midimachine's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[New Prey]

very cool atmosphere and great use of stereo and space, great punchy drums and cool early industrial rock synths. the lyrics sometimes feel rhythmically awkward, and i would've liked melodic vocals in the chorus to break up the feeling of the track more. as it stands the song feels tonally repetitive but i do appreciate the structural development throughout.

cotnp responds:

Thanks for the feedback :)

[~ DISABLEDspace vol. 1 ~ // 04 EVERYTHING IS ROSY //]

I enjoyed the chill vibe and funky breakbeats - very nice relaxed chords and instruments. the bass is panned too far to the left imo, and some of the retriggers feel overly robotic compared to the feel of the rest of the track. i also felt that the synth chords in the climactic sections feel very shrill and out of place compared to the rest of the instrumentation.

[the dark reign]

great mastering! i would tighten the subs a little going into the master bus or give them a more pronounced envelope, but i love that there's still a lot of dynamics and that the track breathes instead of just being a constant wall of noise. the sound design is nice, but a little simplistic overall. would've liked a 2nd build & drop with some variations.

[mb it will b ok (NGUAC 2023)]

i love the dense chords and lush sound design. the post-rock kind of direction the track takes with the drums is really cool and not what i expected.

sometimes the strings and synths feel like they're stepping on each other and the big release of tension doesn't quite live up to the emotional gravitas of the intro. it kind of feels like half a song overall, which is a problem with both the length and the stripped back arrangement and composition.

[LIVE THIS WAY (internet addiction)]

love the angsty hyperpop vibe of the main sections, great vox processing and pretty decent lyrics. would like the choruses to break up the structure a bit more - the current structure makes the song start to drag and feel repetitive in the 2nd half.

the instrument choices are mostly great but i think a deeper, stuttered bass sound would help the mix punch a bit harder and give a bit more space for the vocals. really impressed by this one overall!

Ackee39 responds:

Youre very right about the bass, I definitely should have chosen something more deep and less noisy haha
Thanks a bunch for the review, ill keep all this in mind when doing smth like this again :>

[3manon - What's left? Everything. (NGUAC2023KO)]

great ambient tech vibe, very clean mix and solid sound design except for the bass tone which feels very cheap and robotic compared to everything else. good use of stereo image, particularly like the clap thing.

i usually hate genre switches in short songs but it made sense at first. unfortunately the supersaw lead in this section is very disjointed tonally and the melody is harmonically incongruent with the rest of the track.

[Arcade Party - NGAP20 Collab]

not a fan of the dry acoustic drum sounds mixed with trancey supersaw synth, they don't really fit together well. the chord progression is unique but the melody doesn't complement it at all, and also doesn't fit rhythmically into anything either. the counterpoint melody that comes in at 0:32 is also similarly flawed, but i like that there's an attempt at different sections with different instruments. i know you said it took a lot of time to make and i understand that you're still learning, but to my ear this still feels kind of randomly put together. having said that, it's good to hear that you've learned a lot in making this, and i'm looking forward to seeing how you continue to learn, improve, and develop as an artist.

Clbuuu responds:

Hey, thanks for getting back to me!
I know that it's not super positive feedback, but it means a lot to have experienced artists share their actual opinions on my work.

In hindsight, I probably should've put more thought into making the music cohesive
(both in regard to my melodies and instrument choices). I'll make sure to take this advice into account in the future.

[Hopeless Hymn]

really like the feel of the track and the rhythmic complexity. the mix is fairly decent but feels a little narrow and could use more weight behind the kick and snareclap, especially if you want it to sound more like polyphia. the chiptune sounds work with the sorta noodly composition but i would like it a lot more if there was a bit more going on with the sound design - try using different pulse widths on your squarewave leads and maybe some fast arpeggios to lean into the chiptune-ish feel. not sure which synth you used for the leads but it sounds like it's aliasing a lot, which you can avoid by using a synth that has oversampling capability.

OneBigParadox responds:

Thank you so much, I'll make sure to take all of this into account moving forward! Appreciate it a lot!

[Definition Of Insanity]

very nice dark synthwave kinda sounds, i like the orchestral intro and the drum mixing also. the vocal samples are very overbearing, mixed too dry and too loud, and are also played too often and sound out of place. i like that there's a few different harmonic ideas and the overall progression of the track but while they sound good on their own i don't think they fit together musically. the overall mix isn't bad but i think the mastering is a little washed out, so maybe drop everything below the kick and snare a bit more so they really punch through the master limiter.

Ukatz responds:

Thanks, I agree with a vocal, in the future I will try to devote more time to "fitting" into the track

[The Everlasting]

good standard instrument choices for the genre and consistent/coherent composition at least. but it's the same chord progression for the whole song, not much structural progression, melodies aren't very inspiring and don't stand out. the mix/mastering is overly bassy and too heavily compressed, destroying a lot of the dynamic variation in the track and taking the impact away from the drums. fadeout ending seems lazy.

CielOuvert responds:

"good standard instrument choices for the genre and consistent/coherent composition at least."

That's a fair assessment.

"but it's the same chord progression for the whole song"

Which is bad how exactly? Most songs follow the standard 4 chord progression throughout, I mean, the song is called "the everlasting" and its theme envokes something that literally lasts forever.

"not much structural progression"

It's a downtempo electronica song, that's kinda the point.

"melodies aren't very inspiring and don't stand out"

Oh look, his melody is simplistic and uninspired. The piece "Alpha" by Vangelis has a "simplistic" melody at the start and is lauded as a masterpiece in the electronica/new age world.

"the mix/mastering is overly bassy and too heavily compressed, destroying a lot of the dynamic variation in the track and taking the impact away from the drums"

This is a fair critique, but as you're probably aware, I am, along with 99% of everyone else here, and amateur musician. Mixing and mastering is an entire skill of its own. But I do try to get better at this.

"fadeout ending seems lazy."

I'm at a loss at thinking that you find literally billions of songs in the entire world history to be lazy for their use of fadeout. Again, the theme of this song is that it would last forever, a fadeout holds that idea neatly.

Overall there seems to be some heavy bias here. You yourself stated that you're biased towards good mixing, that's fair since that's kinda what most people need to be good at. But seeing as you were the strictest judge in this competition, your "average" is far less that the rest, and in turn resulted in my track not being judged by its own merit but rather by what you personally thought of its theme, the use of melodies and its structure, which is biased and unfair. If my mix and mastering was LEGENDARY, you'd still only rate my piece above average.

And that is my 2 cents on the matter.