trunotfals's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Wolves (Ft. Andy Chamberlain)]

Alright first off this intro is SOLID. No complaints here. Great mixing and vibe and just. WHAT IS COMING NEXT. OOF. Ive honestly listened to this intro like 5 times before the rest of the song.

Your transitions throughout the song are super solid. Introducing and taking out elements, bring back in elements from earlier in the song, and i love the very "cinematic thing" that you do with the slow bending of the pitch for discomfort. I love that sound so much.

Now for some Critique, I love your lyrics, and i love the idea of the text to speech. If i listened to the sound of the rap vocals by themselves, i love the effects you added to it so much, however, it doesnt sit IN your mix, it sits above your whole mix. Your whole mix becomes a backround to this creepy inhuman speech as if its a movie and not a song or rap. It becomes very hard to associate the rap with the song, instead, the song is a background. it can be hard to mix vocals into a mix but the biggest thing ive found through many trial and error, is just get rid of any sounds that are competing with the vocal's frequencies. That way you can bring your vocals down, not over the mix, but back INTO the mix, and maybe if you really want one of those voices to be heard that you took out, just eq out the frequencies enough to make the voice clear. Vocals can be tough.

the section at 1:27 is actually really cool, lots of good stuff going on and i love the vibing, and the really cool reggae like rhythm you added, makes it uncomfortable, but in a good way. But it REALLY needs sidechain compression on your kick. Its the bread and butter of producing, i want that kick to be heard, and you cant at all. If its not there, a kick really needs to be there. wouldve made this section TASTY AS HECK.

Now your transition are very good, however it is super clear that each section is different from the last, i know you were going for a kind of collage of styles, this can still be achieved by keeping some elements of the last idea, bleeding them into the next one, then going into your next idea (Queue ADR3-N's link he's been posting that i dont have right now once he reviews this song please oh please link it ADR lol)

The whole 2:29 section is great i dont want to focus on that. not much complaints there.

Now your jazzy section, If i take out all of the music except the solo, the solo is SO GOOD, but the solo voice is mixed way too loud above everything else. it becomes a background again. I promise we wouldve heard that voice if you turned it down like 4-10 db, let it sit IN your music. I know you want it to be heard, but it will be heard purely on the fact that its so active, expressive, and a GREAT solo. what happens when you mix it that loud and then put the compression you have on your master, is that gets brought up SO much more, while the quieter stuff only gets brought up a little bit.

Ending was hard (as in like this goes HARD),and your kick is PUNCHY here. the ending was gritty and gross and great, and it makes me sad to have not heard the kick in your section after the rap. I wanted more of that ending, it felt a bit sudden for it to end that way.

If you make it through, or even if you dont, I really would love to see what you got for us, and see you improve your mixes. Bring those main ideas that you've turned up INTO your mix, not above it, sidechain your kick and you got some spicy tasty goodies coming out of that brain of yours.

great submission to the NGUAC!!

uvimusic responds:

Dang, this is an amazing review! Yes, mixing is definitely my weakest point and I'll definitely go end up changing the things that you said could be improved. I'm glad you liked it though!

[Dark Rarity]

Im loving this creepy intro a lot, it IS very low heavy until the piano comes in. Good strings at :33, creating a lot of tension. All of your instruments are sitting way above your drums in the whole song. I cant hear your kick much at all except for the very low end, some sidechain compression and overall compression on the kick can help this, even turning it up.

Biggest piece of advice is to mix your whole to song to be balanced, but never hitting a threshhold above -6db, THEN, form there, you can master and add compression, multiband compression, or your choice of mastering plugin and bring the piece to life. The drums are just very quiet for me, i can only hear your snares and kick in the fills when nothing is happening at all.

I love the effects and feeling youve created at the end of your piece, and a huge part of me nerded out when i heard the picardy third at the last chord of your piece, because you talked about the characters english facade, I'm just going to assume you did that on purpose because it is SO on par for this old english facade you mentioned haha.

Over all i love the idea of this piece! It had a hard time feeling like it sat in minor major without properly transitioning from minor to major using borrowed chords or more advanced theory techniques. But i love your transitions, and i love the vibe you've created! Love the begginning of the second drop a lot!

