InvisibleObserver's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Struggles]

My review, your song.

Synths are kind of VGM in nature, rather boring on their own.

Melody is driven by playing scales up and down, and somewhat jerky pauses, neither will be crowd thrillers.

You need to make your writing more smooth flowing, at parts like 2:10 its just awkward. Try some simple percussion too to keep the beat more understandable, maybe just a simple kick and snare beat, nothing exceptionatly fancy.

Song progression feels simple like its ABABABAB (B being 'chorus' A being seperate melody, except in this case all A's are the same)

As you stated, this needs work, its not bad, but the best part is the end outro, which of the many positive things that could be said about a song, isn't making this a killer peice for me.

3/5 6/10.

On a side note your piano stuffs pretty decent.

hij41 responds:

Thank you, I just tried it with a cool drum beat and I will soon post a remix of it.
Thank you allot I will try to smoothen it out and have it flow better so just thanks for the advice!

I listened to one of your songs it was great!

[Galactic Obligation]

My review, your song.

Kick should be Eq'd to play above synths. Their pretty bass heavy, and the sound covers the bass allowing for easy head bobbing appeal.

Gated basslines are real chill.

Drum line is very simple, audible, but not spectacularily well mixed. Emphasis and forground sounds are certainly the synths.

1:20 Bridge is nice, I quite liked the little splashy sounds and bells. I think more would have kicked up the song quite a lot.

1:48 synth sounded way lower quality then the other sounds used, it stood out in a bad-contrast kind of way for me. It goes on abit too long unchanging for my likes.

Progression is slow, but occurs.

3:00 release could have happened sooner I think. Its a great repreive into 'chorus' (if you'd like to call it that), but it happened after too much of the loop repeating prior.

Piano addition to the chorus made it start going places. I think you should crop out small sections of this song, and work on the piano's melody and this will be a real kickass-track worthy of boasting having made.

Ending crash was very quiet and week. I think it could have used much more grandeur. Couple hits, stereo, added bass/delay, reverb, maybe an explosion (but execute it in a not so cliche way.) Maybe feature a bowling pin sample or something random just to add one more touch of audio information to make this more memorable.

You're theory teacher should be pleased that you're making your own advances outside of class.

4/5 8/10

To Rayray, and others wondering, its nearly Wednesday, theres a lot of 0 bombing going on so that songs have no chance of getting top 5 of the week.

[God is a DJ]

My review, your song.

Weird intro. Great way of picking up interest in the unweary listener.

0:10 seconds, drums come in, as does piano and lyrics.

As you stated, very basic beat, some rolls and mix ups can really hook and reel in the listener.

Lyrics are quite dandy, I'm enjoying the fact that its not obscene (so far, that may change just yet), however its not particularily deep or philisophical. I enjoy it when rap really touches on some weird concepts and points of being. It just makes the song so much more long lasting in my mind.

The beats with some subtle left-right panning can help make it feel more moving. Perhaps kick middle, snare 1 to the left, snare 2 to the right.

1:30 got a bit obscene, I don't think that added much to the track, though it didn't really take much away from it. Don't over do that kind of thing though.

Stretched female voice saying 'God is a DJ' (I think) is neat, though its a bit distorted, it made a nice smooth contrast to that of your lyrics. I find hiphop with contrast of harsh/smooth, deep/high sounds can make it easy, and intrigueing listening.

Overall this songs quite good, one of the better hip-hop songs I've heard. Emphasis is of course on lyrics, piano could have done some bridges and alternate melodies.

Outro could help, or just a slight pause of fade out. Perhaps you should spend a bit more time on minute details and fine tuning of peices to have the song really pull together.

4/5 8/10

RayRayBeats responds:

All in all, it comes down to me being lazy. You point out alot of things i think of doing, but never take the time to do, and i appreciate you doing so. Other advice, like the panning and the kick/ snare adjustments i'd never think of doing. I really appreciate it.

[Squirrel Berry]

My review, your song.

To contemplate the lyrics... I have no sympathy for a creature that has solely the cognitive functions to survive, and even then it failed at that.

As for the song, as a song, not some point of intellectual conversation, mix is nice. Drums are typical of trance though, they aren't memorable in any way shape or form, just 4/4 kicks and claps on the second beats with the occasional roll of sorts.

Lyrics were worked in nicely, had a good sound to them, filled the narrating niche quite nicely.

Synth diversity however was juicy and fulfilling, though they weren't automated a whole lot.

You've written your bass to mainly be on the offbeat of every beat, play with a second bass track playing on thirds, I find it layers very nicely, and makes the song much more unpredictable, without being debilitating to the song.

I found best part of the song was about 0:40-1:20, rest seemed like it was not the focus of your efforts, and just rambled on into whatever came out of your finger tips.

Bass at 1:50 was very minimalistic in its sound creation, I think it could have done with some automating, after a bit it sounds like some painful musical embodiment of swelling organs. Or something less negative, since thats a slight stretch of what it made me feel.

Maybe trance just isn't my thing...

Outro sounded like it was a last thought tack on, didn't fit. Good you included an outro though, helps complete a song so so much.

Oveall excellent job, humourous, and not bad sounding. Acheived status in my mind as a media peice of entertainment.

