FinnMK's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[The Damn Motherfucking One]

* This is an official 2017 NGUAC review *

I liked this one - definitely some good potential here. On to specifics...

Mixing, mastering, and production: The main point where TDMO suffered in terms of production was that many of the instruments felt a bit obviously virtual. I can tell that I'm listening to a virtual piano playing a MIDI file, for example, as opposed to hearing someone perform the exact same piece on a piano. Of course, not everyone has a piano, but many of these instrument problems can be solved with very careful EQing, reverb, panning, and other mixing tracks. One in particular that might prove helpful for you is 1) plugging in a keyboard with MIDI capabilities and actually performing parts yourself, or 2) manually editing the velocity and timing of your instrument parts. When a pianist plays a piece, for example, they never do so with absolutely perfect timing or with absolutely the same amount of pressure on every note. The slightest touches of off-timing will help the realism, and so too will editing the velocity - part of what makes a great performance is the use of dynamics. So if you can't perform it yourself, you can still try and work in elements of performance that will make the music sound better.
I liked most of the effects you used on an individual basis (although some careful reverbing would have helped - remember, you want your mix to sound like every instrument is playing together in the same room), but I did question why you used some of the effects you did. It's always worth asking yourself, when adding a new instrument or effect into a piece, "does this make sense to have given the context of the rest of the track?" Some of the effects I felt you like thought sounded cool and threw them in without thinking about how they affect the rest of the piece. I'll talk more about this below in instrumentation.

Finally, I think the track could've stood to be a bit louder - good use of a maximizer and a limiter in the mastering phase would solve this.

Composition: Generally speaking, pretty good. No dramatically weak spots here. I really liked most of your chord choices.
One of my biggest nitpicky things for TDMO is instrumentation. There's a whole gaggle of instruments, from 80s synths to acoustic piano, to strings, to electric guitar, to modern synth effects. Many of these are instruments or sounds that would not normally play together, so when you're blending them you have to be sure that you're doing it for a good reason. You're at the point of musicality where you have the talent to work all these different things in, but...should you be? (enter Jeff Goldblum for Jurassic Park "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.")
What happens when you throw in all of these instrument types is that they break the cohesion and atmosphere of the piece. When I listened, I didn't get a sense of TDMO having everything together - it was more of a patched quilt made by 30 different stitchers. What would help here is deciding what the foundation of the track will be. Is it going to be more rock? (electric guitar and drums) Is it going to be more ballad-y? (piano) Is it going to be more synthy? In order to have the whole piece come together and work as a whole, you have to decide what you're going for, instead of just deciding along the way. Once you know your foundation, you can reasonably ask yourself when adding in new instruments "should I be adding this in? If I am, why? Does it work with the rest of the piece?" And when you do, you'll be able to have an answer.

Otherwise, I liked most things. I think it would have been nice to have the melody tag off the piano at some point. Even when it was on the guitar, the piano was doubling it. So some variety would spice things up.

Overall, great potential. Go forth on your musical quest!

MysteriousPresence responds:

Wow thanks for the awesome feedback ! <3
I'm gonna use your precious advice for my last track ever ("Work, Buy, Consume, Die") ! The achievement of my masterpiece will be partly thanks to you ! =)

[Magenta Caverns]

* This is an official 2017 NGUAC review *

Overall, a fun time and cool atmosphere. On to specifics...

Mixing, mastering and production: My main issues with the production are tied to the fact that nearly every instrument sound very obviously virtual, sounds very obviously like a preset. When I'm listening to everything, I want to be getting into the music but it instead feels like a showcase for a vst. This is not necessarily tied to the quality of the vst (although purchasing more high end vsts would certainly help), it's an issue of mixing. The solution here is carefully EQing, reverbing, panning, and volume balancing every instrument. At the end of the day you want the instruments to sound like they're yours - not a preset. Presets are great for inspiration, but they tend to stick out if you leave them in a final mix.
Some of the reverbing and delay works well here! But for me it was hard to get over the 'storefront window' feel of the instruments.

