SkyeWint's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Deathmatch]

Noisysundae - Deathmatch:

The Good:
-Your thematic placement is very good - it repeats in very nice ways throughout. I like the placement of the initial theme in the background of the melodies.
-The arpeggios are very well-done, and there are in general a lot of really neat sound effects throughout this.
-Really nice submerged lowpass sound at 1:10!
-This piece has some seriously solid mixing overall, which is very nice! Good tight bass, solid high end. I might try to bring out the high melody a little bit more, but not too much else.

The Not-So-Good:
-There's barely any variation throughout this piece, unfortunately - not in terms of melody, but in terms of mood. There is the intro, and then there is the high-octane, really fast DnB middle, and then the outro (minus the 10-second breakdown). The problem is that the middle is basically the whole piece. If you listen to a lot of popular/highly rated works, they tend to have some difference in mood between the different sections so that people aren't bored (in slower pieces) or kept at high tension for too long (in this piece and similar).
-Your transitions could actually use some work - primarily between your light intro/outro and the midsection.
-Throughout 1:10 to around 2:10, the melodies seem fairly aimless (with one caveat of 1:40 and 1:55 referencing the main theme). I think that the soloing/melodic development in this could be improved significantly.
-Now, I'm pretty sure the intro and outro are almost exactly the same.

The Result: 7.6/10
Your piece has a really well-developed melody, but suffers from a few important missteps - some aimless melodies, several subpar transitions in important places, and mainly the lack of mood variation. That said, there's a really good foundation here - that's how you got this far, after all! You can do it!

Noisysundae responds:

This tells me that I need to spend more time on a track to develop better composition and arrangement. One of my problems is I got into the contest while I'm not inspired. Not an excuse for not making a better piece, though. Thanks a bunch for the tips. Definitely helpful for my future sundaes! :)

[Plasma]

ggaero - Plasma:

The Good:
-Very nice melodies! I really like how they're constructed overall and how they end.
-Very nice mixing as well. It's quite solid and keeps much distortion from happening.
-The breakdown at 1:30 is quite well-done, and the overall placement of the breakdowns and buildups are quite good as well.

The Not-So-Good:
-Oh, man. That default FL kick. This piece really deserves a better kick than that.
-As nice as the melodies are, it would be great if they were played in a different sequence. It's pretty obvious that there's only a single melody throughout - you can easily add in a second one.
-The drum fill right at 2:26 seems very weak and subdued - I feel like it could have used a little bit more "oomph".
-Variation. Your climaxes are both exactly the same patterns. It's actually not that hard to make a new pattern with the same base if you want - just right-click into the menu for the pattern in your sequencer and use the "make unique" option. That way, you have a new pattern in the same spot and you can edit it without changing the first one. Very helpful for variation.
-Your ending could use a bit of work - it's not quite there yet. Even just a final hit with some kind of chord wash would be good. You conclude your piece well, but you don't end it - the pattern just finished like normal and it seemed like there just happened to not be any more notes.

The Result: 8.4/10
This is well-written, well-produced, really solid stuff. Your biggest ways to improve this would be to increase the quality of your drum samples and introduce more variation into the music. Good job!

ggaero responds:

Thanks, and btw I used a Jannick Larsen kick, not the default kick but whatever c: haha

[Mad, Mad, Mad]

FinnMK - Mad, Mad, Mad:

The Good:
-Your singing is definitely more audible in this piece, which is fantastic! There are a lot of extra vocal flairs sprinkled throughout which make this even better. It takes the vocals you had in your last piece and pulls them to the proper next level.
-Great introduction to the main themes throughout this. Everything is clearly laid out, and clearly recognizable. It even has some really nice harmonies at the start which you can feel later in the piece too.
-All of the instruments being live is a huge bonus once again - excellent!
-I almost didn't notice the pitch shift at the end. That step up is a wonderful flair and extremely well-executed (which most aren't).
-Your mixing is *almost* perfect in this piece. That's awesome - it's really hard to get a spot-on mix, and you're as close as people can really be.
-Excellent intro and outro.

