Review the track(s) above you

[itroitnyah]

Oh, and I completely forgot to link to my track. I would appreciate getting this reviewed: link

I just finished putting on a lot of mixing, and I'm having trouble with deciding whether it's pretty complete, or whether I'm hearing muddiness in the ~300Hz range. I'm pretty content with everything else, it's mostly just the muddiness part, although it you notice anything that sounds/is off, feel free to tell me.

[Conduit]

Oh, and I completely forgot to link to my track. I would appreciate getting this reviewed: link

I just finished putting on a lot of mixing, and I'm having trouble with deciding whether it's pretty complete, or whether I'm hearing muddiness in the ~300Hz range. I'm pretty content with everything else, it's mostly just the muddiness part, although it you notice anything that sounds/is off, feel free to tell me.

It was pretty nice up until the dubstep wobble thing. It honestly hurts to listen too, and has no context in the song. It feels like you just put it there to say it was dubstep. Sound design is the biggest flaw with the song, all the sounds are really basic, and it would be nice to see some variation, or more complex leads. Composition wise it's nice as simple as is, so good job if that's what your going for, but IMO some more interesting melodic content would be nice.

[Jokeblue]

Itroitnyah, thanks heaps for the review. I know you kinda had to do one seeing as the thread makes you, but I really appreciate it anyway. :3

Spoiler Response:

Is there a kick in your WIP? Because I can't hear it. Might want to turn it up. The hats could also use a bit of turning up, imo. That part is really up to opinion though.

There is a kick, but I have no control over the levels or how they're arranged. I don't program them. They're pre-programmed drum loops from the pro-tools loops library, which isn't all that diverse. I don't have any software to make my own drumloops (even if I had something like addictive drums I wouldnt be able to use it because Protools SE doesnt support plugins), and I don't understand or know how to do drum notation, so programming my own would be pretty damn hard. Not sure what i'm going to do about that yet :/

The song is also very very repetitive. It sounds like I'm listening to the same measures over and over again.

Please tell me you don't mean the Time signature :c Do you mean the content of each 8 bars? Well, even if you don't mean either, the response would kinda be the same. It's not progressive metal or anything fancy. It keeps to the common Intro Verse Chorus Verse Chorus Bridge structure, so of course the chorus and verse are going to be pretty similar.

Despite that, the guitars in the second verse as opposed to the first are playing almost completely differently arranged lines, and doing a lot that they didn't do in the first. They stick to the same base chord structuring - but then again, don't most songs? :3

To go along with the mixing, it sounds almost like there's an instrument underneath the distorted electric guitar thingy merjiggy. Like a bass guitar or something. If there's actually a bass guitar there, it's so quiet I can't hear it at all. You'll want to turn it up definitely.

There is most definitely a bass there. I can hear it pretty well through most headphones/speakers, but that may be due to my predisposition as a bassist (and having composed the track haha). I see what you're saying though. I'll try boost the bass a little bit more. I'll see what I can do.

Also, I don't see how the song relates to Applejack not learning anything (reference to that one episode of mlp, I know). It really sounds a lot more like you were throwing down chords and melodies and stuff and having a blast making it then dropped pony on it for the sake of pony. Unless you just have some pony samples you're going to throw in, I'd drop the pony thing and just keep it as a regular song.

"It really sounds a lot more like you were throwing down chords and melodies and stuff and having a blast making it then dropped pony on it for the sake of pony."

Yeah, that's pretty much it, actually. You know of this album thing, Miscellanea Equestria? Well, my Pone for that is Applejack, because I had an acoustic track that I wanted to do. I was having difficulty recording it, though, so to kind of vent the writers block and inability to record what I wanted, I made this song. Then I figured it's probably easier if I just went with this song instead of waiting for a while to get my mic back to record the other track. Problem was this track wasn't very Applejack, and the other pone's it probably could have fit, like Rainbow Dash, Spitfire and Fluttershy which I could quite easily conjure up some fitting vocals for, were taken. And I'm under the impression it's getting a little late to ask any of them if they wanna trade characters.

