gregaaron89's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Rig - Broken Glass]

O___o

Wow there are some really cool effects here... I like the pitch modulation. Could I possibly sample little bits and pieces of this? I would credit you. I think it would be great for glitch/idm

Rig responds:

Go for it, let me know when you have something!

[<MWA> Don't Forget [DEMO]]

chill

I like the mood here, it's well mixed with plenty of space to breathe. I really like the break at the end. I don't know how I feel about the bass though. The portamento/glide makes it really weird sometimes. It sounds great at the end of the measure, but when you have several notes clustered together it's really just causing problems and sounding sloppy. (like at :11-:13) What I recommend doing is duplicating the bass and for those shorter notes, transfer them to the second synth, and bring the portamento/glide time wayyyy down, or otherwise change the sound. Try to make it more dynamic. I guarantee that will help a lot. And I'm not really a huge fan of the overall sound of the bass either but I like more electro, saw basses anyway so just personal taste. But it works here and you're on the right track.

mjattie responds:

hey thanks for the tips, I'll certenly take a look closer look at it, today or tomorrow! On the other hand, if I reduse portamento and slide down a lot on that second synth you mention, it'll loose some of it's diry feeling, which I presonally like

Btw the saw bass you mention is actually a soft bass with fuzz distortion XD

thanks for the tips and 9/10 I appreciated.

Btw what software do you use? I use Reason 4.0

[[RM] - EnTranced Space WIP]

Dude...

I can hear the bass clipping... not good. Back off on the compression, the whole mix is really squashed sounding. You loose dynamics the punchiness of sounds that way, especially kicks and high hats. Don't try to make it this loud it just doesn't pay off. Professional songs get really loud from careful mastering and brickwall limiting, and it's not easy to get right.

Overall pretty generic sounding but it progresses nicely. And I hear the sour note people are talking about. It's because you go out of key and hit a minor chord. It happens at 1:00, just change that middle note in the 3 note arpeggio, move it up a half step and you'll be good.

Randomizor responds:

Thanks for the helpful review ;D

[~BH~ Crystalline Cloudsca]

Now that is a panflute

I like the atmosphere here, it's really airy. Nice piano arp. Only thing I don't like here is the 4 on the floor beat at this tempo. ARRHHGGGG it's like being stuck behind an old lady on the freeway. No offense. But 4 on the floor is a really driving beat, and has a lot of upbeat energy that really conflicts with the tempo and everything else in this song that's nice and peaceful. The stuttered kicks only intensify that. When you slow the tempo down, I personally think at a certain point it's better to use breakbeat (around 120 bpm or so), I think it makes it flow much better. (and I think it's just slow enough to possibly go double tempo with the percussion) But anyway great instrumentation and mixing here.

ErikMcClure responds:

Percussion has never been my forte :P The beat on this song was a bit tricky because I needed a powerful, catchy rhythm that still matched the solid flow of the song, and a breakbeat would have completely ruined it. The song isn't necessarily meant to be relaxing, per say, its supposed to be fairly active without going overboard. So while the 4 beat here isn't ideal, I wouldn't trade it in for a breakbeat because the song would lose its essence.

Thanks for the review :D

[-:YRX:- DaughterOfJustice]

Cool

I like the mixture of genres here. The strings sound really thick. I really like how the amen comes in (with the dry faded in on the reverb?) Don't think I've heard that before, makes it seem like it's coming towards you through space (whoa) I think you could've sliced up and varied the amen quite a bit more though. The piano threw me off a bit though. Also I liked the bass but it only played for a very short part of the song and had kind of a random sounding pattern, I don't think you really needed it there, or you could've worked on the structure a little more to get it all to fit in better. Overall it works well and is very creative.

YouriX responds:

Hey thanks! Yes i love doing that reverb fade trick! Is pretty easy to do! Also thanks for the tips and advices. I'll try to be varied the drums more in my future works since i dont like updating to much on my old songs. And also i think i'll stop using the dnb bass unless i really have to. Also thanks for the comment and i will take up your advice!

[Os Vs Mjattie -of Softest Rain]

What a rush!