Composition: Decently solid all around, no huge weaknesses here. I'm just going to go through with a bunch of little tips.
Everything had a really fun bounce - thanks to the rhythm section of bass and drums for that one. Great use of toms to help achieve that.
The ending felt a little sudden and not particularly well thought out. You said that you originally wrote it as a loop. I can't speak for the other judges, but I think you could've left it as a loop! If that's what the track was built for, then it would probably sound better that way. You nailed the video game loop feel, so I say embrace it.
I think a little more variety in the structure and feel would have been nice. It would be tricky to balance it with the feeling of a loop, but if pulled off it would really enhanced the track.
Your melodies here fit the style and the piece well, and you kept the melodic instruments varied. Good use of the bass to make countermelodies. Actually, listening to this again now, I probably could've given you a bit of a higher melody score :p
The instrumentation, while varied, was almost...too outlandish. Your instrumentation sort of tried to reach for the stars, I feel like. Marimba, bass guitar, synth leads, strings - it's a mix of instruments that would never normally play together in real life. It was hard for me to place what the feel of the song should be. It's worth asking yourself, before you pick an instrument to add, "why am I adding this particular instrument? How does it fit with the rest of the group?" I had the feeling of you picking a bunch of instruments that sounded good individually, without necessarily considering how they work together as a group. As a group, I felt like it was a bit disjointed, like if I grabbed 10 random musicians and stuck them in a room together. If you're going to go more natural, like with bass guitar and a drum kit, then go for it. If you're going to go synthy, with a virtual kit, organ and synth leads, then go for it. But it felt like you were in a weird in-between place where I couldn't emotionally commit, if that makes sense.

Fun ideas though! Keep it up and keep having fun.

ToxicGeek responds:

(My bad for taking my time for responding it)

Mixing: Yeah I know like nothing important into mastering. Tho I'll try to gain some experience in the future. Also, I don't see myself purchasing myself more VSTs with real money, that would be much for my wallet.

Composition: Glad you like the melodies!
The instrument choice is varied on purpose because of the game's aesthetic. It's in a Sci-Fi setting and there's a lot of diversity in it and each planet has its unique vibe. Sure I could change some instruments to make the whole tune more coherent but no biggie.
And yes next time, It'll be a loop upload if it was intended.

Thanks for the review!

[Waves of Color]

* This is an official 2017 NGUAC review *

Ah yes, the 7/4 one. On to specifics...

Mixing, mastering and production: There are no huge weaknesses here, so you're on the right path! Just some little things that add up. If I had to give an overall comment, it would be that I can hear all the ideas you're trying to achieve with the production side of things and for the most part you do achieve them. The little details of execution can be tightened up and made better, though.
One of the things that hopped out for me was that a great number of the instruments you used sound pretty obviously virtual/and/or like built-in presets that come with the vsts. Obviously if you have budget constraints for vsts this is a tough one to solve, but a solution is 1) use the presets for inspiration, not as a final product, and 2) carefully EQ, pan, volume adjust, and reverb all your instruments so that they work together as a unit. There's a difference between having a bunch of instruments playing at the same time and having a bunch of instruments playing together. Ideally, you want your mix to sound like all your instruments are indeed YOUR instruments, and not someone else's. This can be achieved with the use of the things above: EQ, panning, volume balancing, and reverb. There are a billion effects you can add on, but if you don't have your core ones in there doing their job, the mix will always sound fake if you use virtual instruments.
Mastering also helps the cohesion of the whole piece with tools like multiband compressors, more EQing, maximizers and limiters. It's certainly worth playing around with those and making sure everything plays together nicely. I would like to mention that your end mix did was clean, had some nice punch and decent volume balancing, but there's always room to improve.

A lot of the panning and reverb I did like! You kept things fresh throughout the whole piece.