So it's either make this an Applejack song (most likely a subtle-pone song bout honesty and trust), or try record the different song and make this one either non-pone or subtle-pone.

And the name? I tend to name songs ridiculous things in my WIP stages. Classic examples include:

- Who I Am (...And Thou Shalt Be Smite By The Eternally Crushing Hammer Of Thor On A Tuesday Afternoon When You Least Suspect It, Probably While You're Drinking Tea)

- Stormaggedon, Bane of Men. Take 2509 - The Devourer of Marshmallows and the Family of Spastic Hydras

- Stormaggedon, Bane of Men. Take 2510 - The Extra Hot Taco Sauce and the Absolutely Rubbish Chorus

And my most recent
- Spitfire (I Would Fight My Way Through A Horde Of Screaming Fangirls Just To Pat Your Mane)

For this I just took I Didn't Learn Anything and slapped Appleshrug.jpg on it, because I didn't know what else to do with it. I then added (Forget You, I Can Eat All These Apples!) because why not?

But yeah. Thanks heaps for the review. It means a lot to hear other peoples opinions on it :3

In turn, i'll give a mini review of your track too.

I have to agree with Conduit. It's a really nice track up to the wobble thing, which sounds kind of forced and out of place. I can't really give advice on what to work on with it, but I think its during the third and fourth bars of it, where it changes chords four times. That sounds the most out of place to me, so I'd see about trying to make that work a little more. Like I said, I can't give advice on how to help with this. If you really want that in the song, you'd have to talk to someone who makes dubsteppy stuff and see what they think, and maybe get help from them.

What I really thing you should change are the notes that the bass frequency is hitting. The one that comes in at about 1:05. I think I can actually help you out with this one or give a few pointers. Like I said before, it may be due to my predisposition as a bassist, but the notes that the frequency is hitting are, well, to put it kinda bluntly, wrong. They don't really support what the rest of the song is doing, and just kind of pulls attention away from the beautiful little melody that you have going. I think the notes you're looking for (or may possibly sound a little better and compliment the songs progression a little more) are actually more along the lines of:

E, C, D, B, -- A, C, B, D or
E, E, D, D, -- C, A, D, D

Instead of

E, C, E, C, -- E, C, E, C.


There. I hope I helped you out a little :3

[itroitnyah]

stuff about my wobble bass

It does feel somewhat out of place to me as well, but I wanted to include a bass that wasn't just the hoover saw-bass-thingy that I used for the majority of the drop. I'm debating either dropping it or recomposing it, or working on transitions so that it sounds more like it belongs. Or something.

[KillerAmp]

@itroitnyah
The production of the track is good, and I like the ideas you have going, but i think you should play with some inversions on the chords, they just feel a bit static/generic to me, but that might just be my ear. The dubstep part doesn't really work for me because the drums arn't strong enough to keep you feeling the track. Perhaps a more chillstep approach would work more? (heavy sidechain on more gradual bass sounds) I just think that way you can have the best of both worlds, a more melodic feel to a dubstepy track.

Idk if that helps all too much haha.

@jokeblue
So for your track I'm really loving the premise of the guitar, and its powerful but its also not too much. The distortion on it was just the right amount to work with the chord/melody/arp you were playing, so I like that. From what you've posted I also like that more chill part near the end and really think that it will turn out to be a good song.
Now the only real downside to this track in my own opinion, is the lack of the mixing for the drums, throughout the WIP the drums kind of come in and out depending on how busy the guitar part is, and it starts to lose its unity as a part of the track. I think the best thing I can really say for this is to try EQing out the un-necessary frequencies of the guitar part in order to let the drums breathe a bit more.

So I have 2 small works in progress I'd love opinions on so I critiqued 2 songs, is that how this works? am I breaking some rule? idk. They're short don't worry :P

https://soundcloud.com/officialaristokat/what-we-were-v2
The intro to me is a bit meh right now, but otherwise I think i'm going in the right direction with this, What do you guys think?

https://soundcloud.com/officialaristokat/chords2-5
This ones kind of a like, homage to Some Chords. For now I'm really just playing with the chords.

