MusicIsBliss's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Such Absence]

neat

Interesting track. The main thing to point out is the obvious; there is no building. You need it to come in with some loud synth at some point, quite possibly sidechained and EQ'd up at 3-5kHz and 40kHz+. Also the bongo loop thing should get louder as other instruments come in, and pan more. there is very little panning compared what you could be doing with it. Also, more compression on the kick and snare, try running both together through a multiband compressor. Also pick out asnother drumbeat for the kick and snare at somepoint. Your use of pads is nice though, I enjoy it.

pichuscute0 responds:

I don't use compressors much, so I will probably try that. I need to learn to use them better. Also, yeah, I hadn't panned the bongos out nearly as wide as normal. Most everything is barely panned at all as well. Hadn't gotten to doing that yet.
I will try to build it up more, I do need to work on that.

I'll try what you've said. Thanks for the help.

[-Control: Mind-]

Wow, now the hard part, critisizing

So, wow, the song is awesome, not really a surprise seeing as your music has been awesome for years since, well, i guess when i first heard sky runner.
back then, i never really used the audio portal, and you and cornandbeans were the only two people i really listened to. Slowly that thought me to go deeper into the (very confusing and scary) audio portal, where i learned about more music. cornandbeans kinda dissapeared, but you have always been here, creating more and more awesome music. then i remember people always referencing anything good to space pirates, heck, they even used that as an example for the CC mac contest, didn't they, and then you know what, it turns out all these new songs you made were either for, or just ended up in, castle crashers.

anyway, tome to review this beast of a song.

Drums. The basic kick and snare seem to stay where they are, throughout all filters and progressions, except when there is no kick or snare. i guess that is necessary for such a long song to keep its momentum. I really like all the different things you did with the drums, filtering was amazing, your hi-hat, what is it?it almost sounds like, well, not a hi-hat, but does sound too much like the snare at points, i admit. at around 5:00, i don't like the how you can here the reverb of the snare, it kinda gets hurt, from compression, or just cause of the sample, I'm not sure. also, sometimes the kick looses itself in the low saw, maybe a little of sidechain is in order there, just a wee bit, like a few dB. also i like the initial snare with the little bit of compressed reverb, sounds sexy.

General instruments. I pretty much like all of them, don't know what to comment on, umm. some of the high instruments kinda forget their boundaries and flow into the bass, but not too much, i guess it is inevitable with the constant change of instrument patterns and so forth. some of the 8-bit seems really outta place, i know you like it, but you may need to reverb it and EQ back a bit or something to make it seem natural to the song. the main instrument kinda gets repetitive, i believe thats where any of the feeling of repetition comes from, it overlaps both the bass and the treble at any given time, so it tends to stay lead the entire time, which also i guess may be necessary, but that is why the song feels a little long (well, ya, aside from the fact that it is long). I also really like that funky bounce in instrument you play from 4:06-4:12, what is that, and what did you do with it? The strings later on are quite good as well, very unnoticeable at first, which is great for strings. the synth after these strings is nice too, EQ'd perfectly, like wow, my only complaint about this is that pulling it in and out doesn't really give you the potential to build with it, you just seem to go back to the strings and alarm buzzing synth.

Random hits: Plentiful and beautiful, the dentist drill sound, the fade ins and outs of random instruments, all the background noises, all the little IDM hits of quick repetition. Any good song has lots of little random sound sin it, and this has that, how do you choose what to put where, and how are you able to fill the whole song with little things like that without making anything take over. again the only thing at this point is the 8-bit sounds, but still, fantastic job.

Random vocals. apparently you like the "i like you" "i like me too" the most, because it is used most often. I really enjoy the parts with the quick sinusoid panning, or LFO, or ping-pong, whatever you feel like calling, kinda takes a bit of presence in the song, but sounds amazing. The EQing of all of the vocals are great too, they are hidden behind the song, but are still audible, and you can tell what they are saying, HOW DID YOU DO THAT SO WELL? was it the samples? was it the compression? was it the EQing? was it a combination, please let me know!

sorry that the review turned more into just observations, but this is WAY above my level. I don't really care if you read it all, but please, teach my anything you can. oop, well im out of tex

Waterflame responds:

WOW! that has to be one of the longest and most serious reviews ive ever gotten. ofcource i red it all, i always read everything pepole write to me. i just cant respond to them all, usually.. i must say i agree with almost everything you said, this beast of a song was so hard to control. i had to do tons of nifty little things to keep the CPU level from breaking of the chart. Cycerin gave me some helpfull tips on how to prevent the song from suicide..

as said im not completely happy with the outcome, but i could poke at it forever with little result. all in all im happy with it! and im realy gratefull you took the time to write this skyscraper review. it actually helped aswell as beeing nice. a real constructive review! ;)

and the voices, its actually "i love you, i love you too" i tired to get out the feeling of mind control.
well, since you took the time to review ill take the time to explain. the control series is a little story, wich has something to do with one of my game concepts. the last stage of the song is where obviously pepole get brainwashed. the voices are sampled from a old Dos game, and was ment to represent that. they turn into monotone dolls. the voices in the song goes like this, if you listen closely: "jenny, i, i, i feel something abnormal! GUUaegh" "HELP ME!"
"I Love you." " I Love you too"

