xKore's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[<Open air>]

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Nice song but:

Your kick wasn't punchy enough, if you listen to any commercial stuff these days they won't be using kicks like these, you need to have more punch in the mid area and the high-lows to give it that drive and punch.

Your other percussion like your hats and rides didn't sound that dynamic, I've heard those samples before and it doesn't sound like anything has been done to them to mix them into the peice better. I would recommend EQing, managing there levels and adding slight reverb to give it more depth and prescence, right now they sound kinda flat.

Also, there's no real melody, you have a chord progression and a bassling but they haven't been used to create a unique melody, all you've done is chop/arp the chords and porta'd it.

There was that sweep at the end aswell, I think you should've used it throughout the song to emphasise the builds and the climaxes.

Anyway, good luck with future projects.

Rawmin responds:

Thanks for the indepth review. I'm rather new as far as mastering, so I hope to do more in future projects.

[{STALES} Clubland Loop]

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You need better synths, rather than just detuned squares or whatever you used, also they went off time in a few places I think.. but the slides were pretty catchy though.

Also your beat is pretty weak, you need better quality, stronger kicks and offbeat bass. And you need to mix and master it properly.

Joegame9 responds:

Thanks for the advice.

I will spend a lot more time with more tracks coming soon!!

[Trance Intro (short)]

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Your beat is still very weak, your not using the FL default samples are you? It'd be better if you got yourself some better samples and mixed and mastered it better. Also seems a bit empty without pads and a good bass in there.

DjSirah responds:

Before you even wrote that, you should read what i have wroten on my page..

[Celtic Dreaming Edit]

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Nice song. It really does sound good around 1:20 when it starts to get into it. Nice composition, flows nicely and is pleasent to the ear. To improve it I think you could try and slight reverb on the instruments to make it more spatial and not so flat, also helps to give instruments more flow and slightly prevents that machine gunning effect on some instruments. But yeah, nice song :D

BlazingDragon responds:

Thanks, I like to consider piano my forte. ;) As for the reverb, I just edited the song and added more. I also tweaked some other stuff, added some very subtle strings in the background, changed some parts around, but it is still the same song. I should have it up in an hour or so. (Hopefully the reverb will have helped!)

Thank you for the review. :)

[Modern Waltz]

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Some instruments in their were way over-reverbed. Also you need to work on your mixing, not all instruments were as clear as they could be and mastering would also help get it to a nice loud volume.

Zhanli responds:

ye... the previous version did have some reverb issues. I used a really bad midi converter. But the re uploaded version is alright.

[DJ Cytrus-Crying (Preview)]

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I would say it's dance, but with technoish elements.

Also the song has just one chord progression throughout. It doesn't go anywhere or flow, it just stays pretty much the same throughout. Also at this tempo you'd expect to have a hard beat with hard kicks and sidechained pads and the likes but this just seems to soft melody based for this tempo. And you gotta work on your sounds, mixing and mastering.

[C&C - Warfare]

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You should learn how to use Slayer better or some other guitar emulation because it sound so robotic. Also your drums are rather flat and lifeless.

[DJ Cytrus-Fading Away (Test)]

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Nice melodies etc like other people said.

The song is also clipping like mad. The master channel in the FX should never reach the red section, otherwise you'll get clipping like this, which makes the other instruments lose sound and so end up sounding like noise. You should learn to mix, master and get some less generic sounds, especially your pads, before you think about submitting any serious trance/dance tracks up here.

["We Are the Future" -[N]-]

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Good overall production, nice sweeps and song structure and quite clean.

The reason I gave you 8 stars is because you built on probably the most overused chord progression there is, and considering you only had FL Studio default sounds I would've thought that more attention would be in the melodies and chord progressions. Also, I thought the offbeat bass could've been harder and more driven because right now it sounds watery and weak.

Anyhoo, good luck with future productions and good luck in the contest.

Nintechno responds:

Thanks for the solid review.
As this is my first dive into dance, I'm not surprised there are alot of things to work on, but hey, thats how we improve.
Ill take everything you said into consideration ^^

[([ARiP2 The E Remix])]

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HEy, some great synths and arps in this but you need to work on your mixing a bit more, the kick is almost non-existant, the offbeat bass was way too sharp and not bassy and when it kicked in it took volume from the other pads and synths.

anyway, good luck with your future tracks :3

DrDIL responds:

thanks xkore :)

yeah, I totally suck at mixing :P gotta practice that sometime...