Jacob's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Bring out the Madness in me]

The intro is excellent! I feel like I'm listening to Nine Inch Nails.
The mixing creates a sick atmosphere. I could listen to this forever.

The only issue I have with this is the lack of a melody. A seriously great tune for background music - I honestly think it belongs in Madness Combat itself. However, as a standalone track, it's lacking that center-panned goodness. Out of the MD2014 tracks I've heard thus far, however, this is my favorite. God, it's like I'm playing Quake III Arena.

Hey wait, where's the ending? Jacob want conclusion. :(

Sick track, Deshiel. I'm definitely going to make time to check out your other submissions very soon. And if you wouldn't mind sharing the VSTs you used for that guitar-ish sound, I'd be very grateful.
Circa 1999 industrial right here. Bringing back all of the memories. All of them!

DESHIEL responds:

Hey you don't know how happy your review makes me. I'm sure that we can pretty much relate to each other with our fears that nobody will like what we did. I'm glad that somebody does, so thank you for leting me know. ;)

I'm still learning when it comes to "story & melody progression" in my music and pretty much thanks for confirming my fears that the ending I "threw up quite lazily" wasn't enough. I realy needed that lol

I'm glad that I caught your attention, but be careful, I uploaded around 470 tracks on newgrounds.
As for the guitars...
Three slightly moded and EQued FL SLAYER presets were used.
dist Rock
dist Metal
electro Jungle

If you own fruity loops, you should already have them.

[Meet Frances]

You had me from the start. Beautiful, inspired ambiance all the way through. I'd have loved a little more melody, some more involved percussion, some tension and release... But the atmosphere makes up for it.

I'd love to collaborate sometime! I'll be checking out your other submissions now. You have a fan.

Semaphore responds:

Thank you very much Jacob. If you want to to a collab some day pm me =)

[A night to remember]

First thing I noticed: Too quiet!
Assuming you're using Audacity, use the Normalizer effect to set the dB level to -3.00. It'll make everything even, and at a standard volume.
Second, insulate the area around your microphone to avoid background reverb. It will give you that warm, present effect.
Third, use the noise profiler on a clip of nothing but your background noise to allow you to eliminate that buzz in the background.

The overall quality here is pretty nice. It's hard to tell, being so quiet, but I like the voices.
I know you're not a native English speaker. But you can use that to your advantage! Your accent and inflections can be used for certain characters, especially being Mexican.
Work on your Americanized accent in the mean time, of course, but always play to your strengths.

desierto responds:

Wow, that's a lot of tips, thank you! i actually used audacity for the first time whilst recording this, and i will surely implement your suggestions and learn to use it better in the future.

I would've liked to add some noise effects, music and some voices mumbling here and there and what not, but had no more time, i totally agree, it also sounds too quiet to me too!

Thanks for dropping by man, i really appreciate it!

[Stuff Happened One Night]

Nice work!
The story was nice for sure, but the voices were what got me.
The main character and his friend were both very natural, while also contrasting. It's hard to make more than one or two distinct natural voices, so I appreciate the quality of that.

I'd recommend adding a vocal exciter to really bring out the vocals.
Oh, and get a pop filter. Your P's sometimes pop pretty hard.

Overall, lots of distinct voices, and that kind of range is appreciable.

Good work!

Rehab-Reject responds:

Hey thanks bro! Yeah the hardest part was making the two main characters sound different and natural. What's a vocal exciter? I'm pretty noobish when it comes to recording, but I did have a pop filter, I probably was too close to the mic when recording some parts. Thanks for the review and tips.

[Night to Remember - Voice Act]

Is that Jesse from Breaking Bad? Haha
I REALLY like that character. The voice, the inflections, everything. He's very well done.
Teddy... Good, but could use some work. So here goes that:

First off, despite how different the voices might feel, it's important that you go all out in contrasting your voices. Use different pitches. Make his voice quite a bit higher, so he really stands out against Steve.

The same goes for your other characters. Make sure their voices are in different registers! Otherwise, it's obvious that it's all one guy.

Next, recording and mixing:

First off, it sounds like you used a good mic. But regardless of the quality of a mic, you NEED to insulate the area around it. Otherwise, an unpleasant reverb makes its way into the recording. It sounds distant, as opposed to the presence you're looking for.
Second, noise removal is crucial.
Simply take a two or three second recording without anything but the ambiance of the room, and go to Noise Removal in the Effects bar of Audacity, and you just have to Get Noise Profile. From then on, you can use the Noise Removal to remove the background buzz.

Ultimately though, I really liked this. The characters were likable and interesting, working as a perfectly contrasting duo. The story was easy to listen to, and consistently charming. The ending was funny and satisfying (though a little predictable), and this stands to be one of the only two entries I have been able to listen to from start to finish.

Good work!
-Jacob

PS I'm scouting you for the Audio Portal

doctorrapture responds:

Hey man! Thanks a lot for all the feedback and advice. I will buying my own equipment by the end of this month - so far I have limited knowledge of a friend's studio which I use on occasion (and for this).