To tell you the truth, im not that good at mastering, i just basicly fix whats wrong without giving it any special thought. "opps too much treble *fix fix somehow* XD

anyways, Thank you! glad you liked it :D

[In Between Shots]

well

its pretty good, BUt its really quiet, which kinda makes it crappy.
you need more power, equing and such
unless you just had the volume knob down, why is it so quiet?
if its cause you dont like your voice that much, use Gsnap, pitch autocorrector
if its simply due to mixing, EQ the piano down at 5kHz, and your voice up at 5 and 20 kHz
also, is that mulitple recordings of your voice? you should pan em out a bit, like one leftish, one rightish, and one mid
and if its your programs, use Audacity, its free, easy, and really useful ,i love it for recording,

LuciousClump responds:

I'm in a dilemma cuz I wanted it to sound kinda muffled , but also not too muffled , but I didn't want it just out there like on top of everything ...........well I'll edit this one later see what you think

[[S:C] Gigantic Pentameter]

wow

To be honest, I want to see this complete, because it has potential, and if i ever finish my xbox 360 game, i could see this going into it (no promises though).

alright, first, the good. I love the little background-pan changing squaky things, that remind me of DJ disk revolving, what the hell are they?
and all those other background sounds, wow, i think thats what makes me like them.
Personally, i would classify this as amience with new wave and hip hop incorperated, if anything. and the little hits at the beginning are nice to. I know you want this to be MC'd over, but face it, we are on newgrounds here, and this is too happy and backgroundy for rapping.

k, what I believe could fix it:
that first loud hit, a little too loud, its very interesting, but the first time it really caught me off guard. the intro should be a little longer or so, but now that it sbeen made, i dont know if something like that could be changed, after hearding the intro 3 times (i kept rewinding), i cant see what i saw at first, making that a problem.
you really need to make your operal horns come an octave higher at points, and your arpegetoring synth could be a little louder.
perhaps afte rthat hit, repeat the intro part over again, a bit louder, instead of what you play.
and at :26 it goes into the beginning of a nice riff, but then just fades away, i believe that could be a potential spot to place another hook to your song.
1:00 for a while is more like a breakdown than anything, so I would suggest putting something a bit more epic before that, and then at 1:25 and onward, that is a good second part/bridge, probably would want a little change, but i cant really see what.

all in all, i see this as in some sort of creepy marsh/forest, and I would love this to become an amazing song, so I could use it for that exact thing (again, no promises)
also, you could probably make those strings louder, at least in the high end.

thats all i got for now.
if you ever come out with a remade version of this, please let me know via pm

SymbolCymbal responds:

Thanks for the awesome review
The first hit in the song i made louder when i was using headphones and it was loud as hell.. coming through a stereo it kinda grabs you attention . most likely creating the enigma of loss of time.. LOL just kidding

i plan on making that lower i had no idea that is was that loud.. i have odd speakers, probably why i think my mids are so loud but they really arent. Hence the ambient strings.
IM not sure what you mean by arpeggiator synth.. If your talking about the drum hits that echo then its just drum hits echoed and reverb'd to kingdom-come including the scratch noise.

All the music was created in reason, well the horns a strings flutes and orchestra beings. The piano that runs through scales was acctually a real bitch to play .. took me about 2 hours just to get that line right..The drumbeat was purely created in logics ultragroove drum machine. HA i know the notes but my fingertips wont let me actually play it that fast. maybe i should hook up piano sounds to my elec drum kit.. That would def be easier.

If your considering this for an xbox game please let me know, if you would like it tailored to your needs regarding time length or even more song structure i would have no problem getting to work on that.
just PM me, well aim or something

Again thanks for the awesome review. much appreciated

[Brave heroes on the edge]

hmm

first thing i noticed was that after every bar, the instrument goes to being silent, is this due to the program you are using? because it really hurts your song.
second, it was too quet, you need to EQ your stuff and compress your drumsso that you can make everything louder, also when you did the transfer between moods at 1:20, you coulda carried some of the instruments through for a bar or two, just to not jump from one tune to another.
asife from this, it is quite interesting.

Drimux responds:

It's actually a bug with the program I'm using, i'm switching program right away to arrange all of this.

Thank you for your review.

