Geoplex's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[QUI SEDET AD DEXTERAM PATRIS]

This is an NGADM 2015 review.

Nice minimalistic piece! Really enjoying the fairly ominous feel, especially in the intro. I'm also a fan of how compositionally dynamic the piece is, you go between exciting and fast paced to mellow and ominous in a way that I find quite satisfying. Something about this song makes me picture it to some kind of sombre montage of a character's descent into madness :P that could also partially be because of the instrumentation, though.

The organ itself is very nice, I'm assuming it's a VST based on the fact that I don't know anyone with easy access to an organ. I feel like your reverb could be a little more "wet" as it feels very digital, for lack of a better word (could be because it sounds like it's low-passed a tad? I'm unsure. This comment is of course moot if it's a real organ with no actual digital reverb but... yes :P). It might be that I'm very accustomed to convolution based reverbs lately and this doesn't sound much like one.

I felt like the ending seemed a little cliche and uninspired, I definitely feel as though I've heard it before :P probably a symptom of how well it works though, so I can criticize you too much there.

Overall, interesting and enjoyable piece :) Definitely quite unique in comparison to the rest of the entries this round, too!

SoundChris responds:

Hello there Geoplex, thanks you very much for your kind review and your score! Glad that you enjoyed what i have pulled out within the last hours before the deadline (man ... that was a lot of stress :D ). The vsti i have used here is the "toccata" by sonokinetic. I didnt use any additional effects but worked with the included reverb only. I really can recommend that instrument: Its very cheap, very effective in use, you have got 20 different register options and i also find it sounds quite realistic. Also it doesnt need much ram because an organ doesnt have velovity. No matter if you hit the keys hard or soft - the sound is always the same. That also causes a more disturbed sound. In a church you often have got very massive reverb. Most organs are integrated in churches which are designed for choral music (those have a far bigger reverb tail. A good example is notre dame in paris) or the room just isnt matching with the organs placement or size. So i do think that the massive wet sound - even its hard to get everything audible all the time - just adds some extra realism. I mean: Have you ever been able to hear the lyrics of a cathedral choir in a large church? I think that this is extremely hard to achieve and so i went for a more wet sound here, too. But because i also expected other judges to find the track too wet i again reduced it a little bit. If you check the other reviews you will see that the others even found it too wet (for my taste some additional very stil would have improved the sound so i guess we are feeling similar here).

The ending is a standard that you can hear in several sacred organ pieces. It would be strange if you would NOT have heared that before :D I thought it could make the whole scenario even more believable. Maybe i overdid it here.

Thanks so much for your kind review. Hopefully i can show my full potential next round. My system has been repaired (new mainboard, new ram) so i am totally armed for a possible next round. Lets see how this round right now will go out.

All the best,
Chris

I didnt use an EQ here. The sound that you hear are the samples with just some reverb.

[Unsung Hero]

This is an NGADM 2015 review.

I really love the piano in this! It works so well in such an exciting track and is one of the most interesting elements to me in this one. What also really gets me about this track is how memorable it is, because it's quite catchy, but you're not afraid to stray from simplicity (where most of catchyness lies) and I think you've hit a really nice mid-point between the two.

So as with most of my reviews this round, it seems I'll mostly be praising the composition and instrumentation and nitpicking the mix :P sorry

So right out the gates the piano and cymbals are beautiful! The tone of the piano is really excellent by the way, I don't know why I'm so excited about that. Is it recorded or are you using a VST? Anyway - there are a few things I notice as soon as you bring everything else in at 21 seconds, namely that the low frequency sub-impact thing you have muddies up the mix a little (needs more of a transient, imo) and that it really exaggerates how I expect the chorus mix to sound, as there's more low frequency content in the first half second or so of it than in most of the chorus itself (I think I mentioned something similar in the previous round, although it could have been on another song). The other thing is that the percussion is quite quiet and lacks impact, especially the kick. The cymbals are actually pretty damn nice and airy, but I'm finding the kick and snare are a little low. The interesting thing is that later on at 1:10, it all sounds pretty great! Kick could be taken up a bit, but otherwise it all sounds fantastic. It's more in the main choruses that your percussion is somewhat overpowered.

Something else I'm noticing is that at 1:24 you really need some kind of transitional element to give the new chorus some impact, especially since the percussion in this section is quite low as well. I also am unsure about the panning you're doing on the kick. The idea is solid, but because the kick is so overpowered, when it comes into the sides it ends up being a lot more audible (especially in the high end) which creates this feeling of inconsistency for me.

