Voltus's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[not giving up]

Servus! Du bist aus Schongau, ich komm aus Weilheim :D

But since this is an english site: Just focus on the song. How do you want people to listen to your stuff? Every track on its own or the combined mix? Unless things are playing solo, who cares how they sound without context? Context is everything.

Also mixing is hard, just keep at it and you will see how it gets better. Maybe just focus on the basics: loudness/Reverb/delay/EQ and you should be able to place everything where you want it in the mix. Get a couple of decent headphones to know whats going on with your sounds. If overall loudness is what you are after you should look into saturation/distortion and compression.

But the main thing in my opinion should be the music/composition itself. I always look for cool sounds and how to get some emotion across in my music. I think that's what it is mainly about. All that technical stuff should only be a tool to serve that purpose.

GuitARBEn responds:

Thank you for your comment! I guess, time will tell, if I'm wrong with my theory. I think, caring about the sound in the mix is what you do anyway. But since I wanted to improve my skills, I thought, maybe it's a good idea to do something, I usually don't do that much, that is first getting one part of an instrument done, before adding something else. You mentioned the term context. I think, some other context could also be the chords or the mode (for example Ionian, Lydian, Mixolydian,...) you're in. And this context is always on your mind as you make music. You don't need to play the chords over and over again, at some point, you just know, which melody fits the chords and which doesn't. Well, maybe that's just my opinion, but I didn't want to leave that unsaid.

[dial tone]

So your intro already sounds really professional. your voice could be a little more upfront in the mix. At least on my headphones it gets a little too much into the background but they are also kind of weak in the mids.

I really like the vibe you establish throughout. The chords don't really get boring but a switchup or a middle 8 would elevate everything to another level I think this would also increase the replay value of this song (in my opinion). You took me to a place but then we kind of stayed there. Please take me on a journey :D

Also I would have loved to have a little more bass in the mix. I could barely make out any sub bass. I could imagine a nice wonky reese bassline underneath everything. that would also increase the energy of the track a lot.

So overall: A really nice vibe, needs more cowbell, more bass and vocals should be a little more upfront.

But thats just my two cents. I like your style, maybe we could collab on something in the future?

Vatriox responds:

Thank you for the feedback! I'll work on these things for sure

[Back To Summer]

You know the gif of the dancing russian kid? this is the vibe :D Maybe work on your mixing a bit and a little on your soundchoice but this hits!

Domido responds:

Haha thanks a lot!
I just wanted to get it done in the end xD
Thankfully my mixing improved simce then

[Final Fantasy 8 - Battle]

Alright so at first i thought that muted rapid highhat was preety cool but after a while it starts really draging out and getting a little annoying. also you dont have enough dynamic variation in you drums and other sounds a lot of it sounds like you have it on fixed velocities which makes it sound pretty dead. also the swooshy lead with the longer attack time is not really my favorite. you could have used something that sounds more like the strings from the original. and everything sounds pretty standard midi tracky. so you could have put a little more life into everything imho.

so overall quite solid but you should work on your sound design skills. I hope i didnt upset you with my sort of critical review. happy music making! :)

PaulyBFromDa303 responds:

I'm happy to have a critical review like this. Honestly, others have said in the past that my music sounded dead and I never understood what that meant. So what you're saying is that more variety and velocity adjustments will make a big difference. I can see that . . . Paying attention to details.

Thank you so much for the review. Seriously. I think this is gonna help

[What a Horrible Night... With Vocals... (Demo)]

Overall I think this is a great Idea and you wrote a fitting text to the piece. But you could have used different instrumentation to underline your Vocals a bit more and spice everything up a little. the background track sounds like a low budget midi track. you might have intended it to sound this way but i would have prefered a little more "alive" instrumentation.

but I like the song and I like people singing on newgrounds so kudos to you!

[guys can i put distortion plugin onto the master]

Its great to break rules. but if you break the rules you should know what you're doing. Even if T H E Y told you ;)

If you put disto on the master, try and work it. I mean you tried, and i think it sounds kind of rad but you could have played with it a little more. Do every weird thing you can to utilize the distortion and make it do cool stuff. You used the Drums and Bass to trigger it but you could have used more subtle sounds to make it more interesting. You did that in the end but could have done so in the break and before. Also I think the beat in and of itself is not really inspiring. pretty standard dnb in my opinion. could have spiced it up a bit more.

So overall I think this is a nice experiment. You used the Disto relatively well and it could have gone way worse! 4 STARS TO YOU!!

5TanLey responds:

yeah there isn't much of stuff other than bass and drums in this song, could've add some little blips

I don't do "inspiring" experimental beats every time just for sake of being original, I just do whatever works with the rhythm of the instruments, this one does the job in my opinion

thanks for the review :)

[Oh My God What's Going On With My Mind ?]

Hi there,

This song could have been interesting, it just seems that you couldn't cover the technical side of things very well. The weird sounds that come in from time to time (like the pop and "wheeaw" at 0:37) don't fit very well with your soundscape. Try to use eq and compression as well as reverb and distortion to make everything fit a little nicer together. It just sounds like a sound collage to me. your distorted guitar sound sticks out so much its very hard to listen to. I think you wanted to get a glichy feeling for it but in music you need to get everything sounding like one whole piece. Had you executed it a little better i would have given you a way higher score, but this just isn't something I can imagine someone listening to.

