Aydin-Jewelz123's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[XenoXenon - Perish]

Very nice and ambient start to the piece dude. Going to try and breakdown my review into 3 categories and feedback on those, rather than blabbering some random stuff.

First impressions:
Very calming and deep feel. Especially in the intro. Kicks in nicely around 1:00, to carry the song into a new section. The strings at 1:20 reinforce this massively, very very nice. Definitely a sort of lifting story of sorts. Like entering another realm or dimension. Would fit really well into a cyberpunk / futuresque animation of sorts, mixed with elements from Avatar, with the whole deeper consciousness vs technology vibe. Loving the piano at 2:22, even after the breakdown, you've sustained the prescence and aura of the track. Like it hasn't reverted back to the start, it's a continuation and solid foundation for the follow up section. Nice little wind riser at 2:55 and follow up drop. Great piece dude, very cinematic feel to the whole thing!

Composition:
Great, can't really fault it. Nice ambience overall and chords, melodies etc. are on point. Perhaps a little more stereo-imaging, chucking elements left and right more. It feels like everything is quite centered whereas stuff like your piano delay, bits of reverb, some of your arp melodies at times, could go off center to enhance the grandeur, especially in the bigger sections of the piece. So you'll go from mostly center, to full stereo. You actually do a bit towards the end, right around 4:30. More of that!

Mixing:
Sounded clean on the whole. Some of your highs could punch through a smidge more, for your lead for example at 1:40. Just like a smidge more maybe. Also your kick could come through a tiny smidge more. Not 100% sure. It sounds decent. Stereo imaging again might be all the track could use tbh!

Great stuff! :)

XenoXenon responds:

Thank you so much dude, it means a lot ;)

[Ragtime Me To Hell]

Oh yeahhhhh! That piano is spot on xD

Dude, if that's a real piano awesome playing. If it's not then awesome job creating a real piano!

Lol, I love the descent into madness. Very accurate and interesting sounds. As if the atmosphere of madness is clouding out the touch with reality.

Then snap, back to the bar.

You've fit the description perfectly dude so 5/5 :)

wobwobrob responds:

It is real piano playing! Although I did correct a couple bum notes :P
Thanks so much :)

[Cosmic Warp]

Has a mortal kombat vibe to it! Especially at 48 with the switch up. Niceee

Some pointers for improvement:
- Volume Automation, use these to fade in and fade out synths as you see fit.
- Panning Automation, chuck things to the sides, or from one side to the other. Cymbals, percussion, even synths.
- Clean the lows with EQ. So cutoff anything that isnt useful bass by using a Parametric EQ and choose the setting from templates 20hz cut or something lik that, then slide it up so it cuts from like 300hz or so for anything that you dont feel contributes to the bass. This will create more space for your lowends.
- Risers. Basically the opposite of a cymbal. Can be synth based like a swoop of even just a reverse cymbal. You had a small one around 2:38, basically more of those can help a dramatic build up.

Hope this feedback was useful, keep up the good work!

DanTheCoolGuy responds:

Wow thanks for the tip! I'll try to improve on these points

[Wasteland]

Nice ambience right off the bat. Good use of spacing / panning, has quite a very retrowave esque feel to it.

Ever played Timesplitters 2? This would fit perfectly dude. You should consider sending this to the devs of the new Timesplitters. Dudes are modders for UE4 afaik, might be interested in it!

Awesome work dude. Do you make stuff for games?

VincentKeegan responds:

Thanks Aydin!

Currently I haven't made anything for any particular project, although the thought has crossed my mind!

[~Sugar Rush~]

Much more melodic than your other piece, very nice dude, a lot of potential here. Such a nice sound in the build up dude.

Some feedback for your drop section:
- Add a snare on every 3rd beat if you want drumstep, 2nd beat if you want dnb.
- Extend your drop, add some hihats, slower ones, that come in with your extended section, perhaps bring the snare in with it too. These hi hats need to have longer tails, so they aren't sharp ones but smooth ones.
- Add a cymbal when it drops in.

Then again, like the other track, watch the volume on your bits.

When you make your next track, gimme a shout and I'll feedback more on your volumes, so that you can tweak it accordingly. Might be useful :)

Stardust-Nation responds:

Great, man, thanks a lot! That tip on the drumstep vs dnb beats is particularly useful as I'm currently working on a drumstep piece right now.

[Thunderclap]

Right-o dude! Having a listen now.

First thing off the bat, it comes in a bit quiet compared to the rest of your bits. Trying hard to not look at the waveform and actually listen to the piece.

Your synth at 41 seconds is too loud. Turn it down some.

The lows are a bit much on the kick, like you could EQ away some of the low frequency on your kick and replace it with a bass.

1:16 goes too quiet and the bits after it too compared to the earlier sections. Very nice meldoy on that bell like instrument / muted piano at 1:32 ish.

The volumes are the main things to tweak first of all, try to get both sections of the song around the same level. Swap back and forth between the two until you get it right.

Would go about it in this order:
- Turn down the synth at 45 seconds
- Cut away low frequencies on anything that's not a bass. So 200hz and below. If you're using FL Studio, put a Parametric EQ 2 on there, go onto the presets then choose 20hz & 18khz cut, then adjust the know on the low end (left side) so that you cut everything up to around 200hz, across all your synths except bass and perhaps kick. This will clean the bottom end.
- Similarly, if you add a sine bass or another soft bass type, like you have at 2:15, do the same but instead of cutting from left to right, cut the higher frequencies to about the middle. The buttons you're looking for are Purple for the 20hz / band 1 section and Blue for the 18khz / band 7 it's called in parametric EQ. Like the you'll see circles on the EQ itself saying those numbers.
- Next, up the volume before 10 seconds. Even if you do fade it in, do it a bit quicker, because by the time it reaches 5 seconds or so, the listener is kind of expecting that to be the volume. Well I did anyway then had to turn down my speakers.
- Next, up the volume at 1:14, so it never goes that quiet.