I think the part at 2:10 is pretty solid, (melodically it's GOD DAMN AMAZING) though, partially because you've got those orchestral toms and whatnot. I think it's a much more appropriate pace/style of percussion for the sound and takes a more appropriate background role to the lead instruments. It also has a lot more impact and power than the kick drum in previous sections, and it's a lot more exciting. I suppose "exciting" is a pretty appropriate way to end it, and it works well :D

Sorry about nitpicking, by the way, because this is an awesome track. Great transitions, great melodies, great chords, great instrumentation. It's been a blast to listen to :P

bassfiddlejones responds:

Geoplex, thanks for the review! Really glad you liked the piece. And don't worry about the nitpicking, it's what makes us better musicians! Yes, transitions were a tough one for this song, but we're paying closer attention to them! Time is tough to come by >_< thanks again for the review! We really enjoyed making this one.

[Dark n' Damp]

This is an NGADM 2015 review.

Dude, I really like this song. It's so long and interesting and dynamic. I really enjoy it when artists try to take their listeners on a journey because it's such an interesting creative experience to enjoy and analyze.

I have to give you props and many points for your atmosphere and intricacies. This song is supremely engaging for its length and these two things contribute a lot.

Your composition is pretty good - the fact that it's slow and drawn out quite well reflects your intentions with the piece and I definitely enjoyed it for that. Nothing particularly stood out or was incredibly memorable, but the song itself certainly was, you know? It's quite compositionally dynamic too, but that's to be expected :)

Despite the fact that I'd describe this song as existing fairly deep into the "artsy" zone (nothing wrong with that of course), I'm going to talk a fair bit about production. I'm assuming that you recorded most or all of the elements in this song yourself, which is awesome, and they generally sound pretty good - some things sound as though they're a little out of time though (mostly the cymbals, but honestly most of the percussion sounds quite out to me around 02:50, for example), and through most of the song I feel that your snare sticks out a bit much - though it's probably fine later on in the 4 minutes section, most notably. It's just that early on I feel it detracts from the atmospheric aspects of the song, especially with how "boomy" it is when it's lowpassed. The low-mids of the percussion in general really overpower me a bit here and I feel like it would be a lot nicer without the percussion at all toward the beginning, but oh well. Nitpicks :P

Solid track dude. Enjoyed it a lot and it's one of the ones I remember the most.

[Zen]

This is an NGADM 2015 review.

Really enjoying the slightly bandpassed intro and composition in this song in general. As others have mentioned, your solos are godlike. There's just about nothing I can fault this song on composition-wise, I enjoyed just about all of it and this isn't even really my kind of music, so kudos on that! You kept a nice level of consistency with repeated parts, and I never found myself becoming too familiar or getting bored.

Because I'm a critical bastard, I'm going to mostly talk about the mix as it's where I think your track's weaknesses lie. The mixing is overall pretty alright, though your percussion is almost definitely a bit low, especially in comparison to your lead which is absolutely screaming. Using a spectrum analyzer I can see that while the lead is playing the mid-highs are quite loud - it's a very sensitive part of the spectrum to human ears. This becomes more of a problem when the lead is playing along with the rest of the guitars in the choruses, and you end up with this layer of saturation/distortion around where the lead sits (1k-6k.) I'm guessing that this is because of the harmonics in the other guitars + how loud/high the lead is. (To clarify, it's most noticeable from 00:55 to 01:23, 01:41 to 02:30, and 03:40 to 04:30.) It makes listening at regular volume a bit difficult for me, whereas the rest of the song (the parts not listed in my previous bracketed statement) are fine despite not being quieter (RMS-wise), which is why I've talked about this issue so much. It's mostly an EQ/level problem, really. You're also rolling your highs off to a pretty large extent, though the song doesn't sound any worse for it, actually.

Despite some critical words, I think this song is pretty awesome, especially composition wise. Keep at it, man.

[Son of Beach (NGADM '15)]

This is an NGADM 2015 review.

So this is a pretty sick track, well produced, quite interesting, not very repetitive, and consistent. There were a few nitpicks I have about the mixing and perhaps a little about the mastering, but beyond that this song is quite difficult to fault. It's engaging and sounds great.

So others have mentioned your snare sticking out a little, which is definitely true to an extent (though it's not too bad imo), but I think it's in part due to the fact that the rest of your percussion is quite low in comparison; especially the kick - though the cymbals are pretty quiet as well, but less of a deal.

(My comments on the kick may stem from a lack of experience with the genre to be perfectly honest, so feel free to dismiss the following if you think that's the case :P). The kick is quite punchy and has a nice transient in the high end, but almost no presence anywhere else. If I lowpass the song just a bit I can't actually hear the kick anymore. I understand that kicks of this nature are quite often fast and as such giving them a lot of low end would completely destroy your mix, but I think they at least need something down there in this instance... at least toward the lower end of the spectrum. You could always shorten the tails for rapid kicks, anyway.

