Buoy's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Xkur Top Secrut Preview!!!!!!!]

dude

finish it

i want it

xKore responds:

thxs sbb ily

[SR - Smashin']

well

I like the /Other Samples folder in Reason too

anyway, I like this song.

SineRider responds:

silly sbb, I made this in Ableton Live. No reason samples at all :)

[Rig - Sentience Loop]

Jesus christ...

How you manage to rerecord, granulize and fuck up bass sounds so much without it sounding like undefined and washed out shit is beyond me.

Rig responds:

MAGIC

The key is to preserve the root tone of the sound. By the process of chopping up sound at a set rate, granualization gives a unique tone to a sound.

[But Another One]

yes

Such a cool sound and initial concept. Love the lofi sound and sampled chords. Unfortunately it sounds like you looped a few bars for 4 minutes with little variation, so it serves for little more than an annoying background sound after a while, especially since the vinyl scratch samples are so loud. Work on this one and I think you'll have a proper hit.

cky12qxz responds:

Yeah, i know this is literally the same thing looped for 4 minutes but it's ambient, it's supposed to be like that.

[Rig - Warface]

Well that's a lot of mess

The bass is kinda floppy and makes so much high range noise that it drowns out the little synth melodies and even renders its own melody unintelligible. Even the drums are drowned out a bit. The kick still punches through nicely though.

Rig responds:

I think it sounds fine. It's supposed to be the centerpiece anyways. I also kept the chords and melody in the center channel while spreading out the bass, for extra clarity.

[Racing Through Eternity]

Nice

Please excuse that my review isn't structured all that well. I did listen through it a few times, then I skipped through it to different parts to find out stuff that I would point out in my review. Hence;

Throughout the song I'm noticing that the high end is a bit extreme. It's got that noisy quality that exhausts the ears after a while, usually resulting from detuned saws and noise sweeps with lots of reverb. For example, the thing at 1:40 should have a bit more tonality in my opinion, now it's mostly a harsh sweeping noise. I'm thinking maybe it would be a good idea to tone down the super-high frequencies and kick the 6-9khz range up a bit to make it a bit more pleasant while keeping that hi-fi sound.

Dude! I love that mood change at 1:35 SO MUCH! The square synth thingy introduced the calmer part perfectly. There was a similar transition previously, but now it stands out a lot since the same instrument wasn't used previously in this part. Just excellent.

I like the more laidback feel about halfway in the song when you switch to half time and then build up to the standard part again. Really gives the whole piece that kind of "epic" feel after a full listen. I could see even more processing (mostly reverb) on that specific part, to make it stand out a bit. I dunno. It's fiine.

There are some gems in this piece that i only noticed when cranking up the volume quite a bit. The hi-passed little buildup around 1:47 for example, there's this kind of resonant tone hidden deep inside the noise. A perfect example of juicy synth bits that I'd like to hear more of. Another thing I only noticed when I listened to it quite loudly is the quite extensive reverb on the low end. I notice you used some of those super-processed kicks (VEC I assume?) from 1:00. This is something you should be very careful about using for anything but emphasis (kinda like you'd use a crash cymbal), but here it strangely doesn't mud up the mix very much. It sounds very cool too, so I'll let the senseless use of low end reverb slide. For now :)

Hmm, the piano part was great, the melody and supporting harmonies are good, but I think it's the wrong choice of piano. The one you're using has no dynamics at all, and the velocity is way higher than what is realistic in any sense of the word. This makes it sound strikingly similar to so many cheesy trancy songs that use FL Keys. Which is unfortunate.

There's a noticeable degradation of sound quality due to poor compression at 0:49 and 3:42. Fix that please.

Ok so I'm going to put a generic overall paragraph here to tell you I thoroughly enjoyed the piece and any flaws I'm pointing out are quite minor and strictly my opinion (except those near-clipping spots I mentioned. Seriously there's no excuse not to fix that :P). Very nicely done man. Keep up the good work!

Step responds:

Wow, man, epic review. Now I know what it feels like getting walls as reviews xD. At first you're like 'HOLY CRAP' and then once you finish reading you're like "Wow, that was awesome", right? Hehe, thanks for the awesome review, I worked really hard on this so any constructive criticism is greatly appreciated.

To answer to your first paragraph, now that you mentioned it, the high end is a bit too prominent in this. I'm not one to make bassey songs (my first attempt at Drum'n'Bass can be compared to the sound someone makes when puking :3) so I can't disagree with you. I'll definitely get around to balancing this out a bit more, although maybe I can blame my terrible Ye Olde Subwoofer, which makes the low end of everything I hear through my speakers virtually nonexistant xD.

Also, regarding the sweep at 1:40, you're completely right. It just didn't come out how I wanted it to lol :P. I'll have to make it sound less like white noise :D.

Regarding the second paragraph, I used that transition like 4 times in the song xD. I feel that it sort of links the song structure together. Also, I was lazy and couldn't think of a better transition :3. Well, glad it worked out then ^^.

