Coop's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Opening Theme 2]

A little short

Not a bad track, but it didn't seem to loop right and with that on top of the fact it was quite short, meant that these factors conspired against my feeling on the overall track. I feel that there is some good potential with the track though and you need to stick with it and tweak a little to make it worthwhile.

The piece sounds good, with the idea of building up before some sort of medieval conflict, taking the lives of many and maiming many more. The whole scenario is one of foreboding and potentially of great loss, which will no doubt play out in later pieces that you submit. I look forward to the great arcing swathes of blood and gore that you communicate during these pieces, with increased pace, gusto and presence.

That was the other place that the piece maybe stumbled slightly - it failed to really impress itself upon me, not quite being there to grab me and say "something's about to happen!", more that this is the forgotten piece of music from a menu, which people end up humming all day, because the stuff on the radio at work is worse... Ah, I see what you did there.

[Review Request Club]

samulis responds:

Ironically, it is designed to be menu music, although the fellow who requested it asked for some changes, hence the piece posted directly after this one.

I did realize the looping issue... I generally try to have the song die out as much as possible into nothing more than drum beats or such so it can slowly kindle to life again, but I didn't have the luxury of doing that noting the quiet beginning.

As a side note, most of my pieces are under two minutes. I have not broken the five-minute mark in over a year, although I hope to do so at some point. :(

Thanks for the great review. :)
-Samulis

[Dickbuns Impression]

Poor

Sorry, but I can make more than a short list about what is wrong with this piece. Starting again might be a better option, but with only 3 seconds on the clock, you'll not have lost a whole lot.

1) Mic quality - the sound is either down to the fact that you've turned the mic sensitivity up too high, you're standing too close to it or you're just plain speaking too loudly into it. You want to make the sound not too over the top, without "topping out" on the equaliser, thus causing overload feedback.

2) The first second of the track is made up of you opening your mouth, which while it sounds funny, it also sounds a little disgusting. Bill Bailey made a whole sketch based around Carol Vorderman doing something similar, but I wouldn't advise you to try the same. Chop that out and get more material.

3) The "script" is weak. At least with my short entry, Dr. Claw, there is a good idea of who on earth I'm imitating. Yours has a little too fine a target audience, to pull this off - was this done for a thread in General, or a Stickam chat room? Try fleshing the piece out, so that you can present the wider audience with a better devised piece, as opposed to four words, comprising the piece as a whole.

4) The ending - there isn't one. You barely pronounce the "d" of intoxicated and you're back to square 1 and that inexplicable sound. At least allow it to run a little further, then pause and remove the mouse click sounds from the background. This will increase the overall length of your piece by at least 8.3% (a quarter of a second).

There is plenty to do, so would starting from scratch really kill you? Probably not, but who am I to judge?

[Review Request Club]

[[Kieda] Stalemate]

Racing game

Ah, another piece ready for the modern or futuristic racing games, usually involving flying or anti-grav machines that we can only dream of, with their speeds which blur the senses and g-forces which abuse the body beyond breaking point. Nice.

The foil to this is control - the pace is there, though it is reigned in by various factors, such as a controlled beat and the melody holds itself in check nicely. The modulation is good, where the track seems to stop, almost going into an action replay, as something on the track has happened and we get to see in minute detail in 3DHD exactly what caused the massive and expensive wreckage out there. Clearly some nice toy that the guys in the director's chair are playing with.

I'd increase the length of the piece and perhaps make the loop a little better, rather than having the intro feed in, perhaps consider that it needs to hit the ground running, so that you don't have to worry about limiting the track to once around the block. The bridge could effectively become the recognised intro, halfway through the track, but that's an easy mistake to make.

I think that there is a little more scope for variation and experimentation, particularly on the bass side of things - the melody and associated articles is fine and dandy, but the bass seems a little ignored, so play about with that, to perhaps give it a moment in the spotlight, for a change?

[Review Request Club]

Kieda responds:

F-Zero? :D

Yarh, I can see what you mean. I should learn to make a great bass, or more of them. Or anything. Just better low end stuff.. and stuff like that. Melody leads and plucks are just so much simpler and easier to do xP

But I suppose I have to learn to make better bass if I want to my music to get any better. Thanks for your review (:

[Frenzied Pianist - HABON]

You played this yourself?

If so, may I be about the 10th person to say "holy fucking shit", to such a tinkling of the ivories that one could never hope to hear very often. Such a shame that it's only a minute long, otherwise you could rival Apocalyptica with playing some hellish long, technical and above all classical metal riffs really fast in a style not entirely befitting of Metal, but they aren't bothered and neither should you ben.