All of your melodies dont seem to sit in a reckognizeable area for me. They dont follow a consistent rhythmic structure and i just wanted something to latch onto the whole piece, and only found myself attempting to do so on your chords.

Love your ideas and i think this piece is wonderful! thanks for the usbmission to the NGUAC(amole)

TheSentiment responds:

Thank you for this in-depth review! It's extremely helpful, I'll try my best to make some fixes, but I am new to the whole mixing and mastering thing. I did do that picardy third at the end on purpose, but for a different reason. I love it when people give super helpful reviews like this, it helps me improve. After this round of the contest is over, I'll upload some fixes if I can remember to. Thanks again!

[Every Little Issue]

First impression, LOVE your vocals, the effect could possibly bring down some of the high end in the eq, but man, your voice is very good. Very good melody writing on the vocals.

Spicy tasty chord progression throughout. Great vocal balance on the chorus, I could use a little more high end on the kick, not too much, just something to define that kick a little more, and my headphones are pretty low end clear. Good stereo spacing in the mix, this is a great mix and master overall. I love the idea of the song as a whole so muuuch.

I have a disadvantage at judging live recorded tracks and really need to get my musical hands in the realm of live audio recording and production. I dont know the struggles and challenges or any advice to give you. Is sidechain compression a thing that can even be DONE on a live audio track, or SHOULD be done? Thats about the only huge gripe I have.

Over all i like the original structure, a three part pouring of your heart out.

I especially love the RAW vocals. meaning how they are BENT with emotion and seemingly sadness. You're not trying to impress ANYONE with the tone of your voice, yet, that does all the impression it needs to. its raw, it emotional, great work. Great voice.

Love the vocal writing, love the lyrics, I'm impressed! Great ending and outro, WELL DONE!

Great submission to the NGUAC!

TheRealFool responds:

Thank you for the review! Regarding side chain compression, I don't think the musical gods will smite anyone who uses it for live recordings, but I personally prefer not to so as to not make it sound too electronic. That being said, maybe just a small bit of compression could work to make the kick pop more without making it sound overly produced, maybe I'll give that a shot next time.

Glad to hear you enjoyed it!

[Majesty]

Great intro to start off with. I think the lower tones on that bas voice are a little low end heavy, yet, your kick cuts through enough, but i want that kick to be louder still.

After 40 seconds, that bass voice is a little overpowering and i my ear wants to hears something different.

great change of pace at :50

The melody voice at 1:00 is super quiet.

I feel like a little more layering of your samples couldve given all of this song a bit more life. layer that bass voice with another, layer your melodies with another voice, use 2-5 snares (im not even kidding haha) and balance everything to sound how you want it. the piano lick that goes all fast sound a bit chaotic, doesnt have a lot of melodic content. I really like your vocal synth in the very beginning, and i feel like that never comes back.

Yea the kick needs to cut through, do some research on sidechain compression with your kick, sidechain compression is the bread and butter of a producer.

Overall im loving the vibe you created here and I think this song could have a lot of potential if those drums, hats, and snares, and all your voices could be brought to life with some layering!!!

Great submission to the NGUAC!

ArramEggleston responds:

Thanks for the review! I did use sidechaining, but I guess I didn't make it strong enough.

[Ghost Warriors - We Are Shensians! (Vocal)]

Well im not going to do my review in russian hahaha cause it would just be thrown into google translate.

Firstly, i LOVE the characters in the translation and I love the personality throughout the whole song. Really great Ideas all throughout, and after throwing ADR3's review into google translate, I fully agree with nearly everything he said.

The guitars tone just dont sound quite spot on for me, they sound like the synth guitars in the old doom soundtrack. thats not a BAD thing, but they werent overall mixed well along with the drums when everything is happeneing. I love the sound of the guitars muted however, that was cool like in the section at 1:08, i loved that whole section until the organ like synth comes in, that particular synth i just feel doesnt fit the song very well. the synth at 1:24 is GREAT. I love the dialogue in between the sections and how those are used AS transitions allmost, love the style of all of this. Albeit i cant understand russian haha. now, sometimes the vocals are hard to even hear over everything, except when i CAN hear them over everything, then i cant hear everything else very well. Utilizing some smart arrangement can help, get rid of instruments in the same register as whatever vocals are active at the moment. Many many many metal bands design their songs entirely around the vocal register of their singer.

