SkyeWint's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[EverythingYouWish - Battle]

Hello! This is a review for the NGUAC competition.

I've gone over one or two general categories of issues specific to your song, and one section of things I think also deserve complimenting. I prefer being very direct with my critique, none of it is meant to offend. Thank you for your understanding!

Constructive Criticism:

- Hey there, this track makes a couple of fairly common mistakes for amateur musicians, which I'd like to go over to hopefully help out with. First of all, it absolutely abuses reverb. Notably, the high base volume of the instruments and particularly bass, combined with a flood of reverb, results in a really 'blown out' sound that has a wall of sound but... not much detail to it. Think of reverb like a blur tool for image editing. Blur can make colors feel 'bigger' and have them take up more room, but a lot of the time you still need clear and sharp lines to contrast with the blurred colors. Similarly, reverb makes instruments feel 'bigger', but that isn't always a good thing and it can mask errors in composition and sound design. Clear, sharp sounds also should punch through reverb and guide the listener to know what they should focus on. This is typically used for bass (since reverb on bass often causes mixing troubles as well) and lead/melodic instruments, as their melodies need to be clear and recognizeable.

- The second major issue going on with this track is aimlessness. You typically have a decent chord progression going on with the strings in the background, so that would be a great first step to use western classical voice leading techniques and make a decent melody to start you off on a solid foundation. Essentially, the lowest note (the bass) and the highest note (the 'soprano', typically) are the most recognizeable notes in your chord. The middle notes flesh it out and provide a bit of extra context, but aren't what listeners are drawn to. Once you have a chord progression like you do in those background strings, you can write a melody by choosing a chord tone for every single beat where a chord starts. In between those beats, you can add a passing tone to go from one note to another, or an ornament of a note one step above or below the next chord tone. Using the same scale of 7 repeating notes will also help keep your instruments harmonizing as you compose.

Compliments to the Composer:

- This track really does have a solid pumping feeling to it as you go through the 'battle', and it differentiates between sections as well, which is excellent. It's also quite good that you seem aware of having consistent melodies, though don't forget to vary them up as well! Give some good game soundtracks a listen and try to remake them in midi to see how their melodies and harmonies are constructed.

Final score: 3

EverythingYouWish responds:

Thank you for your thoughtful review! I will keep this criticism in mind the next times I compose.

[JLZ - The World]

Hello! This is a review for the NGUAC competition.

I've gone over one or two general categories of issues specific to your song, and one section of things I think also deserve complimenting. I prefer being very direct with my critique, none of it is meant to offend. Thank you for your understanding!

Constructive Criticism:

- Righty-ho! I'd like to start by pointing out that the vocals can be QUITE a bit better. They aren't actively bad by any means, but the vocal tone is quite... off. Notably, your vocals sound strained, and a tad nasally. What this generally means is that you need to work a bit more on enunciating the lyrics more clearly, and projecting your voice from the back of your throat and top of your neck, rather than the top of your throat close to the nasal cavity. If you feel vibration in your nasal cavity while singing, it's not the best. This kind of thing substantially impacts tonality, even when you use a radio style EQ or bandpass on the vocals. Practicing your vocal range will also decrease the strained feeling, especially as you let your vocal range explore beyond the comfortable middle zone.

- The second point I'd like to make is about the repetition in this track. Progressive House is inherently repetitive, and you do definitely develop your sound decently, but there are a couple of things keeping the repetition from being unengaging in progressive house music. You have one of them down really well, actually - the drop is very satisfying, though the second drop does deserve a few more bits of variation. However, overall this track lacks atmosphere and ambience, especially at the beginning. As a clear point of comparison, try giving this a listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGdDpMYS7sA Notice all of the sound effects at the start set up an expansive atmosphere for the plucks and eventually drums to flesh it out and provide the more intense pulse for the drop. Even though it's repetitive, the texture of this atmosphere keeps it very engaging.

Compliments to the Composer:

- Now, all that said - this track is *nice*. It develops, it uses bits of 'ear candy' to provide variance during the drop, solid mixing and decent sound design... and quite frankly, that drop bangs pretty hard with the bass, even if it can get a bit overly repetitive at times. I said the second drop could use some variation, and that's true, but that by no means keeps it from being very engaging either since the rhythmic bass is VERY satisfying.

