SkyMarshall's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Love Me, Rough Me (2nd Pass)]

The vocals are so tortured. In a good way. Much peaked. So compressed. Wrangled into submission. However this is ALL vocals. It doesnt sit in the mix, and the bass and drums obviously just drown completely. Im guessing this is a VOX-run test? Its on its way. I like it. Pretty original my dude.

pitbulljones responds:

Au contraire! Was a live jam, i did it about 10 minutes, first mix was a mess compared to this. But what you tell me is the vocal is right....i can redo the rhythm, add bass, lead, redo the drums.

I have room to work :)

[Astro-Reality - --Trip to Mars--]

This was a very interesting one. Have you ever heard of the game "Forsaken" for Nintendo 64 and Playstation 1? This took me right back to that one, as the soundtrack is very much like this tune. Anyway, a lot is going on here. First of all the kick and percussion is very classic and punchy d&b, so immediately sounds professional. The lo-fi skipping LP and click effects on the main "piano chords" are very cool. Lots of automation here I guess. Keeps it varied. Bass-line is complex and selective and kicks in at the right times. The only complaint I have is the lead used at 2:34, I would like that to be more interesting and less presety. Not the melody itself, just the actual sound.

Good job man. - Sky :)

Astro-reality responds:

Thanks for the nice review man, I listened back to the lead at around 2:34. I liked it but I think that you are right about it sounding a bit too much preset-ish, I will think about that in my future tracks. I am listening to "Forsaken" which I never heard of and I get what you mean with how this sounds similar to it, they indeed have quite the same kind of sound, although I didn't use any trumpets here. Perhaps an idea for a next Drum and Bass song.

[Pitbulljones- Life From an Aerial View]

This one is begging for vocals. Male vocals I think. Kept humming possible vocal harmonies all the way through. Great arrangement.

pitbulljones responds:

Thank you for the reviews mate. I agree 100% that this deserves vocals. Alas, I don't sing, and the people I know who do are few and far between. One day eh.

[Pitbulljones- You're Good For Me (Remaster)]

Mellow and atmospheric. Love all the different layers you got going on here. It's also wonderfully spaced out, the stereo seperation that is, fills out the room. Also listening on the same speakers you made them on, well almost, got the BX5a monitors. Nice track man.

pitbulljones responds:

Oooooo thanks again mate. I'm glad you can pick up the nuances in this track, there's like 12 guitars, 6 synths, 2 drums and god knows what else on this mix. Having good monitors really brings it all out. Igot my bx5d's on sale at £75 for the pair. Bargain.

[JumpAround]

Reminds me of ...

Antiloop much? :)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=j3RpnjiTdH A&feature=related

Anyway, I like this kind of sound. So I automatically like this. But it feels a little empty. Except for the kick, where is ther bass to fill all this out? But its an ok track, it just felt a little unfinished. The melody reminds me something sick about norwegian underground electronic music - which is good. But this one needs a little more work before its ready for a download.

Dj-Rippa responds:

Thank you and yes... Its an earlier track of mine and I did not finish it..
I would like to add some boost to the kick and maybe better synth to the melo and some mastering.. But i dunno if I will get around to finishing this one

[/M: Frozen Mind]

Pretty much great

I'll give this a 10. A lot of effort put into this, and I feel sorry for your CPU handling all these pads coming from gear-killers like Nexus and Massive. But it was a good all-rounder I think. I liked the intro with the evolving pads and bass-line. But it might have been a wrong decision to go straight into the "intermission" after the take-off. You should have done a quiet break with "Freeze your mind and let the music take control" and just slam into the main-chorus at once. It got a bit tedious. But, the second break is great. No complaints there. And too bad you didnt build up the tune from the beginning with the end bass-line running for the last 10 seconds. It was great.

But all in all great. Just that one thing taking it down from a 10 :)
But I voted a 5 for you - > 4.08 / 5.00 (+ 0.052)

- Eirik
SkyMarshall Arts c",)

Mich responds:

Thanks for all this constructive criticism.
Als thanks for the 5 :D
And about my cpu, your right about that, I took 20 minutes to export to mp3, that gives an idea how it's sounds when you play it in fl studio :p
But Nexus sounds wonderful so I can live with that.
(too bad there are some of those idiot in here that vote 0 on everything with a good score.)

Greets,
MICHhimself.

[Jessica [Club Mix]]

Yes yes!

This is a 9, and that is great coming from me. As Im a little over-critical at times! And here is why my friend.

This is simply good :) I like the slow bouncing good old classic beat (what, 125bpm?) and the way my head nods up and down to the beat. I simply like it. Though. I nearly lost interest close to the 2minute mark - BUT then the intermission came and you got my hooked for the rest of the song. For some sick reason, the synth and melody got me thinking of Super Mario 64 and the underwater-theme - god knows why. But thats a good thing. Im a gamer and make a lot of game-music, and find references to games everywhere.

But when things really got good was when you broke out the most classic beat-bounce bass-line in trance ever at 2.37. God knows I love build-ups using that one well. The pads were epic and fluid and you know how to use those knobs in your VST, which is good - presets mostly suck.

So, the take-off. And yes it is great. It doesnt get noisy, it just perfectly continues what you have been building up. And when the open hihat-sequence joins the party at 3:30, my head starts to nod again. Simply great ... not much more to say.

Why its not a 10:
Well, it peaks a little. This is not good for me with expensive studio-monitors. You know what I meen with peaking? It crackles a lot when you use "splashes" for instance. Simply put, it is juuuust a tad to loudly mastered. You should really lower the final mix volume just a bit, as the song would be better when you crank the volume. But other than that it is ok. Also, when you said you used a midi, I got a little: "Ok, here comes some shitty ripped off crap". But nope, you made it your own - and I like it.

5/5 and 10'd.
Also, this is the second song i Favorite here at NG!

- SkyMarshall Arts c"m)

Terror-Proof responds:

Cheers man thanks for such the long review aswell it really means alot coming from you.

[[TMM43] Hard Sounds]

Weeell ... repetive!

Im all for honest reviews, thats what reviews are for. So here is one. I didnt like this too much to be honest. The reason for that being it's repetiveness and the lack of imagination and variation when it comes to both instruments and melodies. Hard Sound is not what i would call this, and the vocal-sample you got in there (which is a bit too loud compared to the rest of the sequence) promises a hard take-off, which you dont deliver. From 50sek and all the way to 2.40 - nothing really changes. Sure, you fatten up the main a little bit every now and then - but still, nothing really changes.

However, after 2.40 it gets better, much better. I really like the plucky bell-synth you got going on. And it revives the melody once more. But then it all slides into repetiveness again. Mediocre might be the word.

Anyway, I hope you like honest reviews, and dont let this get you down. Its meant as constructive critsism. People are way to fast on the "10" here on NG for some reason. And I'll only give out a 10 when Im fucking "wow'd". And maybe you'll do that someday. I'll continue to follow your releases :)

3/5 and 5 stars
- SkyMarshall Arts c",)

TMM43 responds:

Thank you very much for your review! I do love honest reviews. I don't take any offense to them.

I know. I have a major problem with repetition. Sorry about that... I need to work more on mixing up my songs some more.

Well thanks again for the review!