tweerock's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[- [ALBUM] - Pearlite]

I love the chipsounds in this, they sound awesome. However, the song overall is a bit repetitive. I'm not saying it's bad that you're using those classic four chords, but I noticed it really well in this piece as it repeated itself throughout. I also felt the song didn't offer much variation, and it felt a bit stretched out.

Other than that, top song, great production value. :)

MashedByMachines responds:

Okay, ill remember that for my coming songs :) Thanks!

[Into the Grey]

My previous critique

It's awesome to took most of my advice to heed. You've certainly improved, but let's see what you've done here in full.

The melody line is good as always, still a bit simple (which isn't a bad thing, don't get me wrong, it really works with the piece), and the rhythm works well, though it is repeated a tad throughout the whole piece. That break in the octave at 1 minute something caught me off guard, and I quite liked it, but it was the only part of the song that went that high, and the rest of the song is the same more or less in this sense.

Your phrasing is interesting. The entire song is divided into audible ideas (Idea 1 - Start of the song, Idea 2 - 19 seconds, Idea 2b - 23 seconds, Idea 2c - 31 seconds, Idea 3 (bridge) - 36 seconds and so forth), so the important part was to find a way to bridge them together. Idea 1 into idea 2 worked nicely, though when it went into idea 2b, it felt a bit abrupt. Into idea 2c, it was completely unexpected, in an interesting way, but I feel it completely changed the mood of the song briefly. The rest of the song works well, phrasing wise.

Instrumentalisation (I'm pretty sure that isn't a word and Instrumentation is the word I'm looking for, but I don't care :) ) is pretty obvious, seeing the only instrument is a classical acoustic guitar (though it is very hard to hear the difference between one and a steel string). I can't tell you how much better this would've sounded with some shifting dynamics on a real guitar (I play guitar also). I won't take off "marks" for that, but I'm just saying. I guess I can't say much about layering or mixing either, but they're mediocre, here on the track.

Well done with the track! If you ever buy a mic and mixer, shoot me a PM, I'd love to listen to more of your stuff in the future.

[Classical Mysticism (Prelim)]

Title is important after all

This very short song, in its early stages, seems to have an good hold on where it wants to go but could do with better execution.

Melodically, this song is fairly simple, but I actually think that works quite well with what you've done totally so far. Nothing wrong with the rhythm either, it isn't so simple that it's robotic, but actually has some push to it (until it reached the bridge, where it grinded nearly to a stop like it was approaching a speed bump).

The mixing is mediocre, and the steel stringed guitar sounds very artificial. You have to be careful with that, especially when repeating notes after another. I think it's weird that after playing one note on one string, it rings even after the same note on the same string is plucked again.

Musical ideas are expressed, and executed simply, though the bridge destroyed a lot of what the song had going for it

The song is so short, yet you repeat an idea twice, with some arbitrary sounding "bridge" plopped there in the middle. It doesn't transition at all, and the movements are non-existent in between the two ideas. It doesn't help explain the idea either, which is not doing anything good for the song.

This brings me to the problem of layering: there's not a lot of it. You have some random percussive bass instrument that is too unclear and muddy to listen to with another instrument and a solo guitar which doesn't bring enough depth to the sound.

If you want the song to be really simplistic bring the bass volume down and make it very clear to listen to, so you could hear the two instruments by themselves if you tried to. Otherwise, it needs more layering and more instruments, and building complexity.

My last issue was that most of the song stays in the same octave (which was bold, but didn't work), and there wasn't any dynamic shift.

I know you mentioned how "rough or incomplete" this is, but a little review couldn't hurt anyone.

PS: The title is silly and should be changed to something more creative.

IAmYossarian responds:

It's actually a solo guitar, but I have no recording tools. As a result of this, I have to generate my music through an artificial channel (I use GP6). I haven't actually mixed the song yet (I literally wrote it in like an hour then submitted it), so I'll lower the bass when I do. When I finish the song, I'll try to change positions so it's not all in open position/first seven frets. I'm still trying to figure out how to properly transition from the intro/chorus (that's what I'm planning, at least) into a slower section without it being so abrupt. However, I don't think a rallentando (gradual slowing of tempo) would fit very well. I may add another intermediate bridge section to try to improve the song's flow. Finally, I'm admittedly really bad at naming songs (if you look at my other songs, none of them are named well), but I'll do my best to think of something which is less cliche. Thanks for submitting a such helpful critique!

[Soundcrush]

Not bad

This is definitely an improvement. The ball is rolling in the right way, I don't think I need to say much here. Good work!

[Dawn Patrol[#]]

Okay track

You need to use a limiter (LMMS has a nice built in one called Fast Lookahead Limiter) for the crackling/scratching. Put it in the problem instrument's FX chain, and that should solve individual instruments. Put in the the master channel if you want to limit the whole piece.

For the "many instruments playing at the same time" thing, know about dynamic balance. Know which sounds should go above the others, and automate them. For example, in symphonic classical pieces, a when a crescendo happens, the bass gets louder, but the high, melodic lines quieten a little to be supported by the bass, and so this feels like it really is getting awesome. Another thing is, start off the song pretty quiet so you can build crescendos afterwards. It's just what I think, it might not work for you.

The song is okay, but slightly uninspired. A little (or a lot :p) wet reverb would've filled the ears and made this sound awesome, but by itself, it's just not bad. Rhythm is cool with the crash fills, but repetitive. Not much to say, but I do like some of your other stuff better.

And for the audience thing, I dunno. You've kept me here for a bit helping you out (hey, no inconvenience on my side, and I'm helping somebody out), but others? It takes a while to be known anywhere on the internet, but since NG doesn't show names next to songs, there's no guarantee anyone will want to exclusively listen to your music. The trick is patience, and self improvement.

Cheers!

ElementalNova responds:

By "uninspired", do you mean "repetetive"? I couldn't think of anywhere else to go with this, so I just repeated the same theme. Also, I just realized that this was my earlier version. I had changed the cymbals (making the brush as loud as the crash and making it less repetitive), but the changes are so unimportant that I'm leaving this one up. Thanks for the advice, though. I'll check out those effects.

[Never Again (Chiptune)]

Impossicool

I don't see why you shouldn't keep going with this. This is pretty cool, my friend! I mean, the mixing is a tad off, there's not a lot of variation (shifts etc), but the sound is nice. Good work!

Lashmush responds:

The mixing is not good because I accidentally the disco. :c

[Speed Slant]

Wow

You really took my advice to hand! Keep going, it's getting more and more awesome as you go!