2/5 Work on your technical skills ;)

MysteriousPresence responds:

Well thank you very much for those good tips ! =3
I think I'm gonna stop making experimental things on GarageBand because it's just not good (or at least I'm the only one on earth who likes it XD) !
I think I'm gonna stick to my Orchestral-House style ! =3
Thanks again ! Hope you'll like the next ones better ! :P

[tNv "Starfall"]

Hi there,

first off, I'm not trying to be rude or anything just trying to give criticism to your work.

So now that we got that out of the way let's start:

You intro sounds quite interesting the arp melody is nice and pleasant and sort of catchy. But as soon as the riser/whitenoize kicks in it instantly downgrades your soundscape (for me anyways). It sounds way too unedited and boring. Try to use something thats a little more fitting to the mood you created.

In the next part your Drums have reverb on them, which with all that compression you put on it just sounds like you would have recorded them in a bucket. You also changed the mood totally from what it was before. The synth that comes in with the drums is also very raw and doesn't sound very rich and professional. The riser problem continues with the sweep down you do at the start of your break. The strings in the are badly eqed and kind of pierce my ears a bit. Also you dont have a buildup infront of your first drop where the sawy bass synth comes in which doesn't excite the listener much. It doesn't really have a lot of impact. The drum part afterwards again has the same problem with the reverb. It just sounds shabby.

You have a lot of variety in this song though, try to piece it together a bit better and you could create something a lot nicer. Work on your sounddesign or use and tweak (dont forget to tweak) presets to give it a more professional sound. Learn how to create a fitting buildup for your drops and how to structure them. It's all out there with tutorials on youtube for example.

So to conclude, you had some nice ideas like with the intro arp, but you failed to put it all in a fitting context and didn't engineer your sounds to my liking.

2,5/5

tNava responds:

Thanks for the constructive criticism. The reason that it isn't professional is because it is made on mobile, which limits my abilities. Hopefully I will use music software such as FL Studio soon.

[Nine Echoes - Gold Rush]

nicely done on the mixing front, but you should work on your composing skills. this thing seems like one loop repeating over nearly 4 minutes. try to mix things up a little. I mean you don't even have to be crazily creative. there is a formula to nearly every edm style nowadays. get those 4 chord melodys going dude! ;) also I didn't particularly like the piano sound. IMHO you can always hear a cheap piano vst. try buying a good one if you can afford it. also dude you shouldn't care about your rating. sure it sucks but thats just the way sometimes here on newgrounds. just enjoy that overall (until now) you got 19 guys to download your track aint that something. and now work on your compositions! :D

see ya in the NGAUC

NevoMusic responds:

Thanks for reviewing! I really appreciate the time you took to help me out, and I'll be sure to learn from everything you suggested. I'm glad the mixing was ok, this is the first song of mine that I was 100% proud of the mixing. And yes, I totally agree with your point about composition. That sort of stuff seems to be the thing I'm told about most in these reviews. I'm learning, but it takes time. As for the piano, I've got a couple good VSTs, and for this song I used one I'd never tried before, so I didn't do the greatest job with it. Thanks for the review, it was very insightful! And I definitely won't let the zero bombers get to me, I've dealt with enough of them that they've become a minor annoyance.

[Open Spaces]

Interesting, is the word I would describe this song with. You really went all out and explored different sounds with this.

The detuned lead-ish sound that comes in at around 1:00 is cool, for a time, I think it would have probably been better if you used it more sparingly or more accentuated. you fade it nicely into the next sound which kind of sounds like a bell, maybe you could have accentuated that sound with the detuned one. In any case, it moves on nicely to the 8-bit style chords at 2:30. but then at 3:00 you break it up, it doesn't come as smooth as the previous transitions, it kind of sounds like a totally different song at this point. allthough the sounddesign is still intressting it kind of breakes the mood a little to much for my taste. then you come back to the theme in the beginnng which kind of makes the track remind you of what it was. the detuned lead at around 5:00 is a little too weired for my taste, it's really off key, ok it probably was your intention to make it so but it takes getting used to. the break at 6:00 really nicely opens up the track.
it get's lighter and the listener get's much needed release. I think you brought in the beat a little too early more space and athmosphere would have been a better choice here in my opinion. then you go to a whole different section again with your sounddesign and also the melody, again I think a little too much, nothing reminds me that this is still the same song. Same thing applies to the last part: whole new section might as well be another track...

So to conclude: It's a very diversified Song with a lot of sounddesign and clearly a lot of work put in to it! I just think you missed a chance to tie it all up together to make one coherrent track out of it, it jumps to much from one part to another and doesn't really have the connecting parts to keep it all under one theme. This could have easily been 4 tracks.

To get to your mixing: It's good, nothing amazing though. erverthing sounded nicely balanced against one another but nothing really blew me away. Use the stereofield a little more directly, everything seemed a little too wide and so a little mushy.

Anyways nice song, try and keep it a little more consistent on your next piece ;)

4/5

Voltus

GdabZ responds:

Thanks for your very detailed feedback. It helps!