TaintedLogic's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[check]

The instruments at the beginning are a little harsh-sounding. I think you need to remove some of the treble tones there with an equalizer. The part at :25 didn’t really work for me - you interrupted the beat just for this bizarre vocal break that seemed rather out-of-place. The atmosphere of the piece is pretty amusing, and it has a good balance of frequencies, but it’s also missing a lot of moving notes, let alone strong melodic content. The piece needs a lot more structuring and variety. I think an important next step for you is constructing a more melody-driven piece. If you make a piece with stronger melodies, send me a PM and I’ll leave you another review. That said, the mixing and mastering is pretty good. I can hear all the instruments clearly throughout. The composition here is seriously underwhelming, but you have a good sense of atmosphere and harmony. Keep at it, Didyouknodoji! :)

5.75/10

[Aria - Beige]

I like how crisp the texture is at the beginning, but the string samples sound pretty inauthentic and dry. I’d strongly suggest adding some reverb. I think the reverb would especially help towards the end when you’re trying to add finality to the piece. The transition at 3:14 was a little awkward, and some reverb would really help smooth it over. Later in the piece, it’s harder to tell that the string samples are fake - perhaps it was just the dynamic contour of the first chords that made them seem fake to me. By :41, the texture is rich and full, and I admire your sense of harmony. The rhythm is pretty square in the melodies, though - in the future, I’d love to see you avoid using arpeggiated patterns in place of strong melodic content. I’d encourage you to look into using dynamics, phrasing, and other methods of creating variety besides adding and subtracting instruments. Doing so will add a lot of flavor and shape to your composition, and is a great indication of experience in a composer. Keep at it, Delitescentaria. :)

6.25/10  

DelitescentAria responds:

Woah. That's a large amount of text. I really appreciate that you like some parts of what I made -- I'll take it as an achievement for being self-thaught. I'll definitely look into the structural elements that could benefit my tracks.

Thank you for this lengthy review.

[Himalaya]

I like the pensive mood at the beginning. The atmosphere is great, even if the synths are a little cliche - they sound like they could be presets from Nexus. The piece is really slow to develop, though, and despite the good use of phrasing with the pads, doesn’t have a strong sense of direction until later in the piece. The piano riff at 1:30 is interesting, although the progression seems a bit arbitrary until the beat at 2:17 gives it a little more of a focused sound. There really isn’t a lot of melodic content here, though, which is one of my main concerns. The texture is much richer by around the 3-minute mark, but the pacing is still very slow and doesn’t facilitate a sense of emotion or drive very well. The piece definitely didn’t need to be almost 10 minutes long. The fade-out ending also came across as a bit lazy. As for the mixing and mastering, I can hear all the instruments clearly throughout, and the panning was a nice touch. Compositionally, this piece is just pretty underwhelming. I’d strongly recommend avoiding as much of this repetition as is possible to maintain coherence, and then incorporating some melodic “refrain” sections to give the piece more shape. Accomplish that, as this’ll be a strong piece. Keep at it, DamJanRI. ;)

5.5/10

[Sedisverse Ost- Red, White and Burn]

I like the busy percussion at the beginning, although I think it gets a little lost in the mix once the gritty bass comes in at :07. Some more careful equalizing and compression could really help you out there. Also, the piece is very slow to progress, and the stop-start transition at 1:12 was pretty awkward. You start taking the piece in a totally different direction by 1:24, yet it’s still very minimalistic. Also, I think you overdid the reverb on the low percussion at 1:24 - it sounds a bit indistinct and buried under the guitar. Toning down the reverb and adding a compressor could really help give it some clarity. I like the brighter tone the piece has by around 2:45, but I’m still waiting for some strong melodic content, and the texture still isn’t very rich or full. Given the minimalism and lack of coherence of the piece structurally, I really don’t think this needed to be 7 minutes long. I think you need to consolidate your ideas and structure your piece in a way that keeps your listener grounded more. I like the pads at around the 5-minute mark. They added a climactic and conclusive tone to that section. Still, the extended minimalistic, rhythmic section at 5:40 was entirely unnecessary and added almost nothing to the overarching structure and tone of the piece. I think you can accomplish what this piece has to offer in half the length. The ending also cuts off a little suddenly. There are some good ideas here, but the pacing, minimalism, and lack of structural variety really detract from my enjoyment of the piece. Keep at it, CSJForrester!

