PERVOK's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Dance to the beat now!]

Dance to the beat?

I refuse. But I will listen to make you feel slightly better about yourself.

Alrighty, here we go. Let's start with the basics. The organ you have going is nice, sets a solid tempo. But, the thing fucking with my head is that sine wave in the background; you set the delay time off. It's telling me that the song is gonna go faster than the other organ is telling me.

Also, the little filter thing you did with the organ was nice. Added a bit of variation.

You have a really damned crunchy kick here... accompanied with a crash cymbal? You are building up a lot of noise here, bro. Might wanna tone that down a little bit. Very nice kick though. But, let's talk about your sample choice: Why did you use that clap? If you have to resort to using that clap, just go and download a few snare samples or something. You'll get a much nicer, fresh sound. Everyone uses that clap sample and it's driving my head into the shitter.

The second thing I'm going to adress about your percussion is the DrillNB slice you used. First, very nice slicing. Second, horrid choice. Look man, it's not that tough to create your own loop. Look, just open up a new project, create your loop with your own samples, then export it as a .wav file into a folder where you keep your sounds and make sure that you "cut remainder". Then you can slice your own beat. Much better if people have never heard the loop you used before.

I'm not going to complain about your instruments. They fit the song, and I think that's all that matters. But, there is one thing I'd like you to do next time you use your own Vox. Vocode it. Take some time to learn how to use a vocoder, and you'll get a nice sound out of even a horrible recording of your voice.

If I've never given you a review before (I'm not sure if I have, to be honest) I'll just quickly explain how I go over your scores. I give you all 10s because I want you to interpret how I explain what I say to you. You choose the scores, not me.

Let's do it.

Originality: You used the same chord progression through the entire song; yes, normally that is required. But, if you wanted to add a bit of colour, I'd harmonize the bassline or something somewhere in the song so that you aren't playing the same notes over and over again. Also, don't use default FL loops, unless you plan to alter the fuck outta them.

Diversity: This was fine, same basic point as above though. I like how you change the drums though.

Clarity: The kick hurt my head near the end of the song with the filter; turn down the Q on the filter. Other than that, fine.

Effort: You tried on this song, I can tell. Evidence goes to the patterns and the changes in the melody n' shit.

Overall: You decide.

There you go my friend. Keep it easy;

-ZENON

Father-of-Death responds:

dude so much help here O.o

I love you!!!

I dont have anything to repsond on...

cuz everything was like right on the dot....

good review man! i'll definitly take all this in and remember it.

[dj_padman - Renegade]

Hello friend.

I'm not sure if you saw that thread I made in the audio forum, but I am The-XI. Don't ask why I made an alternate account so as to conceal my identity, I just felt like it.

To the review.

The song starts out very ominously, with some very dirty "random sounding" hats and some tacky synths. I'm not a fan of the hat sample you used, nor the synths. I would have chosen a much dirtier sounding bass synth than that high res sounding thing you have going, and the hats... well, to me, it just didn't set the mood correctly. Like, a steady 4/4 hat or some 8th note hats would have done beautifully if you broke into the faster high hats after.

I hear some delightful stutter effects and dirty synths playing later in the song. It would ahve been awesome if ALL of the synths followed that general idea, instead of just those backround synths.

The drumline you have playing is exquisant (shit, I can't spell) even though I think the mastering on it is just dirty. And not in a good way, either. The sound is great; but the EQ is muddy. The kick drum doesn't seem to stand out too much; maybe thats because theres too much backround noise in the song. Turn down the things that are ment to be in the backround, and turn up the things that you want to stand out, instead of everything being at the same general volume.

Overall, this track is nice and enjoyable to listen to, but it wouldn't be very nice to listen to on huge subs, I think it would just be a huge sub-rumble.

Lets go over the scores; now, heres how I do the scores. I give you all 10s. But, I describe what I think what the scores should be, and you determine what the real score should be from what I say, instead of what I tell you.

Originality: I've heard this type of music several times before, like, as a set up to a hardcore song, or as a set up to an industrial song. An entire song made in this style is generally a little more unique than the other songs I hear in this style.

Diversity: The song is bland, with a fade off ending. The only thing that makes this song colourful is the repition of the synths in the background which make it interesting to listen to, and the glitch work you added very nicely.

Clarity: Nothing wrong here, other than the small EQing problem with the drums/bass.

Effort: I don't see how you could have tried harder. You did as much as your skills allowed you to.

