Decibel's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[A State Of Trance]

Sounds like W&W..

This is so crisp - I liked it, well done.

The percs in the beginning remind me of W&W, those two make some good tech trance and this seems a lot like it, so good job on that part of the song.
Sample wise, you chose quite a nice array of synths and percs on your end ;; the choices couldn't have been better, except for that pluck you used for the main melody, I didn't love it, It'd be cool to hear a full square wave rather than the pluck you used.

Anyway, that's my two cents - Good luck with this, it's very good.

[Decibel (Chimera)]

Fived and Faved!

Dude, Love this - thanks so much ;; I got everything I was gong for and I appreciate it a lot :D

ChimeraNoise responds:

There's more coming as I have free time ;)

[HT || Not So Suspenseful WIP]

Hm, Not Half Bad! :D

The intro was approriate, it was pretty good to start off the track with - You chose a good kick and synth, but It lead to a slight disappointment, because the song itself seems hollow, I'd add a sub-bass to fill-in.

Other than that, I'd work on the synths a little too, it seems that the stereo image of it all was pretty hollow too, especially that saw synth. I'd suggest slightly chaning the EQ shape.

So Yeah, good start, work on it! :)

HyperTrough responds:

It's been finished for over a month now...

[-A New World-]

Pretty damn sexy, to say the least.

Ok, the intro started off okay, but despite having a good structure and all that, it could have used some really low bass notes, just to compliment it all.

Also, I hate that snare :P

Other than that it's beautiful :3 Good Job!

Fav'd.

Step responds:

Thanks Dan!

Weird that you don't like the snare because quite a few people seem to like it. But hey, you're quite picky about your snares huh? :3

Thanks for the review, it's also pretty damn sexy. Hope school's going alright with you!

[Masq - Flimsy]

Brilliant!

This is quite a funky piece you got here, quite a head-bobber.

I just stopped by to congratulate you on your synth work, flawless!

Good job.

jpbear responds:

The whole bassline is one synth actually, with a ton of automation :)

Glad you enjoyed broo.

[KKS - Contact]

The Effects, just wow.

The intro is very nice, it builds a spectacular ambience and prepares me for what is to come. My favourite thing could possibly be that phasing low-pass sounding stab being automated, it just sounds wonderful. The rest of the intro was very well layed out, good job on that. What could be a slight problem is leveling. As I mentioned earlier I love the phasing synth but I feel it could be slightly lower, volume-wise, other than that it's just wonderful.

With this track being ambient and all, I didn't expect much of a climax myself, but I was expecting something, and when the bit-crushed drums kicked in, I was not disappointed. they added a whole new level to the track, and they themselves weren't bad, although they could just be compressed slightly.

I'm up to 1:36 and the proper drums finally kicked in, they are spectacular, I love both the rythm and the samples themselves, and I have totally nothing to comlain about, this part is just spectacular, the tambourines sound very nice too by the way!

The strings on top of the drums sound so good, they give me the feeling of innocence - I don't know why but that is just what they seem to portray in my opinion. The mixing of it all was quite good but I felt the strings could use slightly less reverb and just a notch more of high-band to give them a bit more presence.

I know it's ambient and all, but at 3:40 or so, despite the choir being added, it started to get repetetive. A nice vibrato saw lead would be nice right now, just automate its volume and let it in slowly, it wouldn't be much but a lead melody is everything in music nowadays.

Ah, strings again. As I said before they sound quite good despite having slightly too much reverb and no enough high-band on them.

Also, just as a side-note, that crash cymbal was way too loud, decrease the volume a bit.

Ah, finally, a melody! This sounds like a Pan Flute being played really high, I truly fell in love with this, it not only is a good and sustainable melody, but the instrument itself shines a light on the song and gives it an overall spectacular feel.

The final bit was extremely calm and soothing but that sweep/white noise thing was too long to handle, I had to move further in the song myself just to avoid it. It's not that it sounds all bad, but it could use some filtering and maybe phaser or reverb to even it out.

All in all, this is nothing like I've ever heard before, I quite like it. It sounds as if it should be in the Shadow the Hedgehog game or a Video Game demo.

Wonderful Job!

9/10
5/5

KKSlider60 responds:

Thank you, Decibel! I'm glad you enjoyed it :D
Yeah I'm still a bit of a noob when faced to production and proper equalization, something I would train in the days ahead. These reviews are a good reminder for me to not spam too much certain things over some other ones, and try focusing on the technical aspect of a track. Right now it's more of a emotion vs technique kind of thing, y'know... If I have to judge by the reviews alone, I'd say it's a generally well done track, despite the cons which I can now consider as minor. And I totally agree with that, thanks to all the feedback I got so far. =)
Thanks again, you too keep up making some awesomeness :D
KKS

[Under the Surface (FINAL)[?]]

Finnally!

I've never thought I'd see the day :3 The first time I heard this was about 1 and a half years ago - And it was my first Newgrounds Audio Portal Submission over here, and when I saw 70% I kept waiting for it to finish - and here it is ;D

Simply Perfect! :D

10/10
5/5
Fave
Download!

Shoephly responds:

Finally I can rest knowing I've done all i could for this piece!

I've had so many people telling me to finish it, and that's why I had so many versions of it, even had a piece with electro house in the middle (definitely didn't serve it right)

Just goes to show that I can't really make music while forcing myself to do it.
if it takes 2 years to make a decent song, so be it. xD

Yet again thanks alot for the help, and for this review!

