timaeus222's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Axeph-Null - watermelon mandelbrot]

I liked the mecha sounds at the beginning. I kinda got the vibe of this becoming drum & bass, but it just went hard trance (if I know my subgenres). Fairly repetitive for my personal taste, but the lower-energy sections had promise IMO.

acheney responds:

thanks! 158 bpm is kind of slow for dnb but i can sort of hear that too

i'm in the process of reworking this song a bit and i'll take the advice about reducing repetition :)

[DREADNOUGHT - planetshine]

That's some power lol :) Normally I'm not a fan of brostep because the sidechaining can be overbearing, but I figured I'd check it out. A tip is that the mix is quite high on the treble, so low passing the 18000+ Hz range should help a bit.

An example song I like to compare to for this kind of dubstep to check loudness is "Schizophrenic" by Kruai. Hope that helps!

acheney responds:

thanks!

i already low passed at around 16k, but i did boost the treble a bit because it sounded better compared to the references i was using. the arrangement is quite dense anyway so that could have contributed to high treble too

[Dust And Hope In The Wastelands]

Takes a while to get going, but I can see the intent here. Good job nailing the vibe! However, there is an audio glitch at 0:17, and the choir overtakes the piano when it comes in at 2:24. Try to watch out for when your instruments step on each other.

JThunderDraws responds:

I knew about the audio glitch when I posted it. I'll be tweaking it later. The Choir is supposed to overtake the at 2:24, or be around the same audio level. It was intentional!

[Lucky (ft. kitty girl)]

It's alright, but the organic instruments are exactly quantized, and the overall production is too loud compared to the average dubstep.

[Canon in D (DJ F-infinity-X)]

To be honest, the drums up until 1:14 were not working at all. They were obstructing the Sytrus strings, real or not. Try to think about the purpose of each instrument in the mix. Drums are there to lend rhythm, not be in front, even in a Drum 'n Bass song. Even Drum 'n Bass songs have breakdown sections where the drums are a bit softer than the rest of the instrumentation. I think you can do much better than this. ;)

[Kaleidoscope - DJ F-infinity-X]

The bells in this mix seem a little dry. Maybe adding some wide reverb or stereo delay on them might have helped. This mix is also kind of repetitive with basically the same three notes playing over and over again in the square wave arpeggio (with some variation but not much).

When making songs, try thinking of ways to keep people listening. Listen to your own songs objectively and think about when a person might find a song would get boring. Then figure out how to keep their attention. ;)

[Lock On! - YASAKA]

The lead isn't as expressive as it could have been, as it was just a triangle wave with no vibrato, whether with a quick or slow attack curve, but everything else was pretty good. The snare is prominent.
Around 0:59, though, the kick seems to get lost in the reverb. The low passing hit at 1:20 was also a bit much in the highs for me, but that's alright.

You did a pretty good job with this overall though, keep it up. :)

[My Goodbye Dubstep Cover]

I usually don't like Dubstep. The non-Dubstep parts were fantastic. However, the dubstep sections actually weren't half bad. They're a bit intense, but I guess it depends on the person. I prefer Dubstep like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7eaUf AEFGg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVroBe vvhmM

Nevertheless, this was quite nice.

[No Substitute]

That's hilarious. Nice inclusions. :P

[Fairy's Fountain Loop]

Okay, time to be honest and not to fall for the soothing melodies.

The lead synth could be changed up to a softer one somewhere in the middle, but that's just preference. Also, it is just barely too loud as a lead. If its mix level were to be dropped by a marginal amount, it would allow the background choir aahs and bells to become less subdued.

Otherwise, quite nice, actually.

VGSongbird responds:

I was trying to keep them subdued, but I do see your point.
Thanks for listening. :)