Things you can look at doing:
- Add a cymbal on the drop. Exactly as it drops. A crash cymbal should do it. Advanced tip: Add a slight microdelay to it too so it doesn't clash with your other stuff by slightly moving it to the right on your playlist or wherever you put it. Can also do this through the mixer channel.
- Send everything to FX channels if you haven't already then play around with panning slightly. Send some things like percussion to the left or right, and see how it sounds. Also your background sounds, one could go left, the other right. Never go more than 30% one way or the other unless you got something balancing the other side too.
- Look into Risers & Fallers, Snare / Clap / Kick build ups, Gross Beat Side Chain.
- And especially, look into Side Chain Kicks. It's confusing as hell at first but basically what it does is makes everything else go quieter momentarily when your kick drum plays thus creating space in your mix and making your kicks stand out. You can apply this to your snares too. Very useful.

Finally dude, look into structuring a piece.

Try to do like
16 bar intro, 16 bar build, 16 bar drop, 16 bar bridge, 8 bar down, 8 bar build, 16 bar drop, or something similar. A quick google will pull up a structure you could work with too, or find a techno song you like and look at its structure. Techno for me is difficult to make, because it requires extreme patience with the build up, drop, etc. They have like 3 minute build ups, then like 3 minute drops, and like 2 minute outros, stuff like that, which is nuts! My attention span only ever seems to work for a max 32 bar intro section.

So having sections is key in a piece. Then after once you are able to do that, you can do whatever the heck you want with the sections, cut and mix them as you please. Do whatever takes your fancy. Just know that the more you play with the standard sections, or expected structures, the easier it becomes to throw off your audience in a bad way, unless you've glued it all together well.

So many times I've had tracks and the sections just didn't fit properly, so I end up gutting it or having to move things around. You make one section and it sounds great, then make another section and it sounds great, then play the two side by side and it just doesn't work :'(

Always a good pointer is to go about 2 bars before your current section you're working on and preview it from there. That way you don't get carried away / make the follow up section inconsistent with the previous.

Currently got a Riddim / Drumstep track infront of me and I've messed up the sections big time. Not sure wtf to do with it tbh so trying to get some vocals in there to bridge the sections and glue them together.

If you made it to the end of this feedback dude, awesome! If you skipped here, then basically volume + clean the tops and bottoms + add a bass + structure

Stardust-Nation responds:

This is immensely helpful, thank you so much! I'm gonna use all this info as a reference for my stuff in the foreseeable future.

[Horizon]

Strong start, strong mid and an emphatic track overall.

Great job!

KayozKun responds:

Thank you so much!

[All the Clouds Are Gone]

Quite a moving piece. A lot of emotion in the first section especially. You lose it a bit with that synth at 30 seconds though. Stick to your early theme as it's very strong. 50 seconds synth is also powerful as is the followup one at 1 min.

Needs some work on the mixing side of things though dude. Namely your kick and snare are too quiet compared to your hats. Your highs are a tad high, like the high note synths are louder than your lower ones which dont have much prescence.

2:08 is splendid but you end on it dude. That bit has a lot of deep feel behind it. Use it to elongate the track next time! Very nice!

A lot of potential dude, keep at it and I hope this is a somewhat useful review.

Would gladly feedback your electro works if you link me.

Stardust-Nation responds:

Thanks for your review! I agree with your assessment about where some of the problems lie. Greatly appreciate the input and advice. And if you're willing, I'd totally appreciate your thoughts on my other stuff.

For instance, I made this dubstep style composition a while back: https://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/745584

And this one, which was my first foray into more intensive production mastering: https://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/833662

For me, it's like, I can tell when a piece I made feels like it's missing something, but not always what it is that needs to be done instead. So I really appreciate your input, man.

[9877 (2038 sequel)]

Now the kittens have gone to sleep, out come the night cat ravers.

First off, your stab synth is nice. The one that comes with the intro.

Some feedback would be:
- turn down that sine wave
- add a kick drum when it drops, like extend the track and do a quick switchup like a grossbeat slow down then smash back in with your 0:01 stab synth thing and some heavy bass with drums.

Careful too, your highs are a bit harsh on the ears. Some eq needed there.

Add a drop dude, you got fun elements and melodies. Just need something powerful to round it off.

Itsyaboi3456 responds:

In Rytmik Ultimate (The software i use to make music) i can only use 4 samples so uh... Yeah.

And two, my sound is broken so i need to put it loud so i can hear it.

And yeah the sine wave IS too loud (According to the soundwave) and it doesn't fit well now that i think about it.

[Excited Rainbow Kitty]

Sparkles... sparkles and kitties with mittens everywhere!

Very upbeat dude.

Any plans to extend it?

Your first half is my favourite section.

Would love to hear a 3 min or so version with that bit fleshed out into a full track.

Could fit so nicely into a film, game or animation!

Itsyaboi3456 responds:

I can't make songs that are longer than 2:30 minutes...

But i'll try!

I'll delete the part at 0:26 cuz it doesn't fit well. I think that's what caused the 4 stars.