SkyeWint's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Past, Meet Present]

This is pretty damn awesome, as always. The melodies are great, the mix is full (though a bit too full also like always - you could probably stand to either let up on reverb or the limiter, because those drums are almost completely buried, as is a lot of the fine detail, mainly by the chords), and the ideas are cool.

It feels like the synths were more of an afterthought as we get into the piece, though they're a cool touch at first.

It sounds like in the first half you're playing in a scale other than what the chords are, which feels odd. Same happens after about 3 minutes. Awesome stuff in the second half though, especially the thing at about 3 minutes in with the harmonics. THAT was amazing.

Yeah, biggest things that bother me are the mixing and the playing out of key. This song had a much better ending as well, which is cool.

[~Fore~ Savage]

Shit. This is cool.

I love how the bass in the kick gradually slides in. You also have some pretty cool basses. The plucky chords in the background are great too.

Only thing I really wish this had was a bit of a better melody. The sound design is fantastic! Great use of bitcrushing in the breakdown too! I do agree that the bass could be a bit louder, since at the moment it's pretty lackluster.

Oh man, that ending. It cuts off, which is sad (plz let reverb tail end properly :< ), but that's easily one of the best endings to a dnb song I've heard, despite it not being that conclusive.

If you make stuff like this all the time I'm gonna have to add you as a fan. brb while check other music.

[Machines]

Hey! Thought I should quickly review this before work. :)

The Good:
-Excellent rhythms at the start.
-Fantastic pad at around 0:23 coming in. It's quite beautiful, and works just fine with the low-fi piano in the background. I'm actually surprised the piano sounds good, because it sounds like FL Keys or something - but then, you've always been good at taking lower quality instruments and making them build a ton.
-Great rhythms and patterns at around 0:47.

The Not-So-Good:
-Some of your percussive hits stick out like very sore thumbs. I'm looking at you, 0:16, 0:39, 0:54, 0:58, 1:04, 1:10, etc. Those are definitely a bit too loud and too raw to fit into the rest of the piece.
-Mixing gets fuzzy around 0:30 where the piano is buried. Same around 1:05 where the drums are loud.
-Plain delay fadeout ending. I thought this was going into a reverb wash, which would have sounded a bit better.

Overall: I like it. And I'm glad to hear you making more music! <3 I've sent an email as well, so I'll definitely talk to you more!

spikel responds:

Thanks for taking the time as always!

[NGADM'15: Limitless]

Heyo. Thought I'd drop in and say hi.

I like your piece - it has a lot of energy, and that midsection is excellent. The little detuned metallic noise is awesome.

There are only a few things I don't really like about it - while it has great melodies and ideas, it's still pretty repetitive in the way it's written. The lead is a bit overly grating and could easily be smoothed out by covering up that raw (saw? rounded saw? Not sure what the name is for it) waveform in the lead. Only other thing, and this is the biggest, is that this is really, REALLY muddy from all the instruments and all the reverb on them. I hate to say it but it honestly doesn't sound like you tried to mix the piece pretty much at all. :/ I think lightening the amount of reverb and cutting back on a few of the instruments could clean up the mix a ton without it losing its power.

Hopefully my inner music judge wasn't too harsh, but she was screaming in my ear half the entire song. :(

EliteFerrex responds:

I hear your points, and I thank you for your honesty.

On the contrary, I disagree with you about the nature of the lead instrument, which you described as "grating", and argue that I use a similar sound in many of my tracks. You are the only one who has taken exception to it, despite having run the track past many colleagues since its release.
As for a repetitive melody, I believe that is a matter of opinion, and again see no problem. Many famous tracks of nearly every genre are extremely repetitive, far more so than is to be found here, I believe.
Finally, having spent a great deal of time adjusting levels and EQ on individual instruments as well as the track as a whole, I can assure you that I did, in fact, spend time mastering the track.
Thank you for your review; I wish you the best of luck with your entry, though I'm sure you won't need it, if your inner music judge is correct in her assessments.

[Caribesque]

...

...Nimble.

...Nimble please.

...Nimble please soundgoodizer and maximus are not magic sound-good plugins.

...Nimble please.

...read this. http://blackhole12.newgrounds.com/news/post/363631

[Escape]

Slightly funny that my song is all about bass and yours is all about the high end, despite being called "future bassy stuff" with "bass" as a tag.

Also dear god that's a lot of layered chaos in the high end. You've got a pretty cool melody on top of all the insanity. It's pretty neat.

Love the little nintendo-y transition thing at around 2 minutes. This song might not be my thing really, but it's definitely got its charm and I enjoyed it a lot.

KabukiTunes responds:

thanks dude! I'm listening through the playlist right now, can't wait to get to yours

[Modern Day Hero]

So, you've made it to the final round. You've clearly proven yourself. Time to judge by NGADM standards - scoring will be harsher as a result. In any case, here are some pointers for improvement.

The Good:
-Okay, I don't know what I was expecting, but this wasn't it. This has such an awesome groove right at the start.
-Very laid-back and neat. The bass has some pretty sweet grooves too. Everything in this sounds pretty 80s, if I say so myself. Ironic that this is called "modern-day hero" when it sounds like something from 30-40 years ago. Not that that's bad.