[simonli2575]

@KillerAmp - What We Were V2
The opening sounds a bit too dry, it gets better after the white noise is introduced.
@0:31 I don't really like how you fade out the kicks, I think it's better that you don't put any kicks in that bar (not even the first one).
@1:01 I think you could have made the build up slightly longer.
@2:19 The crash sounds slightly wrong and slightly abrupt to me.
Overall, a nice WIP for a house track, but the build up could use some work. Keep it up.

Here's my WIP.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/531 ... 2017_6.mp3

[ArisingFlame]

I'll start with the reviews. XP
@simonli2575
Starting off, it is SUPER quiet. Like, the entire way through I was afraid it was going to explode with sound.
I like the intro pad. Almost sounds... foreboding. If I'm using the word properly.
@0:45 I like the fade in filter for the drums, t it feels like something is missing once they come in full force.
As for most everything else... It's not that there is anything wrong with it, but it feels like a background track for a game or something likewise.


@KillerAmp
Starting with "What We Were"
I ha to agree with you on the intro, but coming out of the intro is spectacular. I love it. Especially the high synth at 0:46. It feels like it is going to transform into a "I'm going to happily lose myself tonight" kind of feeling. And I love that.
@1:36 And that feeling doesn't disappoint. It's almost like tensions are high, but relaxed at the same time. I love the carefree vibe I get from it.

Awwh. It's over? ): Love it so far!

"Chords2-5"
Love the way you brought this in. The way it is filtered is pretty sexy.
@1:02 Good intro to the beat. Sounds like perfect levels on the sidechaining. Beautiful.
You definitely need to continue this. Maybe some high synths w/ punchy bass? I dunno. I'm not telling you how to make your track.




So, I've had this ALMOST done for quite a while, but the vocals weren't right, then I had to take a hiatus. But I'm back from that hiatus and fixed it up. Started working on it as soon as I saw the S3 Finale. I knew the second I heard this song that it was gonna be big in brony remix culture and I wanted a slice of that pie for myself. Seeing as it is my first MLP related song, I wanted to bring it to damn near perfection. *fingers crossed*
https://soundcloud.com/dj-broken-top/my-little-pony-i-have-to-find
(If you look at my SC profile, that is the only song because, seeing how I make several different styles of music, I wanted to differentiate between them more easily)

[itroitnyah]

Started working on it as soon as I saw the S3 Finale. I knew the second I heard this song that it was gonna be big in brony remix culture and I wanted a slice of that pie for myself

Erm, I'm not sure where you live, but the season three finale was a bit over 8 months ago. It's not gunna be big, it already is/was. Plus I think that there have already been some remixes of it. Idk, you may get some/a lot of recognition for it though.

Critiquing it, I love it. The composition is really well done. The structuring is a wee-bit off, imo. There are some parts that sorta just "jump" on, but at the same time sound like they belong (0.16 is where I'm referring to specifically. I sort have a theory about why the transition works out even though there isn't necessarily a transition element involved, such as a riser or sweep. It just relates to math and stuff, based on how many measures there are before the transition between the single element and the added element, and that our brains just sorta subconsciously expect the change to happen, even though there isn't any transition element indication that a change is coming. If this theory of mine is already a proven thing, I'd love to see a source or something). The sound design is well done, no comments here. The mixing is very well done. With the lyrics though, they could stand to be a bit quieter. Give the whole song a bit more headroom, and they would still be clearly understandable. Great job, 8.75/10



Alright. I have an edit of the WIP I linked above that I would like critiqued. [X] I removed the distorted bassline that jumps in later in the drop and replaced it with a bit more of the hoover-saw type bass thingy. My biggest concern is that the main bass in the drop/chorus, whichever you want to call it, will get too repetitive, and just make the song boring. My second biggest concern is that when the part replacing the distorted bass comes in, there feels like a big energy drop occurs, and it suddenly sounds very congested, despite the only changes I made were with removing the other bass, so I'm not sure why it suddenly sounds so congested. Which also makes me wonder whether I'm just hearing this or something.

