midimachine's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Fidelity]

very nice chord progression! really love the vibe of the intro even though it's a little long. love the energy coming into the drop too. i think overall the mix is a little on the bright side, i think the snareclap and some of those hihats sound a little brittle and probably need a little rolloff on the treble. although that arp sounds great, it bounces about a bit too much to provide the melodic backbone the track needs. the ending feels like you kinda gave up on it little bit, like it doesn't have the same attention to detail in its winding down that the intro has building up. great sound though, make more!

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

DJ-Cassell responds:

Thank you for pointing out all of these details that need working on. I always find it easier to write intros than outros so I should look into and focus on outros more. As for the EQ of my mix/master I've been thinking about buying an analyzer plugin such as Izotope Tonal Balance to help me EQ my track better since I can only mix on headphones at the moment. I do have a pair of KRK speakers but I'm having technical difficulties with them. It's an easy but kinda expensive fix though. Anyway, this review is amazing. Thank you!

[Fading Hope]

there are some really nice musical ideas in this, i actually quite like the psytrance kickbass + orchestral combo. all the string parts are too loud and are fighting to be in the same space in the mix. a lot of the melodies meander about aimlessly and have variation for variation's sake, and for me this makes the piece unmemorable and sometimes annoying. i think for game music you want to be more consistent in the melodies but also the structure, and at the moment parts seem to drop in and out randomly without warning a lot. you can implement little sweeps, drum fills, or aother transitional elements like at 0:46 without necessarily leading into a drop or even a new section. solid effort overall.

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

derp604 responds:

Thanks for the feedback, this was my second ever finished song so hopefully I improve from this

[Curse of the Cat-acombs]

ooh, cool basses! the melodic flair in this is unique and dripping with thematic potency, love that you're setting a scene purely through composition and instrumentation. the mix is kinda wacky and seems to have a hard time deciding which elements are the most important though. and i appreciate the dynamics and headroom, but i think you want to pump the percussion and basslines a lot harder than you are currently - the synth leads are not nearly as exciting as their volume would have me believe. bit on the long side too, but i dig the atmospheric ending a lot. good job!

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

Darkkit10 responds:

Thanks for your opinion

[can i lose myself]

spicy chord progression! feels like ratatat doing a cover of a c418 song, which is awesome. really enjoyed the composition but i'm not hot on the mix. every element feels dark and smokey, and i'm not sure if it's because you rendered a low bitrate mp3 or if it's because you lowpass filtered everything. that heavy compression on the piano sucks a lot of life out of the track and puts immense pressure in the midrange of the mix, as well as creating these really ugly pops whenever a chord is played. everything is very dry and mostly quite narrow, too. would love to hear a brighter version of this with a little more space and dynamics. great piece of music though!

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

clefergers responds:

Sorry it took so long to get to this, but you nailed it. Almost everything does have an indiviual lowpass filter of some degree because I did want to have a muted atmosphere. I'm gonna be honest, I don't know much about mixing so forgive me if I sound like I don't know what I'm saying. I had no idea where the pops were coming from. I was probably abusing the compression to make the piano audible to a point where I liked but not peaking.

[Wyoming]

pretty basic but quite pleasant melody & chords! liking the contrast of straight and triplet rhythms. mix is very muddy and messy, would look at the bringing the master limiter level down a little and moving or removing some of the bass elements around so they don't clash as much. way too much reverb on the kick drum. could use some more inspired synth programming instead of the flex preset sounding supersaws and such. good effort though!

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

50Steaks responds:

Note: I made that on the mobile version, limiting my mixing options a ton. The reverb on the kick used to be even worse, but I toned it down once before, I guess it wasn’t enough? The reason I put so much in the first place was to make it sound more open and wide, like an ambient track would. But if it’s really clashing that much with the bass elements then clearly I blundered.