Final score: 8.5

EppuJoloZ responds:

Thanks for the detailed feedback, especially on the vocal side! Right off the bat, my singing skills are quite below average and vocals have always been my weakest "insrtument", and since I don't have any vocalists other than myself, yeah it's a sticky situation :D But I have to appreciate the amount of detail you put in there, and gave some really good tips on there! I'll make use of those in the future for sure.

The thing I care about the most though is the mixing and the sound itself, and I'm super happy that the mix was solid and sound design was good! The structure is repetitive, but that's progressive house for ya ;D

Out of all the NGUAC feedbacks that I have recieved, this one has to be the most detailed one ever, and I gotta give huge props to you about that! Thanks again

[Tron's Day off [UGH 2021 Remix]]

Hello! This is a review for the NGUAC competition.

I've gone over one or two general categories of issues specific to your song, and one section of things I think also deserve complimenting. I prefer being very direct with my critique, none of it is meant to offend. Thank you for your understanding!

Constructive Criticism:

- Well, the very first clear thing I can say is this... really needs some extra variation. The chords, the bass, the melody... they all stay the same throughout - you can layer them on top of each other and achieve some degree of variation that way, but it does only go so far, even over the course of two minutes. As a loop, it might actually be very useful to try varying the music by adding a B section with a different chord structure. Even varying it by just a single chord or by changing up the rhythm would really expand the piece and give it a new feeling - with the added bonus of essentially requiring a new melody or at least recontextualizing it.

- This... has a bit too much reverb as well. It's a common problem, but good to remember that reverb isn't the only way you can spatialize music - try giving some ping-pong delays a shot, auto-panning, stereo separation on your pads, etc. Reverb is lovely but really needs to be used sparingly, as it also makes your mix muddy. You seem to have a sense of this given your kick drum isn't slathered in reverb as well, but it's not a bad idea to try lightening up on it a bit more and seeing what other techniques you can use.

Compliments to the Composer:

- Quite frankly, within the similar framework you set up and with the instruments you have, this is actually rather well-mixed and has some good variation even if it needs a bit more of a major shift to fit really well. Maintaining this type of variation within your larger sections is a really good policy to have, and the fact that you recognize how to set up a dynamic curve is really respectable as well. I happily chilled out with this on loop while writing everything up for you!

Final score: 7

DJ-AfterBurnz responds:

Thank you for the review! I'm very humbled and grateful for your time and advice. I should implement some of these mentioned techniques and feedback into future pieces. :)

[Seed of Darkness (VIP)]

Hello! This is a review for the NGUAC competition.

I've gone over one or two general categories of issues specific to your song, and one section of things I think also deserve complimenting. I prefer being very direct with my critique, none of it is meant to offend. Thank you for your understanding!

Constructive Criticism:

- I am, in fact, going to complain on volume. But, rather than just complaining about it, let's talk about why it's a problem rather than just saying "it doesn't sound good". The initial and relatively obvious issue is that having music too loud can actually permanently damage your ears, which... is obviously bad. But secondly, you're exporting to mp3 or some other compressed audio format to share with other people most of the time. Uncompressed audio files can handle volume above 0dB, but mp3 typically cuts off data at that point, resulting in added distortion and importantly loss of clarity. Even in harsh noise music like this, you typically want to be in control of that noise rather than letting it distort in potentially the wrong way through lossy compression. Particularly high and low frequencies are also distorted or reduced from this effect, even in the highest quality mp3 files. Oh, and most platforms will reduce the volume so it peaks at -1.0dB and if you aren't mastering with that in mind, you'll find your track ends up quieter than intended anyway.

- So, let's say you're going to master something to be really loud and harsh, like this. That's fine. However, an important point to maintain awareness of is the concept of contrast and variation. You even do have variation in this track, giving contrast between sections. However, if everything is harsh noise all the time, the listener won't have as much of a frame of reference to really appreciate it. This is actually the basis behind breakdowns in music, to give the listener a moment of rest and allow them to process the sound they just experienced before pulling them back into the more intense section. As it is, you have very intense sections to the music, but extremely minimal space for listeners to take a moment and understand and process.

Compliments to the Composer:

- I'm really surprised that your drums are so clear through all the noise here, and a lot of your bass modulation is pretty good. It can get painful to listen to, but I appreciate the effort you took to create the sounds here. Like I said, you also clearly have variation, which is a good step above a lot of music I see people first making!