Apart from some issues with the percussion, I think the mixing on this track is pretty great in general. The track itself is probably a little quiet (-15RMS) but I like that it's relatively dynamic and I think I'd find its level to be more of a strength that anything else, as it's definitely a long way from being offensively quiet.

I also enjoy your transitions a lot by the way, especially the one around 3:45. Good stuff :)

JDawg00100 responds:

Thank you for the review!

[Caribesque]

This is an NGADM 2015 review.

Sooooooo this might be some of the most compressed acoustic-based music I've ever heard :P I can understand the need to sausage it, but sometimes there has to be a limit haha. Don't feel bad though, I was "sausaging it" as recently as a year or two ago. Learning is gradual ^^

So I'd like to talk about production in general and maybe go over some concepts - you're probably already familiar with most of them but analyzing your song in this context is probably the most helpful thing I can do.

While there are no real rules in mastering (like, you don't have to do your mix first and *then* master it like the masters of old might tell you), it's generally helpful to adhere to a structured approach. I don't think the production issues with this song stem simply from "too much master bus compression", because I feel that the balance of the song was probably out before you started mastering it, which only exacerbated some problems. First off, the percussion is really loud. It's about in line with the guitar in the start of the song, but compared to a lot else it's really overpowering, and then the brass that comes in after that is so loud that it squashes even the percussion. The issue with fast attack compression is that it's very effective at squashing transients, and so when you have loud drums and smash them through a limiter you get a lot of audible ducking, and other instruments have a hard time shining through. Then you get in the vicious cycle of "it's not loud enough" and so you turn it up... or at least, that used to be my problem. The leading instruments like the brass are so much stronger than even the percussion, that the mix sounds like it's all over the place even when it doesn't need to be.

What I'd suggest doing is putting some compression on your master bus, but turning it off for most of your mixing process, and getting the balance right before you really master compress. It's true that in most electronic genres, master compression "glues" the mix together, and so it can be necessary to hear how it affects the mix while mixing the song, but here I think that is less important, and because you want a fairly dynamic mix it's more important that the master bus compression simply makes what you already started off with a bit louder. Bring it up to that commercial level, you know?

Anyway, your song sounds pretty good in quieter sections, and the composition itself is enjoyable. The bongos make me think of some kind of jungle video game setting, really strongly. Brings back memories of this terrible old video game called Croc 2 for me :P I think this could be a really great song, just gotta hone your production :)

[NGADM 2015 Submission (WIP)]

This is an NGADM 2015 review.

So this is pretty nice, pretty chill. You have some nice ideas in there, some good structure and good production. Everything is clear and the mood/intention is clear. Obviously the main issue is that this piece is really short, and sounds like a snippet or a demo of a larger song. Because it has no major structural components, no percussion and only about 3-4 instruments most of the time, there isn't that much to talk about.

As taintedlogic mentioned, this sounds like something with a good deal of potential, though. I hope you keep working on it!

[One of Those Days]

This is an NGADM 2015 review.

Dude I gotta give you props for your lyrics. They were engaging and fun, and I really couldn't fault you for much on this song, especially given its simplicity. The lyrics might be a bit repetitive at times, but you wrote them for just about the entire song so I can't blame you at all. The only issues I have are related to your mixing and your bandpass vocal section.

So first off, your piano is so sick. Love the jazzy vibes and energetic rhythm. The piano itself sounds amazing, too! Very thematically appropriate sound.

One of the first things i noticed after you introduced your vocals is that they were a bit loud, and a bit low. Honestly it seems to me that you need to highpass them a bit, because they're pretty strong down to about 150-200hz, and it creates this feel of imbalance in such a simple mix. They're also a little poppy at points, so you might want a better pop filter or simply stand a little further from the diaphragm. Either way, they're pretty well recorded apart from that! The highs in them are quite nice as well. Nice short reverb.

So, the other thing i had was the band pass vocals. Because man, your song is about -18RMS usually; which is very quiet but fine for this kind of music... but it's telling when the bandpass bit is at like -10RMS :P. It's reaaaally loud and quite piercing as well, so you might wanna turn down the Q on your filter. Just after that you had a really sick piano transition though so consider those points earned back haha.

Overall, a pretty well rounded song, especially for just piano/vocals. Nicely done!