4.25/10

[Some Loop 02]

This is a decent start to a piece, but really it just seems to be a couple of quick ideas laid out in succession. There’s very little compositional content here - just a couple of short riffs. The instrumentation is pretty amusing, but overall you really need to put more effort into this piece before it’s presentable for a competition like the NGUAC. I’d encourage you to keep working on it - I like the heavy mid-range bass and the ascending guitar synth line at :13. I’d suggest adding some reverb on those drums for the final product. There’s really not much else to say. You simply need more content here before I can judge it as a structurally complete piece. Keep working at it, man!

3/10  

[Nebulae]

I like the pensive mood at the beginning. The piece has a good sense of atmosphere, and the subbass was a nice touch. It’s a little slow to develop, though, and many of the instruments are a little generic. I enjoy the changes in energy levels throughout, although I think the mix could use a tad more clarity. You may have overdone the reverb on a few of these instruments - that could be part of the problem. The piece may also need some stronger melodic content. The lead at :54 sounds very square rhythmically, and only really has moving notes toward the end of each measure. Still, overall this is a strong piece. You have a good sense of harmony and flow. Keep at it, BluJayTunes! ;)

8/10

BlujayTunes responds:

Thank you! I definitely agree with your statements, I too noticed after a while my melodies got too repetitive, plus mixing is a thing i really need to work on. Glad to be in the next round!

[Welcome back, my old friend]

I like the soothing guitar riff at the beginning. The rhythm gets a little frantic at around :13, which kinda sends off the wrong vibe given the mood at the beginning. There are a lot of sudden shifts in mood and pacing here that come across as quite jarring. The piece is also very short, and not truly complete from a structural standpoint. I think you could’ve done a lot more with the instrumentation. If you wanted to make a piece with only guitar and drums, I’d strongly encourage you to at least layer some harmonies on top of the content you have here. You also may want to widen the frequency range of your piece, because right now you’re not really taking advantage of the full spectrum. You’ll also need to vary the energy level and dynamics a lot more. This is a risky sort of minimalism here, and I don’t think it paid off this time. Sorry! You have a good sense of progression and harmony, but overall the composition here is pretty underwhelming. Keep at it, Bichenok. :)

5/10

[Megalithic]

The riff at the beginning is catchy, but I think you overdid the reverb. It sounds really muddy, which is why putting that much reverb on bass instruments is not usually a great idea. A lot of the instruments here are really generic and harsh-sounding in the mix. I think you need to use equalization to eliminate the harsh treble tones, and also the low frequencies in instruments besides the bass and kick. This piece has a lot of really sudden transitions, and adds and subtracts instruments in quite an arbitrary manner. I think you also went overboard on the distortion at 1:43. Despite the lack of cohesion, the piece is actually very minimalistic throughout. In the future, I’d highly recommend structuring your piece around some sort of melody instead of a couple of riffs that take turns dominating the texture. Harmonies, as well as variation in the drums, could also help you more effectively transition between sections of the piece. I’d encourage you to listen to one of your favorite pieces and analyze the structure, trying to mimic the structure in your own work until you get a better feel for how to keep the listener grounded. Once you feel like you’ve written a piece that’s a little more smooth-flowing and structured, send me a PM and I’ll leave you another review. Good luck! ;)

4.5/10

[That One Realization]

I like the riff at the beginning, although you may have gone a little overboard with the reverb - the instrument seems to have a lot of feedback. I wasn’t a huge fan of your drum samples - that kick has a lot of treble, and the snare was a bit dry. It’s also really easy to tell that the snare is getting distorted by the pads at :55. I think you need to be stricter about equalizing all of the instruments here and compressing the drums. It was a good idea to bring the piece full-circle with the riff at 2:00, but I think you needed a smoother transition there. The piece also has a sense of continuity without much structural variety - the energy levels don’t change all that much, and I’m not hearing anything in the way of dynamic contrast or phrasing. I want you to find more ways of creating variety besides adding and subtracting instruments over time - using filtering, volume levels, and automations could really add some emotion into this piece. The melodic content here is solid, though, and you have a good sense of harmony. Keep at it, BeeFef. :)

6.25/10

BeeFef responds:

Thanks. The reason why the drum samples sound a bit off is because I made them/recorded them myself. I'm still working on it. And I think the distortion on the snare is caused by the kick compressing with it sometimes during the faster part. I actually added like some sort of crunch sound to the snare for that part to make it sound better without the kick, but I guess it didn't work that well.

I hope I make it in!