sleepFacingWest's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[TL - Summer Glare]

Another banger! Love the playful piano gliss in the 2nd half.

TaintedLogic responds:

Thanks so much for the review, SFW! I love glisses too, and used to use them a lot more often. ^_^

[anxiety]

Great work! You always manage to surprise me with a different genre, but this one feels especially different. I think the brighter tempo feels good here…it creates a bit of tension between the lyrics. It would be interesting to hear a version at the original tempo just to see how much that affects interpretation.
Lovely as always!

Troisnyx responds:

Thank you so much!

I do still have the original draft; I'll ask Christoph and see if he's okay with me putting up a link.

[NoVinum & J V N - Sky Is Falling]

This is really great. I usually try to be constructive but I've got nothing for this. Mix sounds really good, no peaking, no issues with the low or high end, the sound design is sufficiently detailed and cohesive, song structure is great, wide mix but no phasing issues, you develop the musical ideas really well...just...good job. That's all I got.

NoVinum responds:

Thx a lot for nice comment and feedback to it :)

[Jay Eskar & Kris Kiss - Fire]

Great work! Only suggestion is that maybe the quieter section could be boosted just a bit to be a little closer to the level of the drop. Obviously you want the latter section to be bigger, but the difference is a touch extreme to my ears. Totally a personal opinion, though.
Very professional work all around, though. You know what you're doing and use that knowledge wisely. Well done.

[Funky Flashbacks]

I'm a sucker for that retro MIDI slap bass guitar sample. So A E S T H E T I C. This is a fun retro jaunt. Well done.

[Hunter Milo - Toys]

Great sound design. There's a lot of color in this, but everything feels very cohesive. Love it.

[Painter]

kawaii hyperpop dream. Great work!

[Chak (Synthwave + Metal) Videogame Music]

nice! Those vocal chops at the end slayed me. Really dig the vibe you have set up here.
I think the guitars (or guitary synths) could feel a touch wider. There are chug chord things that I almost want quadruple tracked. If you're using live guitar in parts, you can do 4 different takes, pan 2 far L and far R, then pan the other two like maybe 25% to either side? For synths doing that role, I'd try to eq them all somewhat differently, then pan them the same. Perhaps play them in live with a keyboard to get some minor discrepancies in performance. In any case, I'd put those 4 tracked chuggs on a master fader so you could pull them all down proportionally if you want.

Nice work otherwise. The drum programming is sick, and the piano breakdown before the final 3rd is really effective. Great work!

Napbak responds:

Wow very cool tips, I will keep them in mind. Thank you so much friend!!

[FILINGS]

I love the insight on your sound design process. Really cool. The groove you have going on here is nice and your drum programming is hyper detailed but never seems to be distracting. It just sets up an incredibly detailed bed for the other elements to lay on.

Check your mix in mono. I think there are some phasing issues for some of the percussion instruments because a lot of that gorgeous detail disappears. If you're making heavy use of stereo imaging plugins or you're delaying things between the left and right channel, that can be problematic when listening through things like a phone, laptop speaker, or anything else that either plays in mono or has speakers close enough that it might as well be. In this case, the percussion is SUCH a gorgeously nuanced part of your track that it's a shame to lose that in some contexts. Try to start a mix in mono so you separate elements by eq/level and rely less on stereo separation, then flip to stereo but check the mix along the way in mono to make sure nothing gets lost.
No other critiques. This is chill, bouncy, fun, and I could see this working really well in a game or something since it establishes a really nice groove, is really gorgeous when you're paying attention, but can also set in the background and set a vibe if you want it to. Beautiful.

JA4Y responds:

wow. thank you so much for such an in depth review, it truly means a lot. I've never actually considered what any of my tracks sound like in mono and to be completely honest im not even 100% sure how to check. you guessed very accurately with the stereo separation thing tho. I try to separate instruments through EQ when necessary but I very often will spread out their stereo image to avoid clustering but I never considered that that wouldn't work when played back in mono. ill try to work on that when going forward, usually im not too "technical" with my music. once again thank you very much for the in depth review <3 glad you enjoyed the song

[Tough Love]

like a fuzzed out fever dream on the west coast. This is fantastic. The bouncing feel you have in the compression is really effective here.
I'd check the mix at super low volumes and make sure everything is where it ought to be. There are few things that pop out of the mix that you might want to dial back, and a few things that disappear that you might want to make a bit more present. I don't know if you did any mastering on this, but I'd export a stereo file, and, at the very least, use some limiting to boost the levels. I don't advocate for the loudness wars and I LOVE the fact that you've preserved dynamics in your track, but I think the levels could stand to be just a touch hotter. I'd set the peak level to -0.1 and then push the gain until it JUST starts to squish the kick and snare.
Great work overall, though! This is the sort of track that makes me imagine a life that could have been.