Coop's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Ride Through The Madness]

Not what I'd call Madness

To be honest, it's a half decent tune, but it suffers with balance - you've not mastered this song, or taken any time to "smooth it out", so you're going to lose marks straight away. The piece as a whole is passable, but quite slow - not something that really happens in the Madness Lexicon.

I know that Madness is more based around Electronica, garage, dance, trance and the other genres of that ilk, but Metal and Rock do have a place there, so keep driving at that wedge and make a space for these sounds. If I said any metal were Madness themed, I'd say speed or thrash would be the way to go, lots of notes, high tempo and something that Hank can spray bullets and guts around to.

So, you need to increase the tempo of the piece, add more drums, make it more complex, without drowning the piece. With the guitar, you could stand to drop half an octave and work the tune around that, since it would cope with that sort of sound.

Yes, I know it sounds like me proposing wholesale changes or saying "better yet, start again!", but I'm not. Give it some time and you can really make an impression with a piece like this.

[Review Request Club]

[Long Story Told Short]

Interesting duet

Ah, the clash of two parts of the piano played alongside one another. Could this possibly be played on the same piano at the same time? Or is it a more modern duet that is played by two people on two pianos?

I like the way that the clash compliments the piece. Perhaps a change of instrument would be a more "disturbing" change - have you considered changing the lighter parts for a harpsichord? That could add a little flair to the piece and give you some other area of contrast.

Yes, I understand the concept is to tell the story short, but perhaps a minute longer for the track wouldn't make that much of a difference to the overall impression that the piece gives.

[Review Request Club]

ErlendHL responds:

Yeah maybe another instrument would be nice. I am not sure it can be played with two hands on a piano... gotta try to learn my song on piano! And yes perhaps it should be longer. Anyway it's not short because it should be a short story. It's pretty much because I felt I had used all "prospects" of the melody.. idk how to put it. Anyway, thanks for your review!

[Hope for Her]

I was expecting bass

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the application of bass to this tune would improve it - I'm not entirely sure that it would, but I looked at the genre and thought that Hip-Hop would indicate a much less melodic piece and would have some vocals to it, or something a lot further from what we have here.

I love how you develop this piece, by adding parts to it and taking others away, so that it starts to sound different, but it's like painting a plastic model - change the colours, change the model, but underneath, it's still the same shape plastic.

It's a very mellow sounding piece - something relaxing and serene, that you can enjoy stretching out under a tree in the middle of summer with a drink of your choice and watch the clouds drift by. Perhaps I'll do that later at the cricket? I hope that the girl was worth it and that you got to show her what she means.

If anything was wrong with the serenity and the tune at all, I'd have said the beat just seemed a little faster than it should have been. I could see this slowed down just a tad, because the persistent tapping of the high hat seems to be carrying the tune on at quite a race for something that feels like I should be relaxing.

[Review Request Club]

[GS vs. TI - North Face]

Not bad, but a little rough

Not being all that familiar with dubstep, I'll still say that I wasn't overly impressed with the effect on the counter-melody, where it seems to resonate the notes, almost making them sound like something is off with the track all together.

I think that you can certainly do something a little more with this piece, whether it be adding vocals, tidying it up a little around this perceived inadequacy or something different, like giving the melody more of a solo, where it does something different, rather than playing the same loop over and over again, to fade, which doesn;t seem to do it justice. The whole point of a solo is the musician's change to show off - that's why they do it in more traditional music.

Still, it's passable and while there is room for improvement, you could do a lot worse.

[Review Request Club]

[Taters]

Hmm... has potential

Well, as this "song" goes, there is room for manoeuvre. You have a bunch of lyrics that I couldn't understand, save for some southern hick saying "where's my taters", if I caught it correctly. Please print the lyrics, since that wasn't all they were saying, or make it so that they are balanced better, for greater understanding.

The tune itself was quite basic, with the synth tapping out 8-10 notes and rinsing / repeating. Adding something in there, other instruments, various different notes and perhaps a bass beat to accompany it would change the track massively, which in turn could make this a massive hit.

Personally, I quite like the simplicity of the piece, but if you went and spent a little more time working on this, you'd be able to put yourself into the same camp that users like Weebl find themselves in - making funny songs, which take very little inspiration and seemingly effort as well.

[Review Request Club]

[S.S. Anne [Dubstep]]

Not my thing

I loved how this piece started, with the 8-bit / harpsichord, which made it sound as it we were listening to something medieval, as if there should be a view of the Mary Rose in the background, out to sea off Portsmouth. Then you added the bass beat, which wasn't too bad, but it got progressively worse, as you came back with the harpsichord (nice), then overlaid some sort of "filler", which just seemed to go against the grain.

I'd have stayed with the first interpretation, but it seems like you've used too many things in the second one, which does take away from the finished product. Try subtracting a line or two from the collective in the second movement and you'll end up with something that sounds better.

Then we come to the second part - the length. You can't really set a scene with a piece that's too short, so I'd go about doubling the length of that and maybe there will be chances to add more to it and you can get a more presentable piece, that someone could use for their flash piece in the future?

[Review Request Club]

[[dj-Jo] Distress, Oppress]

Fight the power!

Seems to me like there's a crowd of people being ordered off the streets for a curfew and because they aren't going quick enough, some job's worth has decided to either open fire, or get pushy, so all hell has broken loose. This is the aftermath, where the survivors creep back out onto the streets after the police have left, to help the survivors away, for the hope that they might live.

This sort of thing is done for a reason and it's only when it's too late, when we see why it was done, but something didn't work, just like with the riots in Tottenham, North London over the weekend.

You've got a good mix here, though for my metaphor, I'd have liked to see the tune about a minute longer, to incorporate more to the piece and the "violent" tones that you used within, just to make it sound a little more aggressive and hate filled, so that the oppression is really hard hitting.

[Review Request Club]

[The Fan]

Needs more balance

Okay, so the guitar and drums are pretty good. I'd say that you need to encourage a little more volume out of your bass, to drag some balance to the song.

As with certain other of your pieces, I'm not the world's greatest fan of your voice. Sure, you can sing, but there is an issue with how your vocals wander around - sometimes, there is an awesome sound and others, it does go quite flat, which needs working on, otherwise the good work with the guitar just falls flat, which isn't nice.

Finally, working on how the lyrics should sound when sung would help - try to get the beat of the syllables to match to the tune, as that might help the piece sound better.

Mind you, the ending sucked, with the scream and the laugh into the mic.

[Review Request Club]

Sawdust responds:

Thanks for the advice! I'll definitely follow all of that in hopes that my songs will illicit a reaction of "whoa!!! awesome!!!" instead of "it's nice".

Thanks again