Buoy's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[MD2010 - War Theme #2]

yabbadaahrdfsedfgfdgh

Short version: you get a 10 for the composition (well for a 1:37 long song atleast) and 7 for the mixing, but the former is more important here so you get a 9.

Long version: Well the intro is pretty sweet. Very suspenseful, very minimal, I'm thinking a scene where the first gang is lurking in the shadows, ready to surprise the others. At 0:11 the other gang becomes aware of the first and then of course the battle breaks loose 30 seconds into the song. At 0:11 the ride cymbals sounded like they were played with a shuffle rhythm, so I thought what is he going to make a battle theme with a shuffle rhythm? Which would have been WAY COOL but not really fit the theme. But you went with a straight rhythm of course, I was just deceived by those sneaky cymbals.

So when it goes into the main part the basic foundation is already there (from the piano thing in the start) and it just works very nicely. Same thing when it goes into that little string break (which, by the way, is when the other instruments get their... wait for it... spring break! Aren't I hilarious!?), the melody here is also a variation of the main theme, but it's got just the right length and adds a nice variation before leading into the main theme. No surprises really, predictable in a good way almost, since you kinda go "oh here it comes... this is gonna be awesome... bam!". Well I didn't really think that but I would have, if the song was mixes awesomely.

Other notes before I go into the cons... drum beat is very nice, fits in perfectly. The instruments all go very well together really, it works since it's basically a standard rock setup with strings and without bass (as far as I can hear). Staccato strings are very nice too.
The guitar sounds... kinda real, I guess? The divebombs and feedback obviously add a lot of realism (and epicness!). Still getting Slayer vibes though. I think it's just a limitation with sample libraries, even if you put an amp simulator on. Almost every sample library of electric guitars have that same unnatural sound unfortunately, especially when distortion is added.

Ok but as you certainly know by now I have a few problems with the mix, which makes me not want to turn the volume up. The high end is very gritty and the low end is very undefined. There are a number of causes for this I think, first thing I notice is the drums are messing things up. The snare sounds like it's got a bit too much bottom and too much reverb. The kick and toms sound like they're competing with something, so you don't get that powerful "thump", just a lot of mud (and an overcompressed low range). What I usually do for cleaning up bass, kicks and toms is boosting a quite narrow area somewhere in the 100-800hz range (a different area for each sound), then cutting everything around it and possibly boost the high mid range to make it snappier. Also put a high pass filter at 300-400hz on everything else. Just a tip, but I find this technique helps tremendously on muddy mixes.

The crash cymbal also sounds kinda ugly btw. :P

The guitars also sound a bit thin in this mix. But the mix is pretty busy so to make the guitars stand out more, something else would have to go, so that's more of a personal decision than anything really.

Uh I need to leave now so I don't have time to wrap up the review. But yeah that's pretty much it. OK KOOL LOL!

Step responds:

EPIC LONG REVIEW :D.

Seriously, thanks a LOT for reviewing this. It's amazing how much you could say for one minute and thirty seven seconds O.o. This review left me speechless (here we go with the speechless again) and if I wasn't so talkative I would just fill this response up with 'thanks''s, but I'm talkative, so here goes :D.

Dear God, you only had 738 characters left? That's not enough for me to copy your review and paste it in the response space so I can answer to your review piece by piece :C.

Oh well, I'll just grab bits of it and answer it...

"you get a 10 for the composition (well for a 1:37 long song atleast) and 7 for the mixing, but the former is more important here so you get a 9."

Yay :D. The mixing problems are both because I couldn't be arsed to EQ everything properly and because I suck at mixing as you know, but I'm glad you liked the composition!

"Well the intro is pretty sweet."

Thank you :3. This intro is a longer and more suspenseful than the intro of the first War Theme, probably because the first was made for a flash and had to be close to a minute long and this one had no restrictions. The gang thing certainly does fit with the music now that you mentioned it.

"But you went with a straight rhythm of course, I was just deceived by those sneaky cymbals."

Lol xD. Yeah I tend to do that in my songs :D.

"(which, by the way, is when the other instruments get their... wait for it... spring break! Aren't I hilarious!?)"

*Groan* :D. I did it that way since it was the same with the first War Theme and I wanted to add a few similarities between them.