[Abstrack - Together]

yo! your track has a nice melody and some very interesting fills and transitions. the chords are simple but fun and effective, and the structure was quite tight, which i appreciate a lot!

overall i think the song was missing detail in the mix and instrumentation - the two main sections didn't have enough differentiation and there weren't any underlying harmonic/rhythmic devices behind the kick-chord-snare wombo combo. i think that line in the breakdown should get another turn towards the end before the slowdown. but the killer is the lack of top-end percussion, to me there's a unhelpful lack of momentum as a result of the very straight, plodding percussion. the drum samples are very stock sounding and don't seem to have any extra layering or width to them. would be good to have an alternating stereo clap layer over the snare or something.

the bottom end of the mix is really bloated and i think it's almost entirely the fault of the kick drum. i'd take a multiband comp to it and slam the sub-80Hz on it with a long release time. currently it takes a long time to bottom out and this robs the bass layer of its own energy. the amount and length of reverb on the snare is also kinda bonkers, the sidechained reverb effect is cool in the bridge but it makes the main sections feel too distant. you want the main sections to feel closer than the breakdowns and buildups so that there's an effective release of tension when the drop happens.

anyway that's my take on this track. congrats on making the cut! excited to hear what you come up with in the next round of the nguac doodad :)

Abstrack responds:

Oh you did it! Thanks again for your time :D I might have learned something right now.

I never really thought about making the drum samples realistic actually, and that's an idea worth trying out I think, along with the tension release by "distanciation" you're talking about.

[are-you-ready]

UK BEAT
WEST COAST

Spogboard responds:

I MADE UK WEST COAST BEAT

[elbisreverri]

i'm into that bassline even if you're not - love the intricacy of everything in this!

Quarl responds:

Aws, thanks midi <3

[Hesperax's Pet]

so i like the iron maiden vibes on this, your rhythm guitar playing is really tight and the solos are fantastic. the way the song takes a journey through different tempos is neat. i don't think your vocals have quite the right sound for this kind of song but your tone of voice and inflection still have this cool garage rock feel, and the scream at the end is siiick.

the drum mixing is super weird! the kick and snare are perfect for the 80s fantasy hair metal sound but they dont pop out of the mix as much as they should. the cymbals disappear under the guitars and it sounds like the toms have been muted and we're only hearing the reverb bus. the guitar solos are great but the washy reverb makes the tone feel less vibrant and accentuates the midrange in a weird way. idk if you multi-tracked the vocals or not but they feel like they've been stretched out a bit, like there's been a really fast delay effect added to them. the vocals are also just not loud enough - they need to be as loud as that guitar solo because they are just as important!

as far as the composition goes there isn't too much to complain about. the intro is definitely bloated, could probably just start on the first drum hit at 0:50. the transition from the slower breakdown section is cool but takes way too long to get to the point - like ok i get it the tempo is getting faster haha. the payoff for all that building up is just a weird sounding tom fill straight into the solo and you probably could've gone straight into that 16 bars earlier without the gradual tempo thing. also the fadeout ending seems lazy but it seems like you know that already.

anyway despite the criticisms i think this is a cool song with a lot of potential, and i'm glad you were able to get something in even though you didn't have much time. keep it up!

MercyfulDeath responds:

Thank you for your response man. To start with the vocals, eh, well, I have an idea on how to sing it now, but I was stricken with strep throat for the past fucking week and my bro came to pick up his mic and interface so W E L P. I am going to get me an interface and mic soon, as this experiment has been wholly successful and the improvement over a shitty PC mic for vox recording has been jarring.

To tackle the iffy spots; man, I'll be honest, drum mixing is probably my most troublesome area, partly because EZdrummer doesn't make it easy sometimes. I see the cymbals needed to be boosted along with the snare and kick, cymbals a lot more though. Toms are a different matter entirely, for some godforsaken reason I can't get them to stop reverbrating like crazy. Eh man, idk bout that reverb on the leads, I thought it sounded cool and oldschool, but I'll experiment with different 'verbs to see if I can get a cooler sound, also I'll be honest, I'm very midrange biased, if something boosts the midrange, even if it's weird, I'll keep it, because mids are love, mids are life. The vocals had a very short delay put on 'em, maybe 20ms or 50ms, not sure, gotta check, but I got it once I was doing some vocals for some older song I made and it sounded stupid cool and like Ozzy on the first two Rhoads albums so I've kept it for the rest of my recordings, will note to boost the fuckers too.

As for the composition, well I wanted it to burn in at the start, maybe add some high heel clacks and mischevious female laughter but since I lack females for the latter then that was out of the question, wanted to create a foreboding 'hot' sounding atmosphere see. I'd argue the point of the speed up is for that "FASTER, FASTER, RIDE ME FASTER" kinda feeling, so that's why I put it in, idk my dude, I experimented with it being 16 bars shorter without the speed up and it kinda felt strange and jarring to suddenly shift into overdrive like that. Yes, the fadeout is lazy, I'm sorry, I really am. I thought it would sound 80's as fuck but goddamn yeah it's pretty fucking lazy.

Thank you very much for your input, I really appreciate it man.