Final score: 1

DistortedVortex responds:

thanks for the criticism while yes i did exported to mp3 i do also have the WAV Export and i can understand the harsh noise criticism but with it being too loud that's mainly just how i master and i wouldn't say it's too loud for me however i like listening to my music loud.

[Laniakea Voyager]

Hello! This is a review for the NGUAC competition.

I've gone over one or two general categories of issues specific to your song, and one section of things I think also deserve complimenting. I prefer being very direct with my critique, none of it is meant to offend. Thank you for your understanding!

Constructive Criticism:

- One of the biggest points I think you could improve on is your chord progression and by extension, your melodies. The base chord structure you're using doesn't... quite fit. So, something that would likely help is actually studying some music theory. In general, music based on western music theory follows the principle of Tension and Release. The goal is to build tension up to points of release (typically V-I chord changes at the end of a hypermeasure). Right now, your chord progression doesn't really do this - it just has tension that isn't resolved or really even built up in a way that seems deliberate or coordinated with your sound design, resulting in a sound more like confusion and aimlessness. One way to help this outside of studying music theory in general is to pull up some music you particularly like and trying to recreate the chord progressions in midi yourself, to see what notes they include and which ones you can remove in order to keep the progression from feeling too empty.

- Oh, man. The sound design in this feels really nice, and I think it can be improved. This track reminds me a LOT of one of my favorite music artists, Camellia. The unique percussion you're using also adds to this, and reminds me of this track specifically: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5oDIYG1Ee0 I think you might have some good inspiration for how to use your bass modulation and choose gentler synthesizers for pads and melodies by listening to some of his work. In this specific case, notice how much the melodic instruments are relatively gentle and percussive compared to the bass modulation, which forms the backbone of the track and is used for rhythmic development.

Compliments to the Composer:

- Quite frankly, the fact that this track reminds me of Camellia to begin with is a compliment in itself. I do really love your bass modulation, and I think you can use it a lot more effectively by chopping and resampling it through your track. There's so much atmosphere in this track that I love too. If you continue along this path, you'll be in a wonderful place to make some VERY engaging music.

Final score: 7.3

DawMii responds:

Thank you so much!!

[VERY EXCITE]

Hello! This is a review for the NGUAC competition.

I've gone over one or two general categories of issues specific to your song, and one section of things I think also deserve complimenting. I prefer being very direct with my critique, none of it is meant to offend. Thank you for your understanding!

Constructive Criticism:

- Wha... where's the bass? What happened to the bass, haha! I checked it out, it seems like you have a low shelf hitting right in the low mids and below. Everything else is plenty loud (even a bit too loud) but it seems like if you have a bass guitar, it's completely missing. I would highly recommend either including a bass guitar, or alternatively having some kind of synth bass added in. If you want to keep your treble focus, another possible alternative would simply be letting your kick and tom drums really THUMP properly. I would guess this might have been a problem while mixing, but most of the mixing would actually be solved by limiting the track properly. Simple way to do that is reducing ALL INSTRUMENTS by -10dB, then following that up with a limiter set to a threshold of -1.1dB. That should help balance your frequency levels out, and could easily result in your mix sounding more full and clean. Oh. Also, be careful with the amount of reverb on that high treble guitar! It can get very fatiguing.

- Honestly, the mix is by far the biggest "?" in this whole piece. However, that doesn't mean I'm quite done! Another thing that this track is really missing is a breakdown for the listener to just... chill. Even intense music has at least some momentary breaks where it chills out, before going back into it. Here, have an example of a track that vibes really similarly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZThbdtFEo0 Notice how the introduction is calm and builds into the main melodic riff of the track. Also, that in the B section around 0:32, the really high treble is reduced, as a relatively chill section before it builds back up at 0:52. There's also the short breakdown at 2:56 after the solo section, giving a moment's rest before it builds up again.

Compliments to the Composer:

- Man, I love your riffs, especially the one right at the start. I love this track. I want to feel the bass so I can really feel it through my body more than just my ears, y'know? It reminds me so much of the theme I linked, which is a track I really like. I love the intense but positive vibe to this so much. As you clean up your mix and develop your composition more, you're gonna have some really really tasteful music on your hands. Nice job!

