midimachine's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[SS - Warning]

couple thoughts.

Not *really* new wave. New Wave is generally 80's or 80's-influenced vocal synth-pop (bands like New Order, Depeche Mode or for modern times The Killers maybe) but according to this genre I'd say 90% of the "new wave" category on NG isn't new wave either so for you I'll let it slide this time.

The main mix is a little overcompressed. Too much reverb on everything. Each of the different riffs sound good on their own, but it seems like you slapped them together haphazardly and didnt really think for very along about the structure.

It doesn't really go anywhere. This could've been a 40 second loop and it would've carried the same weight in terms of composition.

I wouldn't normally leave a review on an old piece but it's pretty clear that you or someone else has been high-fiving this for a while. You should let this go and re-enter the popularity contest with new and improved works.

All the best
~MM

[Seethrough Mirror]

okay yeah

All the vocals clip like crazy. The beat and melody is neat but not paticularly inspired.

Oh yeah and the whole not industrial thing. NG doesn't have enough real genres to select from, but this would be fine in miscellaneous or something.

[ShatterSphere]

oh wow this is brutal

Its like someone took "flaphead" by aphex twin and distorted the fuck out of it! The vocal sample in the break is awesomely selected and placed.

That driving rhythmic distorted sound is great. I would've liked that 303 to come through more though.

It does do my head in though, especially in headphones. There's a little to much midrange on that backbeat crunch, I think. This is still crazy good, though.

Siborg responds:

Funny you mention the 303, im actually tweeking that one a little more, it sounds ALOT better than it did before trust me hahaha. As for the back beat that one i had to add more mids to it or else it started getting muddled with the rest of the distortion :( STIlL iM messing around with the eq"s on this one< it doesn't need to much more and im glad to have fresh ears listening and heLping me with this thanks man :)

[Search And Destroy Initiative]

bish klang!

reviewing as i listen. bit of electro elements with that swelling synth string.

there's a lot going on in this, but it never feels claustrophobic or messy. the percussion reminds me of metal auf metal by kraftwerk. that eurogated low bass synth... i think you should make the stereo image thinner and roll the bass off at like 80Hz.

not a whole lot else to say because this is all quite good. checking out the other one now :)

Siborg responds:

yea i actually rolled the bass off around there and it didn't stand out that much really, i played around with it a bit and thats the best one, im still tinkering with it so. Thanks for the review :)

[GeekHouse]

Hey Vegeta...

I'd take the reverb off of the bass drum and bass line, or at least raise the low-cut value to about 400Hz. It's making the low end mix a fair bit messy.

The "NINE THOUUUUUSAAAAAAND LOLOLOL XD XD XD" sample got pretty irritating pretty quickly. Probably just me though, heh.

Other than that, this was a fun little romp with a solid bassline. Good job :)

MZizzlez responds:

Yeah, i'm noticing most of that... thanks for the review. I was kinda put of ideas for the lighter area so i was just like "Lets throw in some overused dork samples!"

...

so yeah, thanks for the review!
PS the mastering process for this song was pretty bare bones

['overwhelming force']

ohhh yeah.

more bass?! no need for that at all.

a little less wet mix on all the delays definitely. it all seems a bit messy at times. maybe automate the wet mixes so that there's less delay during busier sections like 0m08s-0m47s?

the pitched-down breakbeats sound fucking ace man.

very nice track, less delay plzkthx :)

[Classica[WIP]]

quite good!

Quite a nice score for the most part. This all has an early nobuo vibe, like something from FFIV or V

Piano is a little drab, like the other guy said. I didn't like the solo melody sections, none of them really felt like they were necessary because they didn't go for very long at all. See if you can elaborate on them a bit.

I'm not going to let the soundfonts change my score, but I think you should really consider getting some good orchestral samples because the ones you're using aren't great. EastWest have some very good ones and so do Edirol, but you'll have to pay out your ass for the more complete packages because they are incredibly expensive. For piano you should check out Pianoteq, it's a modelled piano with incredibly versatile tweaking options.

Keep it up, this is quite nice :D

Jibronyx responds:

The vibe and sound could be put somewhat in that genre yeah, I played a lot of Zelda as a kid, and it the vibe/sounds are probably a bit inspired by that too.
I'll try working more on the piano. I wish I had played a piano when I was younger, but one can always learn.
Thanks for the tips and response, I'll try looking into more samples/refills. There are a lot of free reason refills, so maybe I can find some good ones there.

Jib

[Deep Blue (prod by Doc Dallas)]

slick!

i hear a lot of binary star influence in this, not just the beats but also the lyrics. big compliment coming from me cause i love those guys.

the chorus double tracking is a little bit messy, i think if you put the lower voice down in volume a bit more it would sound a good bit cleaner. there should be more double tracking throughout the song just to put a bit of emphasis on key words.

having said this i like this a lot, i'll check out your other song :)

DocDallas responds:

Thanks a lot! XD Honestly, I have yet to peep Binary Star, but now I actually have motivation to.

And thanks for the feedback, this still isn't done so I can definitely implement your suggestions. Just a little preview for some feedback so I can make this the best I can.

-Doc D.

[Heavy Metal Attempt]

hmmm okay then

i'm not going out of my way to be an asshole but i think i should let you know now that this is going to be a pretty harsh review.

the tune seems to just be random notes from the chromatic scale thrown together haphazardly. dischordance can be wonderful in the hands of someone who knows what they're doing with it but to me this sounds as if you need to take a step back and sit down with some music theory books and start learning from square one. maybe that's not the case. maybe you have a pattern of intervals and you were going for a number of slight key changes in relatively quick succession. or you were going for something else entirely. whatever you were going for with that

there's no real concrete rhythmic pattern here. its just bland chugging with no accented beats or syncopation until like 23 seconds in and even then its like you clicked notes in at random times and thought "that sounds good enough i can't be bothered trying harder to make this sound coherant".

do you play guitar irl? if so you should record that instead of using fl slayer. if not, idk try making a really thin, wirey synth without any detuning and pass that through a lot of distortion and then a combo simulator. it won't sound anything like/as good as a real guitar but it'll be better than fl slayer by a factor of 1000.

now with the drums. uhh... i mean drum... come on man, you put absolutely 0 effort in for that doof-ing kick drum and you know it. i don't even know where to begin with this... i guess the first thing you need to do is listen to some heavy metal and analyze the drum playing and try emulating those patterns in fl. in fact analyze everything and emulate it before attempting to do anything original.

sorry for the length of the review. i'm also sorry i couldn't find any redeeming qualities in this whatsoever. nothing personal but this is really just bog standard listening.

GoldbloodedDragon responds:

How can the person below me find redeeming qualities, and you can't?
Asshole.

Also, have I made Heavy Metal before?
NO.
This is my first time.
Don't expect to hear a masterpiece.
Asshole.

[Malamsabtu]

i like this

very relaxed and easy going. the guitar sound is almost hawaiian sounding, hehe. guitar is played very smoothly and timed well too :)

your vocal tone is nice, the melody suits it well.

i thought this could've benefited with a bit more variation in the chord progression and dynamics. i also noticed a lot of hiss in the recording so i don't know what's up with that.

quite nice :)

fredfrod responds:

yeah hi. its been soo long sine i checked the site. SO i tried to clear some noise and hisses from the recording. how is it. thanks for the comments btw.