PERVOK's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[WC > Braindance]

Heya!

I'm having an amazing day so far, if you hand't heard, I got a job, and I'm overall enjoying my summer. Otyher than the ban, of course :P I'm even wearing a hawiian shirt! XD

Anyways...

Personally, I don't really like songs that fade in in any way. Filters, volume control, it all kind of wore on me that fade ins were 'innaffective, and the lazy mans way out'. Maybe a more creative approach is nessecary?

When the drums at the beginning broke in, I felt that they just broke in. There was no indicator about when they were kind of going to break in, which make the listening and the enjoyment of the song feel more forced. After the first 4 beats though, the groove set in. You just need a drum break in or something.

The glitch drums you bring in were, awesome, but I'd like to have those drums break in with that llittle arp synth, and then bam. Back to the main drum line you had going at the beignning, for some added smoothness :D

The song is very well arranged, and I can hear the obvious effort, even if it is a little repetitive.

TO THE SCORES!!!11!11one

Originality sits at a glorious 8. Glorious, because this type of ambient (funk shit) has been done about a trillion times, but you threw in some awesome breaks, smooth synths, and a relatively unique way of arranging. Nice work.

The overall songs diversity would be at a 9, since you have many differnet PARTS of the song. There is no definate part of the song, you keep switching to different parts. Diverse track.
But, it truely sits at a 7. because, even though you have many different parts of the song playing at different part to make it pretty, those parts are repetitive. I would like to see much more diversity in the future, possibly a nice build up chord progression through the track?

Clarity is a 9, because of the rev. crash cymbal. It is simply too loud :(

Effort is a magnificent 10, even though it is repetitive, I can hear the effort. You deserve no less, sir.

OVERALL, its an 8. A very cliche ambient funk groove track that is horribly diverse and groovy. Awesome work man.

Time to drop some more reviews, like how the chinese dropped bombs on Pearl Harbour. But mine wil be much more effective (in a good way, of course :D)

Keep this up, yo!

-zenon-

PS: 18 days left on my ban... :(

[WC > Blanket]

Best with headphones?

Good, thats what I've been using all this time :)

In the beginning, I noticed that there was a small amount of fuzz with the pads. Was this intentional, because if it wasn't, in a sick demented way, it fits. The bleeps work well, and snce I'm not going to relisten until it loops, I'm not going to criticize the diversity on them, since they seemed very different from beat to beat. Nice.

The high resonance pads that you used work so feckin' well... but at parts where you changed the notes a little faster than a pad should, the resonance crowds the song for a few seconds.

Very nice little drum riff you throw into the song, even though it sounds like a looped beat, since there was no changes in it. You could ahve had some breaks following the little beeps after a while to give it more of a 'trancey' feel, so people could just die listening to the feel of the song...

Very nice song. You out did yourself on this one.

Though the scores we go!

Originality is at 6. As great as the track was, this style has been done trillions of times. Bleeps with pads and a steady percussion set has been used too much.

Diversity is at 9, since everything was so diverse, other than the pads. Which kept that creepy feeling going though the track, and could have changed. Other than that, very nice.

Clarity: 10. Nuff said.

Effort is a 9 cause of the pads. Would ahve been a 10 if they changed.

Overall is a 9. Amazing work, the pads all blended very perfectly with the percussion and the FX. It gives a whole new feel to the word 'nighttime' and 'blankets'. Awesome.

Like I said before, you outdid yourself with this song. Great work.

-zenon-

StrangeEncounters responds:

I can understand about the low score for originality. The fuzz is for a glitchy intro. Once again, I don't have my full versoin here with the breakbeats on the drum loops. Those will be on mixposure. I can always count on you for a good review. Thanks a lot zenon. :D
VOET 5

[WC > Gravity]

Very Dark.

It has a very dark spacey feel, but I was expecting no less. Very nice.

The neil voice clips are clearly from Breakbeat Paradise, unless you sampled them yourwself, which I doubt. You could have at least added more effects to them. To add to the spacey feel, you could ahve added a deep Phaser. That would ahve helped to the mysteriousness.

The rest of the song seems very loose and generally ambient with the pads, but the percussion seems tight, and confined. This is casued by a lack of diversity in percussion, and weird sounds. The pads sounded spacey, and the drums sounded like they belonged in a jungle. The white noise snare hit worked well, since white noise is something that you can visualize in space. Beeps and other things like that, I can't visualize in space.