Overall: I'll let you decide :)

Well, there we go. Enjoy the review, and be sure to reply :)

Keep it easy;

-BN

dj-padman1 responds:

Wow man, I never would have guessed that in a million years!
I often wondered what become of my pal XI, its hard to believe you're one and the same, because from your reviews and how you responded to reviews etc..with XI I got a DEFINITE (now revised to 90%) European feel. You concealed that one extremely well.
Well, ok and it looks like the magnitude of that scandal matches the length of your critique. ;)

Let me just say thanks first of all for taking the time, there's a lot of wisdom there. And I agree with the vast majority of it. You've got the mastering issue covered, the obscured kick. Vital elements, I've gotta lift my game there.
I like your hat idea, and the additional delayed hat idea. There's a lot of good ideas there, I owe you one.

The intro..yeah, you make a lot of sense, but often I feel that you want to bring in the cavalry a little bit later. Point taken though, perhaps badass to super badass is the progression to follow for building up a track towards a good conclusion.

Definitely some food for thought there, and once again, thanks very much XI! I mean..er..Blacknoise!

[Hitler hacks LINUX (5:33)]

Aye, and here I stand

in the shadow of a great composer, one who actually knows what he is doing, unlike me. Well, first off, sorry for not reviewing your song earlier. I just never got around to it :(

I don't think I've ever reviewed you in-depth before, so I'll just explain my rules for writing these kind of essays. I leave your scores at 10, and I'll go over your scores... with words. You determine, by what I say, what your score should be. You can choose to call this review stupid and bullshit, or you can use my advice :)

To the song, good friend.

*starts track over*

I am listening to this song on very very good quality headphones, so I can hear what you did exactly >:) The beginning seems very bland and dry. The hitler sample (at least I think thats what it is... lol) sounded a little awkward... maybe some FX, or possibly even vocoding it after it plays the first time would have sounded cool with all the retro 90s samples/synths you have going on.

The sliding square lead is sexy. Seriously, can't get much better than that, even though I'd like to hear a little bit of delay when it breaks off, instead of just... bouncing into the drums, you know? A way to do that is have a heavy delay setting on the synth, and at the last 1 or 2 beats of the melody, turn it on, and you'll have thise huge delay/reverb decay in the background to make it seem like its still playing :)

My one problem with this track is the drum work. Yes, I enjoy the samples and everything in it, but the way you programmed it (which seems random) it just doesn't seem to fit. Like, if you cleaned it up, I could see this song passing as an evil breakbeat track. But the drums just kill that :(

The weirdness in thisd track is great, and it adds a very "electronic/ computer" feel to it, and that fits the name very well. I can't really comment on it too much, though. Since it just seems like a gradual relay of what has already been played in the song.

So, lets go over the "scores".

Originality: Hell, yeah, this is original. I liked your use of square leads, especially in the organ. I didn't like your drumwork, but hell, it sure was original. This track is teeming with stuff Ive never heard before :/

Diversity: The drums seem random, so I GUESS that they seem diverse. They are diverse... in a not so good way. The song is arranged in a fashion like:

intro - break - phase1 - break - phase 1 - etc etc. The next phase1 and the other "breaks" should be different than one another, instead of the same thing over again. Its nice to hear it again, but its also nice to hear an advancement of the track the next time over. Don't give away your best stuff until the end of the song :)

Clarity: Other than that voice clip and the kick drum being a little too loud for this type of compression job you have, this is fine. Not perfect, but fine.

Effort: I have no rigt to judge you on effort; I know for a fact that every musician puts his soul in his work.

Overall: You decide ;)

So, there we have it. Enjoy the review, my good friend, and keep it easy;

-BN

WinTang responds:

Haha, wow, thanks mate. I postponed responding to this for too long, hope you'll read it.

First of all, there is no Hitler voice sampling in this track. I think that would be rather unnecessary shock value. The Germans you hear would have to be some authorative guys panicking because Hitler is hacking Linux :)

Thanks for the delay advice. Impulse Tracker doesn't have the feature, so I'd have to import it into Cubase and chop it up or something... cool. I may be able to get even more out of that stupid tracker than I alread could! :)

Hm, the drums I actually like very much - it's not random at all, it's the same 4-bar pattern everytime, and it is 3/4 with sort of a double-time feel. You may have just missed the coherence, or you may just still don't like it but I'll have to blame that on differing tastes, I'm not going to change them, hehe.

