InvisibleObserver's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Lonely Ocean (Wave I)]

My review, your song.

Opens on a nice pad, bit white noisy (I guess like waves/ocean as the title suggests).

0:40 same thing continues.

0:50 major key happyness / same thing continues.

1:37 I'm hearing crackling thats not white noise. Unsure if its the song, it seems to play unevenly. I checked my audio ouputs and whatnot, and music I play from FL, or WMP is crackless. I'm assuming the mix might be making my headphones play something funny, but it may just be an issue on my side.

2:00-ish drum comes in a bit and leaves a bit before 2:40. It should have lasted longer frankly.

5:15 and on, just water noise.

To summarise my feelings;

The water was ok in the intro, good for the solo outro. While ambient music is flowy and generally more simple then that of other music, you should include a bassline that too plays a simple slow rythm, even if its stretched over the course of several bars of music. Keep it non-obstructive of course.

This song was a series of chords of synth strings all playing together on beat. Accompaniment would have made this go from a generic ambient piece to a nicely syncopated composition boasting both smooth easy listening, and well written music. Something like a flute I think would work.

Needs some filling out, and drop the ocean sound midway through when you have more instruments playing the rest of the song.

3/5 7/10

NightcoreVII responds:

That crackling your hearing must be the song. I forgot to run it through Maximus... oops. I'll definitely add some more drums to any future ambient music I make, as well as a nice lead. =) And once again, Thank You!

[Crash Tackle]

My review, your song.

Needs mixing, IE put a limiter on each channel so things don't red line, incresae volume of quiet channels, and use the EQ tools to make instruments play in their respective tonal ranges; Bass is low, melody middle, etc etc.

Add subtle reverb, slight delay and chorus to your guitar sounds. The FL slayer isn't a good guitar instrument, but some effects can make it sound so much better. Perhaps not more real, but less bad.

Song is a simple bass track, beat melody going all over the place. Make the bass fit the melody more closely.

Pay attention to key signatures.

This song sounds like you just need a lot of practice and time writing music, as well as learning the software.

3/5 (generous) 5/10

[Uh, ohh yeahh (trippy version)]

My review, your sound.

Sounds like a pad, bass white noise and a porn sample with delay, reverb and some flanging.

Not music, not really a cool SFX either, probably the result of 5 minutes of slapping things together.

0/5 0/10

[Cipher Cyndicate Theme [Remix]]

My review, your song.

Typically I write pretty thorough reviews, but your getting short shifted in that department.

Songs fine, mix is poor, you need to limit and EQ the instruments so that their more definable.

The use of presets here is gratuitist, while the use is above the FL-garbage line, it sounds like you you just layered FL-Sytrus presets from the Sequenced, 303, and Acid lines. Drums are stinky of presets, hits/bass drop sounds are unedited too. Fl-Keys is evident.

Beginning and near the 1:30 mark most of these synths aren't playing in key with each other.

Needs cleaner writing, better mixing, and less use of having the software do the musical work for you. Spend more time smoothing out your song. It may be tedious but the results are infinitely better.

2/5 5/10

Lazer-B responds:

Thanks a lot for the honest review. I really have trouble finding fresh sounds and synths, that's probably why it's stale.

[Leaving the atmosphere]

My review, your song.

Intro is nice, piano sounds a bit detuned from the rest of the song.

Drums are pretty basic in sound and beat.

0:33 Synth is for sure detuned from the piano. Its mix is abundantly loud aswell.

0:58 Bass comes in, its hardly noticable, its being drowned out.

You need to limit and compress your master channel and make sure your individual channels are not red lining.

1:14 The detune piano is most evident here, and it plays really inorganically, kind of a disservice to the piano. either change it into another synth, or rewrite it a bit with some chords and held notes so its more piano-ey. To me it just sounds odd in a bad way.

1:29 'Cute' little bridge. It works, the sounds neat, and here the fuzzy mess mix isn't evident.

1:55 messy mix is in full throttle again.

Song writings pretty good, piano could use some more reverb, it stinks of FL-Key preset, the mix is atrocious, drums are simple. Song progresses.

The foundation here is great, but this would be far better if it had a slightly decent mix, but as is everything just kind of turns into musical slosh, and loses all definition. Needs more post production work.

3/5 7/10

[The Perfect Escape]

My review, your song.

Enters on strings, their nice, but I wouldn't say they feel real. Big part of having them sound 'real' is have them play something that would actually be written for the instrument.

Crash at 0:14 sounded hardly edited, didn't fit in with what was playing.

Drums are far better in this song then in ~~Remote Control~~. This detail should be your standard, even if its a 'dance' song.

Has a sort of Maplestory sound to it (if you are familiar with the happy upbeat orchestral music style that they have).

The bass sound is perfect.

Flute thats been playing bits and peices is dandy.

Song has an outro, jolly good.

Overall this songs mix is quite nice, its diverse, flows, written well, attention to detail seems to have been had.

4/5 9/10

codbarley responds:

Yes I tend to take up great pride over this genre of music. It's my specialty and therefore, I pay a real good amount of detail to each piece similar to this one that I write. The techno genre is new territory for me as of now.

[~~Remote Control~~]

My review, your song.

Titles little '~~~' are a bit silly, doesn't add anything to the song, just makes you look less proffesional. (Though of course NG isn't the best place for breaking out as a profesional anyways... I digress.)

