Coop's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

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fit pretty well :P It was a bit difficult getting them to match up with a solid 4 step drum pattern, since they were originally made for Drum N Bass.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

[[FR] By the River]

Contrasting

Hmm, with the way that this piece starts off really quietly, then launches into a loud and proud bass beat, before bringing in the other aspects, you've clearly thought about how tow aspects of a tune really fit together and deliver a quite creative punch.

Perhaps I'd have faded in the main beat sooner, to get the melody in there as well sooner, but other than that, this tune is great. Would it use vocals? No, they could completely ruin the ambience of it. In the present form, it doesn't loop well at all, which is the major stumbling block, so I'd perhaps consider messing with the blend, not cutting the track out for 8 seconds at the end, even finishing the piece off with something that calms down to sound like the intro, so they could blend together in a loop, for example.

Not much wrong with the piece though, keep up the good work.

[Review Request Club]

Frazmaster responds:

Thanks a lot for the review! :)

The song is not intended to loop

[HDC Presents: Mao vs. ER]

Draw - neither was good enough to win

Right, summing up the two artists rapping in this battle, Mao has a few bits which made me cringe, like the laughing after the first verse and then in the third verse, he doesn't seem to know how to get the rhythm to his lines while the beat goes on. I love the irony of calling his opponent a Hip-Hop Flop, as he makes a complete hash of the rap.

ER just seems to swear for a reaction - too much detracts from the lyrical genius that this could be. I'm not really well versed on the etiquette for this sort of thing, but the fact that his tone is more abusive than his opponents just seems to rub me up the wrong way.

Right, the beat was a little too simple - there's more complex rhythms out there that really compliment the rap, without testing the rappers abilities too much, thus letting people concentrate on the lyrics.

You could have given us a transcript of this, as I'd have been able to orientate myself with the piece a little more.

[Review Request Club]

HDC responds:

thanks for the detailed review

[Simple and Clean]

simple formula, goto10

Well, what can you say about a "rinse & repeat" formula, that gets a little additional dash each time? It's simple and effective, as I feel that there's a good offering of components across the board, showing us exactly what I can see within the genre.

The methodical progression and almost rhythmical repetition is symbolic of Industrial music, but in a different way to the "furnaces and hammers" that I'm used to for the genre. This takes on a flavour of robotics and possibly assembly lines, which make electronic goods and we see as very white buildings, hermetically sealed from contaminants and producing the latest gizmo for the consumer market.

The metaphor expands, allowing for the thing to be assembled from its components and slowly taking shape. The basic frame of the melody and beat is added to gradually and it becomes more complex than the sum of the component parts, giving us a very pleasing piece, which I'm not sure it was what you were after, but a nice effect, nonetheless.

If anyone reads this and wants to, make a flash of this. Who knows, it could be P-Bot we are building :P

[Review Request Club]

Morph94 responds:

Hey, glad it worked for ya. Good vision, too. Not sure there's going to be a flash artist that takes interest in my work, but a guy can always dream. :D

[Gaussian Jungle (Soft Mix)]

Nice flow

I like the way that this piece sounds - calm and collected, but without being over the top - I'm not sure about the choice of genre though, but overall, this piece has a lot of potential.

If we consider the symbolism, it's almost a cyberpunk setting, with a rainy city and subterfuge of some kind going on, where everyone is trying not to be seen, while doing one thing and another to either each other or the system. Then the woodwinds came in and frankly took that illusion away from me.

Perhaps the cyberpunk is "punking" feudal Japan or some other timescale around then, when that sort of sound would have been more common? Don't get me wrong, this piece is fantastic, I'm just trying to work out the fantasy picture that is being painted here, as a picture is worth a thousand words and this piece of music paints a picture, but one that it out of focus for me...

[Review Request Club]

WizMystery responds:

One look at the "Hard Mix" and you'd know right away it was somewhat industrial - I removed ear rape that was frankly meant to sound like machinized tigers and the like. I think the removal of that removed quite a lot of the picture as well, unfortunately. I'll have to change things around the next time I do a soft/hard split, I guess.

Thanks for the review!

[Rage Racer V.V.]

Sounds worthy of the game

I like the piece overall and I feel that the impression that it gives is solid, where it could be used for a racing game, particularly along long, winding Japanese highways, where there is no traffic and six lanes to weave across, as you push your car to and beyond the limits.

The sound that you produce has a vague "oriental" feel to it, though I wouldn't be able to swear exactly why, so subtle is the blend of styles here. It's almost like you have mixed in some oriental instruments as well as the more modern stuff.

With the way that everything plays through the piece, it puts a nice impression in there, with a buildup and then some sort of Mortal Kombat style effects, which I wasn't over impressed with - I was expecting someone to yell "MORTAL KOMBAT!" in the background, if I am being honest, which never helps a racing game out. Sorry, the theme of the piece seems to have been well set.

[Review Request Club]

Rinileki14 responds:

Thanks for reviewing!