[MH16: Hopes And Dreams]

wow

oughta say, this song is pretty fuckin epic.
last time i felt bad that a 16 year old was way better than me at making music was cornandbeans (well, he was 15 or 14 at the time) but ANYWAY, back to reviewing.

this song is very impressive, not quite minimalistic, but uses very few things at once, and does it amazingly. the first strings are awesome, and that background string instrument at the beginning, is it strumming every eighth note? cause that really adds to the power at the beginning. your riffs are so simple yet so full, and all done in the key of C, wow.
when the drums come in, i gotta say, both the snare and the kick/boom thing seem distant from the rest of the song, i am guessing this is both because of the reverb on them, as well as the EQ'ing done to them. the high-hat seems a little distant too but that is more natural for the high hat, otherwise it would stand out a lot (which it is on the verge of)
wow, just the way your instruments come in and out, and each part of the song, it is just so good! the only part that kinda bothers me is when you have that riff where the last 2 notes in it are the same, but oh well, not much you could probably do there.
also, your crash is really well done, it is quite powerful, but i didn't really notice it the first time i listened to the song.
all the strings are perfectly mixed, everything fits where it should be, i really dont know what to critisize in this song for the instruments, its out of my league.
ya, i got nothin
that drum roll half way through is amazing too, very soft, but takes control

FairSquare responds:

Thanks for this amazing review!
You should check out Zero123Music. He's 13 and better than me :P
Again, thanks for the review.. i don't have anything else to say :P

[Charlie Bit My Techno]

well

sorry to dissapoint, but a charlie bit me song has already been made on newgrounds, but it was more of a grunge/idm song with distortion and vocoding. cant remember who did it, but you could probably google it.
then again, sounds like you may have already heard it

this song is better done in general, though your gating near the beginning is too sudden, and its causing clipping sounds
you did a pretty good job of making everything fit into a song.
also, that one high note sound seither off note, or one semitone too low.
i like your saw you puit it, very fitting too

tonzie responds:

Yeah I realized that about the high note, it's actually the little boy's scream, looped hahaha, but it wasn't any specific note, and when I put it all together I noticed it was close to an F, but a little lower (not quite an Fb).
Also, about the saw, I honestly didn't know if it would work or not, it was actually a suggestion from a friend, but it turned out pretty fitting if I can say so myself.

And as for the other version, I haven't heard it, but I will check it out. Thanks for the review. :)

[Love will be shown.]

wow

what the hell, how do you have so many reviews already?
i mean, i do remember seeing your name on a song that you and MH16 did, but still, wow, i wish i got that many reviews, well, i guess if my music didnt suck, but ANYWAY, this should be about you.

a little short for something this awesome, but its still a decent length.
first off, the beat is fuckin awesome, i love the use of snaps, and the reverse snare, you pulled it off very well, its a little in the open for what most people do with the reverse snare, but it fits here. the kick is heavy, maybe a little too heavy, but i guess that can be argued, cause it holds the beat throughout your entire song (while, the parts when it plays) and whatever your hi-hat is, well, the tick kinda sound, not the the 1 hit one, but the one that does a triple hit at one point, i really like it, what is it?

the initial instrument is a little hokey for your song, you probably woulda wanted to layer it with another instrument, kinda sounds like you did later on.

what are those string things that are panned far right, is that just really high notes on a regular string or what?

aanyway, pretty awesome song, i like it, 10'd

Helth responds:

the panning string, is my own created string =D. the triple hit is an "low" hi hat with effects on it ;].

im glad u liked it man!

Helth

[Rave Heaven RMX [With Vocals]]

nice

I'm writing the review as i listen, and I will choose the star count at the end.
the little delay effects are.. interesting, some sort of modulated thingy with ping pong delay, I guess it works, though you may not want ping pong delay when it is so obvious (aka when there isnt much to hide it)
all in all the intro is pretty awesme, loud but mellow, great for an intro.
that sliding in bass is a little much for when the vocals come in, but the vocals, i gotta say, are funny. there is a nice amount of reverb on the voice, quite a long bit of delay, but i guess its pretty unnoticable to most.
the instruments are pretty good, the reverb on the lead after the initial vocals, well, the reverb is eq'ed to high, you need to lower the high pass on the reverb for it.
the bass is too, well eq'ed too high for what kind of bass it is, doesn't really fit with it, i suggest usiing a second instrument of moderate volume playing the same notes, and then eq the bass lower for everything above 500Hz.
ew, you used ahh choir, you need to eq down more on that, i can hears its inientional messed up formats, so ya, eq the shit outta those choir noises and perhaps add choorus or a flanger, so you cant tell what it is.
and personally, i dont like audience sounds, but i guess some people do.

to be honest though, all reviewing aside, this song is pretty damn good, sorry if my critisism was mean, but ima give you a 10.

also, were those vocals a guy's or a girl's?

syphonmax responds:

First off you are by far one of the most helpful reviewers I've ever had and I love you for that XD

Secondly, no idea if it's a girl or boy might be both O_O

Thirdly you are amazing at spotting all those things =D

Fourthly Thanks man and your criticism wasn't mean at all just honest =]

[A New Coming (Demo)]

well

i gotta say the sudden extreme change in theme was a little much. I mean, yeah you can make the first part go into the second part, but you need some sort of transfer, it just is way to out of place. Aside from that, the mixing on this is pretty good, the song definitely has potential, though it is a little bit quiet.

Druids-Warcry responds:

thanks for the feed back! i know it was just a demo

i was making this song one day when i was inspired to write but im not sure where i was going with it, haha i might pick back up on it! thanks for the review bliss means a lot to me