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InvisibleObserver

167 Audio Reviews

104 w/ Responses

My review, your song.

0:25 straight forward strings.

0:28 synth introduced nicely.

0:29 Synth sounds cool and is mixed in well with strings, but it plays an exceptionally generic melody, it seemed very backgroundish.

~1:10ish the lead synth could have used some more definition to make it evident that it was infact playing a lead.

Drums overall are quite simple, they aren't bad but I don't feel they are particularily noteworthy.

~1:55 synth does some interesting little skippity doodahs, and the flange makesit a bit more dynamic seeming. Also playing a generic melody though.

Drums at this point are now noteably mixed with mediocrity, not super defined and no apparent panning. Shiffint snares to oneside and kick to another can make drums seem so much better with the slightest of knob twiddles.

2:10 the song actually ramps up the uniqueness and overall complexity/intrinsic interest in the song for me. Sadly the guitar drops off, and then previous loops continue to play.

Overall, the song is smooth, an easy listen, pleasing on the ears, though the lack of complexity/uniqueness is likely to dissatisfy alot of people.

Drums could use much expanding on the rhythms they play, and diversity of those rhythms. Overall progression is non-stop going. A more noteable breakdown/bridge would help improve the contrast within the song.

TheInfinityVirus responds:

Wow okay, that was a longer review than I expected. You actually REVIEWED it. Cool. Alright, now I'm fully aware of the generic chord progressions and hooks in this song, but once they were there I guess I took the lazy route and didn't do much else with it.

I totally would have made the drums more complex and varied, but I don't really have any good drum samples. But that kick+snare panning sounds like something to try.. Well anyway, I'm actually getting some drum samples right now, and once I have them this song and many others are going to get a major overhaul for a new project we're working on. I'll definitely extend that guitar part, and actually make sure I tune the guitar first >_>

Anyway. Thanks for the review dude, long helpful reviews are something I haven't recieved a lot of. LAWL

My review, your song.

Well its a preset drum loop, text to speech dump and a synth of some sort playing a single loop.

Next time don't layer so much, and spend some time on your work.

My review, your song.

Liked the gargling intro voice, not the soft one so much. They certainly were neat, but didn't really add much to the overall song.

The song is very segmented sounding, more like bits and pieces of patterns that are neat, but it doesn't add up.

The mix is good enough that there is no reason for complaint.

Tacking on a 4/4 kick drum would probably have made this a crowd pleaser for NG's likes. I'd recomend experimenting with some simple drum rhytmhns.

For learning to write songs, keep things simple so their cohesive. Its a very gradual process developing a style, and continuity. Don't be afraid or concerned about someting being too repetitiive, its usually a better result then something that is way too dynamic.

PM me when you upload some more stuff, I'll review it too, and more in depth since I'll have a bit of a notion of development/change from this peice.

Tony36007 responds:

Thank you for your comment, very useful info, I will see what I can do :) I will be getting a Ubuntu OS soon so I can get some good music programs then :) @everyone thank you for your support :)

My review, your song.

Intro is soft.

0:08 hihats I thought were a bit sharp/resonant for the song, but their doing a not ultra super duper basic rhytmhn, so thats fine.

To 0:30 drums build and become more elaborate. This is good.

0:55 neat drums, I think the bass/kick drums could have EQ'd to be a bit more prominent, or have other instruments duck behind them.

1:25 very cool bit there, really liking.

I don't find this song repetitive, and felt it could have been much much longer. The sound set used sounds very cohesive, the mixing is overall quite good, drums are diverse enough, instruments are interesting, and the melodies whilst they do repeat are very smooth flowing.

I felt the song had a sort of IDM drum sound. If you elaborate on this, you can swap out this for the new one.

8/10 4/5

Be sure songs are of a length that people can enjoy the piece fully.

FocusedFINN responds:

Thanks very much for the insightful review

My review, your song.

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.

Rbum2 responds:

oh this is huge :) thanks millions mate for your time!! splendid review!!

My review, your song.

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.

My review, your song.

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.

My review, your loop.

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

Your FX.

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.

thehoopz responds:

thanks for the review bro

My review, your song.

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

JoeyKeys responds:

Thanks for the review man, very thorough, I took a lot of your ideas, and I tried to incorporate a lot of your ideas in to the new version.

Age 33, Male

Ottawa, Ontario

Joined on 2/9/09

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