CidiousClef's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

["Pubes"(Loop)]

Its pretty chill, like an afterhours thing. If you wanted to give it a little more energy, a stronger kick would do the trick. Reminds me of Deep house a bit. It feels like it should be building up to something, I'd say. More melodies to make the loop less repetitive and nice and longer would be great.

Not bad all things said.

ScottJacob responds:

Yeah, i had a 808 kick in there but i think i might have cut a bit too much low end in my final mix.
Thanks for the feedback!

[Mussolini Erotic Massage]

This thing. You need to make it longer. You can't just tease me and then cut it out right when it's getting good. It's like, totally not nice man, and I feel so unsatisfied. Seriously,the song is just building up to something, and then it just stops dead in its tracks, like it's not finished at all.

Besides that minor detail, I can't really find any other flaws in it. I mean, the beginning is kinda weird, but besides that it definitely sounds nice.

[Faceless Blue-Coat]

I really like this one! My only gripe is the nearly inaudible bassline? It sounds like this weird low growl far into the background, and I don't really like all that much. I'd expect a more swingy, a tad bit more "in-your-face" bassline, a bit like the kind seen in old-timey jazz songs. But right now it's sortof implied rather than being there. I suppose that's really just a personal gripe though, since clearly the focus of the song is on the two leads.

Speaking of which, I really like how your two leads complement each other. It's sounds like the song was improvised live on a stage, with just an inkling of prep time. The two musicians look at each other, and each do their thing, but working with each other rather than against. The drummer slaps out a rhythm, paying attention to his fellow performers, making fills whenever his bandmates do something spectacular(The bit starting at :38 is quite nice because of that.)

My point is, it feels quite organic in spite of having been made with synths. And that's partly why I like it. It's an eclectic synth-jazz piece with that 3/4 time signature, and those aren't made much these days. It would have been nice if it had been a bit longer I suppose.

As an aside, newgrounds is making your audio skip very much. I don't get the problem when listening to the song on my computer, so I assume it's the websites fault.

that is all.

SoulSecure responds:

The bassline is quite audible if you play it through some nice speakers, like a stereo. It's hard to get synths to sound like a bass (which the song is actually written for a guitar, sax and a bass), because when they go into the low notes they usually drop the crisper mid, mid-hi and treble frequencies that make it easier to hear. In this case I used something that you can actually hear if you use speakers or a headset that can bring it out more, because the bass is actually just as loud (on a dB meter) as the sax (left synth). I could have gone for a more poppin' bass tune, but I wanted a driving bass run, because they're fun to play and I don't usually write runs.

I really wanted to focus on harmony with this one and in the midst of that, I dropped my usual melancholy sound and ended up with something that reminded me of the desert level in Banjo-Kazooie. I would've liked it to be longer as well, but it comes out so smoothly that I didn't want to try to add to it for fear of it losing it's magic.

Yeah, it skips for me, too. I have no idea why the player is doing that.

Thanks for the review!

[Focus Fire: Candor]

The drums have way too much reverb. They drown out the lower end, causing it to sound muddy and making it hard to enjoy the bassline. It also makes them sound really far away and unclear. The huge pounding might have it's charm, but it hurts the song after a while.

You actually seem to have put reverb on your entire track. This is like plastering a hamburger with salt. Salt is good in small parts for a few things, not for everything and not alot of it at once. If it were just the synths that had the reverb, or if the drums had a little less, I think it would be much better. But that's just me.

The track itself is well arranged, with very nice melodies and such layered across the track. That breakdown towards the end is really well done. And the drum patterns might have too much reverb, but they are nicely made.

Berkebus responds:

Thanks for the counter-review! And yes, I did use a lot of reverb for the drums, mostly to give it a rather dark echo-chamber feel, though I agree that in the beginning it rules over everything else too much, while at the end it gets low (though that's actually positive for the final break).

[Lost Solace - Preview]

This sounds pretty much like a full song. In fact, it doesn't loop very well, so calling it a loop might be a bit of a misnomer.

Unless by loop, you mean just made a melody and built the rest of the song around it, which I'm under the impression is how full-on trance and dance and house songs are made these days, but I digress.

The melody repeats itself, and is basically the same throughout the entire song, but, there's enough variation to keep you interested. I like how you handled transitions, especially the one in the middle somewhere around 2:30 minutes.

However, I do feel you should add something of a break from the beat longer than just a few bars; you drop the beat for a bar or two, but I don't quite feel that's enough. A counter melody or something to keep things fresh would be nice as well.

I presume these things will be added in the actual song though, so I'm just mentioning them for the sake of opinion.

I do think you may have overused filter sweeps a bit, but they work.

-ish.

Lastly, I'd say the song drags on for far too long, especially since the melody stays the same. It starts to get dull nearing the end.

I'd say it does sound professional though.

Pulsar013 responds:

Very nice review - Yeah, by loop I really meant part of the full version ( which is later ) and yeah with progressive - ull see the beginning repeat alot - intro -, also i tried after 2:30 to add some more melodic variations but of course since this was not the full version, the other instruments werent in yet.
Yeah - I felt like I needed to add more of a break but - I was hoping to put that in near the end, you know the climax. And with the filters, i do feel like I used them a little too much. When the full version comes out ull essentially here the same thing - but it wont sound as dull because it will have more instruments and a better pad break.

Thanx for the advice.