"No surprises really, predictable in a good way almost, since you kinda go "oh here it comes... this is gonna be awesome... bam!". Well I didn't really think that but I would have, if the song was mixes awesomely."

My bad xD.

"Other notes before I go into the cons... drum beat is very nice, fits in perfectly."

Glad you like it, I tend to do somewhat well at drums, usually.

"a standard rock setup with strings and without bass (as far as I can hear)"

Yep, no bass. The old War Theme has a French Horn, but I decided to take it out for this one :3.

"The guitar sounds... kinda real, I guess? The divebombs and feedback obviously add a lot of realism (and epicness!). Still getting Slayer vibes though. I think it's just a limitation with sample libraries, even if you put an amp simulator on. Almost every sample library of electric guitars have that same unnatural sound unfortunately, especially when distortion is added."

Yep... the guitar effects are just a desperate attempt to make the guitars sound even more real. Sorohanro's guitars are basically the only somewhat real-sounding guitars I have, except Virtual Guitarist, but that plays its own preset rhythms, which I hate >:C.

As for your complaints about the mixing, yep, you're obviously right. Only problem is that me being deaf in one ear really handicaps my ability to determine how much I should boost or lower a frequency, what sounds right and what doesn't. Or maybe I'm just thinking up excuses to hide my lack of mixing skill :3.

And the over-compression with the drums is my bad. When I compressed too much I thought "Nah, nobody'll notice.". I forgot that nothing slips past you, eh? :P.

"The crash cymbal also sounds kinda ugly btw. :P"

Noted xD.

"The guitars also sound a bit thin in this mix. But the mix is pretty busy so to make the guitars stand out more, something else would have to go, so that's more of a personal decision than anything really."

Nah actually I agree with you. I'm probably going to redo the volume levels a bit. I'm thinking of making the double bass and guitar louder and the staccato strings and violins/viola at 0:50 a bit quieter. I'll see (hear) how it turns out.

"Uh I need to leave now so I don't have time to wrap up the review. But yeah that's pretty much it. OK KOOL LOL!"

Thanks again for the really long and helpful review! I owe you one more than you owe me one :D.

-Review Response Club-

Just to piss you off xP.

[The Traveller - Maffiss]

cool

Nice and smooth background music with some sweet touches from the guitar. The electric piano chords are very lovely :) The hihat is very loud though, too loud and bright for the feel of the track I feel. If you put a little low pass filter on it I think it'll merge great with the other tracks.

Oggy-cheese responds:

Thanks for the feedback. Still in early stages though and haven't tested it fully on other speakers / headphones so I'll probably do that. Thanks for letting me know, and glad you like it!

[Sorrow Of Life]

yes

Very cool, sounds a lot like the previous song with the dramatic scary chord progression. Perhaps a bit more packed and punchy this time around. Very awesome once again! Keep it up!

mr-vincent responds:

Hahah thanks, I will try to do something like this tonight... But I must change style a bit, last 2 songs were only in minor... Strings were only doing minor chords... I... would... see... :p

[Gates_Of_Oblivion [Box-Killa]]

UH HELLU

Song had the same foundational melody during more than half of the song, that melody went on for a biiiit too long. Lots of fun to be had though, with different instruments and effects and such, sounds like a big synth jam. I think you should do something with the structure though, shake things up a little. Around 1:15 or so it would be nice with a new melody. You do finally change things up though, at 2:31, with a pretty cool part. The straight melody with the plucked synth kinda sounds like Animusic.

Btw the first few bars (yeah well and the last few since you brought it back) were damn cool, I loved the bouncy distorted thingy in the background, kinda had its own unique character.

The drums are nice, the main beat sounds nice and dark, I still don't feel the kick has that "whoop-ass" punchy feel though. But it's close ;)

Summary: cool song bro

Is the title a pun btw? Since you seem to be using trance gates a bit... :P

Box-Killa responds:

Alrighty I know exactly what I am going to do now. Thank you. I am going to change 1 melody, I think that would do it, And I am going to lower the volume of the drums at the start a bit so they build up. That's what im gonna do,

Also I wasn't going for a heavy BOOTSS bass drum, I wanted a bit light feel with a more melody centric song.

