DelitescentAria's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[SVMMIT - Anew]

To be honest, this isn't terrible, but your sound design leaves to be desired.

Your piano is too over encumbered in the lows, making it sound kinda sloppy.
This isn't really dubstep.
The drop just feels over encumbered too. Mayhap you should revise your mastering on some of these, review your sound design so it doesn't sound fat. Also, there's an annoying click at 1:00.

I like the chill feeling this song has, I like your piano melody.

I just can't get into it.

Hope this can help you get better.

svmmit responds:

thank you dearly for the critique.

The muffled high end on the piano was intentional though.
I honestly dont know how to master music and I've never really learned anything about sound design.
the single click at the 1 min mark is just a render glitch from the lowpass filter on the white noise that i guess i didnt catch while listening

I don't really care that this isnt dubstep. I don't care for genres in general and newgrounds does not have a very wide selection of genres you can choose from in the drop down menu. I just always select dubstep at this point in my life.

[Happy Breakcore Rave Thing]

I like what you've done here. An uplifting track with plenty of bass. Not my favorite genre, but I can appreciate it. I must say, that's quite a powerful bass. I don't know if it could be qualified as breakcore though?

The drums are bugging me. It's not that they aren't mixed well, to me it just seems like they're lacking some punch. It just feels like they were peppered on top to make sure they were in. I would personally have chosen a stronger kick in the lower frequencies, just to give it a little bit of power.

Overall, I think it's good, just the drums bugging me.

5TanLey responds:

It has an agressive amen break in it at fast tempo, so it kinda reminded me the genre.. I also had no idea how to name this song

drums lack punch = they aren't mixed well, probably :) yeah they feel quite drowned when I listen to it after a while.. dunno it sounded OK to me when I was making the track

thx for your thoughts :)

[Constellation]

I could smell Sytrus being used with those sine basses (if I'm wrong forgive me).

Overall, really nice, chill piece. The reverb is at a point where it's comfortable, not obsessive. I like your little static overlay, kinda gives off a "comfy at home" feeling (maybe that's just me, I dunno). The drums that ebb in and out are a nice touch, adds a dynamic touch to the song. Strong piano too, powerful yet subtle. (I'm guessing it's a Kontact 5 library like The Giant or something along those lines).

Only thing that bothered me. That little "wet" sound throughout the beginning. I'm guessing it's a water drop? It sounded like someone opening their mouth close to a mic in my opinion.

Sweet piece.

5TanLey responds:

yeah it's from sytrus but it's actually a triangle wave so I shall never forgive you this mistake

the library is Soundiron Emotinal Piano, cool thing

the wet thing is supposed to be a minimal snare

thx for your opinions again :)

[Lights]

Publishing things on a vibe, eh?

No kidding, this sounds nice. Quite the "abuse" of delay (which isn't an abuse). I reckon you were going for something smooth, so I'll review along those lines.

I like what you have going there, the piano melody is simple, yet quite effective. I like how the bass kinda revolves around it. It follows it without getting in the way, smoothly yet empowering to the song.

My only concern with this, is even though you were going for something smooth, it lacked some kind of punch. Something to keep the listener hooked throughout your track. Mayhap a slow sidekick would've done it? I don't know I'm no expert.

Overall, really good, lacking some punch but definitely worth a listen.

Is it just me that gets the early 2000 video game soundtrack feel from this?

5TanLey responds:

thx for your opinions,

dunno, from early 2000 I played only like Diablo II and this definitely doesn't remind me the game :D

[EspiDev - Odyssey]

This is enjoyable!

I see a theme (i guess) and I quite like it. Melodious yet simple, a purpose in mind. It sounds somewhat landscapey (if you see what I mean). Here's a picture to paint with it:

"The forest village has been home to the tribe for centuries. No one bothered, nor visited. The little autarkic society hasn't been disturbed. One day, an adventurer stumbles into the small village, shimmering in the light filtered by the sun. This is the music."

Or at least some parts of it.

Enough picture painting, more reviewing.

Enjoyable, somewhat repetitive though, don't know if that was the purpose although I highly doubt it was. You have some strong piano skills good sir. The song progresses evenly and there's no "stutters".

The less good points have to be mentioned for you to get better, even if pointing out the mistakes can be a bit rough on some people.
Watch your EQ. Some of the high frequencies were way too loud and drilled my ears. They are well put in the song, just obnoxiously loud.
It is too long for what it is. I honestly didn't stay hooked too much in the end, seeing as it was rather repetitive. I saw the little changes here and there, but sometime, even when you change things, it gets too long. Half the length would have been nice for me.

Overall, nice song, good instrumental pairings, a bit too long and watch the EQ.

Hope this helped.

Cheers ^-^

EspiDev responds:

Awesome, thanks for the review!

[Deb You Say? - Worm Filled Caves]

Atmospheric it is indeed.

From the beginning, I knew this would have a new-wavy feel to it. I wasn't wrong.

It started off pretty well, I saw the atmosphere you were picking up. Liked the little mute effect you had on your main lead. Nice melody, well structured.

At 0:52, the bass (I'm assuming) came in. It was a little weird at first. Maybe because it didn't match the main lead too much? I'm not an expert. Something felt off.

This odd feeling stayed with me up until the 2:03 mark. Just something about your bass felt off. Maybe it was your lead that you had put on a certain pattern of notes? I would suggest staying in the same notes, although, again, I'm not an expert.