The voice clips are used too much, sure, they add something to the song, but when they are used that much, it detracts from the track. Drop them after they set the mood, and focus more on spacey ambience.

Good work, I liked it. Lets look at the scores now, shall we?

Originality sits at 8. Because spacey ambience has been done trillions of times before, and those voice clips have been used several times before. But, the originality lies in your percussion... very weird, and unfitting. Doesn't really work, but it does add a substantial amount of originality to the track.

Diversity takes its place at 8. The percussion never changes, even though there was breaks every once and a while. You used each voice clip about 3 times each through the song, which could be changed. Even turning off/on FX on the voices would add to the diversity. The pads seemed to change all the time though, so thats where the primary diversity points lay. In the FX and the pads.

Clarity is at a magnificent 10. Because you used some damn nice producing abilities in here, and since its ambient, it is easy as hell to compress, if you had to, which I doubt. Nice work.

Effort is at 8, because of the percussion and the voice clips. Nuff said.

Overall is an 8. You could do a significant amount better, try to use sounds that fit the surrounding more, and try to make things blend. It seems like there is 3 barriers in the song, one between percussion and the pads, another between pads and the voice clips, and another between the percussion and the voice clips. Ambient needs to blend, and they all seem separated.

Good work, keep producing.

-zenon-

StrangeEncounters responds:

Hey man! Thanks for the constructive review! I rarely get those. I feel good when i get a big warm review. The samples were from BB. Couldn't find them anywhere else. I have a 9 minute version of this song. But it's not on NG, cause' I don't like losing quality. Anyways. Thanks alot!

[Sad suspense (fix up!)]

Even darker :)

Much better than the other, IMO. As much as I like the darkness you have going with the string/bassline, try adding massive amount of reverb to the bassline and the toms. It will fill up the empty space.

And instead of using those strings, right click on a channel in FL, and select from the list 'Fruity Soundfont Player'. Those strings sound much better. Don't forget to EQ them and reverb them :D

Try and add some more strings than that one riff though. Diversity is the key! Make that high string melody you have going after the toms build up melodic, not simply octaves.

You are getting better! Keep this stuff up!

-zenon-

Father-of-Death responds:

thnx zenon!but guess wut since i have the dum ass demo you cant save your songs so all the things that i wish i can do now...i can't ='( thats why i can't spend so mush time on these songs i might buy it though...but i wanna try "Acid" and "Reason"
thnx for the reiview!!!!

[In Da Club]

Its my birthday?

:'D

Awesome. As much as I fucking HATE 50 Cent, this was awesome. Sexy guitar tunes, brutal drums, and now I feel like a gansta'.

MAYUN, IT FEELS GEWD TO BE A GANSTA', NIG.

-zenon-

[OCON- A Viewtiful Day]

I'm not even going to

listen to this song, cause all I wanna say is:
Whats the point of making a new account? You already made a name for yourself, and your just gonna ditch it? Now THAT, sir, is a WASTE.

If its cause you don't want your older tracks

or if you wrote bad reviews or didn't recieve enough

or if you are just going to quite newgrounds! Its really, pointless. It isn't pointless only if you are planning to ditch music as a profession or something.

Newgronds is a big site, and believe it or not, we get a HELL of a lot more hits than about 95% of the music sites out there.

Don't make a new account if you plan to stay.

If you plan to leave forever, then goodbye.

-zenon-

Mynewaccountis-OCON responds:

Dude i have no name for myself, no one knows me on here, maybe only 3 people or so? so it doesnt make much of a difference, and i wanted to change my sn anyway, so my new account is just simply -OCON- thanks for your review though man

[Sad Suspense]

Sad Suspense...

The synths are very electronic, even though I was expecting something more 'real'. Instead of electronic synths, maybe a piano? The bassline you bring in you could keep, but everything else, you might wana make it more real.

The pulsating tom beat you have going deserves less attention. Put that bitch in the corner and slow him down, and make him a little quiter... he ruins the mood a bit.

Good work though. I enjoyed the piece, even though you've got a few more things to fix up :)

-zenon-

Father-of-Death responds:

lol thnx alot man ive been reviewing your songs alot and studing from your stuff man you the greatest!!!

[Fairy Tales]

It fits.