As for the 3rd paragraph, yeah I always try to vary the moods in my songs with breaks, ambient parts and all that. An epic song isn't all epic, so I'm glad you liked that part.

4th paragraph:
"There are some gems in this piece that i only noticed when cranking up the volume quite a bit."

Lol, I won't dare turn the volume higher than usual, or I might risk making my other ear deaf too xD.

"The hi-passed little buildup around 1:47 for example, there's this kind of resonant tone hidden deep inside the noise. A perfect example of juicy synth bits that I'd like to hear more of."

Haha, that was unintentional :P. You really have an ear for music ^^.

"Another thing I only noticed when I listened to it quite loudly is the quite extensive reverb on the low end."

Hmm, yes, I tend to add reverb to a lot of things; in this case the kick I used to add emphasis and the bassey arp. That'll probably explain the excessive use of reverb in the low end I suppose.

"I notice you used some of those super-processed kicks (VEC I assume?) from 1:00.

Nope, not VEC. Just some random layered kick samples :D.

"This is something you should be very careful about using for anything but emphasis (kinda like you'd use a crash cymbal), but here it strangely doesn't mud up the mix very much. It sounds very cool too, so I'll let the senseless use of low end reverb slide. For now :)"

Heh, I suppose I got lucky there then xD.

Regarding your 5th paragraph, I'm happy you liked the piano part, although I never actually thought of adding different velocities to the piano part. I sort of have the mentality that trance tracks don't need different velocities lol. Well, again, I agree with you with the different velocities, I'll definitely fix that later on.

6th paragraph, 0:49 and 3:42... You know, maybe people complained about that :P. It's probably because of the fact that there's so much going on at that time, I'll probably not make it so full of loud sounds lol.

And as for the generic overall pragraph; I'm glad you enjoyed the song. I agree with all of the stuff that you mentioned, even if they're strictly your opinion ^^. Yeah there's no excuse not to fix the near-clipping parts, I'll get around to it xD. So, thanks again for the really really epic review. If you ever want to trade reviews again, I'd be glad to. I'm thinking of reviewing your song Absent Minded sometime anyway :D.
I've probably said this too many times, but thanks a LOT for the review!

[[LY] Cranberry Cigar [pre]]

Sooooound good

Feels a bit unfinished yes. The main synth is nice but very plain and without a proper melody. The drums are also very plain, sounds obviously extracted from a sliced loop. The loop that comes in at 0:50 has a better flow to it and sounds better in this context. The subbass is very nice sounding, but there's only so much you can do with a clean sub like that, I'd suggest shaping it up a little, either by layering or some subtle distortion and modulation. Sounds very good as a starting point for a song. Keep up the good work and good luck with the finished piece. Tell me about it when yer done.

la-yinn responds:

Hey SBB, thanks for the review!

Well actually the kick and snare aren't from loops, only those weird hats in the beginning and some of the high-end that comes in at 0:50, the rest is a looot of stuff layered. Snare needs some snap, but I already got that covered. ;)

As for the rest, I'll be sure to try it out!

[Rig - Moar]

MEHR!

It's pretty cheesy and not as what should I say sophisticated as some of your other doodles, but it doesn't matter because the little vocal samples make it so awesome. A bit like Weebl's cartoons, I guess. The production is balling though so it definitively stands out. My ears also promptly came at around 4:06.

I'm also adding this one to my running/cardio exercise playlist. Thanks much.

Rig responds:

Yeah, it's not as sophisticated. I went for silliness with this one :D
Thanks for the review, and sorry about the mess.

[Rucklo - Endless Handbag WIP]

kinda... cheap sounding

I think it needs much more work than just polishing, everything sounds muddy and harsh like midis from old rpgs, and I don't know how much mixing can help that. I notice that in a lot of your songs, really... you tend to use very thin lo-fi sounds a lot. But in this song they're especially cheap. Especially that piano bugs me.

I think what is really needed for this song is a different choice of instruments... smoothen things up a little, filter the sounds so they aren't as brittle, put some subtle sweeping modulation here and there, perhaps adding a reverb bus would do the trick. And I think in order to recreate anything like the mood of the original you should use sampled drum loops (ideally a bit mangled, with dirty compression and rolled off highs) instead of programmed drums, and most importantly get something that resembles the sweeping synth in the hook of the original song

[xKore - Distorted]

I just have to say

So yeah I listened to this one to review it in that death match thing but... holy shit this is a joy to listen to, it's the only NG song I've been listening to a lot recently. It's probably an excellent club tune too. Compared to most songs, there is a hilariously large amount of sub bass and sidechaining but it, somehow, works. I love the little filtered bass thing at 0:46-1:00, there's something about it that really gets me, it's one part dark, one part brutal and one part suggestive. Now what I'd really love is a song similar to this, but based on that kind of bassline.