sleepFacingWest's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Pretentious]

Great vocal delivery! The tone of your voice is totally appropriate for the genre and the lyrics are fitting. A minor thing regarding text setting - putting the emphasis on 'is' in 'this IS fareWELL' in the chorus is a little awkward. Typically you'd try to write the melody so more important words get the stronger beat. Instead of starting that line on the pickup so 'is' starts on the downbeat, I'd try doing 'THIS is FARE-WELL". It's the difference between <and ONE two-THREE> and <ONE and TWO-THREE>. It's not a deal breaker and there are examples all over rock of awkward lyrical placement (Green Day's use of the world 'mel-O-dra-MA-tic' in Basket Case instead of how you'd actually say it 'MEL-o-dra-MA-tic' has always bothered me in particular).

The guitar needs to be WAY more beefy in the mix. It's pretty subdued right now. I can sort of hear what you're going for, but it lacks the punch I'd expect in this sort of alterna-rock track. I'd try rolling the bass off of the rhythm guitars a bit and let the bass guitar take care of that. Maybe double track the rhythm guitar and hard pan them left and right. Also, adding a SUPER short reverb to the guitars will help beef them up in the mix. If you tracked the guitars using dynamic mics, maybe try a stereo pair of small diaphram condensors?

The track looks pretty heavily compressed, but you have tons of headroom across the board. Was the limiter set a bit to high? I don't think you necessarily need to normalize it to get that brick wall, but because you have so much headroom, you probably could have squashed the track less and let some peaks pop through the texture. This may have helped with

3:45 - The guitar palm mutes/bass/bass drum are fighting each other pretty hard here. Try to notch out places for each of the instruments in the mix. They don't all need to occupy, say, 150hz. Really only one instrument is needed there at a time, the rest will fill in the illusion that they also live there.

All in all, really nice writing. The song is fun, energetic, and has that 'Foo Fighters' aesthetic you were going for. I'd book up on some mixing tutorials to get your ideas to really sparkle.

dude2312 responds:

Hi, sleepFacingWest.

Great critique, I must say. I'd say it's a matter of perspective in regards to the placement of the accent (I happen to like it Green Day quite a lot and it is not awkward for me). As of right now, I am taking tutorials on mixing as this is my 4th attempt at recording. Before that, I had never recorded anything in my life!

So, I thank you for your review, I think it gives me a lot to work on and more importantly, I appreciate you dropping by to listen to my song!

[Sugar High]

You've made a discovery it often takes people decades to learn! Writers block is bullshit, and super simple motifs can birth entire pieces of music with some elbow grease and a modicum of experience. The trick is starting somewhere even if it's just 3 notes.

This piece is fun. It seems like the sort of thing I could see working well at the climax section of a show like Love Hina. I think you created the feeling you were going for.

The percussion could use a little work in this. You do a good job of getting an acoustic sound, but you could sweeten the mix in some of the more exciting sections a bit by subtly doubling the drums with an electronic kit (such as the section at 1:50). A light attack quick decay 808 bass drum would help fill out the decay of the kick drum, and doubling the snare with something with a bit more of a smack would help give it a bit more presence. This would also help tie together the piano vs synth thing you have going on.

I could use a little more presence in the low end as well. Using a low sine wave drone under the bass guitar type sound would help boost some of the low end and give the track more body. You'd still feel the pulse from the psuedo bass-guitar, but you'd feel the bass of the sine wave.

Thanks for your hard work!

ColinMuir responds:

Hey thanks for the review. Wow I've never thought of doubling drums, but that sounds like it could work, i'll try that some time. :D

[Forever Jazz]

Jazz! This stuff is notoriously difficult to produce. It's orchestrationally dense and harmonic theory aside, requires that you listen to a lot of recordings to get a sense of how each of the rhythm section players function. I'm bumping you're score up half a point for attempting something so tricky. That said, I have a lot of thoughts as this is something I've spent a ton of time studying.

14 bar form? The head feels really abrupt. While odd divisions of measures between phrases (in this case, 8 + 6) are not unheard of in jazz (especially in more modern work), you set up a very traditional feel with the changes/melody, and rhythm section style, but then end the second phrase 2 measures earlier than expected. I'm not saying you have to stick to the rules, but in this case the odd form doesn't seem to feel like the best compositional choice. It's definitely possible to make this idea work, but

The drums are a little too active in the descending ii-V turnarounds of the first phrase. You're using fills that feel like they belong in a shout chorus, but they need to be pulled back in activity significantly for small combo work like this.

0:20 - The saxophone solo is incredibly hard to hear through the rhythm section. For the track in general, both the guitar and piano are comping almost non-stop which is a big rhythm section no-no. Since they essentially play the same roll either use one at a time, or they need to play off of each other (and a lot less), accenting syncopated hits here and there. Freddie Green/Count Basie are the exception, though one would argue that Green's constant accented 2 and 4 beats on a mostly acoustic sounding guitar are more rhythmic than they are harmonic. Even so, Basie is famously SUPER sparse with his accompaniment. Performance-wise, I like that you drew from melodic source material of the head, but the sax solo should breathe more (I mean 'breathe' as in phrasing, but if this was a live performance, the sax player would literally have to circular breathe to play from beginning to end like that). It's a constant barrage of notes with little to no phrasing. While you do a good job of highlighting the interesting notes between the changes, less is more. If you want to get to some of those longer bebop licks, build to it, but don't start with the constant 8th notes.

0:38 - Guitar solo: FINALLY! Because the guitar isn't playing changes, the texture thins out a lot more and it finally has a little more space. Moving to the hi-hat on the drums helps with pulling back the density. This feels a bit better. The rhythm section is still pretty choppy. You're focusing a little too much on accenting those hemiolas. It's almost like you temporarily modulate to 3, then back to 4, but regardless of intentions, the piece definitely stays in 4 throughout with some dotted quarter note syncopations in the turnaround of the 1st phrase.

