InvisibleObserver's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[NGHH'11- Madflex vs GreenSkull]

My review, their song lyrics.

MadFLeX sounds more comfortable at thinking.

Vote goes to him, support to both for progressing with their musical pursuits.

Decent beat by wyze-stingray. Sounds accessible.

[Rig - Demo Reel 2011]

My review, your song(s)

It was alright, it would be better if you used more pro tricks like looping amen breaks, leaving dblue glitch running, and use awesome sequenced presets from sytrus.

Also, be sure to goodize your master track!

You should make it clear if these are songs you've finished, and intend on uploading, or 'releasing' individually. Some of them are quite enjoyable.

Rig responds:

Yeah, I'm too noob for Amen Breaks :(

Most of these are actually in use with other projects, so I won't be uploading them.

[Rbum2 - hijo de la luna dance!]

My review, your song.

Nice little effecty intro. Sounds like you've got some VST arsenal upgrades. High five for resourcefulness.

Panned right hats are dandy. Pretty simple but they help begin the song immensely.

The effects on synth/bass/sweep help build up to 0:50 mark. Effects are your super duper friend when it comes to getting alot of mileage out of looping. Repeating a loop 10 times is bad, repeating a loop 10 times and automating some simple feature is good. :P

1:05 your main lead synth is jolly portamento-ey. It could use more high freqs, and or more stereo. I personally would add reverb with the reverbs low ends cut off.

The phased background noises help fill out the song. Good filler.

2:13 compress your kick drum, layer it with a bass sound or something so it is harder hitting. Dance songs require a punchy kick. Compression will do this.

Transitions within this song are all preceded by some automaitons, drum work, and nice little slidey doo-da melodies diddles. This is good, helps compartmentalize things in a sense whilst allowing one chunk flow from one to another.

Outro, not the strongest, but not worthless.

I'm not big on dance, and this is a cover so... I won't bother saying much on the melody. Its kind of nice though a bit trance-dance generic to my picky ear.

Could use some more high frequencies, stereo use is pretty decent overall, kick needs to cut through the mix a bit more. More percussion variance in the rhythms would be awesome. Whole song could be louder, there is a proper way of doing this though that isn't just... raising the volume.

Let me know what synth/software is used within this song, so I can more accurately comment on production. You may need to PM me a nudge or reminder of sorts. Its certainly way improved.

Thanks for prodding me, I'm veyr pleased to see a ginormous step in your skill, its quite heart warming electronic music over the internet kind of way.

7/10 cause its a cover, you lazy fart.

[DMPD (dj JPA)]

My review, your loop.

Your piano, strings and other instruments are all centered in terms of panning, and near the same frequency range/octave, and all have some level of reverb on them. These are all contributing to them all becoming very blurry with one another and sounding like they've lost a lot of definition.

Kick hass no oomph in its bass tones, the snare has no sharpness in the mid-high freqs, they could use compression to raise their attack and overall volumes.

The melody is somewhat interesting, but the muddiness and lack of dynamics on the piano make it sound rather flat. You should checkout some tutorials on mixing and begin a technical uphill climb.

[Super Mario Ringtone]

My review, your loop/ringtone.

Drums are dandy, things balance/mix wise are in check, huge boost of insturment quality is noticeable (which overall should be evident in your more 'serious' / worked on stuff).

But yea, Mario... Lol. Its a fair sounding remix/redo at least.

Jakesnke17 responds:

It's been a while, but...thanks for reviewing man, I always appreciate your feedback. :)

[On the Spot]

My review, your song.

Your bass instrument is not tuned to the lead, and its not playing in the same music signature either.

0:18 the synth goes a little detuned more on the others.

Don't make all of your instruments so loud, it actually lessens potential audio quality. Better to be too quiet then too loud.

0:55 when the snare plays and the volume levels get fuzzy, theres some clipping and distortion occuring from the high volume instriments.

1:25 gated/stutter rhythmn could have come earlier in the song to vary things.

The song is only 2 minutes long and really only has one riff to ti. An alternate riff or varied acompaniment would help make it less rpeeititive.

Song lacks an intro and outro.

