Gravey's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[The Journey-Metaljonus]

Wow!

This sounds like it belongs on Soilwork's Natural Born Chaos cd. And that cd is simply amazing. I'm not sure I could leave a better compliment on it for you really.

5/5 and 10/10 overall.

This has been favorited.

-Gravey-

Metaljonus responds:

Soilwork is pwn! Thanks for listening!

[The Sexy-Metaljonus]

Very Cool...

I love the sound. I'm not much of a Slipknot fan really, but this reminds of them. And not in a bad way, cause it resembles their rare heavier side. It also sounds like you have some Pantera influence in your music maybe. (From first listen I get that impression anyways.)

The guitars are what really shines in this for me. I like the sound you got with them. Although I think I hear clipping at the 3:00 - 3:02 mark. And at 3:30 - 3:34. Ya might want to check back on that, I could be wrong though.

The drums sound great too. They sound real. And not crappy real. I've heard worse drums recorded in professional studios, so if these are real you did a great job in recording them.

5/5 and 10/10 overall. I'm really liking this.

This has been favorited.

-Gravey-

Metaljonus responds:

Thanks! I fucking hate Slipknot with a passion lol. Hmm I am not getting any clipping on my end at those points...hmmm. I Programmed all of the drums. I also love me some Pantera I tell you! Thanks for you review! Let me know if you need any guitar work in your music!

[MH16: Over And Over]

I Like It...

I think the best part about this song is the piano personally. It sounds really cool, and you did a good job writing it.

Really I don't have much to say, other than this is really good. I think I heard some slight clipping near the end. But I could be mistaken. Might want to double check that just to be safe.

5/5 and 9/10 overall. Cool little loop here bud. :-)

-Gravey-

FairSquare responds:

Yeah, the piano pretty much holds this whole song toghether :-)
And i didn't notice any clipping at the end myself, but i'll check again.
Thanks for the review!

["Jumping Higher" WIP]

It's Cool...

Ok, since this is a work in progress I'm gonna make some suggestions. Take 'em or leave 'em as you wish. :-P

The melodies are interesting, and I really like their syncopation. My only issue is the mass of white noise they are fighting with. There seems to be quite a bit of white noise in this tune, which can be a problem. One, it makes the song a bit muddy sounding. And two, it takes away from the melody.

Now white noise can definitely be a good thing, especially in a song like this. But I'm thinking there is a bit much with the massive compression you have going on. Because it creates a whooshy sound that I am personally not to fond of. I really feel it takes away from the quality of the song when overdone, and I think it is slightly overdone here.

Now the real bright spot in this song is the percussion. It sounds amazing my friend. Really, the percussion has a wonderful quality to it. I really like the rhythms you created as well. The percussion is spot on.

And the piano near the end is great. It doesn't play a role in the song at all except that one small section, but it really shines when it is used. Great job at bringing it out in the mix as well, without it being overpowering.

This is a really good start to a cool song. But there is definitely some work still to be done for sure. Good luck!

4/5 and 8/10 overall.

-Gravey-

Rukkus responds:

Thanks for the indept review man and i'll definately take your suggestions into consideration. And i know, i thought the wooshy sound would go away once i rendered it, but no. :\ Srry about that. I just got FL8 and im trying to use the Fl Limiter to see how it effects my songs. Prolly not the best idea...haha

[The power of sytrus[Dj-S]]

Well...

It is cool sounding, and has some real nifty moments to be sure. But I'm not sure how much credit one can give when you flat out admit everything in the song is a preset.

Now granted, I use a preset every now and then in my music. Nearly everyone does from time to time because it isn't really the end of the world if you do. But for an entire song to based off of presets, well, it just sounds rather lazy.

That being said, the song is pretty cool. A bit short though. You might think about making it loop, because this would be a pretty cool loop for a video game's main menu.

But even though the song is cool, you used presets for everything. So it's hard to give you a real good score. Anyone can drag and drop presets and come up with something decent like this.

3/5 and 5/10 overall.

-Gravey-

Sacrafan responds:

Yea it was a challenge.
I wanted to restrict a single song to just presets, not out of laziness, but just to see how well i could do with just those annoying sytrus presets :D

[WF1/KTR Breaking Restraints]

Really Nice...

I like it a lot. It has an Asian quality to it with the piano, and the way the orchestral parts are written. The mix is pretty good, with maybe one or two things that I'm not crazy about. But for the most part it is nicely done.

There are two things that bother me about this song:

1. The reverb. There is simply to much fattening reverb for me. Everything just seems like it has really thick and rich reverb on it. And the reverb on the kick/hit makes me cry. Which leads me to the second issue I have with the song...