The Not-So-Good:
-More vocal suggestion: It's a bit buried in this piece. Try displaying it a little bit more if the lyrics are any kind of focus in this piece (which it seems they are).
-The little drum rhythm at the start of the piece after the first mads seems to be a little bit too complex, actually. If the piece were rhythmically focused, it would make a bit more sense. But... it really isn't rhythmic at all - it has very simple rhythms throughout aside from that one bit. I see where you're going and I like it, I just think that it could be improved with a few tweaks to make it easier to follow on the first three or four listens.

The Result: 9.7/10
Clearly the highlight of the pieces this round, I have to say. This piece took literally everything I had heard from you before and pushed it further, which is exactly what the final round of a contest should be. Fantastic! Clearly I need to follow you musically and see what you come up with next.

FinnMK responds:

Thanks so much for the kind comments Skye. I've received a couple comments about the volume of the vocals. Several months ago I had them all too loud and now I've got them too quiet! Hopefully this means I can find an in-between ground.
Thanks for noticing the key shift! I happened upon a really smooth way to pull of the transition and I was curious to see if people would notice.

The rest is all good advice too. Always improving, improving...

[/Ultraviolet Dreams\]

EverReverb - /Ultraviolet Dreams\:

The Good:
-This actually has some really awesome ideas throughout it. I particularly like the arpeggios and filtered chords.
-All of your instruments are clearly audible (except a few), which is wonderful. They're also very fitting instruments which work well together in general.

The Not-So-Good:
-It's a loop. It's not a full song.
-There isn't really any variation throughout the loop. The melodies change, but that's about it - there aren't really much of any chord progression changes, the general mood stays the same, and I'm pretty sure the drum pattern hasn't changed at all.
-The thunderclaps and filter sweep SFX in the background are pretty much entirely buried throughout. You may want to consider removing them as they don't add much to the piece other than extra unnecessary noise. The same goes for the background arpeggiated acid synth.

The Result: 6.8/10
Okay. Everything here is good. Keep doing it. Just... do it with more variation and in a full piece instead of a loop please. <3

AED4 responds:

I agree with you on everything except the last point. I did try leaving the acid and especially the thunder out, but for me at least there was a noticeable difference. Though, that could be my ears getting used to the song in production stage.

But yeah, in retrospect there's lots of stuff I'd want to do better, especially those drum patterns you mentioned, and way more variation overall.

[End Times]

Daveisgr81 - End Times:

The Good:
-Good organization - very nice return to the first theme at the end and a very solid midsection!
-Your guitar skills are quite high, I have to say - you're really good at writing for it and playing it. I may have to commission you for some guitar work at some point, who knows?
-Your mixing is very good - it has no distortion that I can hear (aside from the deliberate guitar amping, obviously) consistently throughout the piece.
-It has a good ending! That's unfortunately rarer than I'd like - so I'm glad to hear it here!

The Not-So-Good:
-The middle section of the piece doesn't seem to have quite as consistent of an idea as the beginning and end of the piece.
-While this is well-mixed, it seems like the overall piece is just a tad bit weak. A lot of the guitars in the middle seem fairly thin, frequency-wise. I think that you could still retain your solid mix while widening their frequency range a bit and giving them a bit (or a lot) more meat. tl;dr add some bass frequencies

The Result: 8.4/10
This piece is very well-written, very well-performed, and concludes quite nicely. The thin mix is quite honestly the only issue. While I understand that avoiding distortion is important, this kind of weak mix causes the whole thing to be understated and just kinda boring in the end. That said - this has phenomenal foundations, and I'm going to have to keep up with your music in the future as I want to see how far you go!

Daveisgr81 responds:

Yes, the guitars were a pain to record!.. So I know what you mean.

Thanks for the review!

You should check out some of my other music and my website! I work a lot for other types of ensemble as a composer, guitarist, and editor.

