Onefin's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[The Island (You are getting old)]

R4R

This track sounds like C418! Do you know him? He composed the soundtrack for Minecraft!

That being said, the atmosphere is definitely what you did best here. The sounds you used work really well together to achieve a serene and arcane tone which pulsates throughout the entire piece. Fit for an EP outro!

Never watched that movie. Is it a... classic film?

Now, my biggest gripe with this song is how long everything lasts. The intro, before any real melodic content arrives, is over 1 minute. On really low volumes, you really can't hear much anything up until that point. It feels like a completely silent stretch. And after everything builds up all nicely, it kinda stays that way for a good 3 minutes or so. That's a long time for a song to sound pretty much the same. And then at the end, you have an insanely long tail. It's more than half a minute.

There's no real melody in this song. There's nothing I can hum if I want to remember how this track goes. A melody may not have worked with the atmosphere you attempted to create, but it's still pretty much all pads. Decreases the memorability, you know?

Overall, great job. It may be overly long and stretched out, but for what it's got, it's a good conclusion for your EP! 4 stars, rated 5/5

AnOrdinaryVision responds:

Thanks for your feedback!

BTW The Plague Dogs is an old and pretty rare animated movie. More than a classic film, is a "cult" one.

[NGADM'15: Higher]

Why'd you delete Limitless? :/

EliteFerrex responds:

Decided I didn't like it. Might remake it later as an 8-bit track.

[escalate]

Dude, this sounds really good! It sounds super original and awesome! I feel like you could have elaborated on some of the cooler sounds, like the upward moving arp at 3:14. Also the ending could have been less abrupt and more of a conclusive finish. Good work, though!

DjDragonfire responds:

Thanks so much and you are right that arp did need to be elaborated and the end was abrupt thanks for the feedback! ;]

[Singleton (Original Mix)]

R4R

Truly the best part about this is the atmosphere, so I'll start with that. The mysterious and somewhat creepy vibe this track gives is really nice! You've achieved that with an excellent use of reverb, subbass, and intriguing sounds. Paired along with an awesomely clear master? Yes.

Other great things include the percussion, your sound design (especially the bells at 2:34 and the soundscapes), and of course, mixing and mastering.

Now, my biggest critique: lack of cohesive melody. The guy below me said the same thing, and I'll repeat him. I feel like this track would have been really tied together with an awesome melody. There are plenty of places where I could see melodies fit, like the part at 0:57 and 5:20.

Other complaints include mediocre transitions (the percussion entrance and the transition at 3:36 were quite sudden), lack of chord structure variation, and the inconclusive ending.

Overall, this track has a solid ambient feel to it, and is overall pretty cool! A few minor details need some attention here and there, but I'd say I'm impressed! 4/5

MaxPoly responds:

I fully intend to focus on melody a little more for now on. I don't plan on coming back to this, but I'll definitely keep this in mind for future tracks.

I'm also getting better at transitions bit by bit, it's never been a strong suit of mine from the beginning. I've had significant trouble cobbling a song together with more than one section, let along a full 7-minute track. This was kind of a rare moment of productivity for me, and I'm trying to keep releasing finished stuff as momentum, if that makes sense.

Thanks for the review!

[crystal grove]

Did you know that by rating your own song a 5 right after you release it puts it on the brand spankin' new audio board and allows for at least three times more views and even a review, if you're lucky? :)

DjDragonfire responds:

No I didn't :) I was wondering how long it would take for this song to get rated thanks

[Overpowered]

R4R

Yeses:
- Fullness of sound. You've achieved a great amount of depth that I don't see often in R4R.
- Beginning. What happens in the beginning is really cool and original!
- Synths. A lot of your synths are really awesome!
- Beginning drums. The bongos and snaps and stuff sound really nice!
- Melody. This is more of a "meh", but at least they were there and kind of okay.
- Atmosphere. It's not really "epic" or "overpowered", but it certainly is energizing and robotic!

Nos:
- Repetition. The same chord progression is repeated throughout without any change, and certain parts repeat exactly as they were before. Overall, not enough variation to keep things interesting for a long time.
- Drop drums. I hear some defaults in there. Don't use them.
- Uneventful transitions. This is something I have to work on, too, so I won't judge you too hard on it. Overall you could spice things up by adding in some more interesting transition sounds.
- Fadeout ending. I'm not one of them, but a lot of people will go insane when someone uses fadeout endings. Just a word of advice.
- 16 plays. Wow.

Musiken responds:

Probably the most useful review I've had on my works. Thank you very much!

I totally understand what you mean too. Repetition is certainly an aspect I've tried to change. I tend to choose chords and stick to them. For the fadeout, I understand the hate. I usually avoid it but I just couldn't find a way to end it, it never worked out even after hours of work. Lesson learnt though.
As for the views, I'm already on a few other sites which makes the low views on here not that bothering. As long as I get constructive reviews, I'm a happy man!

Thanks again :)

[Spaghetti On The Side]

Hm? Is Newgrounds no longer counting Geometry Dash downloads towards the download count? Because that download number should be really, really high by now. :/ Hm.

[Le Voyage]

Review for review just for Azhthar

Right off the bat, the sounds were pristine. Concertina thing, yes. Piano, yes. Bass thingy, yes. Glock thing, yes. Strings, fun. As you can tell, I am not completely professional in my instrumentation knowledge. Bear with me.

Melodies. I can't say they're really really good, but they're not bad! They're not extremely catchy, but it does reflect the mood pretty well. Well, might as well talk about the atmosphere now that I've mentioned it. The right combination of instruments, dynamics, style, and melodic content bring out something I wouldn't call dreamy, but more of a delicate, light style. I like it.

The last thing I will commend you for is the ending. I liked the way you ended it, it seriously promotes the theme of the whole thing and gives your song a nice finishing touch! Bravo!

Now, complaints. After the first minute I was getting seriously bored. In my mind, I was thinking, "Is anything going to happen?" Finally, at 1:15, you gave me the entrance of a glock, followed shortly by strings. But even then, nothing really happens. The only real change occurs at 02:51, where a suspended cymbal just barely does its job into a bigger section.

Well, I mentioned it, let's talk about that transition. The suspended cymbal does no good. It's a combination of two things. One, the cymbal roll itself was not nearly loud enough. Two, that cymbal had rolled before, and it brought up nothing, leading the listener (me) to think that if it happens again, it will also lead to nothing.

Overall, this is a solid piece! The melodies and the instruments work together to create a beautiful mood fitting of the name "Le Voyage". But despite all that, the song quickly becomes a bit boring; some more dynamic changes would help with that. Good work! 5/5, 9/10

Azhthar responds:

Hey! Thanks for the review! Actually if I read it it´s quite critically (which is good) and I was surprised that you gave it such a high rating afterwards. So... For the variations I was trying something different here. What I usually do with my tracks is to develop them all the time. This is another extreme and might be a problem because there is nothing that sticks to the listener afterwards. So I tried to be a bit more minimalistic here and it ended in some repetition... For the transitions: I had a completely different percussion part in my first version. It was more experimental and had much more variations but actually I didn´t like it at all, because it didn´t fit into the mood of the piece. Anyway... Thanks again for the review! It´s much better to get some critics instead of just praising because it helps for the next piece. Keep it up and thanks for taking your time to listen.