2. That hit, wow. I like the concept and idea behind it. But it has such a warbly sound when the reverb is added to it, which in my opinion makes it sound really bad. (Although Wyldfyre told me that was on purpose, I personally hate the sound.) I won't hold it against you two too much, but at the same time I'm not gonna lie and say I like it when I don't. ;-)

Besides those two issues, I think this is wonderfully written and mixed. The piano is what I really like in this song. If it wasn't laced with so much reverb, I would say it has the perfect quality for this song.

The strings are very nice in just about every way. The come out in the mix when needed, and stay back behind the rest of the ensemble when they should be background sound. Needless to say, I flat out love the strings.

Although I am not a big fan of the stereotypical trance synths, I do like the main synth you used in this one instance. It is so stereotypical, but I think that is actually a good thing here. Because this song is so unique, it needs a quality that everyone can latch onto and be able to recognize. A bit of sanity in a more or less insane world, (Or rather song in this instance).

So all that said, wonderful song here. I've listened to it at least ten times through now, five with my speakers and five with my headphones to get a real handle on the song dynamically. And I gotta say you really have a winner here my friends.

5/5 and 9/10 overall. Great job here!

-Gravey-

KTRECORDS responds:

Great man! Glad you liked it despite a couple things! WF1 did a great job with choosing some strings that we could both work with and even have a little fun with. Same goes for the piano. He worked incredibly hard at giving the pianos a sound that wouldn't make our ears bleed, lol.

Thx for the in depth review and feel free to check out KTRs' and WF1s' other stuff!

-Jason
KTRECORDS

[When you got a good frein]

Yes!

I love this! Simply love it! I love the blues, and therefore this makes me smile! Nice to see a good blues song near the top for a change here on Newgrounds.

This has a wonderful feel and groove to it. Utterly simple concept, yet still has me tapping my foot and bobbing my head to the beat. This is wonderful, reall just wonderful.

I love how the vocals are doubled, and you had them off more than a bit in areas. So it doesn't just give that chorus effect, but actually sounds off in areas. In other genres it would sound bad and lazy. But for the blues, it gives it some lovely flavor.

Oh, and the harmonica makes me smile.

5/5 and 10/10 overall. Great job.

This song has been favorited!

-Gravey-

Lundsfryd responds:

Thank you very much for the kind words. Just a note: The vocals are not dubbed. It is live and it is the slideguitarist who is singing the backup vocals..

[Tropicana.]

Haha!

You've been drinking to much Malibu rum my friend! X-D

I really like this song a lot. You did a great job at capturing the tropical paradise essence.

I would say that you could use some better samples though. I like some of the sounds you have going on, but a few of them seem really midi-ish. Maybe I'm an idiot though, I don't know.

As for the composition itself though, it is pretty much flawless. It sounds perfect for a tropical paradise setting in a video game. And that was exactly what you were going for, so I can't really say anything negative about the composition.

5/5 and 10/10 overall. Nice job here bud.

-Gravey-

Tomppaah responds:

Thank you very much! :) Some of the melodies came by accident and some of them i "planned" out, but overall i'd say they work very well together and give it this tropical feeling :).

You're actually dead on with the MIDI comment.. Well it's not really a MIDI instrument i'm using, but it's a soundfont. I guess there could be a more suitable sample for it, but as i wanted to finish this ASAP i hastily chose the soundfont :).

Thanks again and i'm glad you liked it!

[The Wayward Flying Machine]

It's Interesting...

I gotta say, you can write percussion very well. I'm quite jealous cause I always feel my percussion is sub-par in my songs. You though have quite a knack with writing percussion.

The solo strings really have a wonderful texture to them. I really like their sound and timbre a lot. And as always, you came up with a unique way of writing their parts so it doesn't get boring and dull.

But all that said, this song doesn't capture me quite like the rest of your stuff does. I'm not sure why, but it just doesn't.

5/5 and 9/10 overall.

-Gravey-

Aeris responds:

Probably cuz it's not "big" as most of my music, it's simple and repetitive :] I'm probably going to rewrite the middle part.

Thanks for the review, high regards as always :D

[Twilight in the Middle East]

I Like It...

...yes, I do I do I do. :-P

This is really cool my friend. Your style always makes me smile. I could tell a song was written by you even if I wasn't told ahead of time that you wrote it. You just have a very unique style.

I like the vocals. They fit the piece very well, and add a cool dimension to it. I'm not sure I like that piano type sound that comes in after the vocals though. The reverb in particular is what I don't like. It sounds...warbly...which can be cool, but I think it detracts from the song.

Now I like it when the rest of the ensemble joins in later. Maybe you could tone down the reverb when it is more the focal point, and boost it back up when the full ensemble kicks back in.

But really, this song is really unique and quite simply cool sounding. Me likes! :-D

5/5 and 10/10 overall.

-Gravey-

Aeris responds:

It took me a while to figure out you were talking about the harp xD

But you have a good point, I'll slap in a few envelopes and get it under control ^-^

I'm glad you like my style xD

Thanks always Gravey :]

Smilies :O