The beginning is rather nice, with the mysterous melody. The vox that comes in is.. rather loud. Turn that down a bit? The kick that comes after gives an idea of a weak build up, and a beat with the little plink tool playing with the beat.

Oh, fuck.

You had the build up going. But was the hardcore synth work nessecary? All you needed was a pounding syth bassline with some nice diverse drums with that plink melody.

You are going for too much power. Sure, the hard synth melody would be nice LATER, but not after the build up. So all you have to do is tone down the build up a bit... even if you don't wanna rearrange this part of the song the next bit of advice I'm about to give will be more than essential to help the compression.

Turn. Down. The. Vox. And. The. Boom.

Too powerful! Wow, I swear that you almost blew my headphones...

Oh, I forgot to adress the shakers at the beginning of the song. Sure they sounded nice. Very nice, actually. But, they were too high in frequency. Again, kind of painful to my ears.

I have senstive ears due to ear problems... anyways.

Sure, I can hear the effort, but I don't hear the diversity. I hear some nice drum breaks that, as cliche as they are, they sound nice when ellaborated on.

Time to go over the scores, I think I tore this up enough.

Originality 9. Yes, I AM giving that to you. It is sterotypical trance with slightly different instruments. The only reason I'm giving it 9, is cause of the box idea. Nice. Otherwise, I'd give it 7.

Diversity, 7. Cause even though you have nice drum breaks like i said before, you use them... twice. At the beginning and the end. Change that! Diversity with the instruments isn't very kind either, the build up is rather dissapointing. You played the same melody with the hard synth as the plink tool. Wold ahve been awesome to hear some harmonics or something.

Clarity is at 6 cause I still hear the same compression problems, things are too loud compared to others that NEED to be louder. I can hear just enough to make sense of the entre song as a whole.

Effort is at an 8, because of the basic synth work and catchy melody. Its NOT at a 9 because you didn't bother to check if you boom was too loud or something. You also used the same vox breaks several times.

Overall 8 because I like the tune, and its slightly more controlled than most of your music that I listen to.

Keep it up, your getting better.

-zenon-

Anima-Theory responds:

The shakers aren't too higher pitched for me, maybe your headphones are shitty, or maybe mine are shitty :P

Again, the I didn't think the boom thing wasn't too loud, but thats obviously my opnion.

The only reason I kept the same tune is because it was taken from a "make up box". If I changed it, it wouldn't be the tune from the box thing :P

If you could, could you please PM me or email me with your complete critical details of this song, like what need to be louder etc. That would be appritiated.

This will sound n00bish but what is a Vox? Also I didn't think the boom was too loud, but as I said before that's my opinion.

WHat do you mean, more controlled than the rest of my music? :P

Yay, im getting better ^_^

Thanks for the review

I do truely appritiate your crtitisizm, it is helping me alot

Thanks Zenon

Anima_Theory

[Let The Bass Kick]

Awesome vox.

This song is as damn cliche as trance gets! Wow, I can't get over that. I quickly skimmed over the reviews and noticed that you said you needed to get rid of... I wasn't paying attention to what though.

Nice tempo change at the beginning, but I think you should have not have used the main melody. It just builds on the repetitiveness of the melody. Cut the melody in half, and then change it so that it sounds all prety and DIVERSE.

The drum work is good, but way too fucking powerful! Sure it serves the pattern of being rythym. But its not COLOURFUL rythym! Its just *kic kick kcik kick*. No breaks that are noticeable. Nothing fancy. Also, the compression on the entire song is rather sad, i hate to say. The kick is too bassy and long. The bass is also too bassy, crowding out the low frequencies. You have heavily reverbed synths attempting to play. High freuqnecies cut through low frequencies, but, if there is TOO MUCH BASS, not only will it sound like a loud 'MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM' sound on subs, it would completely destroy the sonds of the treble instruments!

Compress songs this way: Make sure the kick is bassy enough, but always make it short. synths, well, they need to be loud. BUT MAKE SURE THEY DON'T RED-LINE. Same goes to any synth. f it touches the red-line everyonce and a while, thats not bad. Just its not prefered.
To do this, make sure that instead of turning UP synths to make sure you can hear them, turn them all DOWN, and then only turn up the ones you need to hear only slightly! Then the redline may only touch every once and a while. Then, put a soft compressor on, with 200-1000 release, with a 10.0 : 1 ratio. Change the gain if it sounds shit.