Final score: 7.8

Daveisgr81 responds:

Thanks for such thoughtful and detailed feedback, I really appreciate it (and the amount of time it must have taken for you to have done all of these reviews!).

I'm working on the limiter issue. As you can hear, there are issues with the mix and many of these were magnified when I added my original limiter (needed to spend more time on the mix). I'll try your course of action - watch this space! There's bass in there too, but it's mixed right down because it's significantly lower quality.

[Beatdown (HARDCORE)]

Hello! This is a review for the NGUAC competition.

I've gone over one or two general categories of issues specific to your song, and one section of things I think also deserve complimenting. I prefer being very direct with my critique, none of it is meant to offend. Thank you for your understanding!

Constructive Criticism:

- Ow, my poor headphones. Okay, first things first. Please for the love of god turn down the volume. Use a limiter, reduce the levels outright, it doesn't even matter how at this point, just that it is not actively clipping all the time from how much you've pushed up the volume. Hardcore is a music genre, but it does NOT mean "turn up everything by 5dB". Mixing in general is based on reducing the volume of problem sounds, not raising up the volume of other sounds to match, as there's only so much information a waveform can fit. Note the clipping distortion on your drums at the moment your hypermeasures end and you transition into the next one such as at 1:18. Not only that, but importantly - doing this can actually damage your hearing and the hearing of listeners if you have the volume set too loud.

- Quite frankly, the volume is far and away the largest issue this track has, but while we're at it, here's one other thing to look at. A lot of this music is actually very repetitive - notice that for the vast majority of the time you have a constant high hat pattern and four-on-the-floor beat with minimal variation throughout almost the entire track. The melodic sections don't actually have much more variation to them. What might be a good idea is listening to an existing music track you really like by a published and/or professionally licensed musician, and listening to how frequently musical phrases are repeated. There's actually quite a bit more variation than you would think, even in dance, hardcore, and high bpm EDM in general.

Compliments to the Composer:

- I'm really impressed this came out of FL Studio Mobile. That thing is a pain in the butt to use, haha! While I think this repeats ideas a tad too much, you do actually have a good amount of ideas that you can pull from and it would work pretty decently if this track were about half the current length - even including a breakdown in the middle! I think you can definitely do well in the future, just make sure to keep your instrument levels a tad bit more in check.

Final score: 3

coolssh3 responds:

Oof... You know, I have been told that the volume is a bit of a problem by someone else. But in all honesty, I appreciate that you went through the trouble of typing this! I'm constantly looking for things to improve on.

[Neon Night]

Hello! This is a review for the NGUAC competition.

I've gone over one or two general categories of issues specific to your song, and one section of things I think also deserve complimenting. I prefer being very direct with my critique, none of it is meant to offend. Thank you for your understanding!

Constructive Criticism:

- This has two common errors I see with amateur producers. The first of which is that you only really use one melody throughout the entire track. This is also the case with the chord progression. You do have very small amounts of variance, but the actual content and mood of them is the same. Specifically - they maintain the same notes on the same rhythms with added notes in them, and those all fall into the same chord progression. This feeling of sameness is enhanced by the lack of variety in your sound palette. It's all generally the same type of sound - constant four-on-the-floor beat, basic drums, sidechaining to each beat, same pad without much modulation, etc. It's all very... inoffensive - but at the same time, nothing particularly sticks out because of how similar all of it is.

- The second is some... very odd harmony. Specifically the chord progression at 0:08-0:11. This... is odd. Specifically, while this piece's style is based in classical western harmony, this chord progression doesn't quite work in that theory. See, western music styles are based on the idea of tension and release. In chord progressions, the most basic form of this is V -> I (something like a G major chord to a C major chord). This doesn't happen with your chord progression, and it's noticeable in how actively awkward it ends up sounding. The major problem with this in your piece is that this is the conclusion of your chord progression - it causes your melody to do some very weird things and fail to feel conclusive, or really even achieve much of a point of 'arrival'. What I would highly recommend doing is looking into chord progressions in music theory, and perhaps tracing out the chord progressions of some of your favorite songs, recreating the harmony with your own midi instruments to see how they do it.