The Not-so-good:
-Yeah, that reverb on the vocals kinda hurts. This could use some heavier de-essing and less reverb/delay on the high end. It really distracts from the vocals.
-Mixing starting around 1:40 suffers pretty badly from the massive amount of reverb. The piano and the background vocals are very much buried by it. I kinda get what you're going for here, but I think this would be very much helped out by lightening up on the reverb - even by about 50%. Cut out half the reverb in the mix or decrease the release time. Either one should probably work.
-This very much needed a change in mood somewhere here. If it had that, it would be far better overall. Basically, the best bands tend to have a shift in the mood of their piece around the middle - generally a calm section in the middle of amped up ones called a "breakdown" (though it could be the opposite). It could also be a shift from an upbeat mood to a more somber mood. That kind of thing would benefit your music the most here.

Final score: 8.7/10. I like it, but that reverb absolutely mauled the mixing here. Were that not there, it would be much better. Also the mood shift thing. That would push this up to be a top-tier piece. Excellent work, though. I can hear it in the singing and everything here!

[First Flight]

So, you've made it to the final round. You've clearly proven yourself. Time to judge by NGADM standards - scoring will be harsher as a result. In any case, here are some pointers for improvement.

The Good:
-Very pretty piano here. I'm getting a very chilly viking feeling from this. This is the kind of stuff I'd imagine in Skyrim (haven't played it ^_^').
-Nice subtle reverb around 0:40.
-Fantastic stringing and vocals, though the vocals are fairly buried.
-Excellent ending.

The Not-so-good:
-Why do you bury instruments? :( You make me sad. It doesn't fuck up the mix but it feels sad to know that there's detail in there which is lacking. And in pieces with more instruments, this would cause much more serious problems.
-To be perfectly honest, the biggest problem with this is probably that it's too short. All the ideas are there. All the composition is there. It just ends before it could really be taken somewhere to tell a full story.

Final score: 9.3/10. I can't really give this much of a lower score. It's fantastic. Just mainly too short, and instruments are buried, causing detail to suffer.

Ylmir responds:

Thanks a lot for your review ! This really means a lot to me.

You really point out something interesting, when saying some instruments are buried - and it's true, and sometimes wanted as well. For example, I didn't want the choirs to prevail in the part beginning at about 0:45, mainly because they were supposed to stand out more in the next section, and because I felt it would detract too much from the feeling I wanted to convey in this particular part. But actually, you're right, I maybe lowered the volume a bit too much on these instruments.

About the track's length... well, I suppose this is what I get for restarting 4 days before the deadline ? :D
I fiinished the composition with only some hours left before the deadline, and, as I already told TaintedLogic, I almost had to sum up some of my ideas in the end.

Thank you again, and thank you for this amazing contest. ^.^

[Groove M.D.]

So, you've made it to the final round. You've clearly proven yourself. Time to judge by NGADM standards - scoring will be harsher as a result. In any case, here are some pointers for improvement.

The Good:
-Oh hell yes. Those chords and plucks right at the start along with the chill percussion and background FX are so great.
-That melody. Yes. I normally don't comment on melodies, but this is really sweet. The synth with it is great.
-DEM JAZZ. YES.
-All the jazz theory and ear candy in this is so awesome that it's giving me eargasms all over the place.

The Not-so-good:
-Okay, first thing. That kick is WAY too loose. I can see why a loose kick is great for this, but this is too loose with the bass section.
-Um, basically the kick and mixing stuff are my only concerns here. There's a bit much in terms of reverb, and all the effects stack on top of each other a bit much. It gets VERY confusing especially with the delay on the lead. Some of the chords are also somewhat buried, like at 0:58, the high end of the chords is fairly buried.

Final score: 9.7/10. Yeah, this is easily my favorite piece out of everything. The mixing quibbles are fairly minor, this has a fantastic theme and great jazzy composition. The chords are well-done, the instruments are great, everything pans well, there's ear candy fucking EVERYWHERE, and it even ends. Like. If you fixed up the mixing a bit I'd be hard-pressed not to give it a straight 10.

[NGAUC Finals!]

So, you've made it to the final round. You've clearly proven yourself. Time to judge by NGADM standards - scoring will be harsher as a result. In any case, here are some pointers for improvement.

The Good:
-This is quite the odd introduction. I like the gating on the noise there. Also liking the chord progressions.
-Oooh, watery wobbly SFX around 0:45 onward. I really like watery FX. You sly devil.
-Very nice reverse effect leading into 1:30.

The Not-so-good:
-The drums and melody in the intro are a bit weird there. The melody mainly seems fairly directionless.
-Around 1:08 onward the mixing gets fairly muddy there, simply because there's too much. Try a bit of EQing with a spectrometer.
-1:30 seems extremely out of place and in a completely different idea than the previous section. At around 1:50 it seems to become clear that it *is* from a different piece. In fact, it sounds very much out of tune with the chord progressions.
-Muddy mixing and more out-of-tune chimes around 3 minutes in.

Final score: 8.4/10. I had a bit of a hard time deciding on this score. However, it's very unique and interesting. I liked it a lot. If the mixing and the out-of-tune sections were fixed up this would be an extremely solid piece of music for the contest. Good work!

TimerClock14 responds:

First of all, thanks a ton! I'm glad you liked the watery FX! TaintedLogic pointed out the same thing as far as 1:30 being out of place and I'm definitely looking to improve on that.

My biggest question to you is when you say the mix is muddy where in specific is it? Usually I'm worried about how my mix sounds in the low end because I don't have equipment that lets me hear very well in that 0-100Hz range. I'm kind of confused when you say "because there's too much." Maybe it's because I've been listening to it for too long but it doesn't sound muddy to me in the mids or highs.