midimachine's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[ALWS feat. ANANASIK - BLEAH]

look, it's a good beat. a little too short for sure, but the mixing and production is fantastic, and you've got a great underlying atmosphere with the sitar & shakuhachi combo. but the vocal sample in this is the one of the most annoying things i've ever heard. even if it was the best vocal sample anyone has ever used in the history of music production, if you slathered it all over a beat like you did here it would very quickly overtake the beat and kind of ruin it. with vocal samples, pick your moments more carefully. if you use that same annoying sample once, maybe twice, in key moments where it's not running over the top of something like a pond5 watermark, then i wouldn't be going in so hard on it because it wouldn't be ruining the beat.

important notes on my NGUAC review process: https://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1476427/18#bbspost26965604_post_text

[The Doctor Is In (Short Edit Radio Mix)]

lots to like about this. apart from the dialog samples, which are too loud and far too frequent imo, the mix is really solid. great kick & bass, definitely has that late-90's hard house feel. the open hihat sample you used has a weird delay at the start of it, you might want to shift the note trigger behind the step a little to make the timing feel tighter while preserving the pleasant attack of the sample. the structure is a bit too busy, too many stops, starts, and "different" parts that aren't really different enough to warrant their own section. your sound design and mixing is enough to make the track engaging, no need to throw in annoying horny vocal samples all over the place, or cut away all the momentum and energy in track to play some movie dialog and drag the track out that way. would really like to hear a vocal cut for this.

important notes on my NGUAC review process: https://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1476427/18#bbspost26965604_post_text

[Fade in]

very interesting track - almost like an acoustic skweee beat, the drums have that improvised electronica feeling. i appreciate how human and natural this is, but at times i really wanted the playing to be tighter and more focused, the best parts of the track are later on when it builds together clearly with guitars and vocals. there's a few guitar lines that clash in a very unpleasant way e.g. at 0:45 and 3:01 - it's hard to tell if that's intended since the rest of the track is much more in tune. i'd like there to be a stronger rhythmic anchor, the swirling of slightly off-beat rhythms and improvs made it confusing for me to listen to. all the guitars and vocals sound like they were recorded too far away, very brittle sounding overall. but i respect the push for something different and unique.

important notes on my NGUAC review process: https://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1476427/18#bbspost26965604_post_text

[EmeraldX - Feral]

cool folksy chord progressions, loving the VGM-ish uk hardcore vibes. good melodies and instrumentation, love the way it develops and switches up later on. the structure in the first half is very stop-start and should probably stand pat on the kick instead of dropping back to a mini-buildup over and over. most of the melodic modulation is good in the second half but the little leading passages don't have any context for the implied the F major chord - i know you use the chord earlier in the buildup but i think you need to call back to it after the drop to make the melody here really satisfying. maybe run the bass on A when the melody resolves to F, or maybe bring those chords in quietly under the track. also you have plenty of headroom under the master, so i think you can boost the kick just a bit more to get the track really pumping over those leads. mix is solid overall, though. good stuff!

important notes on my NGUAC review process: https://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1476427/18#bbspost26965604_post_text

EmeraldXMusic responds:

Hi! I really appreciate the detailed feedback and the constructive criticism! Definitely going to keep this in mind for future tracks.

[Desperate Dreamer [Instrumental]]

seems like it's made with room to put vocals in but feels empty without them. nonetheless, the verse and bridge sections are a good use of a limited selection of software instruments with quite serviceable production and mixing, and other than the intro being too long the structure is solid. the guitar tone in the choruses is absolutely dreadful though, there's neither clarity nor depth to that sound and it's way louder than it should be. you should use doubletracking and stereo width to get a bigger sound with rock guitars rather than just cranking the volume. the lowpass filter transitions feel kinda weird but they're definitely unique. would be good to get the finished song with vocals!

important notes on my NGUAC review process: https://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1476427/18#bbspost26965604_post_text

[Sonic 2(GG/SMS) - Unused [Sega Genesis/16Bit Remix]]

we got a real chiptune guy over here! nice to see deflemask getting some love. nice take on the original song, the FM synths really bring the ethereal vibes and the drums fill out the sound better than the noise channel can - those long pitchbend pads are really lush! i think it would've been good to move the squarewave twinkles over to the YM as well, since they're very harsh and aliased coming out of the other chip. the track is basically a short loop too so there's not really a lot going on musically after the first loop - would've been good if you had developed the idea a bit further, maybe incorporate some other sonic 2 music in if you want it to be purely a remix (it does resemble the crystal egg zone music quite a lot imo).