I would rather have heard extended solos on the saxophone and guitar than hear the drum and bass solo. While your Buddy Rich programming in the drums is impressive, the wind tends to get sucked out of the momentum of a piece with bass and drum solos since everything else drops out. You can make it pay off if the piece has been going for awhile and the other soloists play through the form several times. In that case, pulling everything back for a drum or bass solo is a welcome change of texture. That said, in this context it feels a little like a high school jazz ensemble where everyone in the group gets a turn to play a solo, then you play the head again and end. After that, the piece continues to lose momentum while the ensemble trades 4s with the drums.

The end is kind of disjunct. The full brass section comes in to what was previously just a sax quintet (and actually started as a piano quartet). If you want to write a big band piece, it should start as such. I definitely don't advocate for all the instruments playing all the time, but it's strange to wait until the very end to bring in the full ensemble. I'd try to spend some time listening to large ensemble recordings and actually write out what instruments are doing what and when. If you can actually transcribe the whole score, more power to you, but even just getting the broad strokes of "trumpets accenting chords" or "saxophones playing pads" will help you get a sense for how to orchestrate for large jazz ensemble. That said, the voicings are pretty good in the brass section. That can be a pain in the butt to voice, so well done!

The end chord is just gorgeous. Loved that.

In general the piece felt like band-in-a-box. I think you have some great material here, but the instruments sort of went on autopilot for the most part. Part of what makes jazz so insanely difficult to produce is that you have to spend a ton of time sequencing each and every part to make it believable. I have some thoughts on how to imbue more realism into your MIDI instruments and general production as well, but I feel like I've taken enough of your time as it is.

Thanks for participating. It's really refreshing to see someone do something outside of the typical house track.

AzulJazz responds:

Thank you so much friend, I think your review was hard but very accurate, I will try to remember and apply each of the points you mentioned, still I have been interested in that other thoughts for imbue more realism into my music work.

[Dragon Slayer]

Epic! Great mix, really great guitar playing. Extra points for the use of live instruments.
I could have used more melodic activity in the slower sections. I also don't think you needed the tag at the end. It was fun, but structurally didn't really seem to pay off since it was a completely different direction from everything that preceded it, then ended before it was able to develop.
The cut to the guitar bit at 0:40 was a bit abrupt. I could have used some more finesse in that transition.

350teric responds:

Thanks man! :)

[Quaid City Bar]

I love retrowave! Your sound design is really good. What is your sound design process?

Joey4Track responds:

Thanks! After reading your description from your NGUAC submission I have updated my OP. Nothing too special with this track to be honest but I have the details in the description now ;)

[Infierno]

Love this. There's an awful lot going on here, and it'll take several more listens to really hear everything. The break in the keys at 1:14 is really nice. I'd love to hear this with some live brass. What are the chances you'll get a performance out of this?

frootza responds:

Ay! I see you found my insta bro! I don't know if it was by chance or what. Haha. Thank you dude. Definitely a lot going on with this one. Chances are somewhat high? I have a few pieces in the same style as this one that I plan on uploading in the future though the goal is of course getting a full group for performance. Having a full group even though it's more of a pain to do, there's always those tweaks that you can't adjust if you are tracking separate. But I might talk with some local players and see if they'd be up for a session, not sure when. Thanks again dude!

[T-Logic - Flight of Dreams]

I really like that popcorn snare. It has a nice punchiness that cuts through the synths effectively. I think the understatement of the percussion works well against the arpeggios. The choir pads feel a little murky in the mix, but they set up a sort of tension that is released once the chip synths come back in. If you decided to pick at this some more, you could potentially make that B section do more, but considering the project timeline, this came out super well. You did a lot of work in 6 hours. nice job.

TaintedLogic responds:

Thanks a lot for the review, SFW! I agree about the murky pads - I probably should've at least toned down the reverb there. Or I should try to avoid using Nexus presets altogether. XD I'm glad you liked the snare, though - personally, I liked how it meshed with the rest of the sound design. :) Thanks again and good luck in NGUAC. ^^

[Dharma - A.I.]

Love the retro vibe in this. Those swirling synths are the jam! I feel like the drums could be mixed a bit higher. I want this to drive a bit harder. The mix is also a bit right channel heavy. I'd set that main melody synth more towards the center to balance things out. Other than that, great work! I'm going to go jam out to this again.

HagiuKover responds:

Thank you for your feedback, I've added a boosted bass version a friend did, I'll try to master the song a bit more, I'd like to submit it to NewRetroWave youtube channel, wasn't sure it was up to snuff. But, maybe with a little more work it will be.

[The Other Voice In My Head]

Great track! It inspires me to attempt similar at some point (though I suspect imminent failure). The bed of voices is great! I could use some more highs in the mix in general. A little bit of sparkle on the upper end will help the bass drum cut and will make those high hats really punctuate those triple to duple hiccups. Maybe mix the handclaps a little higher as well (or use them to trigger sidechain compression so the rest of the track ducks a tiny bit when they hit)? Those end up being sort of like fenceposts that the stretchy taffy of beats you have going on get wrapped around. Thinking of them like landing spots in the track will really make this fucking kick.

All in all, really fucking great. You handle tension and release expertly. Looking forward to hearing more.

larrynachos responds:

Huh, never thought to sidechain the clap. Thanks for the tip! I'd love to hear you try trap haha. Thanks for the review!

[Aviator]

Nice 3rd substitution at the end of the phrase! I definitely wasn't expecting it the first time around.

Noisysundae responds:

And that was how this piece was shortened. (If you mean the thing at 1:06) It's supposed to be two parts, but I'm too lazy. XD