sleepFacingWest's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Haunted House Adventure]

nice harmonic work! These baroque minor progressions always sound so dramatic! The only critique I'd have is that I wanted it to open up a little bit at 0:49. The piece seemed to set up for a bunch of counterpoint, a B melody, or perhaps some more intense rhythmic work, but the same melody repeated with more subdued sounds felt a touch anticlimactic. In any case, really nice overall work. I'm looking forward to the next release :)

gruber99 responds:

Thanks man, much appreciated!

[Iηнυмαη Eяrør]

I really dig the bit distortion in this. Sometimes it can come across as gimmicky, but it totally makes sense in this context and you complemented it with enough "clean" sounds that it didn't become tiresome. I think you accomplished your goal - this feels like the sense of wonder and excitement I could imagine from the first few moments of life. I also like how it just cuts off at the end. I was wondering how you were going to pull the story around in sound and I like that you didn't lay it on too thick. Good work!

larrynachos responds:

I figured everyone was going to make really bad vocoder tracks for Robot Day, so I wanted to go in a more clean direction. Since the song is about a robot with human emotion, I tried to make the song more "human". But, since the robot's feelings are emulated through mechanical and electronic parts, I slightly bitcrushed the arp to reinforce the sense that technically the emotions are artificial.

Thanks for the review! I'm glad you liked it!

[Scenic Ride]

I'm not normally into this style of music, but this was just perfectly produced! There was so much room in the mix and the development of musical ideas was paced really well. It never felt particularly repetitive or stagnant. Those ghostly vocals in the background are are really nice touch. I loved the slight portamento between notes. I normally try to find some constructive criticism, but I think you did what you set out to do. Nice work!

Noisysundae responds:

Why thank you! The vocals in 'Orbital decay' are my reference. It would be too robotic if I didn't do the portamento. And this one is a bit high on bass according to the spectrum. It's okay if our ears say so, I guess.

[T-Logic - Phone Call WIP]

love the background pads with the white noise. Super ethereal vibes.

TaintedLogic responds:

Thanks man! I haven't heard from you in a while. I'll definitely check out some of your more recent stuff when I get the chance. ;)

[Empty]

Nice work on this one!

larrynachos responds:

Thanks! I've only recently got into trap, so it's nice to get some good feedback out of the gate :D

[8-Bit Hero Redeux]

great production! This is really really funky! I'd love to hear about some of your tricks for making this pop so hard. That bass is so dirty. You should consider making this a full track!

JonH2O responds:

Thank you! Lots of automation. Though not the EQ that you would expect. I couldn't tell you what they're doing, haha. There's just touch boxes with names like "Boil/Heat", "Drive/Envelope", and "Attack!!!/Treasure Here-->"..haha you'd know what I meant had you used the app. You're welcome to analyze the automation if you open the Figure track. Click the red down arrow button once you get it on your phone. https://www.propellerheads.se/s/cfb3KKTs

[Yeow House Five]

I love the rubbery bass on this one. It gives the track a really quirky feel. I feel like you could expand on this idea. This makes really good intro material, but it's just a tease!

JonH2O responds:

Yeah! I played with this for a long time. I uploaded just a few that I #'d. Thanks for the reviews. Glad you like them.

[Dangerous Mission - Title Music]

You bastard! The beginning sound is exactly like my apartment buzzer and I jumped up and ran down the hallway thinking a package was being delivered. Even though I knew this was the case (and had already written the last sentence) it got me again when the track looped.

Nice sound design. This certainly would work great as title music! I can imagine a terse quick cut montage over this. I think you could beef up the percussion a bit. Those handclaps are begging to be more of a smack. I'd consider adding a little (and I do mean little) overdrive distortion and compressing them a bit to give them a fatter squash. You could also (FUCK, there's that ringing again!) you could also try doubling the claps with the same sample or a snare or something flanging them by a couple milliseconds to give it more presence.

All that said, this is really good as is. Moody and effective. I'm also kidding about the ringing sound so don't be offended. It's just uncanny. Oddly enough, though nobody rang my buzzer, my package actually WAS downstairs waiting for me. Crazy.

lucascoolsouza responds:

lol,ok
sorry for buzzer hahaha

[Follow that car!]

This is great! More action jazz all the time always! Sick instrumental work. Did you play both? The mix sound a little on the dry side to me. I think equing the highs up a bit on the sax and guitar might help as well as a bit of subtle reverb on the guitar/sax/drums might help. They all sound super close and I think I expect a tiny bit more space for this style of music. Really nice work, though!

acmeDyne responds:

Thanks! I played the saxes and guitar. The rest was done with Cubase. I think you are right about the mix. I must admit that I'm a bit of a reverb hater, hehe. Your mixes sound great, so I definitely trust your ears. I really appreciate the review.

[T-Logic - Terrified]

RAD. FUCKING. SONG!
I really like the direction of this. The spaghetti western opening is pretty cool. It really sets up a lonesome road feel. The addition of the delay during the verse is fucking perfect. I applaud your bravery in singing. I would never do it. You have a nice voice, though, and I think we could use a little more of it around NewGrounds.

As always, all this stuff I'm about to vomit are thoughts I had while listening, and are things I would consider if I was working on this project. I always consider that approach the most helpful (which you've been extraordinary with btw...thank you!). It's up to you to decide what you'd like to take or leave.

Right at :20 where the drums and bass start, I'd consider layering a chord in the guitar so it really feels like it arrives. The sparse intro builds up a lot of tension and I think making that spot feel like a real landing would help with the forward momentum. If you lean on the whammy bar a bit for that chord or pull it in and out of tune with your fingers you can add some real surf rock/pulp fiction vibes to this which could be cool. It would help glue the song together if you dropped a guitar chord on the down beat of the 1st and 3rd bar of every third bar phrase. Just slow strum it and let it ring over the next bar. That way you can keep the song sparse, but help drive it forward just enough to get to the chorus.