[AyaneFukumi]

https://soundcloud.com/ayane-fukumi/ziq93-wip
a WIP I'm doing for ZIQ93

1. @ArisingFlame - The Piano is nice, and the synth is so cute :3 The vocals work good too :3

2. @KillerAmp https://soundcloud.com/officialaristoka ... we-were-v2 - This is amazing <3 I love the bounce on it and the synth is so beautiful and melodic~

[ArisingFlame]

@itroitnyah:

Erm, I'm not sure where you live, but the season three finale was a bit over 8 months ago. It's not gunna be big, it already is/was. Plus I think that there have already been some remixes of it. Idk, you may get some/a lot of recognition for it though.

Yeah. I saw it the moment it aired, but like I said... I had to take a hiatus involving no PC, ect. That's why it is just now being polished.

0.16 is where I'm referring to specifically

Yeah, I wasn't entirely sure how to bring that in, so I did it abruptly and it just kinda felt... right. I'll see if I can't make it fit any better.

The sound design is well done, no comments here. The mixing is very well done. With the lyrics though, they could stand to be a bit quieter.

Thank ye on both accounts. That has been the hardest part of making music to me until somewhat recently. As for the vocals, I'll bring 'em down a bit and see if that does improve it.



On to your song.


Awesome intro. (forgive me. I'm typing as I listen.) The pads feel very... Roomy and fluid.
0:32 Love the kick. It is beautiful. Mind if I ask where you got it? Same with the high synth. It feels basic, but perfect.
1:05 Sexy. I'm really enjoying the way you built into it. And yet again the pads you have are gorgeous and perfect.
2:10 I love the way you kinda brought out the bass to say "Hey! Look at me for a sec!" And all the little things onward that just add a very tasty flavor to it.
2:41 Love the drop off to rebuild it. Makes me excited for what is next while still enjoying the here and now.
3:36 I realize I'm saying "Love" a lot, but I do really love this track. It feels... Familiar. Not repetitive but familiar. The little variations go a long way.
4:40 Ooooooh. Getting me excited for the last hoorah. And it's great. Very fluid yet very defined.

All in all, love it. 9/10 because this is still a WIP, but it is a very gorgeous WIP.



@AyaneFukumi
Why, thank you. :3

On to the song

The vocals are almost too low to hear anything at all, especially with that high synth that seems to pierce everything else on the track, like it is demanding attention.

I found it kinda funny, simply because I did a mashup using "Lose Yourself" as well a LOOOOONG time ago. Well... I say loooooong but it was like 4-5 years ago. I wanna find that again now. XD




EDIT:

Updated version. Yaaay
https://soundcloud.com/dj-broken-top/my-little-pony-i-have-to

[itroitnyah]

On to your song.


Awesome intro. (forgive me. I'm typing as I listen.) The pads feel very... Roomy and fluid.
0:32 Love the kick. It is beautiful. Mind if I ask where you got it? Same with the high synth. It feels basic, but perfect.
1:05 Sexy. I'm really enjoying the way you built into it. And yet again the pads you have are gorgeous and perfect.
2:10 I love the way you kinda brought out the bass to say "Hey! Look at me for a sec!" And all the little things onward that just add a very tasty flavor to it.
2:41 Love the drop off to rebuild it. Makes me excited for what is next while still enjoying the here and now.
3:36 I realize I'm saying "Love" a lot, but I do really love this track. It feels... Familiar. Not repetitive but familiar. The little variations go a long way.
4:40 Ooooooh. Getting me excited for the last hoorah. And it's great. Very fluid yet very defined.

All in all, love it. 9/10 because this is still a WIP, but it is a very gorgeous WIP.