important notes on my NGUAC review process: https://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1476427/18#bbspost26965604_post_text

[Silver Lining]

wild stuff! digging the way this ebbs and flows from energetically charged midtempo bass into a weirdly playful halftime dirge, with a great melodic sense throughout. i think the track probably spends too much time in the transitional sections though, and could probably use a bit of a radio edit. the overall mix and master is really tight but it feels like the treble has been boosted a little too much across the board. the main snareclap is especially hissy and brittle, so if you like the overall tonality with the current master EQ (assuming there is one) i would still roll off some of those highs on that, and maybe notch out 5k and pull the 1.5-ish region up to shape the tone a bit more. likewise, the ride cymbal in the last section needs to come down in volume as the treble is a little out of control there, to my ears anyway. really great work here, though!

important notes on my NGUAC review process: https://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1476427/18#bbspost26965604_post_text

Solize responds:

Thanks for the review! Yeah the mix on this track definitely isn't the best lol, excited to hopefully show my improvements on that front for the next round :)

[Technocosm - Poison Gauntlet (Snare Remix)]

this is definitely a gauntlet! love a lot of the sound design in this, and really dig the moment-to-moment craziness that puts this track almost in IDM territory. while i get that the mastering is supposed to be aggressive, the ending really suffers under the weight of limiter settings that only work for songs with a lot of aggressive back and forth in the dynamics. since the last section is always pounding, the end result is unpleasant levels of saturation on *everything* and near constant compression artifacts. you can automate the limiter threshold to drop back here, but honestly it wouldn't be a bad idea to shoot for a lower loudness level overall, since it does get pretty fatiguing to listen to this. cool track in spite of the crippling mastering issues.

important notes on my NGUAC review process: https://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1476427/18#bbspost26965604_post_text

SnaresWorks responds:

thanks! i totally agree on the master, after i mixed it i sort of felt unhappy with how it came out overall, felt like the whole track was sorta shitty, then i rushed to master it thinking it would fix it xD

i think it suffers the most in the first drop, the glitch one, it was a lot more dynamic before

oh well, live and learn, thanks for the review ^^

[Kavez - Left in the Dust]

dope little rnb pop beat that gets nice and heavy down the line. really like the piano pattern and the nice little offbeat epiano stabs. the mix is mostly solid, but i think the cymbals and piano are too loud in relation to the kick and bass, especially at times like 0:24 where it transitions to a more delicate bass sound. the transition to dnb feels very weird with the instruments you're using. also would be nice to get some more panning across the stereo image, feels very narrow right now. also the reverse cymbal at 1:56 needs some volume shaped into it cause it just feels like filtered whitenoise - if you're compressing it, don't, cause you need those dynamics for the reverse cymbal to do it's job as a transitional element. but overall this is a pretty solid little beat, wish it was a bit longer or had vocals or something. protip: to remove the glitchy sounds you have to right click -> initialize with this position on things you've automated, like the piano volume on this track. FL will do this automatically when you make a clip but it uses the value that it's set to when you make the clip, so if you make the clip when it's at full volume and then create a fade in you need to stop playback, pull the fader back to zero and then reinitialize so that it starts on 0 when you hit play.

important notes on my NGUAC review process: https://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1476427/18#bbspost26965604_post_text

SlyFrost responds:

Yeah, I agree with everything you've mentioned. The dnb section definitely was pretty experimental and the track was rougher around the middle. Also, the glitchy sounds aren't actually associated with FL - it's a problem with the screen recorder I have to use because I make everything in the demo version lol

Thank you for the review, very much appreciated!

[Canyon [NGUAC 2021]]

when did ennio morricone join dream theater? jokes aside, this is tight and i really like that spaghetti western whistly sound a lot! the mix isn't perfect but it's pretty good. the piano is too focused on the position it's panned too and could use a little more width, and the heavy rhythm guitars feel a bit too front and center. the brass is a bit on the loud side when it comes in too and i think you can ease off on the choir just a little too while still maintaining that epic feeling you get once you mash it all under the master limiter. wish we got the first part as well, because it does feel like it's missing a lot of it's musical world with that intro. but really great composition regardless, very well thought out and detailed.

important notes on my NGUAC review process: https://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1476427/18#bbspost26965604_post_text