I haven't felt a rush like that from anything on Newgrounds in a long time. Simply beautiful. It starts off very nicely with the rain and the piano. The piano melody sounds a bit aimless at first but it falls together. At 1:12 it started to remind me a bit of some of Reasoner's stuff. I totally did not expect the beat to come in at 1:20. That gave me chills, great piano work! I'm not really sure if I like the synth that comes in at 1:54 It sounds good when it's buried under the beat though, maybe it's just the distortion that's bothering me, it doesn't really fit with everything else. Overall I love the harmony and mood here, and the instrumentation. I think you could've brought out those strings a bit more though and maybe added more layers of them. The rain is a wonderful touch. The feeling this gave me I've been trying really hard to create with my own music, but this surpasses anything I've made. I'm inspired :)

ObsidianSnow responds:

Awesome, thanks a lot. Easily one of the most useful and thought-out reviews I've ever gotten. I can't really say anything more about it, except...

Thanks for the (awesome) review, Greg Aaron!

[-[ Wings ]-]

Sped up progressive house

That's what the bass and the groove sound like to me. I downloaded it and changed the bpm to 128 to see what it sounded like, and I really like it. I love the high hat groove you have going on here, it's so house but at a much faster tempo. It sounds especially sexy at 1:25 (which is of course at a different time if it's slowed down) Don't get me wrong here, what you have here sounds really cool and I really like it, and it sounds great at this tempo. In fact I don't think it would work as well overall at a slower speed. All I'm saying is PLEASE MAKE HOUSE that sounds similar to this but slower, I think you'd be good at it :) And do try slowing it down to see what it sounds like, listening to your song at different tempos can give you a better perspective of it.

In general about the song I agree with what mrmilkcarton said, can't really add to that. Except I'll say maybe high pass your bass a little bit and Put a more subby sine under it to make it thicker. This song's crazy and all over the place, which makes it really exciting and unique. Keep it up.

FlamingFirebolt responds:

It actually sounds really good at 128 BPM. ( I'm suprised ).
I tend to avoid low bpm for some reasons like details. When a song is slowed down theres alot more to pay attention too and slow bpm songs tend to sound really long and boring. If you slow down it must be slightly pitched doesn't it? If you want i can export a 128bpm version of it :).

Well i'm up to anything, but House is high on the list at the moment. Still is weird that i was aiming at trance for first. And i agree, MrMilkCarton was so damn spot on nobody can point out something else. Geuss that's a good thing.

The subby sine sounds like something xkore would say. And he did multiple times so i wonder if you got the idea from him :P. Nevertheless he probably didn't invent it either.

-firebolt-

[Kazmo - Heart of Asia RMX]

Nice bass!

I thought the bass sounded a bit weird in the lowpassed intro, the low low frequencies sound a bit too overbearing through my headphones, dunno if that's because those frequencies are amplified on mine or they're not loud enough on yours so you didn't notice... but anyway when it came in fully at :29 it sounds amazing. My favorite part about it is the saw part that dives down, and how it has reverb on it! It's a big reverb too and your mix is clear enough that it shines through. I rarely get this with songs, only highly well produced ones, but I can actually "see" the bass here, it seems to be moving through space and creates a driving force for this track (lolwut)

The mix sounds amazingly thick, I'm loving the way everything comes together here. The only sound I really don't like is the high hat, not only because it's strangely tinny sounding, but also because it seems to sit on top of the mix, and is really killing some of the depth. I would prefer a shorter, slightly quieter but more punchy sound with more reverb so it would blend in more with the rest of the track.

The other thing that's bothering me is when you high pass the percussion, it gets pretty loud (I'm listening at fairly high volume) It's probably intentional, stuff like this is used to create a dizzying feeling on a club system, but I think it's taking it a little bit far.

The leads in this are very well chosen and beautiful sounding, and of course work perfectly with the melody. You really filled up the high frequencies very nicely, I love that in a trance track, it's what really gives the uplifting feeling. Great reverb on that too.

In fact you used so much reverb in this song which gives it amazing depth, yet everything is clear and your kick stands out O_o wtf teach me...