Four berries out of five, eight dead squirrels out of ten.

Darren-M responds:

haha, i must say i loved your review. it was probably the most interesting i have ever recieved as far as character goes.

yes i am aware that the drums were no more advanced than a typical pattern of most electronic music, however i felt that drums of a more intricuit nature would be overwhelming to the listener when paired with the notation of my instrument voices.

if you liked the lyrics then i did a fine job and am glad i did not redo them.

i agree that the synths need some automation and there were points that i shoul dhave automated my basses. since the instruemnts were changing frequently i thought that a constant element was necessary. yet on the cd i think i will do what you said.

you are right about the focus of the song put into the first half. the last part felt like i had to write the squirrels destiny. basicly nothing changed for him, either he dies or continues to hunger

as for the outro i feel you are right, it was oddly included, yet i felt it needed to close the story.

THANKS for this awesome review!

[Wombat (the fast song)]

My review, your song.

I kind of doubt this is better then the original speed.

Really obnoxious - plain and simple.

Tons of recording clicks and poor production quality.

Random vocals, most of which is not understandable.

Writings simple, only positive thing I can say about this is atleast you have a sense of humour, but it hasn't translated very well into an enjoyable peice.

1-2/5 (I gave a 2 to be generous), 3/10.

CatpoopvsTrain responds:

Actually, it sonds better fast and one the reasons is, is that the bass in the song is way too loud (because of the poor production quality) and it is less noticable at this speed and I thought it sounded way cooler this way.

[Rez Hits]

My review, your song.

0:40 I found the new synth rather weak. Once it gets a bit more layered it picks up.

Intro sample is dandy. Only thing I would do to it is to crop each word and fit it all into the rythm/beat. (But thats fiddly and not for everyone.)

Bridge near the 2 minute mark was good for the change of pace given first 2 minutes were pretty uniform.

2:35 shows promise of more excellent to come.

Bass returns, I think the song from here could have evolved much more differently from previous in the song for a good impact and song structure, but frankly the songs still smooth and chill.

Theres a sound that by my guess has the FL Love philter on it, and at about 3:43 and I think it player earlier in the song. It sounds discordant to the other noises playing and is easy to place a finger on its creation, which as a writer myself often detracts from the song when its so discernable. If I'm wrong let me know.

Song has an outro - rare on here. Good to have included.

Unlike most of your peers you have a passion. Hold onto it, and ignore the low scores of some of your songs. NG doesn't have much of a palate for this kind of stuff. Its not happy, its not DnB, its not a single strict formulaic genre, so you're gonna get dinged with some down voters.

5'd and 8/10. Keep up the work, never laze out on writing.

[Floating Bricks]

Excellent.

I found this to be quite the charming peice. As stated below, a better mic can help out. However, a better mix of what you have could help too.

Some simple compression and stereo seperation would make this go a long way.

As for white noise, I didn't find it that bad, however you can sometimes use an EQ tool to lop off a very small section of the frequency range and remove the white noises range. (Often its in a small uniform range thats easily removed)

Loops excellently, and I'm glad your alive and well.

How optimistic.

4/5 8/10

[SN techno]

My review of your song/loop.

While 80ish people will hear this, you'll probably hear it a lot more yourself. No reason to shoot yourself down.

The piece is short, sounds like an intro.

Very background mixed, could use percussion or a closer sounding synth. (Limiters/compression/volume increase) Just general more completion.

The bass fumble sounds at beginning, 0:29, 0:59, very clearly suggest this is one loop 3 times, in a looping format on the site. May as well have just made it loop once.

Notes are nice, sticks to a key (makes sense musically).

Guitar plink sound is unique sounding, its not like every other trance blip sound out there.

Overall this is fine, just super short and sounding incomplete.

3/5 7/10 Not bad, not great. sounds like more work is needed.

[Fall Into The Sky (demo 3)]

My review on your song.

Completely original composition might suggest the peice is so thoroughly yours that you even whent out and sampled some thunder and whatnot. (Is it that complete?)

Well mixed and sounds as if mastered as well, production quality is quite good.

Beats were super lame, but that is the nature of the genre, I think its really the biggest draw back in this song. Perhaps varied gating on the choir track to make it more diverse as well.

Theres a pause at the end of the song that you may, in a more formal playing format (IE not on NG) could do with cropping out. (Not holding that against my vote score.)

Piano aspect of this song felt very cliche due to not being written at all like music a piano plays. I think if it were altered slightly it would seem much more humanized and make the contrast of synthetic/'real' sound far stronger, which for me is something I'd gladly roll around in for fun.

5/5 8/10, not my thing, but this is quite good.

[The Reaching Hand of Death]

My review on Your song.

Severly short, bassline seems to play discordantly in a not clever discordant kind of way throughout most of the song.

Mix towards the end is jumbly, nor is this mastered.

Whats down is overall quite good, builds nicely, but doesn't really go anywhere and simply sounds like this took no time to make.

3/5 6/10

Spend more time and resubmit!

KooriGraywolf responds:

Oh thanks!! Actually this song WAS pretty quickly made, thing is i was pretty short on ideas... 'sides, escape themes for RPGs tend to be short...

As for mastering.. uh.. I've just begun composing less than a month ago so i still got a LOOOOT to learn! :P