Coop's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[USB]

Rather obviously artificial

I'm sorry, but this piece appears almost as manufactured as the Spice Girls. I think that with the way that everything has been set up, particularly with the really fast plucking work up and down the chords, there is a real sense of there being something amiss on this track.

You could really use some vocals on this track, but with the way that you set out to get the track across could use some work as well. I feel that there's something amiss with that it's not really there with the traditional feel of a lead and rhythm guitar. The drums were good, but I can feel that the drums were picked out by someone who probably isn't a drummer - did you hit another drum with the cymbal hits? When you've got the high hat bouncing like you have in the track, it's not really needed, I'll admit, but there's no real massive cymbal crashes, which would seem to be needed two or three times to add punctuation

[Review Request Club]

Sawdust responds:

Well to be fair it is completely artificial. And I'm no drummer, I'm a guitarist though, but I don't know much about the science of guitar sound.

And yeah, I need vocals on this.

[Battle And The Aftermath]

An interesting short

It's a condensed piece, that sounds like the pre-battle, the battle and then finally the aftermath, when everyone is left to bury the dead and count the costs of a conflict that may not have been necessary.

I like the drums, but it does seem just a little too happy and light with the flutes and the xylophones just giving a impression that it was Hippies going to war, for example. With how battle is supposed to be, this doesn't really ever factor into it. When you deepened the drumbeats, you could tell that the battle itself had started.

There doesn't seem to be too much of a counting of the cost after the battle, in all honesty. The way it feels is more of a rejoicing that the war is over, despite the fact that someone has to go out and clear up what all the combatants have left behind.

[Review Request Club]

[Hell's Remedy Demo (2009)]

Great piano, perhaps too much bass

Not a bad start at all. The way that the piece starts to come to life, with the piano as the introduction, I was left begging for the piano to be carried on more. When the synths took over, it was a little anticlimactic for me, sadly.

When you gave us a few additional bits and pieces in the form of the percussion and changes in the tempo, I can certainly say that it worked, but with the time limit of this piece being too short, it didn't really go out there and set me on fire, after the pianos were taken away.

The best suggestion of improvement would be to make it loop better - the piano leading in and then not being heard for another minutes wasn't the best of tactics in my opinion, so it needs to be added elsewhere, to give the track more impetus, from one of the most powerful instruments known to man.

[Review Request Club]

Echo responds:

Hehe, Don't worry, this is only the final minute of the song! There's plenty more piano in the rest and most of it has melodies akin to this one. However, glad you enjoyed that melody as it took us quite some time to get it right.

Tks for the review
Darklight17

[[Assios] - The Office Remix]

Beginner's guide to Techno?

I just had to stop and laugh with how you put the vocal samples into this piece, showing us where each part starts and stops, with the "Trance" and "Bass" quotes. It's an interesting piece, that really does have something a little light hearted and "twinkly" in the mid section, before joining in with the bass, which changed the dynamic of it entirely.

With how you've done the final phase of the song, be careful, as the tune sounds a little crowded and as a result, it does get a little difficult to follow the constituent parts. Taking something out of there may have helped by allowing the piece to become slightly more expressive.

[Review Request Club]

Assios responds:

Thanks for a great review ^^

[Minimalism (Day of Trance #3)]

Minimal is the key here

This is a nice piece, especially considering that the way you've created it doesn't really have that much variation, so as a result, you wouldn't expect me to be raving about a track that was nearly six minutes in length, due to me being a real stickler for variation throughout the track.

As I listen to this piece, I can really feel the expression of the author come through. The bass is fast and thunderous, while the way that the melody blends in for the introduction is really nicely done, presenting a much more balanced track than you might have expected without reading the notes or listening beyond the first minute.

I thought that the pauses were too long at around the 1 minute mark, so that was the only real blemish on the piece.

[Review Request Club]

jxl180 responds:

Thank you for your great and helpful review. Always appreciated.

[Dead Winter (Trance Remix)]

Sad melody, jumpy overtones

An interesting track, but certainly not a brilliant one. Personally, I'm not a fan of where the piano is playing in the background, sounding sad and slightly mournful, but the main melody of the piece is the trance progression, which to me really doesn't mix well with the piano at all in this format.

