midimachine's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Gone (Trap)]

this track is a rollercoaster ride from the vocal house piano chords to the metallic riddim basses, but it transitions smoothly and remains exciting and full of detail throughout. i think the intro is a bit too long and the bass is introduced too fully and too soon. kinda makes the drop feel too much like the intro despite the big tonal shift. in spite of all the headroom in the waveform the track feels very squashed and claustrophobic - partially due to compression but also the narrow stereo image and the low-mid heavy bass layer flattening the sub down. looks like you have plenty of real headroom to work with so don't even trip, just crank the kick and the main snareclap up, maybe take the bass down a little, and push that ceiling up some more. great track!

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

reddyxu responds:

Thank you so much for reviewing! I'll keep in mind what you said in the future tracks I submit to the site.

[Table Scraps]

nice to see another one-person punk band in this bracket. pretty good bass and guitar playing, but the synth solo at the end is dynamite! the bass and cymbals are way too loud, creating this big midrange deficiency in the track which makes it sound kinda weak. generally you want the kick and snare to be the loudest drums and have the cymbals/overheads a bit further underneath - right now it gets tiring to listen to those loud cymbals for the whole time. vocals are ok but could seriously use some doubletracking, harmonies, extra parts. bit of compression + eq to shape the vocal tone, bit of reverb/delay to give them width, and if you're feeling adventurous maybe rewrite some of the lines that don't fit in the bar properly so your delivery isn't awkward in those sections - e.g. "and you expect us to be ok with this" can be "are we supposed to be ok with this?" and will fit without you having to go full rap god. anyway your recording, mixing, and songwriting will improve with practice, so keep making more!

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

realmaskband responds:

Thank you for the advice! I realized after the deadline that I could have mixed the drums a bit better. I was trying out a different set of sounds for my kit and forgot to mess around with the mix of it. The only thing I didn't really understand from your criticism was what you meant by midrange deficiency. Is that referring to like eq-ing something or is it related to panning?

[The Stars]

i think it's really sweet of you to dedicate a song to your friends. personally, i would probably just keep it as a gesture between me and them and not share it with the whole entire internet, because that would make it more special to me. you seem pretty deep into this so i figure i can't levy any criticism against your musicianship that you haven't heard before. i will say, as a professional audio engineer, that the choice to record the built-in speaker of the keyboard you're using strikes me as a bit odd - if it has a headphone jack you can probably frankenstein a guitar lead and some kind of adapter into a usable cable to record a clean line-out at the very least. if you haven't already, you could try using effects like compression and reverb to make your vocals sound more interesting i guess. you do you though, pal. hope you continue to improve in the future.

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

[jafol]

cool to hear some chiptune-ish sounds again. sounds like a lot of disparate elements thrown together without a lot of thought though. quite a few clashing lines without any common melodic or harmonic thread. that long chainsaw bass sound has some nasty overtones which mess with the other instruments too, and holds on some questionable notes itself. everything at the end works really nicely though, so you should build a new track on those elements there. the drums are very uninteresting and don't have any variation either, which is a bummer. appreciate the effort though.

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

PeculiarAlfred responds:

il try to chill out the song a bit and make the drums variate. thanks for the review

[Answers]

really enjoying this aggressive hybrid trap sound. lots of creative sound design and sweet thoughtful melodic work. i don't think it comes together in a cohesive way, but the separate parts are mostly good in a vacuum. the melodic section at 1:01 is my favourite, although i would use a softer, more airy cymbal sound on the downbeat - right now that strong hihat is cutting the piano out of some of it's space and sitting on the kick and snare transients awkwardly. love the ending too, such great atmosphere - didn't like it resolving to the Bb at the end on the piano though, wanted it to just hold on that unresolved F6 chord. some of the glitchy freakouts are too loud, mainly in the riddim section, but otherwise the mixing is fine. good work overall!

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

[Miami Sunset]

very cool hazy tones, the bass guitar sits under the guitar line so nicely. the melodies feel thoughtful and never try too hard, and there's some cool counterpoint going on here and there. mix/master is a little strange - everything feels the same volume constantly and the breakdowns and builds don't transfer much energy into the drops. think it might be good to cut the bass out in some buildup/breakdown sections to help create that space and make it feel a lot more satisfying when they drop in with the kick. the transients in this all feel really weird and washy - nothing really cuts through fully. the reverse sweep has a weird crackle at the end of it, not sure why. cool track overall though, make more!

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

[Dragon Warrior Modified]

loving the mix of almost chiptune sounds and the smokey synthwave drums. and those drums POP, i love that! the non-synthwavey builds have a lot of weight and energy too. i think there are too many cutaways throughtout though, and the pacing of the buildups is often really awkward, either way too drawn out or very stunted and sudden with reverse crashes that cut off too soon or leak into the drop. generally the structure seems a little messy - really you just want one, maybe two breakdowns and the occasional, short cutaway (like 2-4 beats). the ending is very abrupt and unsatisfying. normally i tell people to add more soft percussion but there's this cool synth doing the job of a shaker (first at 2:11) so i'll accept that. stereo image is quite narrow too. pretty cool overall, though!

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

OliRO responds:

Thank you so much for the review! This helps a ton for me to get better :D

[Passed the Past]

sounds very dense! it can be hard to glue a lot of thick textures together and get a cohesive sound but for the most part you've managed it. there's a lot of nice brighter elements scattered about to add depth and space, loving that. i think if the song ended at 3:48 with the bitcrushed drumkit it would be a lot more satisfying, but as it stands there's a lot of progression but the movement between sections isn't particularly interesting. the main drum pattern is a bit too busy i think, takes a lot of space out of the main sections and with the syncopation of the other lines it sometimes makes the downbeats hard to follow. wasn't very much drum variation either and you really need it on a 7 minute song with a complex main drum beat. cool track overall though

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

['LOVELY' by SoundVorteX (André C. Kalipke) of NTtHBM]

this track makes me nostalgic for times that i was never a part of - the height of both new wave and amiga demoscene are alive and well in this. of course it's not a true .mod but definitely has that vibe about it. the ringmod intro is silly but the rest of the track feels very sweet and loving. it's on the short and simple side for sure - would've liked to hear something with more development and progression, and a bit more dense instrumentation. the tr707 kit feels a little too kitsch on this, and even for this the sample set is underutilised. it's a cool little blast from the past, but i can't say this blast holds up today.

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

[Grimey Grapple!]

cute little tune, for sure an effective theme for a character intro. i think the intro is too long and a little random with how the drum comes in and then drops out, only to come in again but still the same volume. not an effective buildup strategy. the floor tom banging away on the left side feels weird in headphones, if you can center it a little more (but not completely) that would be nice. the rising synth line is really nice but cuts out suddenly at 0:48 without resolving. you could play the top note and then hold it, fade it out, and then fade it back in for the the ending. THEN you can cut it suddenly when it drops to the one instrument at 0:59 and it will feel awesome and satisfying. would be cool to hear you make something longer with a little more variety!

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

Noudele responds:

thank you!!! I really appreciate the critical feedback! I'll look at your notes once my computer is up and running, and I'm able to compise again.