InvisibleObserver's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Give Me The Hard Style (Final)]

My review, your song.

Some neat sfx going on in the intro. Not a big fan of the machine gunning clap sounds. The opening snare doesn't really fit tonally with the rest of whats present. Something with more grit would be better.

The gabber kick could probably have some note variation to make it moer palateable, instead of droning a single note you could work it into the melody a bit more for a cohesive sound.

Near 1:20 a soft clip or EQ out on high freqs on the master channel could help tone down the rather unpleasant resonance.

2:00 minute mark, doesn't sound like anything has been EQ'd to fit a specific range, everything blurs over eachother and kind of hurts any definition the song may otherwise have had. It becomes a bit too convoluted.

2:33 as the filter goes down the bass clips a ltitle, make sure the affected channels are limited, lower the quality on the filter if clipping is still an issue.

The vocal sample in the background could be varied a bit, or just flat out dropped in some sections so that its less repetitive, and the mix is easier to clean up.

Overall there is a lot of neat FX, fair length for a hardstyle song, and clearly effort put into this. The primary weak points (in my mind) are that the mix is made to be loud and in a slightly improper manner that hurts the clarity of the song. Other weakpoint would be as far as melody is concerned, its a single track song with kicks and FX.

If anything I've said is unclear regarding mix or you need a bit of direction, just shoot a PM to me.

[Hood work( trapademic type)]

My review, your song.

Careful with your mixing.

At 0:25 theres far too much resonance and high freq coming through on the vocaly FX sound, and its rather painful. Lower high freqs with an EQ, limit it, soft clip it, filter it, whatever is necessary to take off the edge. It clips.

With the trance gated synth, make sure the notes its hitting sync in key signature with the backdrop of the song.

The kick-bass-drop sound is EQ'd too loudly and clips. While a heavy kick is certainly desireable in hiphop, to acheive the effect one doesn't just raise its volume until its above everything else. You go through your other tracks/instruments and EQ out the freq range the kick falls under so that when the kick does play, it has no competition in its frequency range, so its heard loud and clear without causing distortion.

Song overall is very repeititve, a simple intro/outro would help.

With a few mixing tweaks this is totally useable for doing some verses on.

Blackhoodkrew responds:

good look brotha. most deffinately need tweaking

[Sunrising Escape]

My review, your song.

Could easily benefit from a bit more instrument variation.

0:14, 0:19. 0:24 many other spots the lower bass note is clipping. Limit the mixer channel the synth is on, don't increase the bass so much. Its blurring over and giving parts a tinnyish sound because its not playing properly (its getting distorted).

Odd melody/progression, but nothing horrendous on the ears. Very wandery.

I'd suggest playing with writing a melody with more complex syncopation, or at least more varied, the entirety of this is on the on-beat and gets a very repetitive nature to it that hurts the piece.

Experiment with some drums, something soft could have really improved this.

Not astounding but certainly not bad. Keep in that direction and you'll do well.

Matakor responds:

0.o I didn't really understand half of what you just said...I'm stupidish. Actually, I didn't mess with the synth at all. I just thought it sounded cool, and then I mashed it all together after I found a little trick with it. The reason it's all wandery is cuz I'm ADHD and didn't really pay attention to that bit. Drums I might do...not sure yet.

Thanks for the memo tho. I will work on this.

[Messin' around with synth]

My review, your song/audio clip.

If your having troubles writing melodies more then 3 notes, you likely lack music theory or knowledge, and a developed ear for music.

Lookup the 13 basic major/minor scales, find an image with all of their key signatures laid out, print it off and stick it behind your PC wall. Then when your writing just stick to the notes within the signatures and you'll be able to nearly hit random notes within the scale and it will sound more cohesive.

Low score cause... well it sounds incomplete, poor mix, simple drums and etc. Your learning, don't expect high scores. :P

ShredderJ responds:

Thanks for the review. I don't mind the score at all, I'm pretty new to this whole composing thing, and I want some feedback. I'll check out the scales.

[SCaNTRaX (dj JPA)]

My review, your song.

