DexiAntoniu's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[|R|Night of the Zombie]

It's great. But the first 40 seconds of it could be shortened. There is a sort of unnecessary long progression until around 0:40 when you hear all the instruments together. I'd personally remove like a full two bars of the progression and replace them with two bars of the thing going on from 0:40 until 0:45, when the break comes.
To explain ( and not sound like a twat): that main loop is quite interesting, and I believe that the instrumental progression until you hear all those instruments, before the 0:45, makes you lose the excitement of the whole thing.

Because you hear it in pieces, as it progresses, and it already bores a bit the ear until you get to what you really mean.

The riff is very interesting, and nice, and evoking. It's good! The instruments chosen really fitted the idea, gave the feeling of a rush, like you're rushed to do something, hurry!

The mastering is crisp, the bass instrument really pounds the rhythm and the drums compliment really well what the piano is doing, rhythmically.

The thing the song could benefit is a little bit of variation, but if this piece of music is meant to be heard while you play a game or something, that variation would subtract from the ambiance, so then there's really nothing more bad to be said here.

All in all, a nice piece of work!

Radiationator responds:

Thank you for the review and helpful tips! I'll probably make another version sometime and shorten the beginning and make it have more variations.

[Rat Thief! Rat Thief!]

Ok, I listened to this for a couple of days now and I couldn't wait to get a chance to say something about it.

I really like it. Psychedelic, reggae, progressive.
It also sounds a bit like the Mars Volta. And also a bit TV on the Radio.

The vocalist does a great job at... everything... He has a good range, goes between different registers, it's all cool.

I can't find something bad to say about this piece. I feel quite ashamed, lol. I really like this. It's fresh, it's interesting, it's not derivative, keep up the good work!

One suggestion, I might sound ridiculous, but try to find someone to play a brass instrument. Think about it a bit!

VaudevilleFreud responds:

Well thank you for the honest and nice review, I appreciate what you said about Brass, I actually play trumpet, you can hear it on a number of other tracks that I have posted, we just couldn't find a place for it on this track because the song is busy for me vocally and from a live standpoint I would not have been able to pull off trumpet and vocals.

Thank you for the feedback, Ill keep working at it!

[Mr. D Has a Freak Show]

I cannot understand why this lill piece of good work has such a low rating...

I enjoyed it a lot, actually. You managed to express your idea quite well. It's playful, it's chill, the circus is in town!

But I do agree with Mechanical-Animals, you should try to make the lower case more loudly. It would really make the whole track feel a lot bigger.

The arrangement is really nice though, I hope one day I'll develop this sort of keen ear on classical instrumentation...

retrobox2 responds:

Thanks a lot, Actually I kept changing my settings between the one that you hear and another preset I made that sounds way more big but I guess that I should have chosen the other one.

[-YRX- RealLuveStep(WIP)]

It sounds like some sort of gangster movie taking place in Guy Ritchie's universe of Sherlock Holmes ( too bad the concept of gangster didn't exist back then, lol, it would be an awesome movie!)

The strings are aggressive, the drumming is compelling.

Not much else to be said. Waiting for the full version, so good lock on that!

YouriX responds:

Wow! Cool visual for my song. Hahah anyways i dont know where im going with this song but i'll see..

[Delta Wave]

I'll give this 5 stars because I'm impressed.

Nothing more to add. The purpose of the song is fully expressed and achieved. To my ears, it's exactly what it wants to be and the artistic intention behind it is really nice.

It's a cute, playful and chill song.

Canas responds:

I'm very happy with the final product, it turned out exactly how I imagined which i'm learning is quite a difficult thing to accomplish when you're making music. Thanks for the positive vibrations!

[Delta Wave (First Draft)]

This sounds like something Thom Yorke would do for Amok.

The percussion does it. The instruments are lean and ghostly and even though the melody is simple it is pretty wicked and you don't notice it's repetitiveness until you listen to it a good couple of times. Some variety could be added, considering it's 3 minutes and a half long, to add to the replay value.

Also, the ending could use a change in pace, some crankin' up, or something of that sort.

Pretty sweet.

Canas responds:

Hey thanks for the feedback! I've been working on it the past few days and i've added some more layers as well as a new melody to lay on top of it. Funny you should say that it needs a change in pace because that's exactly what i've done!

Stay tuned for the fully polished version and thanks for listening!

[Cyber God]

Mastering is flawless.

The pacing is good. When I first saw it is 5 minutes long, I wasn't sure I could listen 'till the end - as I treat music like a brief experience. But I did, easily.

It isn't "groundbreaking" as a whole but it has many-many sweet spots, you really have a great taste for pacing and I really really really like that, it really makes the song an experience in itself with its own story. It could be easily used as a great soundtrack for a trailer, even though it doesn't have the usual tropes a trailer audio has.

It's hard to review on it other than it's good, lol. Would be great as a boss song in a Deus Ex game.

I would only suggest, for the sake of immersion and emphasis, to really turn up the volume of one or some instruments during certain sections, whatever you feel best, to BREAK the ambience, make something really stand out on a rhythmic section or something that would play the role of a lead guitar. That would draw the focus of the listener's ear and really hook him, make him focus on something and lose it to the song.

Valon129 responds:

Thanks for your review and for the compliments, i'm glad you like it.

I'm going to try this idea of playing around with some volumes, probably this afternoon. If i end up with something good i might upload the result or i'll send you a link in PM.

Thanks again for this really cool review.

[Northwing Fury II]

The ideas thrown in the song are awesome, but the mastering could really be a lot better.

The bass-line is very interesting, but it has too much punch and not enough well...bass.
The drumming is interesting, again, quite excellent rhythmically, but it drowns the bass, you can no longer hear it, and the it's again, a bit too punchy, too turned up on the highs.

The guitar line is very good, but could use some modulation, and it could work extremely well in tandem with the ambient sound on the background if it were better mastered. Like a rotation amp on it, a reverb and a delay, something to let it echoe and harmonize with the guitars.

All in all, the ideas thrown are very good, and it sounds quite interesting, but it feels too clustered, even for the genre the song falls into. It needs to be a bit more spaced, and fine-tuned on the panning of the instruments, their volume levels.

I very much love the rhythms of the drums, but again, needs better mastering.

Blacklawn responds:

Thanks. I'm always struggling with mastering... But I'm glad you enjoyed the composition.

[Omen]

The part from 00:47 reminds me of Zimmer's score for Sherlock Holmes.
If Guy Ritchie made a sci-fi movie, this is the feeling score would have, I bet.

Could really be developed into a nice musical experience!

Retsamehtmai responds:

oh wow thank you ^_^

[The cloud machine]

I'd like to hear more of that ghost, high pitched ambiental sound effect you can start distinguishing from 1:27... and more be built upon it.

The song weak spots is in some uninspired dupstep breaks early in the song, but it keeps getting better as it progresses and it really caught me after listening to it a bit more.

Deserving piece :D

Jgeenen responds:

Thanks man!

Most of the atmospheric effects ( except the water ) are made with my voice by flexing it and using samplers for the AH's you describe.

I just went with the flow and i don't like the utterly aggressive basses in dubstep i do like the dynamic impact of muting.

Thanks for the constructive comment! I appreciate it :).