The drums are pretty good, however the snare has a little too much reverb, sidechaining might come in handy for the kick when there is a lot going on, and maybe layer or add some more effects to your snare. i know this isnt edm, so in this case you want one drum, but i wanted that snare to punch me in the face more, ITS ROCK. Making it cut through the mix could be as simple as adding reverb delay, some slight sidechain compression, or just cleaning up the other voices that are doing things in the same register as the punch tone, around 250-350.

Other than that not much else, i love the style and the personality throughout!

GhostWarriors responds:

Thank you very much for a detailed description of my shortcomings and mistakes!
I will try to take them into account in my next compositions, but everything requires experience and practice, so I'm not sure that I can achieve an acceptable result in the shortest possible time.

[Progressing Degrees of Insanity]

After Trailing off of all your reviews in the NGUAC, I had to come check out some of your music,

I love djent, i love your djenty bits. The djenty bits sound pretty darn good. I guess I'm spoiled with djent and im obSSESSED with guitar tone, and yours leaves a bit to be desired, but this is a HUGE nitpick, because it still sounds pretty good. Plus their guitar tones takes thousands of dollars of pedals and experimentation and probably half of the bands invested time over YEARS and amps and mics and blah blah blah. I dont know what equipment you got, so I'm not too worried. The Guitar does seem a bit loud at points for my ears, however not much is going on with it, and the percussion and synths still cut through the mix so i cant complain too much.

This truly IS insanity haha.

Honestly great job, this intrigues me in a disturbing way but thats not a bad thing by any measure, and I can't imagine you wanted me to react to this with a feeling of joy haha. GOOD STUFF

ADR3-N responds:

Wow, I didn't expect this. Thank you :3

You wouldn't guess unless you were a guitarist probably, but I use guitar synths. RealEight and Shreddage II. That may be the tone issue. I'm still trying to refine that in a way that I like. Synths are very touchy. For my tone, I use GrindMachine Amp, plus or minus FabFilter Multiband Compressor and Saturn. So no need to spend thousands of dollars on a rig, and then even longer learning to use it well. Just hours programming a synth, haha.

I have some more recent pieces down my news feed that I can't post here, that might sound a little better guitar wise, like Dream Fighter/Voyn Mechty you might enjoy. It's a Russian metal cover I translated myself from Japanese Pop group Perfume.

Feel free to send me a piece any time. Music is my favorite thing :)

[BrwGD - Around Midnight]

Agreed with ADR3 on the genre. Very lofi hip hop maybe ambient lofi too. SOmething i definitely would want to listen to in the background while working or playing a casual game.

There are some conflicting notes in your initial melody RIGHT at :42 that i hate that i love cause my mind says "OOOH spicy :)' then my gut hears it conflict and not resolve and doesnt want to like it but the more i make myself want to accept it i start to but i want to hate it but i cant.

I digress. Im sure you know which note im talking about, the one RIGHT at the end of your melody.

WAIT NO I figured it out. The note is a major third in the V chord of Cminor, maybe, I think. So you use a Bnatural instead of a Bflat, but your chord is playing a Bflat Major 11? (Bflat, D, F, and an Eflat) so RIGHT when that Bnatural plays modulate the chord to a passing chord and play G Bnatural D F or another inversion. If this is too much theory for you which i feel like it shouldnt be with your chords in this song, then just play from exactly 38, the moment the chords come in, you have {Bb D Eb F} in the chords, thats a great chord, then on beat four change the chords to {G D F G} (the choice I would make) or {G Bnat D F} or {Bnat D F G} when your melody plays the Bnat AND THEN MOST IMPORTANTLY, when the lead goes to Eb on beat one of the next measure, make THAT a C. Long story short my mind didnt like that that B natural goes to an Eb, it NEEDS to go to the C, or one half step up even if you dont change the chords.