I guess the title is an "unintended pun" :P

thanks for the review

[Dinner on the Spaceship]

dude

Chill down with the crazy panning shit! Or make a version without it, it just becomes an annoying gimmick after a while. Cause the song would be so lovely as a straight jazzblues kinda song.

thecoreman responds:

Lol, I have a straight Jazz (jazz/funk really, but WTH) track - "Jazz with a 'Fro". I wanted this track to be unique because of the effects.

Thanks anyways for the review :D

[J+Ø: SCKR(Low) >Master< RD2010]

Haha holy shit

The forman bass thing is INSANE. How exactly are you doing it? To me it sounds like you sent a wave through a couple of bandpass filters (i.e a formant filter) and then bitcrushed it.

Anyway, the tune is sick basically. Lovin' the deep synth with the m7 chords and all. Tune's got a really diverse, clean and wide mix as well. So much to love. Excellent track. Only thing that's bugging me is that the ultra-deep sub isn't as defined as it could have been, so it sounds more like a layer of thin mud behind the track if you know what I'm saying.

mr-jazzman responds:

Hey man, thanks for the excellent review! Yeah, the formant bass is fun, I'll let you know about it over PM (since a lotta people don't know about it and I like to keep things that sound awesome on the DL ;) ). What really makes me happy to hear is how you like the "clean and wide mix." This means I'm getting even closer to that mastering that I love! And yeah, I'd definitely agree that the sub is a little "muddy." I'm not entirely sure how to go about editing this, and I think it'll just take some experimenting (my favorite thing in the world! =D). I got a lotta inspiration for the mastering and EQing from xKore, who's an excellent producer himself. I hope to learn more from him in the future. But, to know I came close to a good sound makes me happy. Don't worry; I'll get that sub to really sound nice soon...maybe on my metalstep project! =D

Thanks for the feedback SBB. It means a lot comin from you!

P.S. Make sure to give a shout out to my dubstep homeboy, FiendO, as well. Don't forget that he had just as much a hand in producing this bad boy as I did! ;)

[Orchestral Theme 3]

This is

Cool.

-SBB-

Gravey responds:

Thanks.

-Gravey-

[Lost in the Cavern]

Well gosh

I can't believe you have a number of consistently good songs like this. New favourite artist for sure.

mr-vincent responds:

haha thank you, it make me happy to feel that people love this :)

But you know, every time I hear my best songs, i can't believe that I really created them !!!!
I'm impress like you :p

[Lights of Darkness]

WHAT

This is quite extraordinary! Haven't heard anything of this quality on Newgrounds in a long time.

Really thick layer of guitar. What kinda rack/software are you using? Fantastic dramatic chord progression and orchestral backing makes it sound like some of the best stuff from Dream Theather. The strings stand a little too much back though I think, would love to hear it more up front.

I don't think guitar/bass/drums/strings are enough to do this song justice though. Would you be able to make stems of this song? I would so much love to make a little alternate version of it.

mr-vincent responds:

Hahahaha thank for the review !! I'm only using a Line 6 Toneport UX-2 (Cost $300).. I take cubase as master recording and I put Reason as rewired device in cubase... It only took 7h to do my song :p

As you can see, my english is bad, when you sayed "Would you be able to make stems of this song?" I don't understand what you mean... What is "stems" ?

[RD2010 - I'm a Robot]

Big project, lots of effort, soundin' good.

Sweet-ass intro man. The whole song is a bit dry perhaps but you really got something going with the various percussion. Woulda been cool with a similarly-themed breakdown right in the middle of it, with crazy-ass glitchy variations of the same percussion as in the intro. But yeah I think you did a really good job capturing that "robot day"-vibe I think the staff is looking for. You got the playful vibe, you got the industrial elements, you also got some humor and original lyrics, what can I say, you're all set to win this thing.

The composition also, is mostly excellent, extremely diverse. That's the good thing with collaborations, you get something pretty unique. And the melodies are, I'm not sure how to put it, mature, in a way. Especially in that jazz part, you know, the horn is all laidback and cool and the percussion complements it very well.

So yeah. You've got a god damn good thing going here. Good luck with the winning.