The song is overall not that bad, but lets go throgh the scores, shall we?

Originality 4. Why? Just listen to it! Rise strings, 4 by 4 kick, high trance leads... there is no originality here. Sorry.

Diversity, 8. Very nice melody changes. But the fact that you don't have ENOUGH melody changes, kind of bugs me. I want to hear so many changes that I think the entire song is one pattern! Make it simply amazing. ONLY use repeptitiion if it is COMPLETELY nessecary. Like, if you have this amazingly diverse song, and then the main fucking melody comes up. Then you can repeat it once or twice, but still, I'd prefer instead of repeating it twice, you make 2 separate melodies that are only slightly diffrerent so people still get the same idea.

Clarity 6. I already went over compression.

Effort 8. Like I said, no noticeable drum breaks, other than the ones that the whole fucking SONG breaks down. Jst read diversity over again if you wanna know what i think about your effort on this song.

Overall: 7. Cliche, no new ideas, not that great compression, but the melodies are nice. The ideas are nice, you just have to bring them out better.

-zenon-

Anima-Theory responds:

I was going for a generic trance song, and all generic trance songs are like this, easy beat, reptitive and simple :P

I kept the drums simple cause most trance song are simple.

I dont really understang how the compressor works, so im still a n00bie at that.

Also, damnit Zenon, it take me fucken ages to read your reviews :P

I have noticed that FL seems to red line very very early in the volume bar, like it seems ot red line when it actually shouldn't be, but ahwell.

I made it very very bassey becuase it sounds cool on big big subs, well atleast I thought It did anyways

Anyways man, thanks for the review, I do appritiate you taking alot of time to write big reviews.

Thanks

Anima_Theory

[Innocent Apathy]

Speedmetal is a good guy.

He also helped me out with a lot of guitar work that I needed done :D

Anyways, to the song...

...waiting to load...

...ah, there we go.

Very nice wind sounds. They really ind of get annoying, to be truthful when they are at a low frequency. Try making it go to EXTREME lows and MAGNIFICENT highs when the synth comes in. To denote a big build up :D

I like the groove you have going on, but it gets my head moving. Hey man, like, HEY! This is ambient! I'm supposed to SLEEP to this shit, not dance! You should make it slower and less groovy, actually no, scratch that, just get rid of the feeling of a build up. Sure, the wind at the beginning would be nice, but durning the song, only have a build up if the song is going to be 10 fuckin' minutes. If its gonna be 4 or less, just try to keep the same mood goin through the entire song.

Good work though, make sure that Speed knows that I know that hes sexy, and that hes good at guitar. He added a lot to your song :D

Keep it up, and KEEP IT SIMPLE. Ambient is not really that amazing, but people like it cause they can get entranced by it... anways, im ranting now.

9 for originality. Why? Cause I have never in my LIFE heard an ambient song this quick and groovy. NEVER. It would have 10, but you've got some cliche shit here... shakers, saw synths, and bells. Honestly, every ambient song HAS to have the bells... (I like them, too :D)

Diverty is an 8, why? Cause, yes, you had a lot of stuff going on and it was very exciting. But, you had the same bell riff going over

and over

and over

and OVER again! Sure it sounded pretty, but at the tempo you had going, it turned into a form of rock/electronica, so it needed diversity, and LOTS OF IT! :D Keep that in ind for the future.

Clarity is a 9, because you had some synths in there (like the saw synth) that muddled things quite a bit. The shakers were also a bit loud, for the high frequency they were, it was kind of painful to listen to on headphones.

Effort is a 9. See 'diversity'.

Overall, 8. I know your skills. You can do much better. Don't even THINK of even exporting a song before you KNOW that it is as GOOD AS YOU CAN DO! Any drum breaks here, anything you think may be too loud, and compression problems, watch out for those. Master it on more than one system (headphones, shit speakers, awesome speakers, etc). And make SURE it sounds KICK ASS on all the speakers.

Good work, keep it up.

-zenon-

Anima-Theory responds:

2 months later and I'm still reading your review :P

Nah, the review was good, and broke down my song and showed the flaws and good parts in it. Thank you for taking the time ^_^

I wasn;t entrirely sure whether to put this in trance, dance or ambient, cause its not trancey enough for trance, its too slow and melodic for dance and its too fast for ambient, so i just stuck it in anmbient :P

Thanks again for the review

Anima_Theory