[Veva]

1nf1n1ty - Veva:

The Good:
-The effect processing of this is off the charts. There's a ton of background ear candy which is absolutely fantastic.
-Around 1:36, this song reminds me a ton of an artist called Chrome Sparks - if you haven't heard them, LISTEN TO THEM. They're fantastic... which says what I think about this section here.
-Excellent tempo adjusting around 2:45. It makes for a fantastic transition to the end.
-The reversed arpeggios around 1 minute onwards are absolutely wonderful. They sound quite beautiful and make for a very unique texture.

The Not-So-Good:
-In the middle climactic section, there are a few mixing blips which could be improved. There's a bit *too* much going on. Try reducing the db level of all your instruments to around 80% prior to the final mixdown and master.
-It seems like there's a little bit too much ear candy throughout this. Even if you want this much, try having fewer samples in the piece as SFX.
-As an overall organization suggestion, I might suggest having a smaller climax earlier in the piece, or extending the piece by about a minute or so to have a final climax (even if it's a smaller one for the end of the piece). That would help conclude it slightly better, not that the ending in this is poor.

The Result: 8.8/10
This piece clearly has a lot of work into it. It's good. The comments for improvements are really all I can think of - not much else to say. I think that you have a very refined style, but you can improve it quite a bit from here too, which is awesome!

Onefin responds:

Hey! Decided to take a walk back through here and noticed I never left something in response.

That's a bit odd, as well, because of all of the judges who could have examined my work, I was the most excited about hearing your opinions. I feel like a lot of your work is in the same sort of vein as part of what I was trying to accomplish in this piece.

Anyway, let's have a look. I listened to some stuff by Chrome Sparks and I definitely liked what I heard, although I didn't end up seeing an explicit connection. I remember making those reverse arps - I was all like, "Let's try rendering this melody into a wav file lul" and then I ended up speeding it up and playing it backwards somehow :P

Mixing is always an issue with me in the climactic sections of my music. I do basically no final mixdown or mastering with any of my music because in my experience, anything I try to do just doesn't end up sounding good. And it seems in my efforts to include a ton of ear candy, I included too much :P

TL said the same thing about the organization, which I had originally planned for, but the sections didn't quite end up how they were originally meant to be.

Hey, thanks for such a kind review! Especially coming from you, the praise is appreciated, and the criticism appreciated as well. <3

[IV]

Sup! It's been awhile since I've reviewed your music, and I saw this came out. So, why not?

THE GOOD:
-Excellent arpeggios at the start, and a fantastic intro overall in general.
-Good percussion and excellent use of background instruments.
-Good progression with the shift to a darker idea around 1:40, particularly with the tempo changes shortly afterwards.
-Your bitcrushing and FX processing is actually quite fantastic.

THE NOT-AS-GOOD:
-The singing is excellent, but the solo voice seems a bit out of place for this music (if not your music in general). I think part of it is that it feels very weak here. It also has some mixing issues towards the end of the track.
-Overall composition organization-wise, this might have benefited from a harkening back to the beginning arps towards the end.
-The arpeggios at around 0:43 seem to be dissonant and out of tune with the rest of the piece at that point, though it's a background issue.
-2:12 seems like an awkward transition, though I get that it would be a hard transition to make considering the different chord progressions and moods. I just think it could have been done better there is all! :)

THE RESULT: 9.7/10
A fantastic medley, good sir. Your music never fails to impress. As always, I could only find smaller nitpicky issues in the piece. A good solid download for most anyone, particularly people who like metroid.

Take care, man!

Step responds:

Hey Skye! I almost forgot how much I enjoy your review.

I'm happy with all the good stuff you mentioned, but especially pleased that you like the FX processing. It's a big deal coming from someone who morphs sounds like playdough hahaha. I definitely had a lot of fun playing around with the synths here. Passing them through guitar amp distortion gave some of them some really nice grit.

I'm gonna swap to a blow-by-blow format for the criticisms because I have something to say for each of them.

"-The singing is excellent, but the solo voice seems a bit out of place for this music"

I know what you mean. It's something Darren (the singer) and I both agree on. I think he definitely did a great job on the vocals here, but even he was a bit disappointed that he didn't sing with more power. These are actually a separate set of takes that you hear in the song; the first set came out a bit too weak and he redid everything. They're better now, but I agree that the singing style could be a bit more powerful.