Compliments to the Composer:

- This track is honestly pretty solid. Aside from the chord kerfluffle and some of the monotony, it's generally very nice and chill. In fact, the monotony isn't actually that major an issue - it's just a result of the factors I stated in that piece of criticism. Otherwise, this is really nice and easy on the ears, feels decent to listen to, and isn't even mixed all that badly. I think once you tweak a bit of your chord progressions and add a B section that changes up your chords and melody, you'll have some really solid little tracks on your hands, even more than this is already!

Final score: 5.5

CatConet responds:

Thank :3

[Interrogation]

Hello! This is a review for the NGUAC competition.

I've gone over one or two general categories of issues specific to your song, and one section of things I think also deserve complimenting. I prefer being very direct with my critique, none of it is meant to offend. Thank you for your understanding!

Constructive Criticism:

- Okay, this track really really needs to have its waveform EX P A N D E D. What I mean by that is that right now, it sounds very... 'crunched' into just the mids and compressed into a smaller db level than it really deserves. This type of sound works in the intro, but once you get into the more intense section, it barely feels like it opens up at all. Try exploring into higher and lower frequencies (though, careful with the intensity) and allowing your bass to reach into the subs a bit more especially. Limiting the track to -1.1dB would also be lovely. Do be careful with your reverb as you do this, since it can end up filling up your audio space a bit too much and cause mud.

- For a background in a video game, this track works quite well solely as background. It can, however, be more engaging - and also fit the framework of a contest more to boot, by giving it more of a B section with a new chord progression, and adding in some more clearly audible melodic themes throughout. Having more frequency space and loudness available to work with dynamics and expressive synths would help, but you can even do this right now with the instruments you have. You use so many of them for arpeggiation and small melodic fragments, but nothing that really clearly shows a hook. Try using that hook earlier in the music so that people can latch onto it and later go "oh hey, it's that melody again!" This type of feeling is exciting and tends to be very engaging for listeners.

Compliments to the Composer:

- Oh my god I love the framework and atmosphere and instruments you have here. Expanding the frequency space is partly because I want to hear all of their harmonics and sparkling spice and depth of bass. Your main pad is smooth and comfortable, providing a wonderful background for all the other instruments to sparkle over - like that wonderful bit of steady metallic percussion panned right throughout the track (I love this sound so much and want it in my library) and the triangle panned left at the start. Your variation in sound design with filtering is very nice, at the end I was wanting the music to continue because you had explored such a lovely bit of sonic space right there before it finished. (please continue this kind of stuff, damn)

Final score: 7.8

Bradley-Pittman responds:

Thanks for the extremely thoughtful review!! You’ve given me several great tips and ideas that I’ll keep in mind in the future : )

[Bottom Kek- Blitz]

Hello! This is a review for the NGUAC competition.

I've gone over one or two general categories of issues specific to your song, and one section of things I think also deserve complimenting. I prefer being very direct with my critique, none of it is meant to offend. Thank you for your understanding!

Constructive Criticism:

- What this song could really really use is some variation in the central idea. It keeps the same rhythm and chord progression the *entire* way through the music, even during the breaks. It's good to have a central idea, but there absolutely need to be times in which it takes a break. You can absolutely add secondary melodies, variation in the chord progression, or variation in the rhythm completely in order to do this, but there's only so far that pure sound design variation will take it.

- Secondary issue would probably have to be the mixing, though it's so much more minor than the issue of being extremely repetitive. During the climax to the music in the second half, notice how much reverb you have washing to the sides. However, in the center of your soundstage, all of the instruments get really crunched together and don't feel like they have enough room to BREATHE. Try reducing some of the reverb and panning instruments. You have the whole stereo field to work with, after all (though check it with mono to make sure they mix decently well that way too). Spatialization is your friend and you don't have to abuse reverb or delay to widen your stereo field.

Compliments to the Composer:

- My god I love your username. ...right, music. Your sound design and instrument selection, mixing issues aside, is really on-point. I love the little bits of sound design variation and the drum fills when they come in, they add a really tasty amount of spice. You also cleary know the importance of having a breakdown, and how to organize builds and climaxes in your music, so I think you can absolutely fix up your weak points and make some really good music in this genre.

Final score: 7.2

BottomKek responds:

Thank you so much for your review! I've never really had any direct feedback when it comes to mixing before so this has been a really helpful review! I definitely think this is one of my most repetitive pieces but it's also one of my cleanest sounding ones overall. I'm gonna take this advice and run with it! Thanks again for the feedback