secantwave's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[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!!

[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!

[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

[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

[My Sorrow]

I felt like this piece never really got momentum started, and I think a big part of that was the relative absence of drums through most of it. It's really important that a piece as energetic as this has some sort of unpitched percussion driving it. I guess this is also because the cool hi-hat pattern that started at 0:37 led me to expect that it was going to build into a dramatically layered drum track, when it actually just faded away.

The lack of drums also made the textures seem kind of thin at points. The section from 1:24 through 1:48 was very little more than a dirty lead playing a single note and a couple of simple drum sounds, and although you made some good rhythmic patterns with them, I don't think that combination works on its own.

The arpeggiations that started coming in at 2:13, I felt, didn't fit in well with the harmonic structure of the piece. I'm no music theorist, but it felt like the way they changed key rapidly contrasted poorly with the droning quality of the rest of the piece.

I thought the intro went on a little long as well. If you had added in some more sounds and perhaps a more complex melody or harmony, it would have made for good ambiance, but as it is it wasn't particularly interesting over the course of a minute. I thought the loud bass pulse at the very beginning was going to build into something bigger, and when it just went away I was somewhat disappointed.

The production and choice of sounds on this piece was quite good. The lead was powerful and dirty, and I would have liked to have heard it mixed in with other sounds. The percussion that you did use fit really well with the melodic sounds, and the piano provided a good contrast with the roughness of other parts. I didn't like the choir-like samples in the beginning and end, but that's purely a matter of personal taste. The eerie screeches that appeared around 2:05 gave the piece a great atmosphere that I thought was lacking from the rest of it.

Overall, I think you're doing well in coming up with cool sonic ideas, but you need to work a bit harder in structuring and composing them, and think about how the intensity of the piece rises and falls.

DJTECKIE responds:

Thanks a lot for the review :) Yeah I'm still a little off with my productions as I'm always doing what I can to improve on my tracks. I'm more into the darker stuff as it is close to halloween :P I'm trying to aim into something new and different than what most artist do. Hopefully soon I'll make a track that everyone will like. It is just a matter of taste tho.
-Teckie-

[What it is to Imagine]

I heard the first few seconds expecting a typical dancy EDM piece, but this became far more interesting quickly. I really liked the pulsating feel created by the basic beat, and how it persisted throughout the entire piece, with weird glitchy excursions popping their heads up out of the drum line.

I particularly enjoyed the speed-up/slow-down/scratch shenanigans that took the lead briefly at 1:15, and even more the metallic percussion sounds that followed them. The glitchy feel of this piece is very understated, but is just present enough to produce a really cool atmosphere.

The only real complaint I have with this piece is that it seemed very unstructured. While there were a bunch of cool ideas, it didn't feel like they were in a logical progression--both the start and the end seemed sort of random, as if this were a segment clipped out of a larger piece. In the grand scheme of things, though, this doesn't weigh down too much on how this piece works so well as a soundscape. What this piece has in spades is good transitions. The entire thing felt fluid, which is so often an issue with music on Newgrounds--it goes through a great variety of sounds seamlessly. Great job!

InvisibleObserver responds:

I spent a lot of time on getting my sound set together, and working with transitions between the sections. The overarching structure as you point out isn't greatly flushed out. I'll be releasing this in the future tuned up with reguards to progression and mix.

Tried my best to tuck the effects a little into the backdrop so not to just be a showcase of fancy-doodad automations.

Insightful review, thankyou.