Kazmo responds:

:D

Ya the bass was experimental, but I feel it really turned out nicely. It is a tad strong in the low low end, but I don't think it's overbearing, I didn't feel that it distorted or overpowered anything. May just be your headphones, since I used my new puppies to mix this (Stanton DJ Pro 2000). :P

Ya you're right, it does tend to sit on top of the mix, it's sort of what I was going for, I didn't want it to blend toooo much, but I guess it could have been mixed in a bit better, perhaps lower the high highs a bit, and add more reverb. lol I think of this nowwww >.<

Ahh yes, the high pass....lol....I could probably lower the resonance level. I didn't feel it was loud on my headphones though, I wasn't thinking about really loud volumes xD

Heck, I may revisit this. :D

I love making synths :3

All those are 3xOsc if you didn't know already ;P

Ya, I think it may be the compressor in the master channel, yaaaaa I'm gonna revisit this hahahahah. I have new techniques!!!

Thanks for the awesome review and support! :P

[[37mm] As We Watch]

Different

And I mean that in a good way. When it starts out you have the kick only on the third beat, which at first had me thinking that the song was going at half the speed, and that the kick was on the 2nd and 4th beat (which is really weird for electronica and like never happens lol) It was clear that it was twice the speed at :48 by the synth line, also you added a quieter kick on the downbeat to make a standard 4 on the floor beat.

Still, the kick on the third beat has the most energy of the beat and gives the song a really interesting feel. You can count the song in two different speeds which factoring in the ambient sounds and the dancy lead give the whole song a great hypnotic effect and a perfect balance of energy and calm. I don't know if that was intentional but it works. I also think the tempo you used is absolutely perfect.

I think this song progresses pretty well and builds nicely. I think the end is a bit sudden though and it has a few spots where it isn't as smooth as it could be. I think you could've built it up a bit more with the beat, maybe a snare roll or something.

I'm not too fond on the bass and lead, I think the bass sounds strange and not bassy enough, just some EQ problems. Don't worry too much about it right now. The lead sounds fine but it sounds like the same dance lead everyone's heard a million times and I don't know if it fits this particular song at all. Otherwise you've paired some really good sounds together in this song, which is something I personally delight in. Those pads playing throughout really make the song.

Overall I think it's pretty good, I can definitely see potential.

EricTheMan responds:

Hey man thanks so much for the review and for putting time into it.
I know what you're talking about with some awkward parts and I could see myself mixing this again sometime in the future and fixing a lot of problems. Mastering songs is not a strong point for me at this point. I just got FL probably a month ago now so I'm hoping I'll get better with that all over time. But thanks again man and I'll let you know if I mix/add to this at all!
Thanks!
~Eric

[Is This True Love? (Piano)]

Truly moving

This is amazing, it's really a haunting song. The beginning sounds a bit lonely and I love how you faded in some strings into the background. It did sound a bit slow at first but it all works together once you listen to the whole thing. I love how the song picks up and the short pause between :53 and :55 It starts to get more interesting here, the melody is just beautiful. I love at 1:23 where it picks up speed, this is where it starts to get amazing. I love chords at 1:30-1:32- pure joy. And then they move up an octave. At 1:52 this part almost makes me cry, first time I could tell what the next two chords would be, this is GREAT tension here. I saw how much time was left in the playhead and I was bracing myself for one of those HUGE piano endings where you go all over the keyboard but I have to admit the end was a bit dissapointing and sounded a bit sour. I think if you just fixed that it would be perfect. Well one thing that bothered me about it was how you played the right hand and then the left hand, which I think kind of works away from the direction you were going. If you did it the other way with the high notes last it would've been better and fit the theme more. Either way this is an amazing song, and you are a great composer.

Zero123Music responds:

Thanks alot gregaaron :)

I loved reading your review.

Thanks for the compliments - and as for the end, I myself discovered those chords and absolutely loved them. But I didn't want to overdo them - just keep it beautiful and subtle.

Tamadrum liked them - but I see exactly what you mean.

I will probably update it and change the ending for you :p

thanks again
>>Zero