Coop's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[~SW~ Depth Charge WIP]

tranquil, yet pulsating

I know that's an ambivalent tag line that I've given the review, but bear with me. The ambience that you've given the piece really does have a certain tranquillity about it, where you feel like relaxing and seeing the whole piece has this about it sets it up well.

The pulsating part comes from the slow, steady beat that you imparted to the piece in the early going and stayed along with toward the end of the piece.

As we start, it's only seagull calls short of being a beach scene. The beat hits you and in spite of that, the electronica that you use just seems to relax everything about it, allowing the beat to trace its own path through the music.

Losing the bass in the middle of the piece, you end up with more calm and serenity than the later middle section gives you when the beat returns. I could see this being the sort of tune that you use to keep you calm in a high stress job situation.

Moving toward the end, the part where you seemed to fade the bass out was unexpected and it almost calms the track down a little, as if it needed it a little, just before putting the track to bed. Should you consider ending with the waves as they were at the start? This would help to loop the piece.

I think you could possibly stand to reduce the length of the piece ever so slightly and if you did, it would have to be done very carefully, just to prevent anything of real beauty and substance from being lost. Finally, I'd say the genre that you were after is Ambience, as this is something that could be used by so many people for various projects.

[Review Request Club]

SkyeWint responds:

Hello. The review name makes perfect sense to me, I see what you mean. :P

The intro actually does have a seagull call, it's right about when it fades out and the music starts playing.

For the ending, as I've said in responses to other reviews, I'll be making everything go down and quiet down before having a dull "explosion" under everything (likely to be thunder with a thud before it).

As for reducing the length... this is actually going to be longer. :P I was going to put in the third section right after this, you can hear the start of it at the end. Then I would have it go into the "chorus" (A section), followed by a miniature B section (ambient bit) to go down and end it.

Thanks for your review!

[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]

[Past lives - HABON]

Good buildup

A very pleasing song on the ears, the intro works well and doesn't disappoint as we come into the main body of the piece, adding a few more drums in and not leaving the impression of being too crowded.

You've learned to add, but also to take away, which certainly helps your pieces. I'm not sure about the counter melody in the middle of this piece, as it's a little too much of a tangent for me to take, but when the piece comes back afterwards, there is no sense f loss, more that you've returned to where the track needs to be.

Given a little more tweaking, you could make a lot out of this piece.

[Review Request Club]

habon responds:

Thanks for the review!

[Subtle Shift]

Not bad

It gets a little repetitive, but I can see that it's a tune that could work. Perhaps it needs to be given a shove into more variety and allowed to develop in a more creative manner.

Yes, I understand that some tunes are liked to be repetitive, but why have a 3 minute track, that doesn't change very much, when a 30 second track takes up 6 times less space and can be used in the same way?

Your grandmother was a bit of a clubber in her younger days, was she? It takes all sorts, I suppose. I'd have said that it could be considered garage or more likely Drum n Bass, which would accommodate the drumming properly. If you slowed it down a little and added more deep, menacing thumps on the drums, you could call it industrial, but it's down to you at the end of the day.

[Review Request Club]

Xenophaje responds:

I don't know why I made it that long, at the time I wanted to see if I could keep repetitiveness, I'd forgotten I didn't have the skill to do so. (Guess I was just fantasizing). Since then I have improved (in only 2 months).

About my grandmother - it was just a thought really.
Honestly, I have no clue my grandmother's youth was like. It never occurred to me to ask her. I doubt she was given how much of a sweet old lady she was when she was alive (in my time). She died 3 years ago so... yeah...

Thanks for the Review.