But i still like it. its a SPICY noteball.

Well that was a journey, ill keep it short after all that and hopefully it made sense.

I personally like the kick but I have great headphones, there is NO high end on your kick so in certain systems or speakers noone will know there is a kick there. I like it, keeps the beat very chill and not too overpowered, but i might layer that same kick you have with just the TOP end of another very subdued kick. eq out the low end and keep what you got. I could definitely use some hip hop hi hats at some point in the track, and i LOVE the sub you add in at the end. Not much to say other than that.

ADR3 had it spot on with everything in his review. Great track, great mix, great vibe, well done!

V1ZION responds:

Thanks for your review, I know exactly what you’re talking about at 0:42.

[Displacement]

Loving the atmosphere you create at the beginning, love that lead sound design. The eerie Pedal tone or drone is good and love how it fades out.

Great vibe you've created with the introduction of your drums, love the snare/clap layering, very rounded snare sound.

BOY do I love the way that the initial lead automates throughout the first minute. Great overtones created in that synth. the super high pitched melody at :44 feels a bit out of place for me, but i cant quite put my finger on it. great transitions!

Man all the different sounds you get from automating that initial lead! great variation at 1:30.

SOmething about that super high lead in the second half of your drops. Maybe its just a little much on the high end of its frequencies, possibly warm it up a little bit. It sounds GREAT doubled with the guitar like synth.

Overall I love this song as an ambient song. I TOTALLY see this in the background of Risk of Rain. Or in the background of a space building game like Satisfactory. I can SEE this in a game, but not actively listening. I want to judge this as an ambient piece, because this is a GREAT ambient piece, Great song to be on a game soundtrack. I dont think it's synthwave, however i think newgrounds limits us in our genre selections.

TLDR; as an ambient piece, this is pretty darn good, love your instrumentation, love that MAIN lead and that high lead i learned to appreciate. you need the variance. the structure is VERY repetitive, but that works for ambient. it was A, B, C, A, B, C, A, B, C.

Overall great work! Adding this to my favs.

BrandonTurner responds:

I'm so glad you like it! I really appreciate the kind words and the critique!