Frenzied is the way to describe it, as the first 20 seconds give little away, to the undercurrents bubbling away beneath, ready to take this piece to the next level, as you explode into some form of being possessed by Beethoven, or other such gifted pianist, whose name currently escapes me.

Yes, I'd like to have a longer piece to better appreciate the sound that you've produced, but also a little orchestral backing, because sadly, this piece gets old at about the 5th time through, which is a shame, considering the variation employed within. Had you not been playing so fast, the piece could have lasted at least twice as long. I jest, it would have sounded stupid.

A little duel between yourself and a violin would be a nice start, throwing in a bit of percussion to punctuate would be the best start for me, then let's see what that piano is really capable of, as it battles its way through against the whole orchestra!

[Review Request Club]

[DJ B1K - Vegetable Lasagn]

Piano musings

How about that for a title?

I was a little disappointed by the fact that the piano wasn't prominent through the piece, as it seemed to be the way you were heading with it. A great buildup which I felt was cruelly robbed, by the direction you took it. Why not appease me and make a piece based around the piano?

Right, the second half of the track was just a loop of a few bars in synths, which bridged us the the next piece of piano, which was a shame, as there's a lot of potential to take this a little further, giving it another minute or two in length and giving the piano the chance to stretch its legs and get out there with the creativity that such a versatile and powerful instrument can give.

Go for it, I believe in you!

[Review Request Club]

B1KMusic responds:

I know what you mean about the piano being robbed by the synth--after submitting this I kinda regretted that.

If I do re-visit this, I will increase the length and keep the title in mind.

Thanks for the feedback, coop :)

[~SW~ Soul Core]

Not sure it's Jazz

Perhaps blues, or soul, but not Jazz, in my opinion. Still, that's just what it is - an opinion. Even it is is Jazz, composing a track like this is difficult, because Jazz is the strangest type of music, as it evolves as the song goes on, as opposed to being bound by some form, such as verses, choruses and the like.

I like the piece overall and I think that the sound of the sax can be improved - it just sounds a little electronic to me, which is a shame. The beat is good and it gives a nice skeleton to the piece - again one of my interpretations of why it isn't Jazz, since it has too much rigid form and not enough improvisation to call it the truer face of Jazz, as it were.

Still, here we have a nice piece of sax, that carried the tune and a few decent backing instruments - why not have some of the other instruments out there give a little solo or bridge, just to break it up, as in a real club situation, the saxophonist might need a breather, just to get back into the groove every once in a while.

[Review Request Club]

[[Pseudohouse]]

Good beat

Well, let's start with the good - the piece has a good beat. I hear that all the way through the track, even to the point when I feel that it's affected my own heartbeat - I thought that only happened in nightclubs.

The bad thing is undoubtedly that the beat obscures the rest of the track, as opposed to complimenting it. Like someone in a choir shouting over the top of the soloist something like "Can you hear that? Aren't they good?!" Tone down the bass a little, to allow the rest of the track - the melody and counter melody especially, the chance to shine through of their own accord.

Don't get me wrong, this piece has potential in spades, but at eight and a half minutes, it needs to have a major change to allow it to fulfil this potential.

[Review Request Club]

Xyresic responds:

I did get back into FL after reading some of the reviews and experiment with the sidechaining, and while I agree that it is a very excessive amount I found that the song felt like it had less substance to it without it. It's like the kicks are the staples holding together a bunch of papers. With such a simplistic melody going on, there isn't very much that is covered by the sidechaining in the first place. Thanks for the review!

[3S - Bassline Skanka (WIP)]

Good start

Everything builds up well, as a bassline, though I think that you need to give it more and get a proper melody in there, to counter it and take the piece to other places.

Yes, the sound drives me on, though I was a little sceptical at the start, with the quiet almost bassless beginning, as if someone were playing it on their phone. Now we've got a buildup, adding lots of new features and making a beat you can work with. There's not much else that can be said, since it's only a work in progress, so finish it off, by adding more things to it, so you can make a full tune out of it. The vocal samples are pretty good and they made me laugh, which is a nice achievement for you. If you get to a full blown track though, you've got to be aiming around 3 times the length of this, though.

[Review Request Club]

Dj-GST responds:

Yeah, I agree, needs some melody in there.

All it was, was a low pass filter and treble boost, I may change that in the full version though.

Haha yeah, I though they fit pretty well :P It was a bit difficult getting them to match up with a solid 4 step drum pattern, since they were originally made for Drum N Bass.

Yeah man, I'm gonna be aiming for a 5-6 min length for this one.

Thanks for the review!

3S