"-Overall composition organization-wise, this might have benefited from a harkening back to the beginning arps towards the end."

That was actually the original plan, but I had such a hard time transitioning from the first half to the second half that I had no idea how on earth I could smoothly get it back to the first half haha.

"-The arpeggios at around 0:43 seem to be dissonant and out of tune with the rest of the piece at that point, though it's a background issue."

Hm... possibly. Come to think of it I am hearing a few weird major 2nd clashes between the arpeggios and the melody. However, those arpeggios and chords are copied pretty much verbatim from the original track, so I think that dissonance is probably present in the original track too! Might check it out properly.

"-2:12 seems like an awkward transition, though I get that it would be a hard transition to make considering the different chord progressions and moods. I just think it could have been done better there is all! :)"

Argh, 2:12. You're not the first to point it out. I didn't know what else I could do to smoothly transition those two sections. They're in a different key, different time signature, different chord progression, and different mood :(. I figured that the buildup would accumulate a bunch of tension which I could then release with the bit at 2:12, which would justify the transition, but I definitely agree it's not smooth.

Anyhow, it was great getting a review from you again! Thanks a million for dropping by.

[Silent Hours]

Hello hello! As I've done before, full disclosure: I'm very blunt in my reviews, please don't take offense to things, I don't mean to be cruel or mean - just very clear and simple to understand without sugarcoating. The not-as-good section will also be longer than the good section, if only because I have more to say for how to improve there. Thanks!

THE GOOD:
-This has a very nice lo-fi feel to it overall. Lo-fi and peaceful dnb is fairly rare, and it's very appreciated.
-There's a good and solid progression of climaxes and breakdowns. The flow may be much more even than most pieces, but it's audibly there.
-The instruments you have are used well.
-While it could use some improvement, you have a pretty decent ending.
-Your mastering is actually pretty good.
-I like the little background sfx that you have. It's very subtle and much appreciated.

THE NOT-AS-GOOD:
-Starting with the smaller things, I would say that your mastering can use a little bit more in the high end from a lot of your instruments. Try reducing all instrument channels to roughly 80% of their normal volume to leave plenty of headroom for mixing and mastering. It helps a surprisingly large amount.
-Your ending can use some conclusiveness to it. While your filtering reduced the impact, it still sounds very much like you simply stopped repeating the patterns that were going. A simple way to improve this would be to have the lowpass filter go entirely to 0, so that the sound fully fades out. A better way to do it would be to have some kind of compositional technique to conclude your ideas.
=There isn't really a melody. There are arpeggios, and a few riffs which are decent, but no actual melody for the piece that I can put my finger on. This actually makes the piece fairly forgettable, which isn't a good thing.
-Now for the elephant in the room. You used the instruments well, but the instruments themselves are, well... garbage. First things first, your kick drum needs more of a thump and shouldn't have as much reverb. The high click of the kick is also fairly low-quality as well, particularly for a dnb song (even a lo-fi one). The snare is better and works in this instance, but still feels a bit weak. The biggest problem are the instruments around 0:48, which I will address separately.
-0:48 onward is the biggest issue with the piece. It has too much reverb, which makes the mix muddy. The instruments are fairly indistinct here as well due to their overlap in frequencies. I would try to have fewer instruments here in general, but have them used to flesh out the mix more evenly. The bass is a problem in its own right, as it is extremely muddy on its own, and better suited to longer held bass notes. That would improve this section significantly on its own.

THE RESULT: 5.5/10
So, this piece is pretty decent in some respects, and falls flat in others. The instruments were not very good, but the concept and the usage of them is generally quite good. I'm sorry if the last section of the not-so-good portion seems harsh, but there isn't too much of a way to clearly say it more nicely. In the end, though - instruments can be fixed. Your basic ideas and skill at using your instruments can't be improved nearly as easily, and those are solid. You have a great foundation to make future music, so go for it!

Hallow responds:

Blunt reviews are great because it means I actually know what I need to fix. And the not-so-good section should be longer, as you have to be specific :P
I'll probably ask a few more questions; if you can PM me the answers, that would be greatly appreciated.