[4nZwar3 - Gerund]

~~~~This is an official review from an NGUAC judge for the 2020 NGUAC Knock-out round!!~~~~

First off, I always get scared when I see a waveform that is totally peaked and clipped at the edge of the waveform. That being said...

Once the drums came in at 13, GREAT MIX, super tight, powerful drums, and you can still hear the rest of the mix. So my fears are gone. Great work on mixing.

I will agree with (I'm just going to say ADR3 at this point ahah he's reviewed everything before me ahah.) ADR3 when it comes to the chord progression. It feels like you definitely just moved the chords around within the key with the same intervals. All the notes in the chords move in the same motion always. It's a bit uncomfortable to the ears, but the mind forgets about it once your lead comes in. Honestly once the drums come in for me too.

Whatever that little eerie voice in the back of the stereo image is is GREAT at :12.

This song reminds me of "Spag Heddy - Permanent"

The actually melody is okay. The constant pitch bending and portamento is a little uncomfortable.

The lead is a bit too loud, sits WAY over the mix. great reverb and delay automation at the end of phrases.

Okay this HAS to be inspired by Permanent. Your piano at 1:39 and the structure and transitions are fully inspired by this song. great song!

I will admit I'm wrong if you DIDN'T write this song based off of Spag Heddy's one, but I will put money on it. And it will be weird as HECK for you to listen to that song if you TRULY have never heard it. :)

All that being said, couple things here. The melody that you created comes off as very jarring. I think it wouldve worked better if you used the crazy portamento and pitch bends on one voice, and then doubled it with another voices that played the melody without the portamento and bends at all. it would clarify the idea of the melody and fix it entirely, makes the porta's an accent to the melody. When you hear the melody in the piano at 1:39, its clear and sounds great, a catchy melody. But when the lead comes in by itself and bends all over the place, it makes it seem very confusing and hard to latch onto.

The piano voice you use at 1:39 is GREAT. I can tell its not a blatant sample rip from Spag's song, i WANT that preset haha. Your melody is a bit different and GOOD when played by the piano, however, it is fundamentally similar to spags. Which is fine, this feels like an inspirative song! But its just NOT clear in the lead voice.

Over all, I could also use more sub, the overall structure is a bit weird due to when you decide to bring back in the drums, like the breakdowns at :12 and :38, and how you bring them back in and then back out before your drop. Love the drop though i think some WUB sounds are a bit over mixed, over compressed and eqqued a little uncomfortably.

NOW the drops, once the wub sounds come in, they take over your entire mix, the kicks dont cut through like they were in your breakdowns, the snares are very quiet almost not there, feels like a kick drop. great transitions and ideas for sound design throughout, just all the subby wubby sounds were mixed and compressed SO MUCH over the mix. Great great design though.

I LOVE fake drops as I call them, a drop that builds up into something sounds like its going to be BIG but then drops to something chill. This was 2:51 for you. However the transition into this one was a bit uncomfortable, could used a bigger impact then settle into the fake drop. Just didnt hit home for me.

Overall great work.

Answare responds:

Well, hi! I don't usually "answare" (ik bad pun xd) your reviews from NGUAC because I want you guys to have the final sentence, but it seems that a relpy is necessary for your commentary for two reasons: 1. You think this piece was inspired by Spag Heddy - Permanent, 2. You'd like to get the funny piano preset I used for 1:38.
While the second one is easy to clear out, the first one did indeed scare the heck out of me. It seems like I already knew the song but I didn't remember it completely, only a few things like the melody and a guy cheering up his football team as a predrop vocal, but I might had that melody in my head for years, misunderstanding it with an actual ol' west piece and finally using that as a source of material for this song and another shitty song called "Rotten Hope" here on my page. And that gives us to the second reason: The piano is a free VST called "4Front Piano" which has no modifiable parameters inside of it or whatsoever. I found it while looking for free piano VSTs on a YT video and I liked the sound of it.
Anyway, I hope I've been helpful. For the moment, I can only wish all the participants and myself luck to pass this round. Have a nice day!

[Abendland - Featherblade]

~~~~This is an official review from an NGUAC judge for the 2020 NGUAC Knock-out round!!~~~~

OOOh cinematic okay, here we go.

Great dynamics in the start, very good composition and simple melody, love the theme you created here.

The reverb you put on the mix definitely sounds like you wanted it to sounds like you were listening in a concert hall. I can hear through the muddiness and hope this was your intent!

Great structure and Melody established in the 1:57 area, and good choice of instrumentation on the voicing for your melody when you switch around the ensemble. Doubling flutes with the Glock, Trumps with the 1st violins, Great tambors it sounds like something i would've played in highschool if EVERYONE played MIDI perfect haha.

I WANT your Orchestral plugin please. The dynamics and tambor and articulations in the brass are VERY good in this plugin.

Great Cello counter melody around 3:05 when the violins and flutes are on melody.

Contrary to ADR3, I do think that your percussion cuts through the orchestra similarly to how it would in a Concert hall. Percussion has always cut through an entire orchestra. thats why you have 4 or so percussionist and 80 instrumentalists. It does sound centered, but it still hits the master reverb and bounces around the room. I personally like the reverb that you have added to simulate concert hall.

Over all composition: VERY good at first, love your melodies, but there were only two sections really. You had a great initial intro, And a really great main melody, but the over form is A, B1, A2, B2, B3, C(short interlude with amazing voclists) B4, B5, B6 and so on. I wouldve loved to hear a variation entirely on the melody or a small wind section tutti or something.

Overall, GREAT GREAT GREAT compostion here. WELL DONE.

Abendland responds:

Thanks a lot for your thorough feedback, trunotfals! For brass I mainly used Audio Imperiums Jaeger and Metropolis Ark 1 vst. Yeah, I totally agree on the shortcoming of some alternations in the melodies you‘ve pointed out. I just did not find more time to add in more, sadly.
Cheers, Chris