Much appreciated, sir!

[I'm A Dot]

These lyrics truly are a work of genius, though.

Actually, this is really catchy. It's short, low quality, and you obviously weren't doing something for the sake of exerting effort - but hot diggety damn do I like it.

DL'd and, despite the review rating (my official rating), 5'd.

ForNoReason responds:

Why thank you!

[I wish I could drink...]

I'm not a member of RRC, but that's how I stumbled upon this.
This is a really, really nice piece. Calming, uplifting, yet deep and artistic.
The ambiance and piano work together beautifully to mold a thought-provoking background.

Pros:
The piano, though simple, was more than lovely. The ambiance was well manufactured, but without the keys this would be too calming. Instead, you gave it life - and I love that.

Cons:
I really, REALLY would have like a different ending. Better yet, a loop. This is the kind of song you keep in the background for awhile as you create or contemplate. It's harder to do that when the ending is a bit harsh, and you hear the piece start and stop every 3 minutes or so.

I also would have loved a climax. Maybe some strings or a stronger, synthetic bass as well as a sudden rise in dynamic. The heart-beat style kick would get a little louder, slightly more frantic, and the song would really begin to go somewhere, until finally fading away, and perhaps a lighter ending with a higher frequency ambiance and some light tinking on the piano - finally looping into the beginning once more.
I understand this could contradict the chill and ambient vibe you were striving for, but the song honestly seems to have taken a different route to begin with.

Regardless! I liked this a lot, and I'll be listening to it again. :]
Thank you for sharing!

-Jacob

Carr77 responds:

Thanks! That was a great review with a lot of good information, and I'm glad you liked the song :3
Thank you!

[New Day]

Whoa there, Ladybear!

For your first composition, this was very nice. You've displayed a great feel for layered melodies and instrumentation. The marimba (or, I believe that was a marimba) was fantastic, and really kept me listening. It was just... Calming. Yet somewhat driving, and uplifting. Eliciting that sort of emotion in a piece can be difficult, but you did very well.

That said, there are definitely many areas you can improve.

1. Mastering Mastering Mastering!

Though Edirol may not have the highest quality samples, you can still touch things up a lot with proper mastering. Adding reverb is one great start. With the music being as damp and breathless as this, it can actually make my eyes water when wearing headphones - and that's not pleasant.
Experiment a bit with the Mixer, using things like equalizers and reverb and all that other fun stuff. It'll add a huge dynamic to your music, making even lower quality samples sound professional.

Another huge problem here is too make sure you don't turn Edirol up too high. I'm not even sure if this was the problem, but the buzz that started coming in around 2:10 was awful. I've never had the issue, but I'm assuming it has to do with the settings on Edirol. It's better to turn everything down and just raise the Master Volume when you export than to try to turn certain instruments up too high.

2. Melody.

You did have great melodies here, I won't deny that. However, they either vary too much or too little for them to be memorable. The marimba was fantastic, but the way it switched up made it more difficult to follow and much harder to remember later on. I've listened to this song about 4 times now, and a couple of hours later I can't remember much about it. Heck, I'm still trying to remember a lot of it. :L

The best route to take there is to either capitalize on one particular melody and make it simple, even repetitive; or to pick an instrument to really bring out, and move it along through several captivating melodies. You did a decent job of both to some degree, and I'll admit it's a lot easier to correct this stuff in hindsight, but I really feel like you could improve that aspect a ton.

3. Limit your instrumentation a bit.

This kind of goes with the melody. You had the strings trying to take melody along with the mallets, and it honestly took away from it. If your melody is primarily mallets, try to keep the strings simple - moving along as a chord progression more than as a melody of its own.

I'm sorry for the lengthy review, and I'm especially sorry if I sound harsh. This was actually VERY good for your first (I presume) piece, and I really look forward to hearing more from you. :]

PM me if you have any questions!

Vlaireice32989 responds:

Wow!!! I'm really grateful for the review! You're not harsh at all; I rather want to know my weaknesses than just to receive "Good Job!" without knowing what to improve.

Yep, I noticed the buzzing sound when the instruments' volume starts to increase. I thought it was just my earphone. I'll try to fix it later. Hmm.. I figured that I overdid the input of melodies. Got so many melodies running in my head and that I tried to merge them all in one piece; I got excited, I guess. My Bad... Instruments used were Celesta, Flute, Full Strings, Concert Piano, ContraBass and Viola. I know, it's an overkill.. Hahaha... I was trying to experiment on different instruments, like what they sound like, what happens if I mix it with this and that, etc.

I don't know what a reverb is (I know it might make me look stupid but, that's the fact). I still need to research on that. Ok, I'm already tweaking the mixer to see the effects on the instruments. It does make a difference. But, I still get confused on assigning channels so, more tweaking I guess. Must put in mind; KIS = Keep It Simple.

Again, thank you very much for sharing your knowledge! You're such a big help! :3