Glad you like the peaceful feel to it. That was exactly what I was going for.
Good to know I had a decent progression - the drop was very different and I was slightly worried about how it fit in.
The background percussion was something I spent quite a lot of time working on, and I'm happy with it as well.

I actually turned down the high end on a few instruments to make a bit more room for the lead and percussion - thanks for pointing out that it was one of my mastering issues. I'll make sure to use those tips as well.
In regard to the ending, I was trying to add a little final showcase of the percussion. Maybe the lowpass didn't fade out quite quickly enough - I did have it go to zero, but not until the end of the phrase.
I tried to make the main melody - being the one near the start and end - as memorable as possible, so it's disappointing to hear that it didn't work... I decided against using it at the drop because I didn't want the piece to feel repetitive.
This was my first go at synthesizing percussion, so I'm not too surprised that it didn't work. How should I bring out the thump in the kick more? Also, what frequency ranges should the clicks for the kick be in? I wasn't very happy with the kick in general, so I'd love to know how I can make it better. Does the snare just need a bit more noise? I tried to make it a bit more of a note but I may have overdone that a bit.
I tried to get the mud out somewhat when mastering, but I guess it didn't really work. I had taken a suggestion to add more reverb to a lot of it, so I probably just needed to work harder to get out the mud for those instruments; meanwhile, I wasn't very happy with the bass but just tried to get it to work. I think it was a pretty hard key to be working in in terms of the bass, as I found myself stuck between the kick and the mud zone.

It's fine that you were a bit harsh - it helps me understand what's wrong.
General questions - which instruments in particular (besides the bass) could have been improved, and how? What do you recommend in terms of adding reverb (how much, on what, etc.)?

In the end, this piece was really all about improving. I was pretty sure I wouldn't make it through, so I'm really happy to have all of this feedback now, and I'll be able to make better music in the future, as you said.

[Glide Reflection]

Easily one of the most unique pieces out there, certainly for this contest. I'll spare you my usual disclosure because you know me, I'm blunt, please don't be oversensitive and offended, ok thanks.

THE GOOD:
-Holy fuck all the arps. That is really awesome. Their chord progression is impressive as always.
-Your general originality and odd-ness pretty much is worth a point all to itself.
-The background noises and progressions are incredible. General sound quality and instrument quality is top-notch.
-Please for the love of god teach me how you do your foley processing to make percussion and stuff. You always have the most impressive instrument/noise processing I've heard for music.

THE NOT-AS-GOOD:
-Really, this piece just suffers in one thing. Composition. The arps are great, but they have very little variation in the end - mainly background and not any kind of melodic progression. There is very little melody, and sadly precious little difference between each of the A sections and B sections. Uniqueness alone only works the first time, sadly - when repeated it loses its effect greatly.

THE RESULT: 7.5/10
I mean, what can I say? There's not really much to - it has absolutely fantastic everything... except composition. Unique composition, but not fantastic. This is also one of the things your music has suffered the most from in general, unfortunately. I think that your song Rain/River/84/415/8 is one of the best written pieces in this respect - it has more significantly evolving differences in sound as well as multiple different distinct sections, whereas in this piece the differences are mostly background. The background differences are important too, but something in the foreground is also important!

secantwave responds:

I have to say, hearing what you have to say about originality and oddness, along with the other "this is weird, but cool" types of feedback I tend to get on Newgrounds, is a wonderful compliment -- it's great to know that I'm managing to convey what I love about this sort of music, odd though it may be.

I'm also super flattered by what you said about my sound processing. It's often just a matter of messing around with ideas without necessarily knowing how they might sound, and then whenever something has potential, listening to it over and over again and fine-tuning the parameters. (In this piece in particular, I discovered the Klank generator in Supercollider, which makes for some neat resonance effects.) If you ever want to talk more about it or want to know how I made something, let me know--it's a major passion of mine.

