secantwave's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Emmaus]

Really nice, really interesting piece. The obscured vocals and the erratic rhythms combined to make a wonderfully hazy and unique atmosphere, which in my mind struck a perfect balance--it sounded neither rigidly controlled nor sloppy. The sounds you chose were all really well-suited and tasteful--I particularly enjoyed the drums (there were some seriously complex beats hiding here!) and the bass that came in at 2:13.

The fact the piece was almost entirely consonant made the occasional "off" note seem very jarring (for example, in the little cluster at 0:14, or the grace note at 1:50). This didn't happen a lot, but it really stuck out when it did. I think the piece might have been better either if you had removed the dissonances entirely, or if you had included more of them to make it seem less unusual.

However, I don't have any more criticism to give. This was just a really pleasant, slightly off-kilter piece. Good work!

[Identity: Crisis]

I liked the drumbeat, but I think a greater variety of beats would have given the piece more energy.

I really liked the bell-like sound in the opening section and throughout; it made for a good contrast with the grimier background.

That sound at 2:13 was really cool! How did you make it?

I thought the bit starting at 1:38 was nice, especially the twanging lead sound, but I found the orch-hits really offputting--they came across as kind of cheesy and stuck out in an odd way.

Similarly, I wasn't thrilled by the use of strings in the second half of the piece. I thought the sort of cinematic tone they had diluted the industrial atmosphere, and that a more mechanical, synthetic sound would have worked better. The synthesized sounds were really good; they added a lot of texture and helped carry the piece.

Structurally, the piece felt a bit sprawling and overlong, but the transitions between sections were really fluid.

Overall, your production here was very polished, but I felt that the composition could have been more interesting.

Adhenoid responds:

Since I started making electronic music, my problem is always "repetition" and it seems this track has it too even though I have tried my best not to repeat many parts too much, but well I guess I still have to learn a lot haha.

That sound at 2:13 was made through MAGIC :P (I am fond of it too)

The strings that came after the first drop were actually built for thematic purpose. This track is a part of a series which combine both industrial and orchestral aspects, along with unique genre blending for each piece; for example it was industrial+orchestral+breaks for the first episode and industrial+orchestral+dubstep for this one. But yeah, I got your point, thanks! :D

And finally, thank you for writing a VERY helpful review, kind sir! I really appreciate your effort making such long comments :D

Cheers!!

[Main Title]

This seems like it would work well as a main title theme. It's got a sense of building anticipation that worked really well, and although the instrumentation was sparse, it filled out the space just enough. I kept expecting a chord change, which never came, and made the piece feel a bit rambling. However, having the bass drone in the background could be more fitting for the piece's intended purpose.

[Memoryhead]

The instrumentation here is quite sparse, but there are good bits. I like the sort of crackly bass that starts the piece, and I think it combines well with the repeating triangle-wave phrase that runs throughout. I'm not sure about the melody that starts at 0:33: harmonically, it doesn't seem to fit in with the underlying arpeggio, although with a bit of tweaking it could fit together in a very interesting way. Good use of the various sound options provided by chiptunes, even if the composition was a bit limited.

Dotfloor responds:

Thanks for the review! And, yes, I do agree actually. Even though I don't really see the problem with the Melody, it sounds alright for me. About the composition: I am still very, very new at this, even though this obviously doesn't save me from criticism, and yours was fair, but, to be honest, I just ran out of ideas for this song.

[Tense Like Glass]

I love the melody that starts out the piece; even though it's only 8 notes, it manages to convey an interesting mood, which is impressive. Even more than that, I love the complementary line that comes in on top of that at 11 seconds, because of how it subtly but erratically wavers in and out of tune. It feels like it's struggling to hold itself together.

I thought the guitar part at 0:36 didn't really fit in with the rest of the piece--since a lot of it was based on very pure tones (or at least the parts that appealed to me), the very fuzzy, distorted guitar seemed to clash with that. However, I really liked the guitar line that comes in first at 1:28, because it reinforces the tone of the piece--it sounds a bit harmonically out of place, but that's not a bad thing in this case!

The wildly sliding high-pitched background at 0:53 was another one of my favorite parts--it's not the kind of thing that jumps out and grabs your attention, but it's a really effective foundation to build on. I also liked the halting drum pattern that backed up the piece, particularly when it was juxtaposed with the subdued bits at the beginning.

