Spadezer's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Origin]

NGADM 2021 review upon request:

The intro has a very solid opening. I like the orchestral and house/dance blend and I think you have a very good feel for what you wanted to come across. Leading to the build felt well progressed and nothing too crazy stands out. Pretty pleased with what I got to hear from you. As I went through the first listen, I noticed a couple of things that definitely hold back the song's potential. The first thing I noticed was the balance of the mix especially at the drop. It's not clean, and I mean in the sense that the overall mix sounds a little crowded. The balance is well done because I don't hear things in the foreground that should be in the background, and vice versa, but there isn't room for the background elements because it seems like it's all squished to the front. Which is also interesting because it's not like you're quite reaching loudness war waveforms either in the waveforms I can see. I even questioned how loud my headphones were because it seemed like it should be louder than what it is. My guess is you're using a compressor on the main mix, but either you didn't leave much headroom before using the compressor, or you boosted the gain up after balancing but also into the compressor as well. Even then though you didn't fill up the volume either, you let it peak just shy of where it could have gone (not to say it's necessarily to push the loudness, just surprised you didn't).

The other thing I noticed in the first listen is that by the second half of the song it felt a smidge stagnant. I think the reason why is that what I heard the most is the lead and the chords for the most part, and the energy felt more of the same especially closer to the end. While the lead is a good sound, and I like that you have melodic motif happening, but I think it's only used by the lead in the chorus's and the chords you use are only doing the same chord progression during the whole thing. What I think could help achieve a bit more potential is possibly changing up a few of the chords especially in the second chorus. You could have achieved that maybe by changing which octave the notes from the chords to have a different feel to the chords (I was going to say make them sound bigger but these already feel big and warm), but also changing up the chord progression really helps differentiate the drops/chorus's from the other sections.

Unfortunately as a critic it's much easier to pick on what I think is wrong than what I think is right with the song lol. While it was easy to nitpick those two bigger issues, the song is well made as a whole. Aside from the first issue I mentioned I probably wouldn't have distinguished it as being different that even what's rotating in my main Spotify playlist. This very much fits in the house genre in the way I would think of it, but just a tad bit cookie cutter too at the drops lol. Overall, definitely something I'd be proud to have made as well, and even seeing the number of listens you already have, something that you could show other people and they would enjoy as well.

Composition - 9
Production - 7.5
Sound Design - 8
Structure - 7
Uniqueness - 9

Benji-G responds:

Hey there! Thanks for the feedback! I completely agree with literally everything you said now that it got mentioned, and a lot of these things are things I never noticed until now.
One thing you mentioned is that it sounds squished af, and yeah, it's because of my poor mastering. I was thinking about remastering the track before the deadline because of *HRMM preset HRMM, but I sort of forgot about it and now I regret it very much. I still hope it holds for NGADM though.
Again, thanks for the feedback! I appreciate it! :]

[Operation Fleshhunter]

Too hell-bent to be made from a human ;)
I didn't know I needed guitars with your style but it fits so well

LD-W responds:

I've found working with guitars (in both a lib sense, or plugging one straight into interface and just doing basic riff work) naturally much easier from a compositional sense, although it's more of a challenge design-wise to get a *really good* tone out of it and does require some pretty hefty, usually expensive processing chains to really get it how I want it to. Mostly because I grew up on a metal background and that's something I've been familiar with far longer than my interests in Industrial and Cinematic-type genres. A project like this is pretty easy for me in a more Gordon-ish DOOM sense (without trying to have it sounding like a copycat either), as alot of the effort is in design and mix before anything else!

It's not big news at the moment, but I am working on a Black Metal solo-project over the next year or so (something I've always wanted to do, and I'm now in the confident position to pull it off). I'll reveal more about it soon ;)

[AIM 2021 - R~ "Space Rush"]

This reminds me of the music that got me to Newgrounds in the first place, like some ParagonX9 quality dance music. Also trance is one of my favorite pairings with racing games (see ExtremeG, Distance, NFS 3 hot pursuit).

[AIM - Our Life.]

Proof that piano music fits Newgrounds

So when are you collabing with LucidShadowDreamer?

[Valley of Bones [AIM 2021]]

YES! Give me that metal!

\m/ \m/ \m/ \m/ \m/ \m/ \m/ \m/ \m/ \m/ \m/

Collab when?

TSRBand responds:

Thanks for tuning in! \m/

[AIM - Timely Demise]

I absolutely dig this. I was so waiting for the percussion to come in and it was quite worth the weight. Only complaint is that it feels like you have competing frequencies in the mid and low range. Maybe it's because you have too much reverb with some of the chords and basses, or you just have too many instruments trying to play in the same range, so the mix felt crowded. Again loved listening to this

[AIM - Sunset]

I like the idea, but could use some refinement. To expand on RSK's point, the kick is too long. It's good that you sidechained so the low doesn't get muddy, so I'd say there's some good mixing, but the kick just overpowers the mix with how long it decays. It may also be too high of a frequency for the kick in terms of a drum and bass feel. Usually they're more in the sub frequency range.

[AIM - Stomach of The Beast]

For both submissions you have a really good sense for atmosphere. Delicious pieces to dive into. I with the 808 bass was more layered since it's a little dry on its own.

WakerLink responds:

glad you enjoyed the tracks, and yeah, the 808 bass could be a bit more interesting, still not very good at making synth 808 patches so this bass is a bit basic

[AIM - (OTG) The Nightmare Forest]

The pitchbending and reversed piano hits kinda broke my mind. Those are such cool effects and alone made for one of the coolest starts to a song.