fauxniim's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[+8]

Some more stuff from my favorite series.

Whoever can't appreciate this "type" of music, per se, shouldn't be rating as this isn't their domain.

[Terbium - Canyon]

I swear, you cut out nearly all the mids or something in this. Either that or it's distastefully compressed.

TerbiumOfficial responds:

Music is subjective. I make it for my tastes, no one else's. Thanks for your opinion though.

[BurgeraX: Alone [Dubstep]]

Snares.

Way too ringy, and too in-your-face to enjoy the rest of the subtle percussion, if there was any-- I couldn't tell because the snare was just a 0dB wall of sound.

Solution: EQ it first. Find the source of the ringing, and tone it down with a parametric EQ. Afterwards, use some multiband processing. Seperate the mids and the highs, then take the mids and use a slight bit of stereo seperation, and as for the highs, seperate them just a slight bit more. On to the next issue:

Sound design:

I admire your brute-force sound design approach to replicating modern sound design, but the case is often that you lack a wide variety of sounds-- in this song I notice you stick unusually fast to stabbing bass sounds, and don't use many varying modulation techniques. Your style contains elements of things sometimes known as "sausage songs"-- a wall of 0dB invasive sound design, usually a result of a.) overzealousness or b.) overcompression.

Solution: Spice up your mix and figure out what combinations of plugins really give your mix a unique touch. Make this YOUR mix, not 2014 Dubstep's mix. And remember that Plugins aren't what makes a good mix-- it's the frequency spectrum that does. Sound design is like crossing a river-- you can do it with a boat, you can swim, you can shoot yourself out of a cannon, you can drain the river, you can become Moses, and so on.

In addition to this, your track structure, as I mentioned, resembles a "sausage song"-- you give us no places to cool down, and anticipate what's happening next. When it comes down it, writing a song is not all about structure, it's a culmination of dynamics, vision, and arrangement. You, for the most part, have got all of this down-- except for possibly dynamics. Keep your listeners wondering what the hell's gonna hit them in the next 5 seconds. Add breaks, microscopic melodic interludes, and the like.

Do note that I'm not someone out to verbally beat the shit out of you and trash your song-- in fact, I'm the opposite. And I can say that I'm a bit of a hypocrite when it comes to critiquing songs (I can't produce for shit, 50% of the time). But it's just what I, as a listener of you, would like to see.

Quick tip: Vary your kicks. Try doing something like accentuating the first kick with a bit of saturation or distortion or harmonic enrichment every 2 or 4 measures. You can see an example of this in some tracks by Xtrullor, if I were to cite a source off the top of my head.

EruptionMusic responds:

Wow thanks for the review, and all the tips that came with it :D. Still on my path of learning everything about all this, but thanks ill try and do some of that stoof for you:P

[The Strange Event]

I wouldn't recommend so much stereo seperation on those lowpassed/deep chords. It mixes with the synth and makes everything sound muddy. The track structure isn't anything special, but I will say that it fares better than most of the stuff on Newgrounds.

Most of my score I give to you comes from your astounding ability to model very creative and flexible sounds on Synth1, considering virtual analog synths don't offer many flexible routes for modulation and the rest.

mozzasticks responds:

I can hear what you mean about the muddy chords, I'm sure part of the problem is that I have about 4 tracks of variations of the chords playing at the same time (2 pads and 2 synths doing fifth chords). It is a bit overkill listening to it now. But I totally get what you're saying, I'll be sure to keep it in mind in the future. This was my first time frigging around with Synth1 and I must say I absolutely love it, I'll be using it on future tracks. Thanks for the review! (It's very refreshing to get an actual review for once)

[Darkening]

Progression is a bit awkward. But I was able to listen to the whole thing, luckily-- a rare sight among even scouted artists.

VilexPlague responds:

Thanks a lot! I think I might've been stuck on one or two parts (I'm self taught, so pardon my lack of musical vocabulary at times), but I think I'll try to focus more on the progression next time I start with something new.

Once again, thanks for the feedback~

[+6]

Doesn't give me the vibe that Plus5 did, but nonetheless good.

Surkol responds:

Thanks man. I really appreciate it! The +/plus series is just some old weird stuff that I made.

[Plus5]

respeck

Surkol responds:

٩(●ᴗ●)۶

[Oblivion72 - Sky]

No reverb, or even any post-processing?

Oblivion72 responds:

I wanted to try something risky even for my assessment putting only the noise of the plane. Bad choice. However, if this does not satisfy you, try my other music. I think you'll like :-)

[Light - Jelly [DUBSTEP]]

Get a better PC if it takes that long to export. Instruments this simple shouldn't be THAT hard to export...

Lightbooster responds:

I have a good pc, don't think that instruments are simple, but i have a lot of useless thing there, so i think that's the problem. btw thank you for the 5 stars dude :D

[Magic Touch]

You're such an idiot.