Coop's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[2011 diss rap]

Horrible

Well, this piece is awful from start to finish. I can't find a way to praise this in any way, shape or form.

The discord that you start with and repeat ad nauseum is horrible - in case you can't understand Latin, it's repeated until I feel sick. As for the rapping, I can't understand most of the words that you use, so printing the lyrics in the author's comments would be a good idea to start with.

Right, since I can't really comment on the lyrics, let's move on. There are two major breaks in the piece, when there is nothing coming out of the speakers. Fill these in with something, as any music is better than silence, unless you're pausing for a beat or two. This is pausing for great swathes, because I suspect you were trying to flesh out the time of the piece. If you're trying to flesh that out, try changing the music up a little, playing different notes, doing something with the beat, or making it a solo, for a change.

The second part, after the long break was just the same, but with the vocals reversed, if my ears tell me right. That might have been a good ideas, had I been able to understand the lyrics, but there was interference from the mic (get a better mic and perhaps a pop-guard as well) and also the rap was too quiet, being constantly drowned out by the droning of the music. The music is meant to back the vocals, not the other way around.

When you came back to the third part of the piece, it wasn't as long as the other two, but just seemed to be part 1 over and again, until you either pressed stop or just silenced it for the remainder of the track. I know it's a horrible thing to say, but the silence was probably the better component of this piece and without that, the rap would probably have sounded worse.

There is plenty to work on here, but don't give up. Prove this review wrong, make the most of another piece.

[Review Request Club]

[{BT} Crystal Cavern]

Enchanting

A stellar piece, with both calm and eerie influences over the listener, while creating a very vivid image of sharp-edged crystals lining the walls of a frankly massive cavern, where the occasional drip of water plays across the background and the lights from sources unseen refracts and reflects through the facets of the walls, creating a veritable kaleidoscope of light and colour.

The part where you get about half a minute in and really are hit by the scale of the cavern really hits home. I love that as a listener, the imagery is very vivid and the suggestion is great in this respect. It almost sounds sinister, with the way that it expands, almost ominously before us.

Given that there is so much crammed into a small scale piece, time-wise, it might be considered frugal to consider expansion - the piece is certainly good as it is, but if you were to make it as much as a minute longer, you could benefit from additional sound effects, such as the aforementioned drop of water on occasion in the background.

As for what lives in the cave, we aren't entitled to find out, due to the ambiguity of the piece - this should certainly stay as it is, because there is a great scope here. Certainly, you could put it in that there is a monster, just after the ominous camera pan (30s), revealing some terrible monster, but in song. Alternatively, the creature could look horrible and scary, but it could be totally fantastic and harmless. You could base two entirely different pieces off this and they would sound so radically different from one another, just by changing the theme.

[Review Request Club]

BenTibbetts responds:

OK, thanks for your thoughts.

[Chipstep]

Oriental VG?

Hmm, an interesting blend of styles used in this piece, to give a nice overall effect. I'm not sure about the beating and banging sounds across the middle of the piece, but other than that, you've got a very nice sounding track. Perhaps it was supposed to be percussion and it just kind of went a little too far in that respect.

If I were you, I'd stick to the oriental sounds that started the track off, as it's great quality and if you were thinking of adding percussion into it a little later on, perhaps go for something a little softer and quieter? This would help with balance, as the early and late parts of the track just went a little beyond the rest of the track in their form.

Still I love the ambience it gives and you're certainly capable of making it for this genre.

[Review Request Club]

SuperBastard responds:

Thanks for the great review! I especially appreciate the input on the weird noise effects throughout the middle of the song, since I wasn't quite sure where I stood on those myself. That aspect of the song was a bit experimental and people seem to agree that it's a bit excessive, so based on your critique I'll tone it down a bit.

[Stargenx - Eastern Lights]

Space travel

Hmm, a very nice piece based around what I feel like with space travel - the beats are electronic and the melody seems to flow smoothly, without friction, like travelling through an endless void of space, from system to system, your destination light-years away and some great amount of travel between you and it.

Certainly a track that I would associate with my short tenure on EVE Online, but beyond that, the sound is calm, yet with the driving purpose that the beat gives later on, it comes alive.

A nice melody, though I'd certainly say that you can stand to make this track longer, adding more in the way of variation and seeing if you can take it forward in another way with something else. The quiet patch in the middle was great, though perhaps I'd have just stopped the bassline and gone with the melody at regular volume, rather than cutting everything out and rebuilding the melody into the track, finally bringing the bass back at the end of that segment.

[Review Request Club]

Stargenx responds:

Thanks for the review! Those are some good points, I'll mess with this one a little more.

[Adjeye-3 ~ Sentivicated.]

Tense buildup

Hmm, a very interesting piece, that builds up quite slowly, almost with emotional tension mounting, ready for the next piece. Personally, I viewed that the next phase of the track was a little tame, given the almost horror / thriller suspense that was being built up within me. Perhaps hit us with something faster, harder, higher pitched and frantic, that really sets itself apart from the constraint of the genre?

