Zadamanim's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[His Last Rave (Prog. Demo)]

when you finish it...

be sure to make the melody loudest. Right now, the bass is louder than the melody, also, at 1:31, the melody changes key on the way down. When you do that it sounds like you just put in random notes in a sequence. tip: stay in a one key, unless you lead into and change everything into a relative or parallel key, or really know what your doing.

DJ-Species responds:

Hey! I went ahead and took your advice and it sounds alot better! Thanks man..

[S.A.D.]

LOL

mainly just mixing issues, the vocals were way too loud, i coulnt tell how the vocals were supported by the music, i could barely hear it in the background. Bring down the vocals, maybe add a intro/verse/chorus/verse/chorus/build up/chorus/end structure (standard mainstream music structure, you hear this in every song ever to hit the top 40 since Beethoven), and resubmit it, and u have a winner :P

DocterCerebro responds:

lol thanks for the review. I made this for kicks and for people who have a sense of humor like you and I.

[Breathe Demo]

interesting, i like :D

Its good, I like the unique use of, are they 128th notes(?)
The only thing I noticed was that the vocals were a loud, tho it could be that my computer speakers have no bass.. alas, limitations
anyway, If you are familiar with flutes, then you know if you do not blow correctly, you produce a "breathy" tone, which is kinda what sounds like is in the background when she sings.
I would have lowered the tone (not the pitch tho) of the voice just a little, to be smooth with the rest of the song, or she could sing louder, then lower the volume of the track, either way it would fix the tone problem.
btw, the intro was sick ;D, u could u that instrument as a kick between verses or give it a synth solo, just an idea

Nitr0gen responds:

cheers for the review man :) Yeah the vocals are actually taken from when she sang the track and it was acoustic, hence the problem. When we get a chance, we'll re-record them. I found the mix really hard, because when I play it on my laptop, the vocals do sound too high but when I listen with my headphones or speakers, they're not.

Useful review though :) Thanks alot.

[emissivity demo]

wow

really nice bass, good mixing, the only improvements I could think of is a little more variety in the bell-like melody that plays from the begining to the end the same way, and that the nice pad that comes in half way through the loop kinda fades out on the last beat or two beats, for cleaner looping. Really nice, thanks for the submission ^^

yagru responds:

thanks for the thoughts! your welcome!!!

[collab demo]

some good ideas, but really drawn out

I like the way the the beat and the bass fit together nicely, a couple things tho
1. there is enough actual music here to create a 1 minute loop, you guys really milked those three tracks. Im sure that since this is a wip, you guys will add stuff for the next submission
2. The If the drum loop can be divided, there would be snare/bass drums, the high hat sounds, and this gritty wob sound, I didnt like the gritty sound, kinda didnt fit in to the rest of the music. If you want some low rez distortion tho, u can put it in with a synth, which would also help fix 1.
All in all, thanks for the submission! hope the finished product is great ;D

omikron1989 responds:

it's only the skeleton bro, my friend will hopefully use this and build on top to make something really cool. And of course anyone who wants to try is free to do so :)

[Tetrisx2 Remix]

Agree with the first review

tho i must say he said it horribly, ill try to put it more clearly
The bottom melody had some sync-like modulation, like the high cutoff got higher throughout the note, so it went like dooaaaaeeee, which didnt sound nice on every single note. The ending also didnt feel conclusive, i was like
w8, did it just end? *checks to make sure the song didn't randomly stop playing*
for being all-melodic instruments, it also felt like some transitions were kinda sketchy

not too bad tho, overall

eewgames responds:

Sorry... it´s a loop T_T

[WIP - The Need to Sleep]

um.. has potental... hopefully

0:15 i gave up cuz it was suuuuper loud that synth
*scans through the song*
yeah too loud all the way through, could barely hear the drums
Its also ironic that its called "the need to sleep" and it starts like BUTUTUTUT
melody sounds like has promis, but right now u need to seriously fix the mix

OpenLight responds:

You may need to turn down your volume if it's too loud, ha.

There's no irony in this song's name, actually. If the song was calm, that could easily imply an ongoing state of sleep, therefore there would be no "need" to sleep.

The mix sounds fine through my headphones. You may just be expecting something different, which I can understand. I can hear the drums though. I may change it up a little bit, but I'm not sure.

Thanks for the review!

[All There Is]

Master track EQ

Sounds really top-heavy, especially for DnB.. Too much treble not enough bass makes the music kinda weak-sounding, u know?

P.S. Did u do the scratching yourself?

goldenfarrow responds:

Yeah....the audio source wasn't good to begin with =/ FL studio did little to help this one. I wanted to add more bass, I really did!

And yes, the beginning is a little scratching from me lol. I was attempting to beat match the song when I realized the scratches were recorded, so I tried to make it look intentional! I have made another mix, much better than this one. Too bad it is 1mb over NG's limits.

[Six O' One]

Gotta get a score sheet

dude, id love to hear this played live (and i know some people who'd probably love to do it) so u should totally print out a piano score and upload it to the art portal. Or sell copies on e-bay.
yeah, my only advice would be to add SFX to fill in some of the quiet gaps between loud chords (reverb maybe?) also you should use noise reduction on ur mic (if thats what you used), you got white noise throughout the entire song.

MercuryMalign responds:

Yeah, I'm trying to work stuff out still. I wrote the notation on Forte Free ('cause I'm broke) and The only way I could export it as an audio file was to record it through my cheap old condenser mic, and let's say Ableton is less than user-friendly. :( If I manage to improve the audio quality I'll certainly re-upload it.

[Rainbow Road remix]

fill-ins and mixing

im gonna focus on talking about the drums, two things.
1. you should use fill-ins to tansision from one drum beat to another, for example, you could have done descending notes on the toms from 0:28 to 0:31 to make it smoother (people should be able to predict what your gonna do, if it surprises them with an abrupt change its generally not good)
2. the drums (especially the snare drum) did not seem to fit the genre (sounded like a rock-style preset), they could use more distorsion/reverb (everything should sound like it was recorded live if its not a clearly digital set)
3. also the drums covered up the melody at some parts, remember that just by nature short notes (in this case drums/percussion) stick out on top of long notes (in this case the melody)
take this into consideration and it could greatly improve the song imho

krazyfro2 responds:

thanks, that will realy helpe me in the future. i look forward to advice like this.