I didn't understand the whole intro-break-phase1 thing... I'll get back to you on that I guess. It seems interesting enough.

Phew, glad I passed your clarity test, I know this production is not top-notch but I'm getting better at it... this was very hard with all the bleepiness.

Well, this has been a very enjoyable review despite (and even because of) the criticism, thanks a lot!!

[Tranceformation [Speed Mix]]

Hey KMG.

I don't think I've ever reviewed any of your pieces deeply, or even at all. There are a few things that I'd like to say before I start the review off.

First off, thanks for the PM asking for this review. I haven't reviewed your stuff before so this'll be nice and new :) Second, lemme give you the run down. I write really long review for you. You respond, and choose to call my review bullshit and hate me forever, or love me cause it changes the way you make music. You choose. Some people don't like the advice I give them :/

Anyways. To the review.

*starts track over*

Well, the song bounces right into it with a.. 2 bar break in? Wow, this is the weirdest beginning I've ever heard in my life. Like, maybe if you switched it around, and made it so the quiet part came first, and THEN the loud kick/bassline and a break into that melody of yours, that would work much more cleanly than what you've got going, which is Beat - intro - break - intro melody+beat. Try to work out the kinks there.

The first thing I noticed in the song is how the compression, or just overall mastering of this track is pretty... distorted. The low frequencies (kick, bassline, etc) stand out as very very loud, and the high frequencies (Open hi hat, melody, etc) come across as dirty and distorted. I have Vanguard and I know what the presets you are using sound like (bad boy, using presets >:( Thats a bad practice. Make your own synths. )and most of them sound more distorted than they should, so I know you didn't mean for them to sound like that. To fix it, its as simple as lowering the volume of things that don't NEED to be loud, and slapping some compressors on here and there. Read some compressor tutorials on the web to get the hang of it, or just simply do it yourself until you get it.

It is certainly commendable that you are making such long tracks for NG, but it really bugs me how... unnesscary the lengt of the track is. Sure, its nice to hear a long track on NG, but if its just the same thing over and over again, people (including me) get really sick of it fast.

You have one break that you use a lot in this track, and it is the snare roll. An accented 32nd trance snare drum roll, which decresendos down and then crescendos up. It sounds nice and all, but you make it... too dramatic.

Alow me to explain.

It goes to a really loud beginning, which surprises the listener and almost makes him not want to listen anymore, and then it falls to a volume level where I can barely hear it, and then it all of a sudden gets really frickin' loud again.

Once, after doing that weird-ass drum roll, you have a 16th note roll with it, with the kick drum following it. Now, not only are they both too loud for you to be rolling them like that, it makes the whole song distort at that part. As one of my music teachers told me "Be loud, but theres the point of being magnificent and majestic, and blaring."

You, my friend, are blaring. Tone down the volume a bit; it doesn't need to be so loud. If you turn down the volume down, it'll make compression that much more easier on you.

I deem to go over the "scores" next. But, I can't, since my review is too long and can't fit within the 4,096 character limit.

So, that was the review. Remember, I've got nothing against you personally.

Keep it easy friend;

-BN

k-m-g responds:

Thanks dude! Seriously this is the kind of review I am looking for when I submit songs. Reviews that say...that was awesome or that sucked...really don't help anyone. Constructive criticism can only help the artist..and this definitely helped me.

thanks.

[{Colossus}]

Fuck it, I'm bored as shit.

I just spent a bunch of time reading The Best Page in the Universe, and you asked me to review this song, so I decided, why the fuck not.

Even though I'm feeling kind of annoyed/bitchy right now, so this won't be a positive review. You can trust me on that one.

Starts out huge. And by huge, I mean very loose sounding. Long attack basslines, long release kick drums, smooth filters, the works. Nice beginning, but theres this one part that just makes me wanna rip my fucking ears off. Ah hell, I'd describe it, but I may as well tell you when you did it instead of describe it. You get one more download.
There we go. Seconds 5 & 6 of the track. The first 5 and 6. You have that overdone hardcore distorted glitch kick thing going on, and it just sounds ugly!

Anyways. Lets continue.

The classical break in is nice. Nothing to say there; its not amazing, nor is it horrid. It just adds to the feel.

Then you have a boom; then a snare roll; increase tempo... yada yada. Very bland transition. How about some arpeggios building up the the track, some filter fucking, some cool shit? Make that part colourful, since it plays a rather important part to the whole progression of the track.