Composition: There's a lot to like about Waves of Color. I love the 7/4 time signature, both for the ideals in attempting and the talent to pull it off seamlessly. For our western-music-theory ears, odd time signatures often sound...odd! But you made 7/4 sound natural, so kudos. The points you lost on originality were pretty much only due to instrumentation, for reasons mentioned above in the production section.
For everything else (structure, progression, melodies, harmony, texture, atmosphere, emotion), there are no real PROBLEMS here, it's just that I was never really that drawn in or wowed by anything. Everything was good without being great.
In terms of structure, you certainly had some progression and no failure to have several interesting different sections - you cram a lot of section into a 4-minute piece! My main drawback here was that at some point, more sections is not what you need, especially if they're all pretty much using the same melody to carry them. Granted, it's hard to compose a melody that will work well in 7/4. But by about halfway through, I was ready to hear a different melody. This wears on the structure and progression too, because no matter how many new sections you have, I'm not going to be interested in hearing them if they have the same melody overtop of them. Granted again, your melody is not the exact same the entire time. But the few melodies you use are very similar to the point where it's hard to distinguish them from each other.

Overall, good stuff with lots of potential!

Spadezer responds:

Ah, thank you. Much appreciated.

Yeah, effects and mastering. Obviously, there's a good amount of effort going into balancing. I'll admit some of the adjustments with reverb, delay, sounddesign are slightly neglected while focusing on the composition of the themes.
Mastering..... something I have knowledge on but admit I don't do much with it. Not sure if because I don't comprehend their abilities of the tools well or what. But this confirms that I've been needing to improve here.

Actually that applies to a lot of what I was thinking for the rest of the subjects. Confirms what I think may have been going on, and I may not have been thinking about it enough to admit/address the issues. Thanks for the feedback.

[AIM - Rothgar]

* This is an official 2017 NGUAC review *

Oh man, this one. Really great talent, really not-so-great production. Into the details...

Mixing, mastering and production: This was the real weak point. Now, it wasn't THAT weak - I could hear all the parts clearly and I was able to get into the emotional space of the piece. But at the end of the day it's just a bedroom recording, and you're competing with people who have studio-level production quality.
For acoustic guitar, getting a great recording setup is a bit of of an investment, but certainly it's the next production step I hear for you. I would get (if you don't already have) a decent condenser mic (and a little interface to give it phantom power) as well as a Shure SM57. Point the condenser where the neck meets the body of the guitar, and have the SM57 a bit away from the body of the guitar, pointing at the soundbox hole. Once there you can play with levels and distances - putting your condenser closer to the strings will pick up great plucking, while having it away will pick up chords and louder guitar much better.
I would also recommend recording to a click track if you're not already. There were a couple slight timing problems.

From a post-recording standpoint, definitely play around with reverb and panning; try to add to the character of the guitar without stripping the real, raw, live sound you have.

Mastering shouldn't be too difficult from there if you're sticking with just acoustic guitar, but it's still a crucial step. Simply having a multiband compressor, an EQ, and a maximizer + limiter on the premaster will do a world of good.

Composition: Beautiful, atmospheric. I really, truly enjoyed it. Now, to nitpick!
Your main melody is great, and is a beautiful moment when you play that EM and F#M chord in the A section. Solid solo in the middle of the piece. I definitely liked the idea of the harmonics, but they weren't quite executed perfectly - a couple minor performance errors took me out of the moment. After the solo is finished and you go back to the A section, the melody gets a bit drowned out a bit by your background layer - I think were it blended well, it would work fairly well however.

My only other note is in regards to the rest of the elements of the composition as a whole - structure, texture, atmosphere, etc. The reason you didn't get perfect scores in these other sections is not for any deficiency, but that I wasn't wowed by the other elements too much. There are some great moments, but to get that perfect 10 I need to be enthralled and wowed the whole time. Rest easy though! I didn't give anyone super close to a perfect composition score. But I just thought I'd clarify.

I'm certainly looking forward to what you come up with. If you can improve your recording, mixing, and mastering then you'll certainly be a top contender. That's a lot to say for just one guy with an acoustic guitar. It's a testament to your talent!

Ceevro responds:

Thank you for that. I think that the mic I have is decent (certainly better than what I started with...which was the built-in mic in my laptop), and where my recordings are really lacking is actually in the acoustic space itself. There's a moment which you probably caught where my chair squeaked loudly. There's a high hiss from my computer fan. There's the gaddamn neighbor with the stupid-ass Harley he simply MUST rev for an hour every day. I can mitigate a lot of that on the cheap by setting up a recording wall before I record, but I simply don't have the space to leave it up, and so it adds an hour on to every recording session.

