's not a particularly hard feat with 3 instruments and a drum kit. The overall sound is airy but usually a bit lackluster since the bass synth is rarely present.

6 points for sounds and instrumentation.
5 points for composition and melody/harmony.
3 points for theme/originality/other things that might impress.

Overall impression: 5.0

[Outside the Atmosphere]

First off (I'm posting this to everyone): Note that the scores might be a bit lower than what's typical for NG reviews - no one should expect a 10/10 unless their entry was absolutely incredible.

--

The pretty, but oh so cliched minor key piano intro left me anxious for what I was about to spend my next 6 minutes listening to. Would this be another tiring excercise in the sidechained bass and Fruity Loopy supersaw presets that we're all so familiar with on Newgrounds? Or maybe this one is different? And I have to admit, when you added the rhythmic electro synth in there, I was almost about to let out a sigh.

So you can imagine the relief it was to hear a nicely rounded set of tight, smacking kick and snare (I apologize for how almost sexual that sounded) that did NOT play out a standard 4x4 house beat. A square wave-like lead synth is also introduced at this moment, with some really nice playful portamento. Unfortunately I'm having trouble hanging onto any sort of recurring theme in its melody - for the most part, each bar has its own melodic idea that doesn't have much to do with any of the other ones. This makes it really hard for me as a listener to get engaged, because I never feel "okay, I'm with you: I think I've figured it out now, and I have some sense of what's to come next". For the same reason, you can't really surprise the listener by playing with their expectations either.

That changes quite a bit when the piano gets back in the limelight around 1:48 - where the rhythm and direction of the piano's melody is very clear. The diminished chord arpeggio that occasionally (and very unexpectedly) popped up impressed me. The heavily reverbed piano sound is still pretty, but unfortunately it sounds very little like an actual, played piano. I think whatever piano sound you're using is fine, but the midi sequencing could need some work. There are three things I can think of that would immediately improve the realism: 1. vary the velocity (not just randomly, think "if I was a pianist playing this part, where would I press the keys down hard for impact, and where would I hold back and keep it subtle?"). At the moment it sounds like each note is played at the same (rather high) velocity. 2. Humanize the timing. Straight, quantized notes sound like robot and the best sample library in the world will not help with that. If you can, try to rerecord some of the easier parts, but don't quantize it (or quantize it by 50% or something). 3. Add some playful, faster runs or something that isn't quite confined to the 8th note grid that the arpeggio is playing in. Some 16th/32nd notes or triplets that played their own thing would really freshen the solo piano parts up.

And then the drums and electronic stuff is introduced back again and it sounds great - this is the only point where you might as well keep the rigid quantized piano, because the 4x4 beat and piano line up so perfectly and create a bit of a hypnotic rhythm. Only for a moment though - it's gone when you change the drum rhythm back to what is originally was. At this point it sounds like, well a mildly interesting piano-centric electronic song (the word mediocre comes to mind but it the word would be a bit too harsh). The wild synth arpeggio is kinda pretty, but really doesn't sound at home in this song - it sounds like it would be more effective if the BPM of the song was kicked up considerably, or with a busier mix.

The last minute and a half (which is a LOT of time that can potentially be spent on good stuff in a song) drags on a lot, with very little variation beyond a few extra notes on the piano here and there. The same instrumentation is kept throughout, and almost no bold or creative things are popping up apart from the diminished arpeggio I mentioned earlier. In general, the song doesn't have enough things happening in it to warrant it being 6 minutes long.

6 points for sounds and instrumentation.
5 points for composition and melody/harmony.
5 points for theme/originality/other things that might impress.

Overall impression: 6.0

OpenLight responds:

Thanks for the review! I agree with a lot of what you said, though the reason it may have seemed to drag on is because I almost intended it to. I say "almost" because I wouldn't have realistically have let it drag on, but my mood around that time made it sound good to me, something simple that didn't necessarily have a catchy melody but sounded melodic.

This review obviously took a while and I appreciate it.

[The Storm's Rage (WiP)]

Neat intro, neat snare, guitars sound a lot more okay than the other times you've used it. The rhythm riff wouldn't be too bad played on actual guitars (the guitar solo... yeah it probably would be too bad). And the theme from the title kinda fits even. I like where you're going here. Small steps

Step responds:

This mostly uses soundfonts - this probably begins my 'soundfont abuse' phase. From now on all the songs of mine which aren't techno use soundfonts instead of cheesy FL presets or MIDI.

Hahaha that guitar solo is horrible.

[Windows Wars]

The start is actually pretty good. Drums are usually doing their job properly by now. I imagine you could have made a better song by just replacing everything with actual instruments. After the third one there wasn't really a reason to keep up the gimmick. And hey the instruments don't clash very much at all this time compared to the last one. Your melodies are coming along a bit too.

Step responds:

At this point I started getting some sense of how to write a decent melody. And some of the melodies here aren't bad. I know the whole Windows effects idea was getting way too redundant by the third one, but I really wanted to make a track with sounds from various versions of Windows.

I have no idea how but some of the melodies here are STILL stuck in my head.

[All Hail Windows! 3]

The drums are better than before. Everything is worse and the whole thing sounds more rushed than other attempts. You have a couple of decent melodies but they all clash horribly.

Step responds:

Yup! At least the drums got better lol.

My worst windows song ever. After this, there's Windows Wars and then another tiny part in a song that's all Windows effects. After that, no more Windows songs thankfully haha.

[-Jazzy Song-]

Yup, not jazz yet by a long shot but there's nothing wrong about trying to expands horizons a bit. Some of the influences are there like a shuffle rhythm and a walking bassline, you just kinda didn't know enough to do a good execution of it I guess.

Step responds:

Man, I used to think "if it has a sax, it's jazz". Horrible mentality. The melody here isn't even remotely jazzy :(.

The conga beat isn't bad though.

[-Life Goes On-]

Well despite you telling me to skip it... this is actually a sensible song. Drums aren't just crazy ass shit but an actual beat (not a particularly good one but I'm not expecting that yet). I get kinda what you're going for but yeah, you haven't got down that tight minimalist feel at all. Also did you forget to quantize or something. Idk

Step responds:

The quantizing was because Nessbeatsfox told me that everything sounds computerised so I started shifting notes all over the place in the piano roll to make it sound humanised. I did a horrible job of it though, now it sounds like a retarded 13-year old with no musical sense whatsoever messed it up. Which was kinda what happened :3.

However, I have a lot to thannk Nessbeatsfox though because if it wasn't for him I probably wouldn't have started humanising my songs a little more until much later.

[Jungle Rythm]

Pretty much the same comments here as the previous jungle-based song. There's a lot more content here of course, but nothing terribly exciting after a few minutes, it's mostly the same old percussion masturbation. I should take a break.

Step responds:

Percussion masturbation haha.

By faaaaar my most boring track. But it has a few half-decent rhythms. My last jungle track is Jungle Spirit, which is probably the best from the lot.

[All Hail Windows! 2]

That windows startup sound was AWESOME! It has that cool kinda triplet feel. The different melodies still clash horribly, and as always there's a mix of pretty decent melodic ideas and shitty random ones. Drums are getting a bit less awful, but only a bit.

Step responds:

Everyone I showed it to loved the intro with the startup sound. But yeah over here I started adding a tonne of sound effects everywhere so there was a noticeable decrease in quality.