In general, I tend to focus more on sounds and patterns than melody when making music, and I'm heavily influenced by artists like Autechre and Monolake for whom melody plays less of a role. So in a time-limited competition, composition is often the first thing to fall by the wayside. That said, I was actually pretty pleased with the variation between sections of this piece (in my mind, the arpeggios _were_ the melodic progression)--the aspect I thought felt incomplete was the transitions, which nobody seems to have brought up. Regardless, there definitely could have been more variety in the last section.

Thanks for the feedback! I'm glad you enjoy my music (it was a pleasant surprise to see "impressive as always", given that I don't think you've reviewed anything else of mine), and I'll definitely continue to work on composition in the future.

[Road To Happiness]

Oh man, this one. I actually had a tricky time judging this.
Also, full disclosure: I can be a bit dry and blunt in my reviewing on occasion. I don't have any ill will or anything towards you and I'm not trying to be mean, just trying to be straightforward about how I scored things. :) Oh, also, the "not-so-good" list will be far larger in volume of writing at minimum, just because I have more things to say about things that can be improved, such as how and why.

THE GOOD:
-Right, so. You got massive bonus points for acoustic instruments, not gonna lie there. You were one of the few people who used them, and you used them to great effect.
-Excellent mastering for the most part, with some minor caveats.
-Very nice placement of your instruments overall. They were used to great effect.
-You have some fantastic drum fills in the second half - as someone who used to do percussion work in a marching band and helped with other bands, I appreciate this to a huge degree.
-Horns. Guitar and piano are fairly common in music, but... horns? Not really. That's actually quite huge.

THE NOT-SO-GOOD: Just three main things here, really - not actually all that much.
-Let's tackle composition first. It's probably the smallest and most forgivable thing, actually. This is just that your music is fairly linear. It goes up progressively until about 2/3 to 3/4 through, then goes down a bit at the end and stops, with a single breakdown at about 3 minutes in. This is kinda weird as you have a decent 4-minute length, but if you're going to make it this long I would recommend having a bit more of a first climax to establish yourself and a breakdown closer to the middle instead of near the end.
-Second main thing kinda ties into the third but not perfectly so I'll address it separately. Your mastering needs some work. Mainly, your sounds are competing for space, particularly in the higher frequencies. Their sounds start to muddle together and get a bit fuzzy, so some detail is lost. If you let the instruments breathe, you can have them be far more expressive - this is important in climax sections. One thing I would recommend is reducing their volumes until they're all at 80% or lower before doing final mastering. I've found that lets them all have decent headroom to balance out in that final step. ...on a slightly related note, your song doesn't have much bass. It's not necessary, but you might want to lower the bassline a little bit so that you can fill up some of those lower frequencies.
-Final thing is kinda funny considering I'm personally not the best at it. Singing and intonation. I could not really listen to your lyrics (not that I factor the poetry part of a song into a music review, but even so) because there were some flaws in the intonation. These are actually EXTREMELY common flaws, so please don't feel bad about them. Mainly, a lot of your singing has a similar tone and consonants aren't pronounced. Generally with singing clearly, you need to enunciate things like Ts, Cs, and... well, S more strongly. The "k" sound can become indistinct with "S" and "T". It's not as important with regular speech and solo vocal practice, but becomes far more important with other distracting instruments - those sounds need to be spot-on or they can become indistinct and messy with mixing.

THE RESULT: 8/10
This song is solid. It really is. The flaws that are pointed out are not song-breaking and don't harm it to a huge degree. There is one thing that's more intangible bringing it down, though - it needs... more. It's hard to say exactly what more it needs, but a big part is that this isn't being scored just for normal listening, it's for a contest. As a normal song, it's top-notch. As a contest piece, it doesn't showcase your skill and flexibility as a musician in being expressive over larger scales. I guess it mainly just needs more unique, standout features that show you can do more than normal - that's what transforms a really good musician and piece into a fantastic one, particularly for a contest. :)

FinnMK responds:

Thanks a bunch for the very useful review! All good points. It's really nice to get a critical outsider's eye. I won't comment on all of your notes individually, but suffice it to say I agree on pretty much 100% of them. I'll keep it all in mind for the next round.