Score: 6

"My review, your song."

submission: Rbum2 - semi-sad pop

date: November 29, 2009

Intros with your loop, sounds sytrus-ee, has no dynamics. Volume dynamics on it will make it sound much more natural. Filter cut off dynamics tends to make it sound a bit more organic aswell as adding a stronger rhythm.

0:05 Low Pad Comes in. Also sounds like its sytrus.

These two continue until 0:30, the lead comes in, the instruments so far have a good spectrum of frequency and note range (IE not all in the same octave, theres nothing wrong with such, but it tends to be easier to write clearly when things are apart).

You use repetition in your melodies (aswell as OF the melodies, but that's less important), when notes are hitting multiple times in a row, those previously mentioned volume dynamics will really make it sound far far better.

0:45 drums come in. Their very simple, rather quiet, but they do mesh well with this song. I think more drum work would have added a lot to this song, having a few extra snare rolls and maybe a cymbal or two thrown in.

1:30 is when the first (and only) bridge really comes in. Overall it has a good effect on the song, segments it and breaks the repition. You've stated yourself its not 'very super' and I think the main thing contributing to that is the level of repeition in this 2:25 long song.

2:00 back to intro loop for outro. I think had this been perhaps a reverse of the beginning, or the notes descending, it would have a cool effect. While it does make the song loop, its not a stellar way to end a song.

Overall, this songs fine, quite tolerable, the issues are simplicity, length, and mixing. 2:25 is a pretty short song. While theres nothing wrong with shortness, I think this could have easily been a longer song and still be enjoyable.

Simplicity as in repetition and progression of the song, the song consists of a rather small number of loops and once you've heard it, its got no surprises. Its basically a 4 chunk peice of intro, chorus, bridge, intro used again. Altered outro, or a second bridge near the 1:00 mark would make the songs progression I think much stronger. Now you don't necessarily have to go back to this and make the changes I've said, but keep in mind for future projects that repetition is your friend, however make sure you are queing up when things repeat, instead of having it just end up repeating. Also consider pop songs, their progression usually follows a super simple setup of ABABA where B is chorus, A is bridge. So Intro, chorus, bridge, chorus, outro. Super simple progression, super not repetitive.

As for the mixing, it sounds ilke you aren't using the mixer channels within FL. To clarify, thats when you open from the step sequencer (where you write the music) your sound channels (your instruments). Usually the synth interface opens up as well as the "Channel Settings" (Rectangular grey FL built in interface). In the upper right hand corner of the "Channel Settings" window is a value input with "|__FX__|" Under neath it. Simply scroll the number up/down to a target mixer channel. Open the mixer channel, throw on effects, and now you are using effects/mixing.

Mixing specifically has to do with panning/volume options, which is where you can emphasize certain frequency ranges to make a song sound more full. The typical thing to do here is add a limiter and compression to your channels that are either too loud or too quiet. Raise bass on your bass instruments, raise mid-high freq range on your drums to define them more. Often subtle stereo on acompaniment works nicely.

Mixing is very much technical and a skill all in itself so its best to do subtle changes, often the huge ones while 'wackey' sound bad.

Score: 8

"My review, your song."

submission: DbStF-MusicMadeAddict(ZTRemix)

date: November 12, 2009

Excellent, you cut the samples up way more to beat, and it frankly sounds way better then random monologue.

Good to hear. :)

Mix is fine, I felt drums could have used some more subtle panning, and the Dj Brennen sample would have been 'mean' had it been vocoded to something real gritty.

Score: 6

"My review, your song."

submission: [WS]Incoming!!

date: November 8, 2009

Intro with 2 synths, neat start, syncopation and notes all fit.

The bass sound at about 0:14 is playing in a different key, has a lot of dissonant sounds that are unpleasant to the ear.

0:21 plain synth has dissonance either, it sounds like the separate pieces of this were not written with each other in mind for accompaniment.

Drums are alright, somewhat repetitive, and very backgroundish. The crash cymbal needs some reverb and feint delay to work it in better.

1:15 neat tape stop effects.

The little synthy "beowww" sounds are alright, they work in this song.

Ending tape stop and instrument endings are alright, not the strongest ending, but there was a clear ending which is excellent.

Overall song progression is minimal, and the writing has some conflicts in it. Drums could use some diversity, and the overall mix is extraordinarily sloppy, too many of the sounds spill over and distort each other making everything kind of muffled. The use of stereo and panning is not present either making the song sound almost mono.

