vekoN's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Hailstorm | Turning the Tides of War]

great tune! i love the beautiful orchestral coda and the sort of melancholy mood of the tonality and melodies! i do think some parts of the dnb section are a bit empty and don't hit as hard as they could, but i suppose the intention was to tell a story and not just be a banger; this song absolutely accomplishes the former

GasGrass responds:

Thanks! I agree on the DnB part; I should have spent a little more time polishing things instead of rushing it out.

[Trust Issues]

hiya quarl! it's good hearing from you! (i haven't checked your blog yet, just ng)

the song is awesome, a bit repetitive sure but still quite a bop! i love the nocturnal orchestral melodies behind the typical quarl bass

i can understand the anxiety/politics issue, i try to stay away from them when i can. i've just been steadily working on some creative projects; i recently got my first frontpage on this account! so overall i've been great

Quarl responds:

WOO! CONGRATS ON TEH FRONT PAGE!! That's usually the first step towards a crippling Newgrounds addiction <3 <3

I'm in your catalogue, listening to your tunes! Already followed you, great sounds veko :3

[Sharp Mercy]

tangy and textured! can't wait for the album

[Fax Machine]

a real head nodder! i love the sort of syncopated, swingy flow and rhythm. the fax machine sample underpinning everything is brilliant

the melodic switchup in the second half is cathartic and beautiful!

gdWoowoo responds:

That's so great to hear :D
I hadn't even realized how much I leaned into the syncopated rhythm until you pointed it out. And it's nice to hear you like the fax machine samples - I had wondered a few times if I was overdoing it

[Chaos Insurgency theme]

is it just me or is there a very annoying buzz to the brass instrumentation that comes in at 0:13? it could be clipping or just baked into the sample, idk. but other than that this is solid. like i said tho i dunno if it's really "evil", rather just ominous

DumbOctopus responds:

I'm sorry, but I couldn't hear it even if my life depended on it. I can't hear any buzz.

[GizzyKittyMusic - [Jamuary Day 27]]

nice harmonic minor :)

i feel like the instruments could use more processing, i feel like they're a bit plain right now. perhaps some saturation, ott, high end boost, or perhaps some ear candy in the background? also perhaps the arrangement could be glued together more, the way the individual elements, melodies, and instruments mesh together and interact is decent but could be better. maybe have different instruments share the same rhythm with different pitches or vice versa?

but other than that it's solid :)

GizzyKittyMusic responds:

I'm not going to lie to you, despite how long I've been doing this for, I really don't know all that much about the technical side of music production. Since I just kinda do this for fun, it's never really something that I felt like learning, but I do agree that my music suffers a little as a result. Perhaps it is something that I'll spend some time looking into :)

As for the arrangement, I usually do put more consideration into how things are layered and interact with each other, I've just allowed myself to be a little lazy for the sake of this challenge.

[MNSTR. [CLIP]]

wonderful, i enjoyed the glitch stutters and the gun timbre

[Briddim Demo]

i saw your thread, here's some thoughts!

overall, yeah i do agree that this is a bit weak in sound design and mixing terms. there's a lot of empty space in the mix and arrangement, for instance 0:18 which consists of only a sub bass with nothing in the high end and the predrop vocal which has nothing to really back it up or follow it. in mixing terms the midrange feels a bit lacking; a eq boost of like 1-2db around 1500hz should help, but i'd also recommend eq'ing the basses individually or finding a new sound to put in that range. lastly everything feels quite loose and not very glued together; a saturator, clipper, or compressor with moderate settings will tighten up the mix and introduce some fatness to the mixdown, making it very upfront and loud

speaking of the basses, they feel a bit weak and outdated. they have that... how do i describe it? "screechy", "phaser-y" quality, which was all the rage in like 2016 (see excision's "virus" lp) but is rather outdated now. as i understand it briddim nowadays relies on things like guns, sustains, and yoinks and growls in the fills. you can use youtube to look up what these all are :) anyways the basses also lack some high end texture and feel too boomy (i.e., too much low-low mids). so does the kick drum, i'd find something that's tighter and has a bigger transient

you mentioned ott, ott is a multiband compressor that compresses the three bands down and then upwards compresses them. in practical terms this brings out a lot of detail (especially in the high end), flattens the amplitude envelope, and often attenuates the midrange a bit. it's great for making basses more in-your-face and texturized. when using ott, usually the depth/amount (in xfer's version, the knob that should be on the top left) shouldn't be at 100%, usually 15-30% does the trick. also kilohearts disperser is great too and used a lot nowadays. you don't have to buy the plugin tho, a phaser with 100% wet will do the trick too.

so to recap: research some basses to use in briddim and how to create them (e.g., look up "gun bass tutorial" and so on), or get some samples, work on the mixdown fullness, and practice with using ott. gl!!

[are you for,]

loud! i like it

[Hit It]

good! i liked the chip arp in the background, and i enjoyed the use of f major here! i think the low mids are a tad distorted, which could be fixed by bringing them down by a few decibels, but overall the song is quite solid!

whymsical responds:

thanks for the feedback! ill fix the low mids when i can