2:50. Boy. I had a certain apprehension when the SFX came in, but you picked up what you did earlier pretty well. Nice and smooth segment after.

Until the end, it was odd. Not in a bad sense. I don't know what kind of feeling you tried to install with this song, but for me it was definitely unsettling. Those vocals were creeping up on me. Again, don't know if that was intentional, but that's what it gave off.

Overall, pretty good atmosphere you got there. Creepy, but good.

Hope this helped. ^-^

Maverickmode responds:

Thanks for the review. The feeling I was going for wasn't exactly creepy (until the end), more like mysterious and ethereal, dreamlike. Creepy is pretty close to that though, so I'll take it haha!
I agree, the bass is kind of contrasted against the lead, but that was sort of intentional. I would like to soften it up a little by lowering the low pass filter cutoff, but unfortunately I can no longer access the project file. :(
Anyway, thanks for the review, and I'm glad it made you feel stuff!

[Voice In The Dreams (Onefin Remix)]

So, this is experimentation. It sounds weird, not sure I like it. It started off well I was hoping it would stay on that path. So, I'm not good with new wave so my comments aren't very enlightened, bare with me.

After a few listens, I can tell you were going for some kind of glitchy/creepy thing which i can totally get. There were other ways to get that effect though. You shouldn't overlap sounds too much. Even if it's new wave, there is a line you shouldn't cross. Near the end it was only noises and nothing else. For like a second, I can follow. But it lasted a bit too long :/ .

I do love your glitches. They sound really good. Consider moderation though. This is just a mismatch of effects, which is correct if you don't get annoying. New wave is a dark territory which few dare to explore. Just make sure you thread the right path. You still want to make music here.

Again, I am not familiar with new wave, I might be repeating myself, but these are my thoughts. This review might be completely useless but eh, I do what I can.

Careful of where you go, you walk a dangerous path.

Onefin responds:

In the end, this piece was an experiment. I wrote it to test all the ways I could make sound effects and see which ones sounded good. The beginning used a variety of glitched sounds with reverb, some of them reversed, and some processed percussive effects with no real rhythm written on the piano roll. The middle section used gross beat gating and reversed renders, and the end section was all putting a sound effect in Serum, LFO'ing the crud out of the wavetable, and writing random notes in the piano roll (and also some Slicex-chopped drum loops). At that point, moderation was really just out the window, in favor of simply trying everything.

I only uploaded this to Newgrounds because it had such good reception over on Youtube. But it's clear that my initial intuition was still correct over how the song would be treated here - badly.

Thanks for the review! You helped shed some light on this experimental piece and what I should try to accomplish in the future.

[(Chillstep) Purple Leaves]

I found you through R4R but you know what, this song deserves a review anyhow. Not asking anything out of it.

You have a very smooth progression which is of course, essential to chillstep. The song goes on without being hindered and overall sounds very soothing (maybe that's just me). I absolutely love your piano sound. It's rich and the reverb/delay is just enough so it's not over encumbering.

My only point that is negative is the saxophone. It's there, it's not loud enough and to me felt a bit out of place. Perhaps a saxophone sound that had more richness or harmonies to it would've sounded better. Or maybe just double the notes and put them one octave below (try it it's great).

Overall, very chill, very smooth and very enjoyable. Great job! :)

Cheers ^-^

5TanLey responds:

if I remember correctly, the saxophone was clashing with piano a lot and I just couldn't mix it any better, so I used my pro sound engineering technique and simply lowered the sax gain to the point it doesn't sound like it is clashing :D

I'm glad you enjoyed it and thx for a review that is longer than one sentence, these are very rare

[Deceiving Death]

The "lotsofstuffhappening" is very well placed. There is a lot going on in this song, which isn't bad if you do it correctly, which you totally did. I'll get more in depth.

You have a nice melody to begin with, although it does sound a bit chaotic at first, the ear gets accustomed fast. It flows well and no notes get above each other in an annoying way.

You have a very solid kick and snare. The hi-hat is barely audible at some points so watch out for that. Although it's not the center of the drums, it's always nice to hear it.

Your dubstep is good even if a bit short. For a track labeled dubstep it seems to not have so much of it. Perhaps its just me.

Last point, it's impressive how you obtained such a variety of sounds with naught but 2 plugins.

So overall, it's pretty good! Maybe work on ordering stuff early on so it doesn't confuse but other than that, I have nothing.

Cheers ^-^

BlastBeats responds:

Lots of stuff with little synths. Having multiple synths makes no sense if you can do the same things with them. I want to know sound design before I get into the whole "this synth can do what others can't".

Good point you have there with the hi hats. I tend to focus so much on the bass that the highs get neglected a bit. Hence my mix is rather unusually stuffed as well.

In what genre do you place a track, which doesn't fit into a genre? I mean, it is mainly DnB, but also not, because 152bpm is too slow for DnB. It is Drumstep, but also not, because it's not half time. It's dubstep, but only for a short time. I went for Dubstep, because it's close to Drumstep. I didn't want to dissappoint the DnB listeners who suddenly got bass madness in their face.

Yeah... I need to order my stuff. But I'm lazy :D. I found 28 hours of work taking too long already. *says the guy who made his first song this year in 3 hours*

Anyway, thanks for the review. It's useful and I appreciate that! Glad you like it :D

[The Funk Tank]

The bassline in this is just so... mesmerizing...
I literally can't get over that bassline.
Congratulations on that bassline.
And the melody too.
But mostly the bassline.