Thanks. The pads are just three separate choral pads of me holding out an "Ah", "O", and "E" with some blurring and reverb. They're pretty simple to make provided you have proper hardware, but they sound good and stuff.

The kick is from the vengeance club essentials 3 or whatever, under the trance kicks. I compressed it so that it would have more attack without squishing it, as well as put on a subtle reverb (which I rarely do with kicks, since I don't have a proper reverb to do so, and any of the presets on the reverb plugin don't sound very good).

The lead synth is just a simple square wave lead with 2 oscs, on pitched an octave lower than the other and a LP filter, with a dash of bitcrushing on the side

2:10 I love the way you kinda brought out the bass

The thing with that is that I'm not sure why the bass feels like it's suddenly brought out, as I didn't add any elements, as mentioned in my above post.

Other than that, thanks for all the compliments. I'll probably wait out a bit longer to see if there are any other people who critique the song before I decide it's finished and then master it.

[ArisingFlame]

2:10 I love the way you kinda brought out the bass

The thing with that is that I'm not sure why the bass feels like it's suddenly brought out, as I didn't add any elements, as mentioned in my above post.

I meant it in a way that, its attitude is changed. Not louder or softer or anything different with effects, but when it breaks away from what it was doing before to do its own thing

[Glitchhog]

Not sure where to pick this up, so I'll just post mine:

[ArisingFlame]

If you are going to put your track in here you HAVE to review a few tracks above you. One is nice, 2 is better, 3 is awesome, but be descriptive and specific on what you like and what you don't.

But nevertheless, I shall review.

Good intro. High energy, but basic. I like the sweep.
0:22 DEAR GOD WHOSE VOICE IS THIS? She shall be mine. Great atmosphere building up to 1:04
1:04 Beautiful. Love it all, although the kick is quite quiet. Hard to hear/feel.
2:03 Very high energy and a very positive feeling. Very beautifully put together.
2:44 Love the piano. Great way to create a dip in the track to add more flavor, while increasing the positivity of the track.

No real gripes with this track. I love it.

[KillerAmp]

@glitchhog
Love everything about this track except a bit in the mix, I feel like there is too much high end instead of low end which, at least in my monitors, distracts from the vibe, maybe that's a harmonic exciter? idk. Overall fantastic track.

https://soundcloud.com/officialaristokat/a-title-is-required

Only like 30 minutes went into this so far so its really rough, but this place has given me good advice for my other tracks so ill leave this here and see what you guys think. woop.

[Injustrial]

I think the chords in the intro are a bit too long. It starts to pick up when the leads come in. The gated leads after could benefit a lot from a background pad or something, so it's not completely quiet inbetween hits. As you say, rough yet. I'm sure it'll turn out something cool after a bit of work ^^

https://soundcloud.com/injustrial/shed-mp3-1

Mixed on £40 computer satelites. Might be a tad rough...

[ArisingFlame]

@KillerAmp
I really love this, but (you don't have to listen to me. Just a personal opinion) I think this track would benefit from you cutting each section (apart from the intro) in half. (0:30-0:45 instead of 0:30-1:00 to introduce the next section.) It'd give you a lot more room to fly with it without making it super lengthy. But aside from that, I have 0 gripes.

@Injustrial
Super high energy. Love it.
Is that you singing at 0:48? It suits the track very nicely. Although, around 1:00ish, I think you could benifit from lowering the reverb on the lead synth there.
Again, is that your scream? Awesomesauce.
LOVE the second verse area. Great instrument break between vocals



Backstory on this. I started making this back when I was in Iraq (2011-2012) and only had the choruses and the 2nd verse recorded. Last night I was all motivated and whatnot and went back to it, clearing out everything vocal-wise and trying to somewhat clean up the instrumental. (I know it still needs a LOT of work.) and starting re-recording the vocals today, inadvertently writing the 1st and 3rd verses at the same time. So all of these vocals were done tonight. Yay me.
This is totally different from my usual style, but I like to think that everything I do is different.
Lyrics are on the SC page
https://soundcloud.com/t-jayson/nightmare-wip

[Injustrial]

@ArisingFlame: Everything in that track was done by me, yeah. Those screams are my default vocal style. ;)

[v.lossity]

Not sure where to pick this up, so I'll just post mine:

I know its a bit out of order, but I just thought I'd drop in to say I see a distinct style developing, and I like it. I love the stutters and stops. Wonderful.