On the mixing/mastering side: I've been taking some online courses in mixing/mastering. I'll have to be careful in the future with what I've learned, because most of what I've learned is that I tend to overdo FX that I find really cool. ESPECIALLY reverb. I just love the sound of loud reverb, and it seems like most people...don't. Most of what I could do to make things better would be to get a cleaner recording in the first place.

And performance: This was really, really hard to play. Yes, there were some errors in timing, and I deliberately let them be. I recorded for several hours, discarding every single part of the song at one point or another and eventually settled on the version you see here. I could have time-stretched or quantized a point or two, but it just sounded too mechanical to me. Better, I felt anyways, that you hate me for what I am, than love me for what I am not.

Thank you so much for the review! I will continue to improve!

[Super Slushi]

* This is an official NGUAC 2017 review *

Overall I definitely enjoyed this one. It's so whimsical! But let me go more in depth...

Mixing, Mastering, and Production: Super clean mix. I didn't feel like there was mud anywhere and for the most part things were balanced well. But a clean mix is only part of the equation. There some volume balances I wasn't a fan of. The first drop at :27 is pretty shocking - a significant volume increase and sudden instruments panned far to the right and left. This is not inherently BAD - but the problem is it's unfairly unexpected. When you're writing a song, you know when the drop is going to be. You know exactly how it's going to play out. But the listener, especially on that first listen, doesn't. During the introduction of the Super Slushi I adjusted my volume to be able to hear everything comfortably. When the drop hit I had to pause and readjust my volume; while it was a comfortable volume to listen to the intro to, it was too loud for the drop.
The reason this is 'unfair' is because when I'm setting my volume the only context I have is the introductory section; I can't possibly know when the drop will be and how loud it is. Because the intro and the drop have such a significant volume and panning difference, there's no way I can be listening at a volume that's perfect to appreciate the drop, at least until I've listened to the drop once. But if I have to pause the song and readjust the volume at a moment that's so crucial and built up to (the drop), then it really takes me out of the song emotionally.
A way to solve this is to volume match those first two sections a bit better. Once you've done a drop, once you've hit a loud section of your song, then AFTER that you could very reasonably drop things down to a very low volume, build up and drop again. At that point, my ears and brain are prepared for the loudness.
Other than that I felt like the drop sections could have use some more bass in the bass instrument itself. The sub-bass frequencies were actually fine, but the rest of it was sort of lackluster. So pump up that 125-300Hz region a bit on your bass instrument and really get that satisfying meaty bass sound!

In terms of creative mixing, things were generally good. Good use of reverb, delay, fades and panning. The main reason I didn't give you a higher score on this part was because none of your effects really went above and beyond. They were all successful, but never very unexpected or super original.

Mastering was solid, no real tips there. I think I should've actually given you a bit of a higher score!

Composition: Very original piece, masterful use of vocal samples. I felt the drop sections were a little thin. If there had just been...more in those sections I would have loved them. The melody I enjoyed a lot, but I felt like it was overused - it made Super Slushi a bit of a monothematic piece. I would've liked to hear some variety in the melody, especially in the verses. That melody works great in the drop sections, but then to hear it again in-between the drops isn't very refreshing.
The structure was good, no real problems there, but it also wasn't anything special. Quiet intro, drop, build, drop, quiet ending. I've heard it on a million different dubstep songs before. I did enjoy your double-paced rhythm section at 1:49; that definitely added some nice, unexpected variety.

Overall, a decently constructed song, I just would've liked some more variety in the melody and structure.

Looking forward to hearing what you come up with for the Knockout Round!

Cheers,
Finn M-K

GobSmacked responds:

Ay first of all thanks for the review! Uhm yeah I shouldve "prepared" the listener for the first drop a tad more for sure. And yeah the main theme and melody got repetative very quickly imma try to mix in more variety and also make them drops *T H I C C E R*. ;3!!!