The length is good, bordering on a little too long. I can see what you're trying to do with the piano, in conjuring up some sort of wintry theme for the listeners, but it needs something else to make it like that. Perhaps change the trance synths to something a little softer and smooth, as opposed to the current setup of ramming it home with the bass beat on top and trying to mix the two together. Perhaps consider the sort of sounds you get from wet fingers around the rims of glasses and work with that as the main melody. The tune would suddenly seem much more like it was a winter theme, as opposed to the in fighting I can sense at present.

[Review Request Club]

[(FMC) -=Bowser Armageddon=-]

Reminds me of the Alton Towers Averts :P

I like this track - the way that it sets up for something epic, slightly scary (the way that you built this up with the piano was absolutely fantastic, complete with the foils of the synths and the guitars) but overall gripping and pacey.

I love the way that this is something that could be played during some sort of Boss Fight Sequence for a VG Flash. I don't think it could be included in the game, as the ending was a little subdued and you tend to prefer loops for things like this, so it does have a target audience, so to speak.

I think that this would be very well presented if you could do a second piece to explain the aftermath of this, since the rapid pace indicates the fight, but there is just an end, with little explanation of what happened to the hero after the fight. Did he survive? Was he crushed beneath the bulk of Bowser, as he collapsed, exhausted?

[Review Request Club]

FunkmasterCatking responds:

I actually had an elaborate battle/flash movie mapped out in my mind as I was making this. I have no flash skills, however, so they're just ideas.

And you raise a good point, the outro is all of a sudden and doesn't really tell what happens exactly. I might go back and redo it at some point, if I were motivated enough..

Thanks for the review!

[Life is the Drug - BK]

Good work :)

I like the way that this song never seems to stop - it's like you've got a definitive setup for it and as one part seems to be drawing to a close, you change the direction of it on a strange tangent, allowing you to take the piece elsewhere and with such style that it all blends nicely into one. Even when the track comes to a stop, I get the feeling that it's about to carry on for another few minutes at this nicely balanced pace.

Personally, I think the best part of this piece is the bassline, as it's the undertone of all of the track, despite the rhythmic changes that happen over the top with the melody. Relatively few instruments have been used here and as a result, you've got a great setup for the rest of the track to build from.

With the way that everything else pans out, you could seriously consider adding something more to the track in the form of perhaps a bass solo, since that would add a new dimension to the piece, in my ears. The quieter parts of the melody may sound like a bass solo, but it's pretty unchanged, so why not give that a go?

[Review Request Club]

Bracksta responds:

great suggestion :), i should make a bass master remix :)! As always thank you so much for the great review, ideas, and compliments :). I love you guys, you maka mea soa happia!!!

[Celestial Palace]

Regal fanfare

A very royal welcome from this piece, as we are hailed in to fanfares, synths and bells. That certainly makes for an interesting combination of instruments that gives this piece a particular feel of being something that has been created by royal edict.

I think that with how it started out, I wasn't expecting this, until the fanfares came along, up until then, it just sounds like it could be something to do with Legend of Zelda and so forth. With the way that you've presented it, I quite like it and can see it being deployed for any medieval sort of flash project, so there will be artists out there searching for an ambience of that kind, so good luck to you with looking for people to use your work.

[Review Request Club]

Birdinator99 responds:

That's great man -- I actually thought you wouldn't like this one! Guess it's all good though :).

[CKC - Avatar]

Good, but a little repetitive

I think that this is a nice sounding piece all told. The major issue that I have is that the only real variation you added was the outro, which really sucks for a 5 minute track. This kind of sound got quite old quite quickly.

For some improvements, I'd consider changing the piece so that the intro doesn't take so long to build up and get us into the track, because that's almost a minute that you could halve, because the increases in volume were so minute, the casual listener would think that they were never going to get there.

You've added backing pieces to the music, but the way that it pans out, it's as if there is something trying and failing to make itself known to the track. With the piece being dominated by the rhythm, you need to crank up the volume on the melodic parts, if you want them to have an impact, which this piece sadly lacked.

[Review Request Club]

CKC2009 responds:

meh...