In FL the easiest way to fix this is to simply send every instrument/sound channel to their own mixer channel and apply the default FL Limiter to them. This will help cap off volume and minimize the spill over effect.

After that if some volume issues are still present, say the bass is overpowering the melody that the plain synth is supposed to carry out (which it frankly is), you can just dip the bass synth's volume down about 10%.

WS you are showing some big steps of improvement in your work but need to continue to spend more time on your works. If you ever need help with anything please don't hesitate to ask.

Score: 8

"My review, your song."

submission: The Bouncing Piano

date: October 21, 2009

Whilst I know future reviews will bump this out of site, I too feel bad my drums were unable to be incorporated.

Having seen the file and worked with it, I'm in disagreement about the comments about this being 'random notes'. The progression and structure of this song is superb, and not a touch of its been left to chance writing.

Solid length, well layered, catchy, even in its diminished state the song is 'rad' as the young-ins say.

Whilst the mix is not god tastic, its still of better quality then a lot of songs on NG and I can't help but be amused at the below bantering.

Score: 2

"My review, your loop."

submission: Acid... ish

date: October 17, 2009

Preset or not, you do nothing with it.

Doesn't loop well, drums simple and are presets, rhythm and melody is simple.

Really not sure this should have been posted, regardless how long it took to create your synth sound here, it sounds like 30 seconds worth of 'work'.

1/5 2/10

Score: 0

"Your FX."

submission: Scary Song Loop

date: October 17, 2009

Yea someones been 5bombing their own work every day.

Short, not mixed, not music, not looping, not creative, not good.

I await your inflammatory response, or attempt at breaking convention.

Score: 8

"My review, your song."

submission: JK:.Solace

date: October 14, 2009

Having recently shared a cup of tea while discussing this song with a friend, we came to many of the same conclusions, but I fear there are a few he may not be inclined to bring up.

I would like to emphasize that the repeating glitch effects made them a bit less profound, and that the inclusion of your musician alias were poorly placed. They detracted from the song while adding nothing to it. It breaks the overall atmospher of the song.

That being the scratches earlier on, whilst very cool sounding, they need volume boosting, aswell as it would be nice for them to not disrupt all sounds playing, since it breaks the rhytmn of the song.

Overall mix is great though, the drums are pretty diverse, I felt at parts they were borderline IDM which had me quite pleased. It whent rather nicely with a cup of orange peaco.

Glad this made weekly, I was a bit bummed that my submission this week didn't, but of the winners, this is one of the 2 that doesn't bother me that it made it whilst mine did not.

Keep it up, work on the FX modulation, I'd like to hear more of it.

5/5 8/10

Score: 8

"My review, your song."

submission: Please Love Me

date: October 4, 2009

"Please Love Me" and "I don't really care if you don't like it." sort of contradict, and I'm sure if I told you this sucks, some part of you would twitch and feel that I'm some musically ignorant NG 13 year old. Which having my opion on your song evoke an emotion, would very well suggest you do care.

That being said;

Intro works, some dynamics/swell on the opening loop would make it a lot more organic.

Chords/lead could use some more volume.

Very peaceful to listen to.

1:05 nice break from the opening loop. Progression soon after has my ears happy. Has a very surreal reflective feel to the song. Unsure if thats an agreeable tone, but thats kind of what I 'feel' when I hear this.

Bass could use a subtle boost, and a tiny bit of pan left/right, or stereo would make this a lot more enveloping.

Overall, good progresion, nicely written, needs dynamics.Given I took the time to write this review, you better care. Foo.

4/5 8/10

Score: 7

"My review, your song."

submission: 1 AM

date: October 4, 2009

Sounds an awful lot like Deadmau5 and Kaskades "Move for Me".

Assuming it isn't, the mix is great, a little bit quiet at parts, progression is slow, and in a 3 minute song doesn't mean theres a lot of room for it to go very far. This songs more rythmic then it is melody.

Could use drum variaition, more then a bass/lead/drum/pad track. Some turn tablism, vocal samples, accompaniment towards the end would have helped conclude the song alot.

4/5 7/10

Score: 9

"My review, your song."

submission: End Credits (bells)

date: October 4, 2009

Often I write lengthy reviews, but for this the only weak points are the drums I felt were a bit quite at parts, and some of the bells reverb was a bit too long drawn out, and it started to make some odd resonant noises that I think were not intentional.

Could use I think some compression/limiting and mastering to give it a bit of extra twinkle.

Other then that, I really enjoy this piece.

5/5 9/10