Jatmoz's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Drummer]

These are some tight friggin' drums. The variations you have throughout the whole track are great, they kept me interested but they always seemed like they were developing the groove, never appearing off-place or gimmicky. Very clean production, and good instrument choices as well. I'm lovin' this thing!

[All my Song is Broken]

I'm more inclined towards glitchy, experimental stuff like this, but this could use some things for it to sound great. For one, the sounds used and the glitches are quite dry. The break could be cleaned up more, you could also play around with chopping the sample and doing all sorts of arrangements with it to make it more exciting. You could pan the vocals, delay them, destroy them too. The glitchy noises can really shine when they're put under the right processing, some modulated filters and something to smooth them out more.

I don't mean to be harsh, but it sounds like an experimentation session you put drums and some vocals over. This is a subjective thing, but it doesn't feel like the instruments are interacting between each other much, which would otherwise make the track more cohesive and grounded. Repeating phrases here and there, instruments going out as others come in, a consistent groove to legitimize the noise in between, I know this is a work in progress but just details like that are what I feel make a great glitchy track.

I think I heard some other sounds in there? Like a bass at 0:06 and some kind of white noise at 0:05? The glitchiness together with the break make it a bit hard to discern those extra sounds, you could mix them so they can leave a bit of space for the accompaniments. Just the glitchiness and the breaks alone take up a lot of presence, so you'd need to EQ them well so they don't overshadow the other elements.

For what you have right now, I'm intrigued to hear what the full track will sound like.

[3pg - Mistake]

The 808 that you use in the beginning sounds muddy when it hits the low notes, even a bit distorted. My guess would be because you used a sample for it instead of a synth. I'd recommend using a synth with an 808 preset, it'll sound much cleaner, specially if you want to play it at varying pitches. About the beat comin' in at 0:08, it do be soundin' pretty snazzy, nicely done percussion and foley. I also like that you overlaid the 808 with a new kick, it makes it punchy.

The section at 0:45, the bass that plays goes too low to sound well, at least for me, it sounds like a rumble. The notes it plays at 0:47 feel much nicer, it feels more grounded. Maybe you could play a G in place of that second note B, it'd even give the bass an upward motion to give more anticipation. The kick and 808 at 1:18 start to sound like they're clipping, and not in an intentional way, like they're not sidechained properly so you might wanna check that out. Still, nice job with the other instruments and percussion, beat's good.

Rest of the track is pretty alright, decent way to progress by bringing a new synth at 2:09. This is more subjective, but in the context of the track, the synth of that section is a bit cheesy, maybe I would use something like a melodic solo of sorts with a different lead. Though I do like what you did at 3:19, feels like the idea of 2:09 but better executed, the synth there fits the beat better.

Overall it's alright. I would like to see more variation in the melodies or play around a bit with the chord progression, but the track is decent at what it does, even if it's quite generic for my taste. Keep in mind, using a key with C as the tonic on a bass track is pretty tricky, around C1 and below the sub-bass starts feeling less like a bass and more like a rumble. Other than that, the beat's cool and the accompaniments enhance it instead of taking away from it, you did well.

[Minotaur]

This is badass. I like the riff on the first verse, and nice job with the meaty tone of the guitar. The mix is already decent, but it sounds dry. But if you wanted to make it sound fatter or more glued together you could use a compressor on the drums with a short attack, it'd make them punchier and have more tight dynamics if you wanted it to sound more impactful.

I'd also recommend putting a subtle reverb in certain instruments just to fill up space, for example a low volume reverb with short decay on the drums to simulate being in the room with the drums, and putting a reverb with low volume but long decay on the guitar could fill up the empty background, especially with a compressor on the whole thing keeping everything together. Just putting little details like that, although maybe not what you're looking for, could make the mix a bit better.

Nitrocore responds:

Thanks for taking the time to leave a review, I really appreciate it.

The mixing advice is really helpfully as well, it's something I want to get better at eventually, although it could end up being my White Whale.

The riff actually came first then I built everything on top of it, I'm glad you liked it.

[hypertonic bopjive]

There's some nice melodies in here! I like the change of vibe at 1:18, and the new aggressive beat that comes in. Though the whole song sounds a bit over-compressed, and it's really noticeable at parts with a few instruments like in the intro when the reverb starts fading in, and at 2:30 the volume of the reverb even feels a bit chaotic. Nice job with the variation and the harmony though.

Super-shape responds:

thanks for the feedback! to answer your questions, the reason why some of the instruments sound so compressed and the reverb sounds so jank in some sections is because i was working with fruity soundfont player (you can see in the description which games the soundfonts i used were from), and basically i played around a bit with increasing the release time, which i am aware sounds a bit awkward (which makes sense considering fruity soundfont player is a rather old and not very well supported plugin), but i tried my best to keep it hidden by using equalizers and extra reverb effect plugins n stuff (which i think mightve made the mixing worse but idk since this was my first attempt at using an equalizer to try and make one of my tracks sound better). also, since those sounds i was using originated from games on old nintendo handhelds, obviously they'll sound a bit compressed, and there's not much i can really do about that, so i kinda just have to play it off as if it's an aesthetic choice. regardless, thx :)

[Down]

I like how experimental this sounds, some interesting sound design you got here

[AFRAID ?]

This is really good! The main chords can get repetitive after the 2 minute mark but the percs and hats are hella on point, head-boppin' groove!

[Sweet Lake City]

That intro is a bit of a sudden start. The reverberated guitar feels a bit ahead of the rhythm of the beat, but I like the tone of it. The guitars coming in at 0:13 sound more in-rhythm, I like the way they rub on my ears. The hi-hat is a bit panned to the right, I don't know if that's intentional but I'd recommend you make your hats more stereo with a delay or moving around slightly from left to right and left. Just a little nitpick though.

You have a cool voice! The part from 0:27 to 0:41 sounds genuinely good, but when the reverberated guitar comes back it feels a bit crowded, I'd imagine it sounding more concise with the reverberated guitar being more mono and filtered to leave space for the other guitar and the vocals. At 0:54 the atmosphere sounds cool although the mix feels kinda messy, the background choirs sound too bright for my taste. At 1:15 the guitar that comes in starts a bit too early, kinda threw me off a bit. The solo is hella snazzy tho I like it. And I like the flow you have on the part at 1:29. I think the outro would've been a lot nicer if you let the instruments fade out more smoothly, it feels like they're cut off short in this case.

The structure seems concise, and it seems to accomplish its intentions. I'm not a lyrics guy so I can't say much about them but they sound cool as far as I can tell. Musically it seems to have no problems, the mix is alright but some slight improvements can make it better. It's a pretty cool song overall, well done!

[Optic Nerve Atrophy]

Man, this has a lot of emotion! It sounds very out there and distinct, I like some of the weird choices with the composition like the oriental intro, the kazoo, the half-connected speaker sound in the outro. Little nitpick, the guitar that comes in at 2:09 and at 4:10 is a bit too loud and could use less distortion. But other than that, I love this!

ArtificialParadise responds:

Thanks man, I appreciate the feedback. Hoping to finish an entire album and out this on it with some touch ups, so I'll definitely take this into account!

[The Capitol Records Experience]

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSS THIS IS THE BEST THING RIGHT HERE