ThisIsAnEmergency's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[HDC Presents: Bummer vs. N1k]

Emergency

He just outdid both, by far. There isn't much else I can say about this.

HDC responds:

Thats what Im talking about GURL!!

[~SW~ Soul Core]

Jazz?

I'm not sure I would classify this as Jazz, if there was a "New Jazz" it would definitely fit though. I'm not sure what I would classify this as, but the saxophone doesn't alone make it Jazz.

The saxophone, melodies, and instruments used in this we're very pleasant to the ear. Along with the melody patterns, I really enjoyed those as well. However, that didn't sound like much of a Jazz bass to me either. You could've tried to make a better pattern with that.

However, the drum/snare we're way too low and sounded terrible. I can't think of a nicer way to describe them, my apologies. You should really work on creating your own drums or finding a different drum pack. You can easily make better drums by trying to combine different kicks together, or combine a small snare with a bit of a bigger drum, and a snare with a clap, or bring in a hi-hat to combine with in. Anything works in that area. The drums really took away from this though, so low I could barely hear them and when I did they just weren't sounding as good as they should have.

This could also probably be longer with more added solos and different instruments. As I said above, I would've added a bass solo and made the bass melody more complex. The melody you had was good for the song, but I think it needed a solo with a different melody. You could also always add a trumpet solo or a guitar solo, something to bring in an epic part of the piece.

I understand you were trying to go chill here, and I think you did. The problem with that is, it leaves so much more to the ear to be heard. You should really go back and try to add more to this and work on it a little more to make it as good as possible.

This definitely has a lot of potential behind it.

-Emergency
-Review Request Club

SkyeWint responds:

Well. This certainly was a harsh review, I'll respond to every point in it.

"the saxophone doesn't alone make it Jazz."

Yes. That's true. That's not why I called it jazz though. I was using the blues scale quite liberally throughout this, and the chording is much more jazzy than a lot of songs I've heard. That and the rhythms was why.

"melodies, and instruments used in this we're very pleasant to the ear"

Thanks.

"that didn't sound like much of a Jazz bass to me either."

I didn't use a walking bass. Is that the problem? The initial and ending bass was more 'trance', I admit, but... the middle was most definitely more jazzy.

"drum/snare we're way too low and sounded terrible."

I'll take this paragraph as saying "I didn't like the drums at all". I can see what you're saying here, and I can say that most of this I don't agree with.

First, the 'making-your-own-drum-pack' thing would be awesome. Unfortunately, I do not have much in the way of music production, and more in composition. I would love to make my own drums, and I actually do put a lot of effort into finding decent drum samples for the songs. I'm sorry you didn't like this, but I am kept from giving too much sympathy from what you said in the rest of that paragraph.

The snare wasn't in the low frequencies at all. In fact, the only thing that could be called 'in the lower frequencies' was the kick, and it had the lowest frequencies pretty much to itself except for the bass, I hear it quite cleanly even with that, they don't mess with each other at all. Not to mention, it also has a higher frequency in it with the hit. As for the high-hat, were you even listening to the drums at all in the sections with the synth guitar?

"This could also probably be longer with more added solos and different instruments."

Granted. I did not want this to be one of those 5-6 minute long songs that just goes on and on with the same feel. It's meant to be short. But I do see what you mean, and I suppose it could be longer.

"something to bring in an epic part of the piece."

An epicness feel wouldn't really work with a chilled-out song.

"I would've added a bass solo and made the bass melody more complex."

Perhaps. But as I've been told before, complexity isn't necessarily a good thing. While I did not say this, this was my attempt at making a simple song that has

While I appreciate the honest review, I can't help thinking that you didn't really listen to the song and instead just looked for all the bad things you could think of, even throwing in a few things that weren't even really problems.

However, that doesn't mean I can't recognize the things that make sense. I do appreciate the good feedback you gave me, and am thankful for it.

[Game Music 1]

Bare

I'll start off by saying, that was some amazing mixing right there. The DJ'ing you did in this completely blew my away. Sounded damn near perfect and I've gotta give you credit for that. I don't know many people that can do it that good.

With all this being said, the piece didn't seem to be mastered very great. As in, the piano should've been done so it didn't have an echo with it. That really took away from the piece as a whole. Probably start working on changing up the instruments.

The instruments used in this just didn't sound very appealing. The piano sounded clearly fake and had a terrible background noise to it. It's like a good that tastes good but then has that weird aftertaste to it.. The drums killed it for me, those were not the drums I would use. You need to try and find better instruments to compliment how good you are at mixing up a song.

The pattern you had was also very simple, although you fixed that with the mixing added into the piece.

The instrument changing in the headphones didn't sound too great either but it definitely had a good pattern to it. It gave me that ready for war feeling. Also, the song didn't seem to loop as good as I had hoped.

Keep working on it.

-Emergency
-Review Request Club

EricFreeman responds:

That wasn't a piano...