More time investment will merit better results.

[[G] - Stars]

Your song, my review.

Your spizz strings sound very low quality. You need to improve their overall sound with some changes/additions in the mix. I'd suggest adding a bit of chorus (nothing that adds an electronic nature to them), and some subtle reverb.

Very loopable string backdrop for a hiphop song.

Make sure when the choir comes in your drums are made to play on top of the choir, it drowns out the beat a bit which isn't ideal for lyricing on top of.

Twiddle your db_glitch a bit more to play something organised, it sounded a bit like it just randomly triggered. As much fun as a tool it may be for randomization of sorts, its best used when entirely controlled.

1:33 the piano-scratching type sound (it plays earlier too), very cool.

With your choir you should probably increase the decay or add some reverb. Within the mix if you automate its volume to swell a bit more on the notes hit/attack you can probably make them sound more organic.

Overall the song is very centrally panned. The snare I though would be cool if it was drastically expanded in the stereo department to be complete surround. Same with the choir. Add some more spacial distancing within the song.

I rather liked the track overall.

[Frost (Demo)]

My review, your song.

Your kick is clipping (it gets a tinny sound due to being too loud, distorts other noises). In the mixer look at the channel the kick is set to, if its red lining (hits the red line) that is bad (not good). Add the preset limiter to it, or just soften the volume about 5-10%.

On your lead synths raise up the higher frequencies a little bit with the EQ tools. Add reverb to your synths. It smooths, softens and fills out the sound of the song.

Look into writing more complex drum rhythms.

Probably best to add some sort of lead that plays something more tonal, repeating, with a definable chorus/riff line.

Not bad overall, sounds like you just need to keep at it and you'll get to a point where you can produce a pretty solid product.

RandomPanda responds:

Thanks for your enlightenment! x3 I'm still somewhat of a noob, but the more I keep at this, the more I learn. Thanks, I'll take all of that into consideration when finishing this one! :3 I like the way it sounds now, & I hope I can finish it & make it something beautiful. O: Again, thankies. :D

[(M) -Guitar shreddage-]

My review, your clip.

Be sure your various instruments have matching or in tune semitone variations from one another.

Set each instrument to their own mixer channel so you can compress them. A lot of metal is often very heavily compressed to get this sort of unchanging/never ending flow of volume type of sound.

On your lead with about a .5 delay 15-25% reverb addition will probably buff it up, widen the sound, and make it a bit more organic.

Play with volume dynamics so the notes rise and swell a little, and so the strum repeats on the guitars aren't machine gunning.

The writing itself is interesting and nicely lined up.

Instruments could use mixer tweaking to get a better/more guitar like sound. Basically if you send your insturments to a channel with reverb to soften the decays of the instruments, chain those to another channel and apply some form of amp or distortion, they will sound far far superior.

CheckMark responds:

sweet I touched it up a little, and added dynamics, but cant figure out how to reverb...

[Blood, Guts, Fingers and Toes]

My review, your song.

The delay on your octave jumping arpegio in the opening bit makes it hit some second notes thats dissonant. Either make the note jumps greater then 2nds to avoid the delay from spilling over, or shorten the feedback time on the delay.

Weird sample, doesn't really fit the nature of the song frankly, but its high quality and cut to fit, so I won't harp on that too much.

Your FX use is I think a little bit excessive, that watery drop down synth sound would be better if used like 1/5th as much. It gets repetitive and loses its effectiveness. Perhaps keep it at a few spots within the song where the progressions change. Otherwise replace it with a ride or open hihat or something.

Introduce some more kick and snare rolls, it will help define the sections of the song more.

0:53 soft section changes key, not sure how well it fits in with the earlier stuff. The piano bit is a nice addition. For the sake of filling up your mix, I'd suggest playing with chorus effects or a stereoized flange on your piano.

1:56 the note the nwe synth hits is dissonant with the rest of the writing.

2:11 bass is also not matching the key signature established by the piano/strings. Dupicating the channels at those sections and shfiting the dissonant note up or down a bit and oing by ear should be an easy enough fix.

End of your song, let it fade out before cutting to loop.