In general, I like how you created a very cohesive atmosphere by including a lot of pitch bending alongside unusual melodies. I'm not sure I really feel the "abandoned city" part of this piece, but you've got the "tentative grasp on reality" aspect down.

If you were to develop this further (and I think it could be developed into a more complex structure) I would suggest that you either replace the heavily fuzzed guitar with a different tone, or back it up with more atmosphere, to prevent it from sticking out as severely. If you extended it, I think it would also benefit from a more diverse collection drum sounds and patterns (as it is, it works pretty well.) But I think you have a lot of good ideas and solid, moody production here. Nice work.

IndustryStandard responds:

I just started recording with guitar, so I'm not all that comfortable with it and i do tend to lean on heavy fuzz as a crutch. That said, I was kind of going for a drastic change from the clean tones in the beginning to the heavy guitar riff. Now, though, I'm thinking I might try it with just some drive and a little gain instead, so I'll still have a heavy riff but it won't be quite as jarring of a change from the clean quiet tones. Thanks!

[some good MUSIC]

The ambient pad you're using here is quite good, but the drum pattern is sparse and seems very unstructured.

[Retribution]

Wow, I didn't really expect the beat to come in at 0:19, but it was certainly a pleasant surprise when it did. The irregular switching between the two basic chords in the strings gives it an excellent off-kilter feeling, and the drums & sample fused together in a pleasing way.

I realize the piece is pretty short, but I think you could have fleshed it out a bit more, by incorporating parts of the sample besides the strings, so as to improve the cohesion between the beginning, middle, and end of the piece; or by including the other chords in the string later on. But as a simple instrumental miniature, this is quite good.

BloodShedRedd responds:

Thank you

[{Vic} Liquid Dance Remix]

Very excellent, high-energy piece. I was surprised to see so many reviews citing the beginning as the weakest part, because I thought it was a wonderfully strange introduction. The introduction of subtler layers of percussion on top of the basic drum & bass helped make it more exciting. The soloing that started at 1:17 was top-notch. The one weakness I felt the song had was the use of string synth for the lead in most of the piece, which I didn't think had a very good sound, at least by itself--it was better in a support role.

It's a very tightly put-together song, though, and sounds really good on the whole.

[Im Nothing Special]

It's a matter of semantics, but I would seriously disagree with the below review's suggestion that this isn't intense. This is some of the most terrifyingly intense music I've heard on the NG audio portal. The opening had me thinking this would be a spooky, ambient track, and I really appreciated how the melody was fairly simple on its own but interacted with the underlying dissonant chords in a really strange way. But when the drums came in, it was amazingly heavy and powerful. Extreme dynamic compression can often hurt a song, but here it fit in perfectly, with the different parts all crowding around each other. And even though the melody stayed the same throughout the track, the role it played shifted and changed dramatically, and it felt just right for the song. The thing that really tied it all together was the amazing grimy bass sound--that just made the piece.

I can't give much constructive criticism on this. Perhaps making the middle section longer with additional parts would improve the piece, but as it stands, this is a brilliantly dark and well-produced track.

[Erie Christmas - FL Starter]

I think you've got a good creepy melody going here. The turnaround at 0:10 was weird and disorienting at first, but as it progressed I saw how it all fit together, which was cool. If you combined it with a complementary harmonic structure, it could form the background of a really cool piece. The sound you used for it was also cool--it had a sort of "off-kilter" feel to it.

However, at the moment I think that's the only thing the piece has going for it. The drum pattern is kind of boring--although you had an interesting erratic/jerky thing going on at the beginning, the slow pattern that comes in after that doesn't really contribute anything to the piece. The drums sound good, but the way they're currently composed has no energy. And the melody needs some kind of additional support, because by itself the high-pitched lead gets a little grating after a while.

I think you could really go somewhere with this theme, though.

RangerInTheWoods responds:

Thank you so much for your review! I agree with everything you said. The turnaround was weird and i should have fixed it, but some reason, whenever i'm making a project i get very anxious when it's almost done and don't give it the finishing touches that it needs. The harmonic structure is a very good idea. I also was going to change the kick and snare to be harder when i was almost finished, and fit more with the erie feeling, but i forgot X). Thanks again for the complements and criticism. It gives me a lot to think about doing over, and keeps my morale up. :D