Onefin's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Rushing into Deepness]

Ey adjeye was waiting patiently for yours

You always manage to make some really good tension in your tracks. The piece flows really well and manages to carry the energy from section to section until the very end. I really love this moment at 1:50 where you descend with a broken diminished chord in the lower register. Eight seconds later the energy is gone but quickly being reborn - it's a transition that you've managed to get working better than most people who try a similar idea.

Drum work is really solid, although occasionally the volume of the drums drown out everything else around it. 2:32 is a prime example of this. It is a drum and bass song, though, so if it's just personal preference it makes perfect sense.

The melody synth in the outro here (4:17) has some really nice nuances to it. I really like how these three notes at ~4:20 turned out, with the first one being the strongest and the third one being all distorted. The rest of the melody has similar things which I really enjoyed.

Also you pulled a fast one at 0:11, using a three four bar to offset the initial riff to begin on the second beat rather than the first. I found that really interestingly pulled off.

There are moments like 1:07 where the drums just suddenly cut out without much warning. It works well, but my ears would have been more prepared for it if there was any warning - maybe a sound going into it, or a fill of some sort.

Overall, pretty solid work. I know you mulled over this one for a while, and the fruits of your effort are pretty clear. Good luck! :)

Adjeye responds:

I do like hard drums in my DnB, I don't want them to disapear to the background. But it was maybe a little bit overdone, so I lowered it a tad at some places where it was kind of drowning other elements.

At 1:07 I thought I faded the drums out pretty well into the breakdown there tho, maybe I should've spiced it up a little there.

You notice a lot of small details I put in this one :) which I like, thank you for your review. It is a lot more understandable than the review you left on Caliginous Newcomer :$ at last NGADM haha

[Timekeeper]

Hey, papkee. I never got to say gg for beating me by just barely in NGUAC last year :)

As usual this is amazing! You have a way of always striking the right chords one after the other to create some deeply emotional music. 1:38 so fabulously has your name written all over it

I listened to it the whole way through and I can say with fair certainty that I didn't ever get bored at any point while listening, which means you managed to keep things interesting pretty well. The progression of this track is really, really smooth and the transitions are really really smooth. Also the outro is sublime!

There's only a few things that didn't work as well for me. At 3:23 the stuff you wrote for the choir seems to lack the flair I heard in some of the other melodic parts of the track. Also this synth at 0:30 was really nice but I don't think I ever heard it again which was a bit of a shame :/

But overall this is some solid stuff! Good luck in NGADM :)

[Last Will]

Congratulations, you win the first submission of the contest review.

Some general comments: After listening through, I can say I didn't get particularly bored at any point. From just how the beginning sounded I never would have guessed the turn the song would take (but i read the genre so i anticipated it :P). And it takes that turn pretty quickly, making things very interesting in the first half.

I really like the dynamic contrast you achieved in this track. There are very loud sections and very soft sections in here, which is really nice on your part.

Your mixing is good but there are definitely things to complain about. The kick is appropriate in context, but at 0:32 when it is first introduced into the mix as the prominent component it doesn't fit very well. I would recommend automating the EQ here.

Fade-out endings are a no-no. You're not gonna beat Finn with a fade-out ending, so don't even think about skipping the outro writing process.

Overall, it's stunning what you made in 2 days. Props.

NahuPyrope responds:

Thanks SO much for your advice!!!, it means a lot!, I'm gonna take out the fade out then! xD

[REALITY GLITCH AUTOMATON]

Number of times the name of this track has been misspelled as "Really Glitchy Automation":
9001

johnfn responds:

:((

[Deceived by Demise]

GG, Satera. I'll have to work harder next time to avoid getting trumped by orchestral producers again.

EvilRaccoon responds:

Thanks 1f1n1ty. ;) I'm looking forward to it! It was a great challenge and just really enjoyable to be involved again with everyone. I'd certainly encourage anyone to take part in it in the future. The feedback alone was very well worth it.

[~Fore~ Useless (Let Go)]

Hey, aliaspharow! I missed you

I like the percussive texture you're doing here. Lots of offbeat sounds that you managed to blend together perfectly - I always struggle a bit with that, making each percussive sound fit together.