AND SO, PLEASE GIVE ME A MINUTE TO POINT OUT STUFF I THINK COULD BE IMPROVED,

The horn synth sounds a bit much like a stock cheap stock midi sound. Woulda been better if it was either a different sound altogether or if it wasn't so intrusive, i.e it had a little reverb or lowpass.

So the vocals are pretty off and to be blunt it all sounds very amateurish. I understand the stuff you wrote about the vocals thing but I disagree that it should be off-pitch. It just sounds too human as of now. They are programmed to output exact data, so the notes should be consistent (though not necessarily strictly in tune or quantized). THEREFORE, it seems to me like like, for a Robot day song, you really NEED the vocals to have some fast, crude autotuning, perhaps with shifted formants too, to give it a more unnatural sound. And perhaps also some bitcrushing to give it some character and originality. That's my thought on that...

Some obvious clipping/overcompression problems throughout the song... I think it's a result of the bass range being a bit too loud and muddy at times.

That's all I have to say about that.

Step responds:

"Sweet-ass intro man. The whole song is a bit dry perhaps but you really got something going with the various percussion."

Yeah I didn't really want it to sound full of depth and dosed in too much reverb in the techno parts, unlike in the vocal parts, and even then I didn't use too much reverb :D.

"Woulda been cool with a similarly-themed breakdown right in the middle of it, with crazy-ass glitchy variations of the same percussion as in the intro."

Damn that's a good idea. Wish I had thought of it, but it's too late now :P.

"But yeah I think you did a really good job capturing that "robot day"-vibe I think the staff is looking for. You got the playful vibe, you got the industrial elements, you also got some humor and original lyrics, what can I say, you're all set to win this thing."

Haha thanks. I really hope I win or at least get second or third. This song was weeks of non-stop hard work :(.

"The composition also, is mostly excellent, extremely diverse. That's the good thing with collaborations, you get something pretty unique. And the melodies are, I'm not sure how to put it, mature, in a way. Especially in that jazz part, you know, the horn is all laidback and cool and the percussion complements it very well."

Yeah, I definitely agree with you there. I took advantage of collaborating with someone who knows a lot of music theory (Darklight) who took care of the harmonizing and most of the background melodies, while I took care of a lot of the foreground melodies. Definitely produced a unique result, to say the least.

Glad you like the melodies :D.

"So yeah. You've got a god damn good thing going here. Good luck with the winning."

Thanks!

"The horn synth sounds a bit much like a stock cheap stock midi sound. Woulda been better if it was either a different sound altogether or if it wasn't so intrusive, i.e it had a little reverb or lowpass."

Yeah, you're right about that, I was thinking of layering East/West brass on top of it and giving it some reverb, but I had so much to do with the song that it passed my mind :3. I'd go back and quickly fix it if it doesn't take 4 hours to export lol.

"So the vocals are pretty off and to be blunt it all sounds very amateurish. I understand the stuff you wrote about the vocals thing but I disagree that it should be off-pitch."

Haha lol not a problem, that 'robots are never perfect' thing was me thinking of an excuse for Nick's singing :D. Not saying it was bad, but there were a few notes which were off, so I had to think of something to say xD.

"It just sounds too human as of now. They are programmed to output exact data, so the notes should be consistent (though not necessarily strictly in tune or quantized). THEREFORE, it seems to me like like, for a Robot day song, you really NEED the vocals to have some fast, crude autotuning, perhaps with shifted formants too, to give it a more unnatural sound. And perhaps also some bitcrushing to give it some character and originality. That's my thought on that..."

Hm, yeah, but the thing is, this song is supposed to sound comical and funny, yet still evoke a robot feel from the melodies, effects and instrumentation. If Nick's voice was unnatural and robot-y, then it would take away from some of the humour, I think.

Actually, if you hear close enough, I added a metallic-sounding layer at the second repetition of the first and second chorus, but it's very low volume :3.

I didn't really want the vocals to be unnatural and robot-sounding, to be honest, since it wouldn't sound as funny, and I already have the background music and effects to take care of the robot feel.

Although maybe I'm talking crap xD.

"Some obvious clipping/overcompression problems throughout the song... I think it's a result of the bass range being a bit too loud and muddy at times."

Haha that's my amateur mixing skills at work :P.

"That's all I have to say about that."

You're pretty much right about everything, wish I had time to change the song a bit. Thanks a LOT for the awesome review!