Darren-M's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Kw- Alien Planets]

sounds scapes

well i like soundscapes alot... i can never do them because i feel my pads just dont invoke enough atmosphere on the track but you have done a great job with that here, it really puts you into the scene.

i thought the bird could be turned down some, with a little tinge more reverb. possibly put 1 o'clock to the right.

the low passed crashing effect was really really cool, almost like being under waves of water crashing, but more like air over a cove to me.

the static you had was a great idea, a nessessary addition to this track i think but i would have liked it to have done something besides sit there, maybe a little lower in amplitude and maybe automate small amplitude changes to the sample or noise osc so that it breathes.

as an extra effect you could reverse that bird sample and put it in from time to time and let it ping pong delay in the scene.

i see from hearing your other tracks you are big on visuals perhaps. this track did alot for my imagination so you get a 5/5 for that.

great work.

nightsurfermusic responds:

Haha, thanks man! You are completely right, I like my music to give people a visualization. The static was to simulate rain or a stream, and the crashing effect was to be thunder. It wasn't all that good a deal for it, but I like your ideas for the bird chirping. I might just try that. :)

[Kw-For The Record(Menu Screen)]

loopy

first the bas because you already know why this tracks sounds good.

i was not satisfied with the way this looped, to get it to go really smooth it would have required some tricky clip exporting and importing, the reverb tails destroys the transition. given this is a loop and yes you are right, perfect for a menu i thought i should note this.

the way you worked with the reverb interested me, like you had gated it. i like this effect though i would have liked the delay/reverb to pan more, like a more swirling sensation.

the bass on this was pretty cool, really full and though super low you managed to make it pretty rhythmic. those hats were pretty nice, good variation on your patterns.

reminds me of a kirby game for some reason

nightsurfermusic responds:

Haha cool, thanks for reviewing. :)

[=Dark-Organ=]

a fan

i am a fan of organ, fugues, etc.. type music and i think this definetly has some original structure to it. i like it :)

this is really cool, the high end on the high notes was a little piercing to me, you might want to shave off a little with an equalizer.

shadow6nothing9 responds:

Cool Cool.

I'll try to fix it up later and I just need to find better synths. But i'm too lazy heheh

[DG - Uno]

hmm

man there was def. some bass in the track that my ipod ear buds couldn't hear the frequencies of, on the dance floor i would love this but for listening it was too bad it wasnt effective for standard listening. at your builds and sweeps i would have liked to have heard panning.

at 1:10 were you filtered it i liked this but felt the kick should have been alloud to come threw, sometimes when the rhythem dissappears in a song people stop dancing and thats bad, because they dont know what to do with themselves.

and lastly i totally love that lead synth and im giving you an 8 because i could get down to this!

DJDustyGorilla responds:

It's difficult to judge bass levels for me. On my headphones it could sound incredible but on a speaker it could sound bad. I tested both and it sounded ok for me but like you said it's not so good on your side. I agree with the middle bass disappearance. Never thought people would dance to my music so didn't take that into consideration lol! Thanks for your kind words!

[feelin' grey (demo)]

pads and kick

i thought the kick was kinda too poppy for my tastes, it had alot of highend punch, it felt exposed. that bass you had covered the lower range well.

the part after :35 was cool but the part that made it for me was that panning arp or upward directed pattern of notes, i enjoyed that in the background, it made the song mystic feeling.

nice woodblock sample! i would have liked to have heard some more space with those drums, , they were pretty much dead center.

this is just a demo but not bad by far!

good work

kjhsdgf responds:

yeah, i can see where you're coming from.
the drums prolly shoulda been panned a little every now and then to widen the track, and the kick was kinda punchy for a soft song like this, so i'll bump it down if i ever work on this song some more.
yeah, i'm glad you liked some of what's there,
and thanks for the review!

[Technotronic Generica Ver. 2]

the juice

i felt like the juice of this for me was at :35s idk why but it resonated with me well. i found the melody to be somewhat unpredictable, and the synth had just a tad too much portamento on it, but as far as construction goes it was put together just fine. also at fine i would have like to have heard a somewhat better transition because the drop off was a little abrupt, the reversed crash was an ok choice to go back into the drums.

you know what is good about this already so there is some criticism.

ForestLomn responds:

Thanks for the criticism. This was just a WIP so... hopefully it'll be finished soon. And ill try to incorporate some of that.

[HoldMe2009Cut]

hmm

so the grimey bass with the ping pong delay going back and fourth, i felt the bass stabs were off target. it might be the delay but your notes just felt a tab bit late. for the intro the volume was good on it but i would have liked to have heard it decrease in volume as the piano came in atleast by :38. i felt like i really wanted that bass to sink into the background with alot more reverb and lower volume when the piano was playing. the piano sounded wonderful, very warm and wide and easy to listen too. i enjoyed that alot. basically everything was on target in this song except for how you utilized that wacky bass.

lol, at first because of those pitch bends i thought it was goin gto be a drum and bass song

[Evera]

hmm

im proud of this....interesting choice to put that kick to the left

cRAVE01 responds:

TT^TT something has to be interfering with the kick, or maybe I was silly and made an automation that panned the kick, but I could swear I centered that kick ... TWICE! -____- either way, I think its time to let this one lie. I'm happy to know I've made something you enjoy ^___^ Everybody that happens upon this song, go listen to ^^this guy's^^ stuff. He helped me on this song TONS!

[DKC2-Honey]

honey bunny runny nom nom

hmm. listening to the intro i think i could have done without the kick for the intro . i would have low passed it in around 1:00 and then low passed it out and brought it back in at 1:44 or so .

DOOD lol i thought i explained teh hats to yeh

uh, well i felt the reverb in this was crazy wet!. at 2:50 that pad is really great sounding to me. nice choices there!

this song was well balanced but hard to focus on one element at once. but it had all the elements i think it needed. i can see this song was pretty stylized.

i liked your samples too, but hey work on the filtering man. :D

nice clap too

i felt when all the parts were coming ind were crazy i wanted to hear filtering. sometimes filtering like a low pass can give you the melodical content without the distraction of listening so the listener can focus on the other instruments. a highpass makes things feel airy.

cRAVE01 responds:

LOL! I'm just slow sometimes. ^___^

I'm definetly gonna give that LPing the drums in a try. very different idea that I am interested to see the result. And the filtering everything . . . I'll just bite the bullet. I also think I can use some of this advice on a song I am currently working on ... so many thanks as always!

I did notice and dreaded the slightly "cluttered" feel of the song, and the only way I could think of to reduce said problem was to start taking out parts of the song :\ which I wasn't going to do. Hopefully (actually, I am quite certain you know exactly what you are talking about) filters will resolve the problem.

yeah, the wet feel I pulled off with a new plugin called "waterfall." It's pretty sexy all around. And I made the clap too ^=^

[Dkc2rmx-teaser]

well now

that first one has major freqs interfering and the delay needs work ...idk what happened, the second was really great and surprised me. at 1:40 things were odd but in a good way, a little thick though. at 2:02 i was really liking that. very danceable. you have gotten way better. i can hear progress. at 2:33 i loved that, very impressed. 2:57 im not sure what i feel about that, im interested however, i like the lead synth and was not overwhelmed. woah :D at 3:24, but the transition to the outro was not good.

the cross fading really messed with my head on this lol but i will say i liked most of what i heard.