I could have probably use a more prominent sub in the first bit, although the bass does pick up the pace at around 0:10.

Those sweep arps like the one at 0:33 are super cool - I just wish they lasted longer :P

[Untitled 75 (PxTone)]

R4R

Bruh this sounds pretty good! I can imagine this playing in a small hub world for a nice, 16-bit video game.

+ PxTone? I've never heard of this one :O
+ The chords are super interesting, and the melody is super cool! Really awesome compositional work.
+ PERFECT LOOP :D
+ Really good work keeping the flow of the song going throughout. Never did anything feel abrupt or off-putting.

- I would have liked brighter drums, but I can understand if that isn't entirely possible.
- The melodies are pretty drawn out. They're cool, yes, but they aren't exactly easily remembered.
- The whole thing sounds rather mono. I would have enjoyed to hear some playing around with panning and stereo and such.

Random-storykeeper responds:

Ah, thanks! I'm surprised you haven't heard of PxTone (?); it's a pretty well known, free-to-use program.

Yeah, I suppose in this, I tried to focus more on changing it up a lot rather than making a memorable melody. Well I guess that means it's harder to get it stuck in your head, thus making it less likely to become annoying? :P lol I know what you mean.

I'm surprised you hear the piece as mono, as I did have quite a bit of panning involved in the piece (take for example, the opening square waves), but I guess it doesn't quite come through in the export? I didn't really play around with stereo panning though, so I may give that a shot.

Also not really sure what you mean about "brighter" drums (higher pitch, shorter?). But thanks overall for your feedback. :)

[Leight Wight]

Welcome back, Garlagan! Glad to be blessed by your amazing work :)

[~SW~ Reflection]

Oh, perfect! You showed in up in R4R. I really want a Walkaround R4R :D

As far as I know, this is what you consider your best piece right now. Correct me if I'm wrong. There's are some really good reasons for you to believe that, and although I don't share the same opinion, it would be shameful of me to deny the excellence present here. So let's get started.

I'm always impressed with how you can create cohesive tracks without an extremely graph-able structure. What does that mean? My tracks tend to follow some sort of verse-chorus-verse etc structure, sort of like there's always this down section here and then I build up and there's a distinct drop here and then it goes back down and then builds back up to another drop and then goes back down again. But you create cohesive sections that don't smoothly fall into any of these categories of verses and choruses, rather it mostly just feels like freelance wherever you want the track to go. And yet the intensity still flows smoothly. One of the things I'm most looking forward to seeing in our collab is how you'll execute this flow in our thing :)

Also, after mistmurk mentioned basslines, I'm beginning to notice more and more how good they are. My basslines tend to be super generic, so I'm giving you props here, too.

Great percussion free-styling at 3:30

I do feel like the track is missing something in terms of chordal variation - you mentioned in the description that every chord has its base in a major 7th chord. While I like the intentional decision at first, over 7 minutes of the same type of chord over and over struggles to stay harmonically intriguing, even if you switch up the upper harmonics enough.

Have you ever tried parallel harmonizing a lead in a solo? I do it pretty often and it's a great way to thicken a thinner lead sound like the one you primarily use in this piece. This moment in 1:56 would be a great place to add in that harmony. Preferably in thirds. Or maybe sixths.

Also, the outro felt a bit unsettled in a way. Don't know why, don't know how to describe it. :/

And... I guess that'll be my review :) Fantastic work on this track, although 2 is still my favorite thing from you <3

SkyeWint responds:

Hey dude!

Glad it's a good'un! The organization is definitely one thing I've worked on, looking forward to playing around with it in our track too!

Basslines are honestly something that I just gradually did over time, not sure how those ideas developed aside from them needing to be somewhat melodic.

I'm glad you like the percussion style at 3:30! I was really proud of what I ended up doing there.

Nothing to disagree with in terms of chordal variation. Only thing I'd say is... well, at least it still has far more variation in harmonics to twist the mood than most music. ;_;

Parallel harmony: Yes, I've actually done this a fair amount. Not quite as much in this, but there's a moment of it at 6:15 where I tried to use it effectively.

Not sure what to say about the outro there either - it's pretty similar to how I ended Float. They're pretty similarish songs overall, too.