Then a slow down back to classical, keeping a nice tempo going. Nice work here, for some reason it soudns nicer than the previous classical break.

On and on it goes....

...and goes...

...and here we go. A really mid mastered snare break in, which hurt my convulsing head (my nose is plugged so bad) and it broke into a very techno breakbeat type thing. But see, heres the thing:

Breakbeat is empty.

Breakbeat is oldskool drum n bass, without the wigger fuck MCs and the horribly fast tempo. So... the side strings sounded nice and all, but they didn't for 2 reasons (and one reason is complete bullshit)

1: (this is the bullshit reason) It doesn't fit the genre.
2: And when you do the typical trance change with a... square... bassline? My God, that sounded pretty bad. To me. Like, I would have really enjoyed the first bassline you had going on and at the end of the sequence of 4 bars you could have an awesome break, maybe with some detuned synths or something. Or something funky, like some synth sliding or something. I dunno.

Oh, and that square bassline was like, wtf m8. It seemed very distorted in the lower note regions.

So... really, since I'm too tired, too dead to go over all your scores, in my opinion, you just need to work on arrangment.

Everything else owns my ass.

Keep it easy;

-BN

[~Angels Glory~ (Stealth Remix)]

Hello friend.

Before I start this review that I owe you, I must warn you, I write really long and usually unnessecary reviews focusing on parts you'd never think about. So, if I offend you, don't blame me, blame my ears and what they are atuned to listen to.

To the song.

I like the beginning. The fast arp sure adds that little bit that makes you go "wow, what the hell was that? I'll rewind that and listen to it again..." And, even as nice as it sounded, I would have prefered more of a beginning to the song, instead of opening with a strong fast arpeggio.

When you first bring in the percussion, there was two things that I noticed that I did not like at all. One, was that there was no drum break in. The beat generally felt weak and it felt hard to catch onto the beat due to the randomness (kind of) of the beat. A break in and a steady snare hit/kick drum would set the mood perfectly.
The second thing that bugged me with the perceussion was that... it was FL samples! You had really nice synths and vocals in this track, but there was minimal effort put into your percussion sample choices because you never took the time to go to Google and put in "free wav samples" or something of the like. Do that, put them in FL, and it'll make your songs sound a lot better, cause then your songs will be your songs, and not FLs.

I'm at the point where there is... only 1:03 left of the song. By now, I really shall say that this song makes good backround music. But thats about it.

Theres no points of interest, other than the beginning and the vocals. You need to have flashiness, good sir! Do cool shit that makes the listeners go "wow, I wonder how long he screwedd around for until he got THAT little trick figured out..." or something of the like.

Speaking of the vocals...

They were nice. They fitted the backround of the song perfectly. But, there was no effects on them whatsoever. There was no long delay on them, no reverb, no EQ so you could get rid of the noise (those frequencies were probably around the 11K to the 18K range. Try eliminating those for an allround better sound on the vocals.) Make sure that whenever you use vocals or any outside sample, EQ them so they sound flawless; perfect.

As for your mastering, I heard nothing wrong. No distortion. The only thing that bugged me there was that you had a few occasional spots where the vocal samples cluttered themselves. But thats not that bad, since you didn't do it that much.

As you will notice, I am giving you all 10s on this review; the reason for this is that I do not give scores. But, I do adress the aspects of the song and judge them accordingly, and I leave the artist to determine what the score should be :)

So, lets go over the scores, shall we?

Originality: This track is generally original, one, cause I've never heard the original xD, and two, its trance in its pure form. Trance nowadays is about flashiness and the "wow" factor to the listeners. But this track is what trance should be... its something that entrances you.
So, in todays trance industry, this is original. But, if you wrote this 10 or 12 or so years ago, this would be unoriginal, cause everyone was writing this kid of music :)

Diversity: It was bland, I hate to say. It had a nice beginning, but the buildups were ever so mild and repeptitive, and the ending just... ended. Nothing special there.

Clarity: You used FLs samples, and those are obviously very clean. But, those vocals... remember to EQ them so they sound very pretty :D The song wasn't so bad so as to not be able to hear anything but noise, lol.

Effort: As I can see, this is an older song of yours, and I have not listened to your newer pieces, so I have nothing to judge this off of. But, the piece of was repeptitive, AND its a remix, so thats drops your effort points dramatically :(

Overall: I leave you to determine that, good sir.