[ArisingFlame]

I just cranked out two WIPs. Yaaay. (Well... Four actually, bu two I wanna show off.) No official names for either yet.
https://soundcloud.com/dj-broken-top/bouncy-wip
https://soundcloud.com/dj-broken-top/jump-wip

[Glitchhog]

Not sure where to pick this up, so I'll just post mine:

I know its a bit out of order, but I just thought I'd drop in to say I see a distinct style developing, and I like it. I love the stutters and stops. Wonderful.

Thanks man. :)

[simonli2575]

@ArisingFlame - Bouncy WIP
All was good until I heard that you used the default FL snare, which kind of turned me off. I know it's just a WIP, but please still don't use the default FL samples.
Having only 1 synth plus a few drum sounds makes the track sound kind of boring and lonely, try adding some basses, arps and leads into it.

@ArisingFlame - Jump WIP
@0:16 That synth comes in too sudden and too sharp in my opinion. I like the first bass you have though.
@0:44 I kind of don't like how the lead is immediately cut off after being played and how the snares come in abruptly. Try making the snares a bit more gentle and the lead fade out smoothly.
@1:32 There's a bit of harmonic clash here, and not in a cool way.
Maybe it's just me, but the claps have way too much reverb and some other parts sound a bit dry.

@KillerAmp - A Title is Required
I like that wind sound.
@0:30 I might say you could fade out the lead a little smoother than it is now.
@0:59 There's too much reverb in the snares?
Also, my left ear doesn't hear the arps early on and feels lonely.
@1:30 It starts to sound better and more complete (?).
With only 30 minutes of work, that's quite a good start.

Here's my WIP track again [refined].
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/531 ... ight_4.mp3

[DJSadEyez]

Here's my WIP track again [refined].
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/531 ... ight_4.mp3

Yup, this one is interesting. I like it in a different way. It splits up from the weird Melo part to a nice Drums and (especially) Bass part. Nice Drum Pattern though.
The track's a little bit too long IMO, still nothing bad to say 'bout it. I guess it will fit person's taste. It did to mine ^^

Here is my latest:

https://soundcloud.com/djsadeyez/falling-skies

[Injustrial]

Those wind rod plucks are beautiful. I really like them. I'm thinking your saw lead might be a tad bit high in comparison to the other instruments in the track, but it has a nice dualsounding goodness to it. (Is it two separate leads melded into one line, or are there some sounddesign magic going on here?)
Would love for it to be a bit longer. I feel the song could have hit up a really cool new high and then gone for the intro. But on the other hand, it doesn't overstay it's welcome.



A song I feel has some potential, but there are some pretty big problems with the mix at this date. Especially the phasing is through the roof

[ArisingFlame]

@DJSadEyez
I like the intro. Super sexy. No complaints from me
0:31 I LOVE the way you brought those chords in.
In all honesty, I have nothing to nitpick on in this track. Beautiful


@Injustrial
Leveling things out would help a lot. But you did say you had to mix it, so I won't dig in to that.

As far as the song goes, it feels a little too busy when the vocals are going. too much reverb on some of the synths perhaps? I really like the vocals but the feel lost in the mix.
The whole thing feels muddy, but with some cleaning up (Especially on the reverb side of things) this could easily become one of my favorite tracks!



Okay, this is a song I'm currently working on vocals for. 0:38-0:58, 1:08-1:27, 2:54-3:14, and 3:23-3:43 all will have singing, whereas 1:37-2:54 and 3:52-5:10 will have rapping. I haven't decided for 5:10 onward
https://soundcloud.com/t-jayson/stand-tall-wip