I really wanted the guitar to continue through :50 with the delays. I think having a new musical character for that line specifically was a nice way to tone paint, but the addition of the organ does that already. The delay guitar sort of helps glue all the spaces together. If you ended up doing the bendy guitar chord earlier, it'd be a good opportunity to bring that back again at the down beat at 1:10. It would also help with the build up into the chorus.

I feel like the highs could be equed up a bit in general. I'm being EXTREMELY picky, but the mix feels just a touch dull in some of the non-chorus parts. You could add a tiny (TINY) bit of overdrive distortion to the kick and snare as well. Add a bit more to the kick. In general, when low sounds need to have more punch, distortion does wonders as it will fortify the upper partials of the frequency spectrum which makes low end FEEL fatter without having to actually pull it up in the mix. The snare would get a little more sparkle and smack from the distortion as well. Either that, OR maybe push the drums back in the mix a bit with some subtle reverb? The room sound might help some of the highs ring a bit more. I don't think it needs to go all 80's stadium rock, but a super subtle room reverb barely mixed in will give the impression that the drums are further back in the room. Also, maybe consider playing the hi hat in on a keyboard? The time is insanely consistent as is the velocity which works for awhile, but it starts to stand out after a bit. Playing it in live will give it a little more variance in timing as well as attack.

I really like your vocal delivery. It's morose and a little deadpan (and I mean that in *very* good ways). It sounds like you might have been monitoring your vocals as you were singing in the headphones? When people hear their own voice or instrument RIGHT in their ear, they typically play/sing more hesitantly or quietly because they're not used to hearing the sound coming from a source that closely. I usually mute the playback in whatever I'm laying down and put the headphones on over one ear only so I can hear the instrument or voice more naturally to evoke a more natural performance. Also, if you're using a condenser mic, stand a little further back and project.

I really dig the bass line. Was there a reason you dropped the bass out at 1:20? I feel like it would help fill out the low end if you rock some roots with a more or less regular straight 8th note rhythm.
The call and response synth line is super effective. You nailed it with that.

There are places where you could fatten up the bass by doubling it with sine waves. It wouldn't work for every note, but there are landing spots that I feel could seem more like an arrival if the bass was a bit fatter. Usually I'll use a sine wave an octave or 2 below the bass, and mix it SUPER quietly. You don't want it to be obvious that there's a double happening, but it'll just fill out some of the frequencies in the low end that the bass guitar doesn't cover. This usually works best on long tones. Make the attack long enough so the sine doesn't pop on the attack, but not so long that there's a noticeable morph in the timbre of the bass.

I like the long decay on the keyboard line (sounds almost like a rhodes?) that you start doing at 3:50. I think the two keyboard chords before that could have the same character?

There are really a lot of directions you could go with this song. As soon as I started typing a suggestion, I thought of a lot of other things that could be done with it. That's a sign that you have some really evocative writing! I'd love to hear more like this from you. Nice work!

TaintedLogic responds:

First of all, thank you SO VERY MUCH to take the time to write this extremely detailed and helpful review, SleepFacingWest. I'm really glad you liked the "lonesome road feel." :)

"I applaud your bravery in singing. I would never do it." --> Thank you very much! The thing is, I myself felt like I would never do it just a couple short months ago. XD

Regarding :20, I guess I myself wanted :30 to be more of the arrival point, although I really appreciate your thorough constructive criticism regarding layering the guitar sound and driving the piece forward. A lot of the language you use in this review suggests that I recorded the guitar, which is not true. They're all electronic samples, I'm afraid. Sorry to disappoint you, but I'm not THAT talented. XD

I definitely concur with your comments about :50. I think I had actually chosen a number of instruments I had wanted to use for this piece beforehand, and then tried to find ways to squeeze them in (keep in mind that this was well over a year ago). You've given me a lot of helpful compositional advice here that I'll most certainly consider in the future, so thanks a boatload for that!

I recognize your comments about the mix. I have yet to experiment with distortion too much, so it's good to know what to do with it when I get the chance. ;) As for the reverb, I had planned to add a lot, to the vocals, snare, and guitars, but as pathetic as it sounds, I couldn't figure it out in Garageband. I could add a reverb automation, but no matter which track setting I put my instrument on, I couldn't drag the bar above "0%." -_- As for playing the hi-hat on the keyboard, I completely agree once again! I need to humanize things more, and once I do get around to that, hi-hats are probably a good place to start experimenting. ^^

I'm glad you liked the vocal delivery. That's an interesting assumption about the headphones, but I don't think that was the case. First of all, I think I wanted (at least the verses) to be a bit deadpan, and I recorded this early in the morning when I probably hadn't gotten much sleep the night before. Also, my school's not-so-soundproof recording studio is right between the orchestra room and the Music Tech lab, so I was a little self-conscious about projecting my voice, I suppose.

To be honest, I don't remember why I dropped the bass line at 1:20, but I'm glad you enjoyed it nevertheless. I did have those punchy guitar chords in there at 1:20, but I agree that a straight 8th note rhythm would've added some meaningful texture to the chorus. I'm not sure what you're referring to with the "call-and-response synth line." Maybe the lead guitar melody during the chorus?

Thank you so much for your advice regarding the sine waves. I think you've given me the inspiration to explore a lot of different compositional and mixing techniques! :D

I'm glad you liked the coda. That instrument at 3:45 is actually a Wurly.

Again, I deeply appreciate your thorough response here, SleepFacingWest! You're clearly very knowledgeable, and it's generous of you to give me so much advice. I'll use it the best I can. ;D