There is your review, friend. Keep it easy;

-BN

Stealth-Emergence responds:

WOW a very nice in depth review!

Prior to you reviewing for me BN, I did ask that you review my newer track, though now I'm glad you didn't!

Not for any other reason than the fact you've given me some brilliant advice and it's come at the best time possible.

The Vocals were supplied by Heather-Lanham whom has an amazing voice, and her vocal tracks can be found here at NG, and I asked, very nicely if she would object to me working with them, she of course said yes! so this was the result.

String arpeggio, lol yeah since uploading it and listening to it through a lil bit I've come to realise that, that may have not been the best idea on my part.

I say your review has come at the best possible time, well I'm soon to be working with Heather again on another project, and am currently working on another vocal track with CapnCrunchtehhpimp, so all your points I shall be adhering to, with regards to the EQing of those vocals and making them sound flawless, So I shall be watching that very closely from here on in.

The beats, yeah you're correct these are FL samples, and I have since been given advice for samples from SasSpoon, which I have taken, aswell as obtained other percussional sounds/beats which I have started using, as I really hate the ones FL provides, they sound awful, as well as that my percussion is something that needs attention too, which I'm realising and putting more time into now too!

The Diversity too I have to agree on, and yeah that's so true. As I know myself that it does get a bit tiresome and samey after the halfway mark, so I shall be attempting to put some WOW Factor into the next vocal piece, that Heather and I work on together.

as for the remix aspect, well I worked with an a capella, so the vocals were the only part that were remixed, thay had no music, now they do!

well Thank you BN your advice has been in depth, I've heard about your reviews, and see now that it must have taken you a while to write this, so that's much appreciated!

Peace Out!

Stealth

[-Orr- Christmas Eve]

Fuck.

And I thought I had a chance at winning this contest.

Good work, this is freakin' amazing.

-BN

DavidOrr responds:

Glad you enjoyed the piece!

[LTM² - Ride Reincarnated]

Hey.

Nice mix. The melodies are background noise, and not really a melody. Its like the first melody didn't really stand out, you know? Well, it didn't stand out at first, but then you brought out a larger synth, and that was enough to crap out your compression. If you listen at the part where you bring it in, your kick drum dissapears.

The songs synths are kind of bland, even though they do fill up a substantial amount of white noise in the song. You also added a slight change to the original melody, even as small a it is, its nice.

The transition from one melody to the other was kind of nice, but I would have liked it to be more gradual, you know?

Thanks for remixing my song. You've inspired me to try remixing my old song :)

Check ya later.

-BN

ListenToMyMusic responds:

Thanks, It was nice to do cause I learned crap

[Short Loop 2]

Yo, Gooch.

I actually never knew that you made audio, until you started visiting the AF, lol.

So, I'll just write up a nice review for ya to enjoy :D

I liked the beat of this, even though it was simple. As I look at the size of this, you must have seamlessly looped it... I haven't even done that yet XD I'm jealous, seriously.

The song does have a nice bassline, even if it doesn't seem to follow a set order of a chord or scale. For future songs, try something like:

BASS: 1-2-1-3-1-2-1-4
DRUMS: same thing for drums.

Each different number is a different pattern, and making it like that, would make the song seem climactic, and not boring. More diversity :D

Good work, I enjoyed it. Keep it up! Also, 10s :D

-BN

[Khuskan - Midnight]

Why herro thar

I shall start this review with the statement:

"Penis".

Now, to the song. Also, I tend to be 'unresonable' in my reviews, so don't dwell on them too much. I am accused of bullshit more often than not.

I called those nice drums bongos, but apparently they are "Tablas" or some kind of shit like that. But I don't care, they sound nice.

The ambience in the beginning is great, but I would enjoyed it a little more if it came in softer, instead of busting right with the saw like pads. Like, maybe soft quiet strings first? I dunno.

I like the break in to the trumpet section, the drums take on the professional DnB sound. Very nice. The bass synth at that part though, sounds like poop to me. Like a really effed up preset on a bass guitar or something >:/

The rest of the song progresses very nicely, as you throw in a great bell solo. The quality of this entire track is making me poop. >:O

The only thing, is that your DnB song stops at the ending, you know? Sure, its nice and stuff, but I was almost expecting a sick break in with the drums and bass at the last note of the bell melody.

Very nice though. awesome work.

Keep it up, even though I doubt you are going to venture into the DnB genre again.

-BN

PS: Hairy old men.