Darren-M's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Smooth criminal remix]

hmm

well. i felt that this was definetly a cool spin on the song. i will say that i liked it.i felt also that it should be a little slower like 110bpm maybe idk. the reason i felt that was because the melodical lines were a little hard for me to absorb. i understand what its like to have so much music going through your head and wanting it to be so intense and intricate but i felt it was just slight over kill on this song, but perhaps if it were just slower i might not feel that way. or maybe the same speed but just longer notes. i really liked the part at 1:09. i like your synths!

slow it down and i think it will be more to my liking. but hey its your call :)

ghostblairdarkness responds:

Aaah someone who likes the stroll it smooth. nice! And thanks for the nice review man. everyone countse for me =)

[Hardstyle KiiNG (DEMO)]

cool

i like the synth sample at the beginning, i think it needs to continue through out the song

at 46s, i would have liked to heard the volume pan in from nothing, or filter in or something rather than just come in after the hat crash.

im guessing you just havent put the song completely together yet so you get a 7

DJ-xTc responds:

No not at all rite now i actually have 2 screech melos in FL, just not on newgrounds xD.
Thx for teh review,
watch my page for an update!

~xTc~

[Oi Oi Sexy Bum]

well :s

honestly i couldnt really find anything i didnt like about this. i actually liked the guitar mixing you did, it was very full and utilized the space that stereo can give. the drums were adequate and the variation between rhythms was pretty good.

cool song

Phoog responds:

Haha. Well, just to point out a few things.
Cymbals are super quiet compared to the hats, and I boosted the high end on the kick too much.
Then there's the lack of bass, for my taste anyways.

Cheers for the words of appreciation, though.

[Tinkering]

mixing

around :29 i felt the synths levels were quiet and somewhat confusing, also as the synth continued i felt like certain frequencies in the mid range were being eaten up and interfering.

the bass was appropriately placed in its spectrum space just well enough to be effective.

at 1:44 was my favorite part, i felt it gave the song the most character.
i also enjoyed your reversed kick sample.

i enjoyed your panning on the high hats, i felt like they were not predictable and kept up excitement

InvisibleObserver responds:

Big hug fest it is tonight. I keep reviewing and getting reviews from everyone else that's just recently submitted songs.

Thanks for the review, I agree some of the sections in the song are sloppy. I wanted to put emphasis on the synths however granted their all twiddled with by me (no presets not no how not never).

1:44~ sliding section turned out quite nicely. I'm glad you feel its the focal point of the song.

Always nice hearing my attention to detail doesn't go totally unnoticed. Panned drums are king.

[Super Store]

10 for inspiration

while listening to this something made me think of pick up lines. i really like what you did here and would like to use parts of it in a song i want to make if thats ok?

thanks for the great song idea

btw it was really well put together

Mid-Night responds:

Contact me on MSN... [e-mail]

[Ph0ne - Jew Golds (Hopeku rmx)]

ITP

i felt the sitar needed a phaser so because i found one thing i didnt like as much i gave you an honest nine.

i have never heard anone on NG make Psy trance like this, because its such a new style. the first i ever even heard of it is with a duo called ITP, i have listened to alot of them and i would be surprised if they weren't one of your influences.

anyway props on the bass, i have been trying to make these kind of bass lines for years and only recently could make them on my new tracks.

my favorite part of this song was the intro, it was very effective especially with the drops. and you had some great high passed parts in this.

great work ill be checking you out again later.

hopeku responds:

To be honest I never listened to ITP, but I guess I should take a listen!

Haha also I know what you mean for the basslines. It took myself a lot of time to realize it was just a lopass filtered Sawtooth wave.

Thanks man!

[CJO:Lightning]

scene

i envision waking up in the morning and doing morningly procedures to this song. also perhaps a scene of me going through an air port

at 1:14 i really enjoyed the noise osc percussions, i felt that really helped the rhythm on this song

for once i wasn't a huge fan of the spiky snare, i felt it kind of distracted me

i enjoyed this... relaxed me

ChrisOrosco responds:

Thanks Darren.

I tried many snares for this song, with most results turning upside down...so, I fell back on a sound I was most familiar with.

[Blaze Heatnix Metal]

not ring tone! video game!

i really liked this. you did a pretty good job, and it does sound like it was supposed to , likevideo game music for megaman!

ok so i would have chosen some different things if i wanted to make this more stylized like better drum samples and etc, but you did a decent job mixing your levels and the midi programming you did was pretty damn good.

good job

smilingpig67 responds:

Thanks a lot!

[TrustMe-RuthieKing(cRAVEmix)]

simple

i thought the vocal recording and guitar were recorded pretty good, but one think that is a must is knowing the tempo of the song to sync it to the track. a metronome helps. it helps to cut the song to a beat since at the beginning of the might be out of timing since there are no rhythm elements yet. the high hats were dead on for this one for the majority of the track. you mixed it pretty well because you didnt dominate the track and her words were still clear. you lead synth could stand to be turned down some. yes it is really hard to slice a song so that it stays on tempo if its wavering in that way. sometimes you will find that the best solution to this is manually playing it instead of letting midi note lanes do the work, otherwise it involves some tricky timeline shifts.

2:20 and 1:30 really need some work. melody wise and rhythm wise.

ruthie's voice was really nice, she sounded natural and unstrained. nice recording as well.

the percussions on this were a good selection.

for your first with vocals im impressed. but yes mixing vocals into the mix is not as simple as mixing synths, its adds a more organic saturated sound that can throw alot of mixes off.

decent work.

you should sample some things from her. for more practice. :D

this gets a 7 from me because 1. your work is at a different place than it was when you first started so i cant give you a 10 lol, and also a 7 because of the slight mixing problems andtiming issues, even though there wasnt much you could help. an honest well earned 7, for mixing vocals better than 65% NG users...probably giving them too much credit.

cRAVE01 responds:

XD ROFL.

thank you mucho for the review!

[More Morrowind]

hmm

1:59 that tamborine is in my face, it might be appropriet to turn it down some or low pass it a litttle, needs a tiny bit o reverb maybe

the bass in this is the most prominent thing thing in this. i liked it but i felt the other nstrument were muddled around it. the bells sound like FM, synth bells, which usually go flat as they go on or over lap, this is a big problem with synth bells, although these sound pretty good.

the second higher instrument besides the bells which i might call a lead that sounds like a sine or square wave lp'ed what did you do to make that synth?

this is pretty good. actually one of your best, the sub bass at the end was great when the two parts combined but i dont understand what happened at the ending, was it supposed to flow into another song? it sounded weird the way it ended.

by the way. in my headphones from routed from my computers audio card and also from my monitors which were routed from my external card, the output is coming out as heavily on the right side, as though you master panned it to the primary right. its weird, and needs to be fixed if it is your error. otherwise im confused as to why it sounds so

cRAVE01 responds:

Holy crap, you're not kidding - it WAS all right-panned. Didn't know I did that. I've fixed this accordingly. As for the lead, it was a gated saw. thanks so much for the review m8