-Very short
-Intro is almost all of it
-Intro is really tackey
-Intro vocal could benefit from being cut up and fit to beat
-Perhaps reverse chain the volume output of the rest of the song to the voice so its always on top. Towards the 1minute mark it gets muddled in a bad way.
-Overall the mix is very murky
-Intro has far too much reverb stuff going on. This doesn't help the mix.
-Cut off freq ranges of instruments where they don't predominantly play

-Freq ranges themselves are rather diverse, song has a somewhat full sound
-While not my cup of tea, this is relatively likable minus the shortness of it. It ends as soon as it starts, but whats here is certainly palatable.
-The sample choice does suit the hardstyle genre

Overall I think with greater time investment and a little bit of mix/tech help, this could be quite the good song granted the genre/styel.

djJPA responds:

Thank you for your advice!
with the vocals, i tried a lot of reverb, sounded better but maybe that's just me.
I know this is hardstyle, but trance is really the closest thing to hardstyle based on the newgrounds genre choices here.

[Tarboy OST - Two's a Part]

My review, your song.

Excellent score for the movie, only weaknesses I find is the drums. Has a very electronic sequenced 'trying to be real drums and not quite hitting the mark' feel to it, which in comparison to the rest of the song, it stood out to me. The kick primarily on its own is a little obnoxious, volume dynamics and some rolls of sorts or variance would help bring it up to par with the rest of the song.

Who wrote the instrumentals, who mixed and who mastered this?

[Katlean and Ter amok - TTC CHG]

My review, your song.

Much stronger a beginning (then the other song I reviewed moments ago), more depth to the drums, instruments build gradually in a more melodic way.

Lot of intentional dissonance here, which comes across as that, builds atmosphere well.

Strings fill out the sound spectrum nicely.

Lot of weird syncopation going on wtih the low quality synth (its a 8bitish). There were some spots near 1:40 I felt it being removed would add some clarity.

2:15 is the strongest part of the song by far. The writing flows, builds, no dissonance, instruments are tuned to each other. Need more of this.

Make sure you take the time to avoid discordant writing, you've got the skill but I think more cleanup time is required. Getting more virtual instruments still stands as something that should be on your to-do list.

Don't let me low scores daunt you, I'm voting on a potential system here. :P

Calamaistr responds:

im not daunted :)
You hear the same as i, i also thought that some of the lipsquare in the latter end 'seemed cluttered but it also gives it a bit of how do i say it.. like it doesnt sound like a pre sample. People easily forget that these things have to be placed manually, and with thought behind it. I might remove it but i might also not, cause im sure you know how long rendering takes with heavy instrumentation.

I did pick the square to be retro on purpose since i also couldve gone through sytrus or vanguard for one. ;) I wanted it to be retro.

Thanks for your review man.

Greets -Cal.

[A time to a wonder - TTC CHG]

My review, your song.

Lot of effort here but your tool array really hurts this.

Sounds like lo-fi synths and midi. :(

Some of the synths are detuned from the other instruments which causes a lot of dissonance.

The mix is not present, which in a way lowers songs potential, but it is better to be unmixed then poorly mixed.

You need to look into getting some more insturment tools, and spend more time focusing on writing up a melody and slowly adding acompniment. A lot of this felt like the writing was done in quick layers that don't sync up.

Between the segments of the song, don't be afraid to leave longer gaps for things to fade out. It will help define the sections better and pace the song.

Calamaistr responds:

I disagree with the midi, but i intentionally used lowfi instrumentation (like some strings) together with hifi instrumentation, that afterall is the style of this album. (retroesque electronic, jazzy influences and hifi classical :) )

I got plenty instrument tools haha.

Ill pay some mind to the longer gaps next time, when i do piano works i actually do use these gaps but when youre working with more instruments its a little tedious to edit it afterhand, and in every piece of mine is alot of afterhand corrections trust me.

I dont know what you mean with mix in this. Isnt the mix just the volume and panning of individual instruments? Cause i did pay attention to it.

I think you just dont like the combination of instrumentation for the large part.
Thats ok. ;) Its misc for a reason.

Thanks for your review despite not liking it. :)

-Cal.