ChronoNomad responds:

Hey, Geoplex! Thank you for the in-depth NGADM review. Very cool to hear that you enjoy the lyrics so much. I guess I'm not entirely sure what you mean by repetitive in this case, though. Are you referring to the notes themselves? Because there's almost nothing repeated from one end of the vocals to the other besides the "...one of those days" motif, but that was essentially the hook and every instance has a different lead-in. Anyway, it would be awesome if you could do me a solid and elucidate with a quick PM. I guess if I don't hear anything I'll assume it was the note progression, which is admittedly a bit simple. :)

Aw, yeah! Really glad that you dig the jazzy, energetic rhythm of the piano. I knew exactly which piano I wanted to use to get just the right kind of attitude, so if it sounds sick I guess I chose well. I hadn't used that particular piano before, but I got it just for something like this. Hooray for being prepared!

Okay, you've got some really good points there about the lyrics, and I've been kicking myself for not applying a bit of highpass throughout. I had a hell of a time just laying them down since I was at the mercy of a very stubborn summer cold, but somehow managed to crank out some rather passable vocals a few days before the deadline. I don't personally hear much pop, and I really cleaned up the vocals before adding them to the mix, but if there is any there's nothing I can do about it. I have no pop filter, whatsoever. I have a bunch of handheld mics, no mic stands, and currently no disposable income with which to remedy the situation. In short, it is what it is. It's probably kind of miraculous that they sound as good as they do! Glad the reverb works well, too. Solo vocals need definitely need some, but being a single-instrument song I knew it had to be brief.

I am aware of the disparity between the regular and pass-filtered sections, but this is actually the first review I've had where it was brought up as being problematic. Nevertheless, it does indeed make good sense to have the RMS be more equal. Thanks for the tip, and I'm glad that I could earn those points back with my mad transitioning skillz! :D

Huzzah! Thanks again for the feedback, Geoplex. It's been a real pleasure to meet you this way.

[The Drip]

This is an NGADM 2015 review.

So, interesting one here. Pretty solid production, nice and spacious - decent snare, kick could stand to have a little more presence. If there were any issues I had they were mostly structural/nitpicky mix-related.

The intro is nice and chill, maybe a bit simple. I really love how you did the transition! I find the chorus to be a little off mix-wise, though - mostly that the splash/crash is too high and short, the snare is too quiet in comparison to the rest of the percussion, and I'd want to bring the sax(?) up a bit simply because it clashes with the piano at its current level imo, and makes the whole thing sound a bit chaotic. Otherwise solid, everything is pretty well balanced in this section.

I feel that at 1:05 the mix is significantly better here, mostly because simpler percussion and fewer elements in general. The organ/synth is a much nicer level compared to the piano, but it does kind of drown the percussion out a bit. This is probably more a comment on the level of the piano than anything else.

So! 1:39... interesting :P it's not very telegraphed, and definitely woke me up a bit (it's 1:30am). I don't think it sounds like a completely different song, more that it makes the song sound as though it was designed as a soundtrack or something that would go along with a visual element. Were it not for the fact that you ended the song with this theme, I might have called it a cool stylistic decision; because honestly the more I hear it the more cool I am with it... but ending the song with it was just a bit aggressive, imo.

Anyway, solid song - maybe a bit quiet, some minor mix issues (though generally pretty good), and some unorthodox structural decisions, but it was interesting and fun and I enjoyed it.

[Bamboozle]

Coming from more of an engineering/production side of things that composition, I don't feel as qualified to judge this as many of the others - there's a lot to praise regarding your creativity and general structure, though. I found your composition to be quite engaging, but I felt that your production and instrumentation let you down a bit, especially with the synth in the latter half of the song.

You started off quite strong with the solo piano, and the song may have been better were it left as solo piano in my opinion. That is to say, there's little to fault compositionally - perhaps that you had little to mention in the way of breakdowns or softer sections, which could have made the piece more interesting - but otherwise, quite solid work. I just find the synth to be a bit off-putting; it's not even that it's a little thematically inappropriate but more that it's not a great sound in general, especially not for chords, with how aggressive the filter envelope on it is. I also think the way the strings were introduced was a little harsh and sudden, but they sound pretty good afterward.

This is a generally good piece, and I think most of the issue I had was related to that one synth. I've nothing against electronic sounds in classical music, of course :P

But yes, solid work either way!

Phonometrologist responds:

Fair enough. I wonder if the Moog synth is a matter of taste. The goal in mind, despite how awkward it might sound to some, was to add a retro feel just like the musical examples I've listed on my main page. Not the best sounding synth I couldn't chosen from, but with these musical examples I was comfortable in making that choice. All your ideas would have worked for sure, but I thought piano alone would have been just too safe. Must dare to disappoint for the sake of creative experimentation.
Thank you for your perspective!