The second time around,t he addition of the piano was brilliant and the bassline seemed to hit harder, with more purpose, as it drives forward. The melody was nice, as was the counter that you threw in there, to compliment it. A shame that we couldn't have heard something like this in the first part of the track, but you can't always get what you want, I suppose.

I felt that the fade to black at the end was just cutting off the track in its prime. Perhaps this is because of my slight misgivings over the initial exchanges, but there is still something else within this piece that is trying to break out. I'd love for you to explore and find out if there is anything else that you can share with us in this respect.

[Review Request Club]

Adjeye responds:

Yeah I need to work on my ends, you're right about that.. I will use the rest of your review too, thanks for taking the time to listen :).

[Riddickulous (WIP)]

Very repetitive

Thump, thump, thump - throw in a synth or two, fade out, thump, thump, thump.

The robotic voice was good and a little creepy, though as this piece is a work in progress, I think that it's a good thing, as it shows that there is more stuff required, to take this to the next level. Variation, for example.

It's a good loop, but I think that there are things in there that can be expanded upon. The synths that you danced around with at one stage can be expanded quite a bit, to give you a lot more artistic freedom, while still remaining within the artistic constraints of the genre, I feel.

The bass beat is a little boring, but you've done some things to help combat that, by changing away from a simple repetitive beat and have thrown different combinations and tempos in there. Perhaps another instrument or two on the bass side could give you a different outlook on the track as it grows?

It's good, but it's not quite there yet.

[Review Request Club]

Dj-GST responds:

Yeah, I agree. I do need to add quite a bit more to this.

I'm gonna try and stereoize the bassline a bit more, to make it sound fatter.

Yeah, I'm gonna be adding quite alot to the drums, as well as alot more glitchy variation.

Thanks for the review man!

[BigT's New Unfinished Beat]

"Insert title here"

Seriously, you need a better name, even for a work in progress :P

It's not a bad track - it has a few parts which need attention to, such as the fact that you've got 3-4 seconds of silence to finish it off - why not make it into a loop, thus giving this piece potential to be used in flash pieces?

The robotic voice you used is incomprehensible - if we knew what it was saying, you'd have a better feel for the track, I'm sure.

It builds up nicely and is begging for a melody or counter melody to take this elsewhere. My solution would be to loop this beat three times (after cutting it to remove the silence at the end) and then adding some more synths, to give it more form. Bring the robot in for a bigger part, as opposed to the mumbling at the start, so it could lead the vocals of the track.

There's a promise to this track, but it needs time and effort to bring it forth.

[Review Request Club]

[-*CaSH*- Gettin' It]

Strange, yet almost Jazz-like

I can feel a lot of potential with this piece, though I'd say it's just that at the moment, as opposed to being a finished article. When you come to the messing with the sounds over the top of one another around the minute marker and again around the two minutes, it seems to need something else, just to offset this ever so slightly. Personally, I'd say that you need to give it some sort of soft percussion - the type played with the brushes on the skins and maybe even a sanddancer for the "ssh-ssh" sounds.

Like I say, there is potential here and messing with the sounds that you can synth can be fun, but this seems to be fin in a productive way. A few more tweaks and I think this track could be really good.

[Review Request Club]

[Peace V.2 (Dj Sonik)]

Calm, yet stimulating.

I can see this as another of those tracks that I associate closely with sci-fi flight and racing games, such as WipEout and EVE Online. These sorts of things seem to have the right mindset to go along with the way that the music sounds to me and it just resonates nicely.

I feel that there's no reason for people to hate this, but if you're getting that from other sources, it's just not for them. Perhaps I would have done things a little differently, rather than having a part of the song when the melody quietened and the bass took the lead, despite doing nothing different. Had it taken the lead and gone on to do something different, it would have given me something else to talk about, which is probably why the variation I was after didn't come through. Pause the bass track and let the melody do something different, to give more of an impact.

I'm not hating on this piece, I just think something could have been dine differently. Artistic differences, we shall say :P

[Review Request Club]

[Don't Stop! - Adam Doan]

Uniform - marching robots?

This track sound borderline industrial, with either the marching impression that you give, or the sound of hammers beating down on anvils in some manufactorium of sorts. I feel that I'm listening to something by Depeche Mode or Daft Punk, who could have influenced this piece in no small part.

The vocals are quite quiet - I'd suggest that you increase their presence, so that they become harder hitting, as their message is delivered. They don't drown the music out - quite the opposite, in fact - but that's gone too far the other way, I feel.

Perhaps something like a klaxon - a change of shift hooter could be used between verses or verse and chorus here, as the industrial roots of this piece speak to me and part of the workforce is substituted for another. If you were to make it Industrial, I'd make the beat more metallic and powerful, so that you can reap the benefits of the power within this sort of music.

[Review Request Club]

Herdunculus responds:

Hmm ok that's a sound suggestion! I think I'll have to try a different approach in the next track I make like this. I've never really done industrial before, and I am still kinda nooby but I will try haha!