Piano intro is dandy, the bubbly filtered synth adds nicely, builds well.

0:42 the hihat is very resonant heavy, I found it sort of stuck a wrench in the smoothness of what was built up, then after the crash it was gone, and sort of stole the thunder from that build up, made the release seem weaker.

0:57 Kick is alright, kind of boring, I avoid having the simple bass rythm and kicks for the reason that their almost always boring.

Bass sound at that point I think could use some filter-cut-off automation/oscilation, its a simple bass sound, but you've given the listener time to focus on it, which for me, I felt it was a weak sound.

Drums phase adds more depth to the simple drums. I'd recomend shifting the snares around a lot more and doing rolls with hihats as well. Don't fall into the basic electronic drum rythm. I found it got hard to break after a while.

Strings add nicely to melody, I don't feel theres much to say about them, their good.

Filtered drums coming in and out around 2:30-ish mark, their automation in and out could use some mixing up at this point I think.

3:05 build up was subtle.

3:17 it built up again to break down. Kind of odd, but thats the nature of snare fills.

3:34 new synth could have come in much earlier I feel, the first 3 minutes of the song did repeat an awful lot. For song writing, its more normal to have your intro, melody, then bring in this alternate section, then chorus. Instead of having the first half one big block of pattern A and the second half of the song being pattern B, mix it so its in quarters of ABAB.

4:10-ish song continues, nothing new I haven't already mentioned.

I think the piano is the best part of this song (for me).

5:04 break down, then build up to chorus again. Then repeat piano/the synth that was introduced late into the song. I think the outro could have played some entirely different melody to great effect.

Overall, pretty decent mix, songs written nicely, drums are worked in and out.

I feel the songs progression is a bit weak, you stated yourself you doubled its run time. I'm not sure that was the best decisions, while electronic music tends to have longer run times, sometimes a short song is a better song because it will make the listener play the song again, instead of finding the 6 minute song repetitive.

Drum beats themselves were simple.

4/5 8/10

"Holy Mother, thats an awesome review! i need reviews like that on my stuff."

Hehe.

codbarley responds:

Thanks for listening to that little comment lol Awesome review! *takes out notebook*

[Piano style]

My review, your song.

Your author comments are embarrassing. Spend some time writing it so hoity toity people such as myself don't spend our time commenting on your comments.

Also furthering my semantics. Piano's are instruments, not styles. Title your song title with capitals too.

As for the song:

Intro works, sounds like FL keys. Mix it in better, add feint delay, slight stereo, reverb. Perhaps humanize the piano a bit by intentionally making some notes not 100% on beat. Also EQ it so it has more timbre (sounds like you were going for a plucky high piano, but its a bit damp sounding).

0:17 rev cymbal introduces beat nicely.

Beat works, its a bit quiet, quite background material.

0:36 accompaniment synth hammond-esque glocken sound comes in.

0:55 hammond-esque sound leaves. I like it, I think it could have played longer. Sounds like the higher up piano just took its place. All 3 playing would have been nice, and layered.

1:14, this sounds familiar. Granted this is near the middle of the song, I think a bridge to something different would have done well instead of a straight up repeat of what just played. While hiphop does repeat, and as you stated (I think) that you intended on putting some lyrics on this, that's no reason to have your song literally copy pasted for the duration of its play time. It still should follow regular song conventions of intro, chorus, bridge, chorus, outro all being involved. Its like a book, beginning, middle and an end.

Overall not a bad track, sounds minimalistic in composition, very background sounding, and not at all memorable, needs more production work and detailed writing to have this song really be worth while.

4/5 7/10

rafael3 responds:

o yeah, that is the review i ever waited to read, thank u very much. ; )

About the title, i am just not very creative creating names, really, that was totally anyoning, and the style capitol, hmmm, ok, i forgot it.

And i am not english, i speak portuguese, and i am just in 7th grade, i am not so good in english yet to write good stuff on comments, but i'll try to write some thing more intersting. I didnt understood everything u said, but be sure i will analyse it carefully.

i really apreciate the comment, i will try to make the piano more natural, equalize and review the other stuff : )

thanks a lot again.

[Wipe the tears away]

My review, your song.

Pre-Song ramble:

Cheesy title, lot of people on NG here I find get into this rhythm of trying to make uber-pseudo songs that are the pinnacle of emotion. I find this tends to hurt the song as a song. Lets see if this holds true here...

As for the song itself:

The constant rain/thunder sample is supporting this uber-emotion thing I so dislike.

The piano itself wanders somewhat aimlessly, I suppose that is supportive of some aimless sadness some fictional music character has that I'm supposed to visualize as having had a tragic romance break up.

Piano quality is good, theres not much mixing going on, just volume boost, but it is clear. Its bass/acompanyment is pretty repetitive, I think it could have had a few alternative bass melodies to make the song not just constantly sound like its raising up (And given the ambient nature of the song, that means it doesn't build up to anything).

I found this song very simple, and quite cliche. While there isn't anything really wrong with it other then what my opinion dictates, I wouldn't call this a strong song. Not at all memorable, some breaks of tempo and play style could have done so much for this song.

4/5 7/10

DayDreamingFox responds:

Play the music, not the instrument. ^_~