-shoephly

[~Beta~ FlyNaut]

Funky.

Your songs never cease to amaze me, you have built a way of making certain atmospheres and subscapes no one on NG can match up to, I have to congratulate you for that. This song got me in a trance but still got my head and legging bobbing along to the beat. It creates an ambience but still proves to be a witty song on the dancefloor, and unlike many deadmau5 songs, despite the resemblance, is quite full and well built.

The synths were beyond awesome, I loved every part of them, especially the plucks, the pahser on them was a nice touch, and I loved it when the cutoff start increasing and turning into a saw wave, well done dude!

There are some mixing issues on my part though, despite it being terribly clear and wreaking on awesomeness, the mix is a bit muddy, I suggest maybe adding a compressor to the saws in the background a 2:47 and maybe increasing the high-band on them by just a bit.

The drums were classic aliaspharow, properly sequenced, tightly compressed and nonetheless funky above eveyrthing else :p One problem I encountered though is with the shakers, I'd add a barely noticable delay to them and then add a compress with the gain at about -1.5 or so, They seem to 'in the way' for my tastes. But that reverse hat, that was awesome.

Quite a good structure in general, it didn't get very repetetive although it could have used a 16-32 bar breakdown of some sorts, but that's just personal preference. I love the way everything else gradually changed, the transitions were quite cool too.

You have this arp-ish sort of thing at 2:21 with the square plucks, it's 3 notes, but oh so much reverb. i'd rather have it dry and with some ping-pong delay instead of reverb, It just ruins the mix IMO

The rest of the song was quite good, your usual If I do say so myself, I'd be quite proud of it If I were you, you rarely find songs of this caliber on NG, especially in the house section.

Going into my 7th hearing of this hehe :P

Anyway, good job, take care of that mixing problem and you're good to go.

10/10
5/5
Fave'd

aliaspharow responds:

damn man.... Epic review! I really appreciate it.

Most of the time i spent working on this song were adjusting all the little details on thoes synths :3 I'm glad someone noticed! The mix was very muddy when you heard it but i changed things around so it should sound a bit clearer now... It's still not perfect but i guess i'm no expert. I tried what you said and it helped a bit :D. I'm glad you noticed the percs also! A delay you say? Now i havnt tried that... I wanted to make a breakdown but I'm really trying to make my mixes more Club Friendly and a breakdown doesnt help much in that situation. Lol and I am addicted to reverb :3 I actually have it set at No Decay at 2:21 thats why it sounds like that! That's how i do my drops these days.

Anyhow thanks again for the review of awesomeness! Great advice.

[Hyper-Vigilance]

Trance :l

This would be classified as a trance track because progressive would have a steady beat troughout the song, whereas this lacks a drum beat for about 2 minutes, which is a distinguishing feature found commonly in trance tracks, rather than house, so yeah, I rest my case :P

I particularly like that drum beat, it gives me that nostalgic feeling of when I used to play playstation 1 demos with my cousing, it would be something similar to that drum beat with some 303 acid sequence on top of it, NOSTALGIA :D

That plucked synth sounds slightly detuned, out of personal preference I'd remove all the detuning and give it a more clean, uniform sound, to keep everything calm and trancy.

You have a square-saw bass on top of the drum beat, I'm guessing it's 3xosc. It doesn't sound quite good on it's own, but layer it with a sine wave with a very low frequencey and distort the hell out of it, and you have a wonderful song, then simply side-chain to perfection ;p

My only big problem is that this song lacks variation, It's just a pluck and drum beat with some other extra stuff layered on it for four minutes, Why not add a break and outro to it? Or add some intense drum and bass solo just for lulz.

Can't really comment much on the mix, it sounds moderately clean, I'd compress the percussion just slightly though.

It's a good track, it just needs some work on it.

If you had to shorten the track, and keep the same stuff, it would sound much less repetitive and definitely better :)

good job.

9.10 and 5/5

[M3- Prepare for Launch]

Uplifting :)

This is just amazing, I haven't heard something so uplifting in quite a while on here, the melodies you made are just wonderful and the chord progression is none the less spectacular, Wonderful job on that, you couldn't have made this any nicer melody-wise

It's a shame it's so short though, It wouldn't have hurt to make some kind of break with a tremolo triangle solo, like in the sonic games, now that would have been cool.
Yes you are going to extend it, no questions ask, kthxbai.

Now, Synth-Wise, they're nothing too special, to tell you the truth they sound like one of those stock saw presets that come with Sytrus on FL Studio. What'd be cool is if you replace the very first synth (the one with an arpegiated melody) with a violin, that would definitely be the icing on the cake in this track, because all it needs is some changing around.

The piano is way too dry for a song like this, Add some reverb and inverted delay with a slight offset, but don't let the delay get too loud, otherwise it would 'hide' the entire track.

What is definitely lacking in this song is the bass levels, I'm listening to this with a sub-woofer and have yet to hear a good sub-bass or anything at all. Adding a sub-bass would build ground for the song and give it 'bones', metaphorically speaking :P

Drums were alright, we could have done without the kick-hat-clap-hat thing but it's what the kids like nowadays, so no problem there hehe :)

Leveling was quite nice, the first track I've heard today which isn't too loud or soft, good job again.

Wonderful track, one of my favourites from the tracks I reviewed today, keep this up mate :)