Jacob's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[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

[Stuck Out]

Watch out, Bill - you've got fangirls coming your way!
I really do enjoy this track, for some odd reason. Everything in it is so sloppy, yet it manages to come together beautifully. I listen to it faithfully. Good work on this, man.

Bill responds:

thanks Jacobcobvbvcc

[<<Replicants>>]

Not bad!

This certainly shows some potential from you. My main recommendations are that you bring out melodies, and turn down the kick. Plus, there needs to be a little extra something to pull in the listener. Maybe a heavier wobble with some layers, or something of the sort. Either way, you definitely need to turn up the melody.

As for the kick... I actually think you may want a new kick altogether. The one you're using is very, very damp, almost to the point of hurting my ears. If you have any of the Vengeance packs, I'd recommend looking around for a kick with more of a punch - and less of a pierce.

Anywho, this really does have potential - and so do you. A lot of the production aspect was very professional. The only major flaw is, again, the velocity distribution. Just fix all of that, and you'll have a great breakbeat dubstep piece.

Good luck!

-Himynameisjacob

BulimicLemur responds:

Cheers man, one of the most helpful reviews I've got.

[Acid Paradox - Monster]

Great potential.

This piece has so many things going for it. I love the concept, and I love most of the implementation. My only real issue is with the bass drop. Sure it's dirty, but it needs more substance. It's very hard on the center, with nothing but the drums playing otherwise. I would recommend layering two slightly different sounds, panning one toward each ear - or possibly adding a Dimension Expander to the current bass. Study the bass that xKore tends to use. It adds so much substance to the song, and it'd make this one of the best songs I've ever heard.
Anywho, wonderful work. :]

Acid-Paradox responds:

Im personally against heavy basses man and why would i copy someone else style if i can make my own??

But yeah , most drops tend to be empty man

[Deep south Redneck]

I finally remembered to check this!

While looking through my inbox, I stumbled upon the link you sent me and recalled being unable to listen before. Well, I finally did! It's critique time:

Firstly, don't use a strained voice. You could easily get a better - and especially more distinct - version of this sound if you were to pull back your vocal chords. See, you can either over-tighten your vocal chords (as you're doing now), or you can pull back until they're barely touching, an exaggerated version of which is the sound made by The Grudge. This technique will give threshold for clearer diction and a more prominent sound. Of course, you want to keep that incomprehensible, rambling country drawl, but voice acting requires unnatural diction and clarity - so you'll need to overdo it a bit.

Secondly, you need a little more vocal fluctuation - just a smidgen. While, again, you're character is meant to be monotonous, too much monotony will simply make him uninteresting. As I said, voice acting requires you to overdo a lot of things.

Overall, though, it's not terrible. I've certainly heard much worse. I'll give you the 7 and 4.

pyroman544 responds:

Thank you for your honesty. The roughness, in part, comes from my being stingy on a good microphone. I DO need to work on the draw more, but it usually sounds a little better in person.

Thank you