GershBeats's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[complextro thing (WIP)]

Your bass is insane but quite a bit too loud. Just gotta drop it volume, and maybe eq up around 100hz so it doesn't lose its feel?

Really quite cool beyond that!

Yoshiii343 responds:

Fixed.

[Close Encounters otNSVK]

The HUGE fill effect at 0:20 is CRAZY, except it distorts a little.

I think you've got great melodic intuition, but the mastering needs some attention. A couple of effects are quite a bit too loud, so they distort and tend to take the listener out of the mood of the song. The fix is simple; just lower their volumes a little! :)

The only other thing is that almost everything is competing for low-mid frequency. You may want to low-pass the bass and really low effects around 60-80hz to bring out the kick, and lowpassing lead instruments around 121hz can really bring out the low frequencies without detracting very much at all from the lead!

I will rate this 5 and listen to it a LOT once it's mastered a little more cleanly!

Until then, 3.5. All melodic elements are excellent! Just gotta master a little :) I'd be excited to hear a final, touched up version!

SourJovis responds:

Thanks for the review.

The sweep effect at 0:20 is quite a find. It doesn't distort only a little, but quite a lot. I've added some white noise fading in, and added a distortion effect, that increased over time.

Also I've added distortion on the vocals, the drums and several other instruments. Either you like it or you don't. I'm pretty sure that's where the distortion comes from you talk about. None of the instruments seem to be clipping.

Other than that I think you're right about the mixing. It could be better. But this isn't one of my most recent songs, and I remade, remixed and remastered it a little too often already. In the beginning I wanted to give it a clean sound. But that got boring very quickly. With each new mix I made it trashier. This is the final version with all its quirkiness. In fact I've come to like the flaws. Like I sometimes like bad effects in old films.

Instead of mixing this song again, I'd rather put my energy into new songs. I've learned a lot about mixing. I'll keep your tips in mind, but I can't guarantee I'll want to make my new mixes to sound clean all the time.

[Burst Fire WIP]

Ye. this is cool. I feel a little like I need to take a shower now that I've listened to it :D

it's also short and sweet.

Lockyn responds:

Yes it is quite the dirty bass lick. Should give it a couple spanks for being so bad.

LOL thanks for reviewing dude. I'll be sure to check out your music.

[Aslal - Quick Fix]

I understand it's progressive but I think the song doesn't have quite enough material to keep a listener interested. Elements are introduced quite slowly. The elements themselves are quite nice, I think! The synths are all decent, and the melody isn't bad at all - I find the melody makes one anticipate a drop.

For some reason I also really like the high-peak on the kick that comes in around 4:05.

So ye, the major thing I would suggest is: add more content or shorten the song!

aslal responds:

Yeah, it's a Work In Progress still, so I'm still working on how it's playing out. Thanks for the feedback, I really appreciate it. One thing though, which part do you think needs the most work?

[van halen dubstep (wip)]

Mastering is off x 10^435! Every single sound has the bandwidth of an entire song lololol wow.

It's almost impossible to look past that, but beyond it is somthing with /some/ potential?

DJMERKEREE responds:

Thanks, yeah my mastering skills overall are pretty shit, but i see what your saying, I'll make sure to check out some mastering tutorials to fix that over screeching on the distortion without losing the sound I'm trying to get.

I'm still pretty new to Ableton live let alone any DAW and the last thing I've focused on is mastering and making sure each separate miditrack and audiotrack are able to complement each other but in some cases shine through. Thanks for the confidence and the feedback hopefully you'll enjoy the track when its completed in the following weeks.

-ZEREAUX-

[Panic Through Peace]

Nice tight drums! This is actually really enjoyable. sawy-instrument around 0:50 comes in and enters wayyy to abruptly, and it sounds a liiittle up-front in the mix. Also a 4-note routine gets a little hard to listen to after too long.

I love everything about this except the saw ruins it, which is a pity since it's the lead!!! lolol work on the saw and I'll rate you 5! Until then, 3

SPAMMAN123456789 responds:

well its a shame you find the saw to be what ruins it, i feel the exact opposite where its what makes it all work. also i made this right after being dumped so i wasn't exactly focused on a nice orchestra but thx any ways :)

[Love Is Powerful]

I like the atmosphere! The hats coming in is a little awkward I think, and the synth-bass-growl-saw-thing is too loud and out of place? Other than that it's a cool mix of elements!

Dylnmatrix responds:

Thanks for the review. I'm not really sure what you mean by the hats sounding awkward, but I can mostly agree with you on the synth being a little out of place. I could have chosen a better one, but this one just decided to stick with me more than all the other synths I tried and...yeah. Once you get emotionally attached to something, it's hard to let it go.

[The Ocean]

I love the ambient genre and this is pretty sweet. The ocean sample is great, and that bird sound is nuts (in a good way!)

The 1st ambient pad introduced spikes a little when it fully phases (eq it down a little?)

I recommend you throw a little something extra in, like really light drums or another pad or a sine-y synth.

This doesn't have quite enough content to fill out more than 6 minutes, but it's still neat!

Avalon69 responds:

Thank you for the review! I'm glad you enjoyed it. I may add a little something to it. I enjoy listening to and producing ambient stuff, it's always fun and it sounds great.
Cheers!

[Arabic Ectasy]

I'm blown away!! Truly excellent. And I totally agree - very age of empires

Emid responds:

Thanks a lot for the comment bro.

I think the part where flutes come in looks like age of empire-ish, thats why it resembles to some extent. As far as my listening goes, the combination of chords I have used is one of the strongest and commonest combo in Middle Eastern music. This combination can be found even in Turkish, Persian Greeks and Spain as well as Afghans. So the resemblance is most likely. Anyways glad you enjoyed :)

[In The Moment]

There's some cool stuff going on with the scrub wheel! I'm just reading your comment, if you're in FL then you /definitely/ don't need to limit to the extent that the drums get wrecked (even though the default samples are pretty poor). You should try going with multiband/normal compressor, and I find waveshaper is hugely helpful as well!

Overall this is a pretty neat song, although I think it lacks form. It's just effect after effect with no real overall plan, y'know? Something with these effects and a concrete arrangement would be sweet in my opinion, and I think you're almost there.

The-iMortal responds:

Cheers for the review! Yeah, this track is really old and I have updated my sample library with quality drum samples that don't get wrecked by a limiter :D

I use Ableton Live btw (though, I used Nuendo for this track).

I agree about the lacking form. The composition is bleh except for that one melody, which I think I may use in another and improved track in the future.