Khuskan's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[PX9 Airbass/Zero Gravity Remix]

Woah.

ParagonX9 is a man, baby.

Can't believe people fell for that one.

[Dub(01)]

Not too shabby

You're definatly on the right tracks for dubstep. Your arrangement, rhythms and structure was spot on, but you really need to work on the sounds produced. The bass is incredibly grating at the start and I had to floor my amp volume before I deafened myself.

The drums are also, in my opinion, a bit too dirty, and could also benefit from some reverb.

[Franswa - 4:40 AM]

Lovely

Nice trip-hop you got going there. You need to clear up you loops a bit in a wave editor, sometimes the transition from sample to sample is not as smooth as it could be. Is there a tempo discrepancy? I'd advise porting them into Recycle to make them more manageable.

Maybe it's just because I'm a Portishead fan, but I really expect vocals in a track like this...

[Another Day & Night Rmx]

Pretty good

Not a bad little trance song, good progression throughout and solid melodies.

Main complaints are in the percussion - the drums are somewhat wishy-washy, which means the track isn't carrying a very strong beat. The lead on top also sounds very thin, and could be EQ'd out so it stands more out over the percussion. Also, kill or rework that crash cymbal - it feels REALLY tacked on.

The rhythmic lead also, in my opinion, sounds a bit too much like the melody lead.

Nice delay setup on your melody there.

Also the track lacks any sort of bass... Perhaps that is why it feels so thin?

Airprogressive responds:

yeah. I don't know the reason, but this track doesn't sound very powerfull. At first I used another drums but in my opinion they were too hard. I didn't wanted to create a har trance version (like axel coon's version of this track) but you're probably right when you point out that something is missing that makes the song look thin

[Solus- For Schala]

HYAKUGOUICCHI

Tiny little too much verby verb on that piano, also saxes are terribly hard to make sound good even with the best VSTs, I recommend swapping it in for a flue or clarinet, as what you have written is a bit low for saxes, and listning to the rest of the track, I really don't think the saxy harsh tones suit the breathy, light style of the track anyway.

The writing itself though is wonderful, even if a little bit difficult (though still possible) for piano. I myself am bored of people writing totally impossible to play piano music thinking it's awesome when anyone with a trained ear can hear how difficult it is. This piano writing in this has a lovely waft of 20th century minimalism.

Personal preference here, I absolutely despise pan-pipes, not that anything is wrong with how you implemented them though. All too new-agey for me. Swap em for strings IMO.

Wonderful none the less, 5'd!

SolusLunes responds:

Yeah, that was one of the main reasons I wanted you to check out mah track- to see if I had written it impossible. I didn't think I had, but I was getting there :D

FUX YOU AND YOUR NON-LIKING OF THE PANPIPES. THEY ARE TEH AWESOME.

And I did swap the sax in for a flute + clarinet when I was writing this, and strings as well, and none of them just seemed to have quite the power of it.

Meh, maybe I'm biased- I'm a saxophonist anyways :D

[Inside Me.]

An objective review

Interesting use of sound effects. I'll have to tell you now that this isn't really classical, and placing this in the 'ambient' section was a wise decision.

It has vaguely Nyman-esque filmscore qualities, a subtle minimalism, and from a gamers point of view, with wonderful similarities to Schymans' score for BioShock - though yours is somewhat less harsh on the ears due to it not being event music.

From a technical point of view, there are a few issues, mostly volume related. You did an excellent fade between the bells and piano around 1:19. The string samples seem somewhat sub-par with the rest of the track and let it down a bit, you would do well to replace them or play with the envelope settings on your sampler to create a smoother sound.

Oh, and I especially enjoyed the Cage tribute consisting of total silence between 2:15 and 3:21 - I've had things like that slip by me before!

preffertobedead responds:

LOL! i didn't realized that!!!...the silence wasn't meant to be there between 2:15 and 3:21.....lol..i slipped that...oh well..im human...=)

[The Windows Vista Song]

Woah.

I'm not sure whether it's the way you used the samples or wahtever, but sir, this truely awesome.

Sounds like a sort of upbeat lemon jelly, especially that intro... wow.

[\Crazy Synth/]

Nice start!

Definatly better than most peoples first attempts. It had a nice sort of trance bass to it. It needs a tiny bit more eqing to the lower frequencies, and the synth gets annoying, but again it's definatly a good start.

What you should look into next is producing your first full (i.e. not loop) track. Plan it out, have 3 sections (start, middle, end) where the start and end are the same but middle is different.

Also look into downloading some more drum samples for FL (if that is indeed what you're using - I recognise a few of those sounds). It will make your tracks sound more proffesional.

Blizzard7 responds:

Thanks! I have a friend who sounds a lot more professional than I am, so I'm going to ask him to send some drum samples for me. Thanks again!