[Sir Sirius - Electrostep 2.3]

Unique

Your first melody, just sounded gorgeous. It didn't seem to go into each variation of it as well as it could have, but at the time same time, it was a very unique pattern.

Both melody patterns, including the drums, sounded great. I loved them!

However, the blending of your two melodies at about 1:56 didn't seem to fit. They didn't really blend together in my opinion.

Also, you could have EQ'ed the drums a bit better, they seem to take over almost the entire song. You also could have probably tried to find some better drums to use in this. The drums you used in this sounded a little more suited for Pop/HipHop/RnB.

With all of that being said, I did enjoy this.

-Emergency
-Review Request Club

SirSirius responds:

Thanks for this in-depth feedback! You are right about the drums. I am unhappy myself about them. I tried really hard and spend lots of hours trying to fix the drums (I'm still new to producing) but failed quite hard :d

Tried lots of different samples and played a lot with the EQ, but it didn't help :/

[~SW~ (Caelum) Blood is Shed]

Deep

I'll start off by saying at about 0:15, it all sounded kind of off-place for the whole song.

I loved the slowing down of the song at 0:40, however, the thing I most enjoyed about this was the intro-melody you had with the guitar. That was definitely the best thing about this song as a whole. As far as the bends.. I really enjoyed them, it did make it sound more realistic. (Which realism is always better for music in my opinion)

I would have probably gone with a different Snare instrument and possibly a little different pattern to it. As I mentioned before, I like the sounding of realism better than anything, and that snare definitely sounded fake to me. I did like the toms roll you had in there though.

This definitely belongs in a Flash Animation.

Overall, my biggest problem with this is the blending together of the instruments. It just didn't sound like they blended well enough to me, mainly because of the main pad you used in there. Maybe go for a tad different sounding pad? Or try combing a couple pads along with EQ'ing them to make it sound better. Ah, and thats another thing, as a whole this song needs to be EQ'ed a little bit better.

I personally think, this song may not have needed the percussion, but adding the percussion was a good idea. It was just like icing on the cake of a good piece of art!

This surely does mix a Dance-type asian feel/ambient feel together and that's something new to me that I really enjoyed.

-Emergency
-Review Request Club

SkyeWint responds:

Ah, EQing, my greatest enemy.

First of all, thanks for the in-depth review, I really appreciate it.

"at about 0:15, it all sounded kind of off-place for the whole song."

Not completely sure what you mean there, though I think I can guess, it does seem to pop up a few notches there. But then, double-timing in a song is a common thing for more jazzy songs. Admittedly, this isn't totally jazz, but... double-timing isn't necessarily a bad thing. If you could tell me more of how it sounded off-place, that would be helpful. (Your choice though. I'm always open to PMs.)

"that snare definitely sounded fake to me."

Agreed. I'll try to fix that.

"Overall, my biggest problem with this is the blending together of the instruments."

...as I said before. EQing, my greatest enemy... I'm actually trained in composition rather than music production. I could DEFINITELY use some pointers on how to do this better, I tried hard to EQ this properly. The main problem I could see was at a certain point with the violin. I'll definitely try the idea of layering pads together and EQing them. With the blending-together of instruments (just realized you meant something other than EQing there), I think EQing would go a long way towards putting them together more, the pad thing might help, and... I thought the instruments went together pretty well. :< Aw. I'll do my best to fix it up though.

Thanks again!

[solidify and coagulate]

Interesting

This was a very interesting piece here.

I loved how you blended elements together and constantly added new ones. The melodies you use also sounded great to the ear.

However, some of the instruments used in this, such as the Kick-Drum, sounded out-of-place to me. You should try finding a more "realistic" kick-drum to put in place of the one you have here, and maybe EQ its volume up a little higher.

This is really something that I can appreciate and I'd love to hear more!

-Emergency
-Review Request Club

Horsenwelles responds:

i wasn't too concerned with the realism of the percussion honestly... this was originally a template for a universal contributor project for a live copy of this song, so its technicially incomplete, but i still liked it enough to UL it.

oh, and i agree that i pushed the volume of the kick too low... i usually don't lol

thank you for the nice words =)

[Rage Racer V.V.]

Enjoyable

I absolutely loved the quick little melody at 2:57.

With that being said, I'm gonna try to break this down.

I noticed you liked doing change-ups, I would recommend changing up the drum-instrument itself for a time or two in a couple more "breakdowns" like you had at 0:50, to make it more of a remix. I would have probably called this a cover, not a remix, because in the end it doesn't sound like you remixed much of it or added anything new to it overall.

Other than the breakdown, I liked the sounds you used in this a lot better than the instruments used in the original. This is definitely something worth listening to and I can truly appreciate this.

-Emergency

Rinileki14 responds:

I wanted to keep the original tone and feel of the song. That's why I remade the initial opening to the song and the section starting at 2:03. Thanks!!