Karco's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[(::Towards The Sun::) =FINAL=]

A bore to listen to, but great background music.

This is interesting, though very simple and plain. You have one pad play chords... and that's just about it. As far as complexity, diversity, and effort go, this song falls short. :\ This seems to be more of a "background music" song than a listening song to me.

The composition is nice, there are no clashing notes for the most part (though I hear a few in the low range) and this is very easy on the ears - clarity is near-perfect. Tip: At most, have only one note at a time playing in the C3-C4ish range. Any more than that, and the lower range becomes muddied. C4-C5, still, keep the notes to a minimum, though two, rarely three, notes will work. Higher up, there are hardly any restrictions, and it becomes more an issue of clashing notes and volume and less an issue of clarity.

A far cry from my usual reviews, but this is a fairly plain song. I hope my advice helps anyway. ;) As background music, this deserves a 9/10 and a 5/5, so great job. :D

FatKidWitAJetPak responds:

Hey, thanks a lot. It was more of a background song, but isn't most Ambient music plain? Lol, thanks for the honest and sincere vote!!

[{DXS} -=Mix=-]

It's about time! :D

Interesting introduction you've got there - I'm pretty sure I've heard those strings somewhere though I'm not sure exactly where. :\ It starts out a bit slow, and somewhat boring, but picks up with the kick, and then more trance elements, which should have come in a LOT sooner.

Wow, more than halfway into the song and it hasn't hit the main part yet? o_O Careful. It finally has, though, and I'm not too impressed, though I can't say it's bad for a first original. ;)

Melodywise, you've got some pretty good stuff, though it's a tad repetitive. Remix material by my standards! Too bad I'm working on one already. D: I might give it a shot, sometime, and make a short loop, maybe a bit more if I feel like it. I'll send it to you if you're interested, and maybe I'll even submit it. :D

Your short synth, playing three sixteenth notes and one sixteeenth rest at a time... is that an attempt at a gated synth? Da-da-daa, da-da-daa? :P I did that once! XD It's something completely different, actually. PM me and I'll send you a link to what you want to use to gate your synths. ;)

Your bass is on the offbeat again - it works sometimes, but it had BETTER be well-done. Otherwise you're just using another cliche, and nobody wants to hear something they've heard hundreds of times before, now... :\ The synth is well-chosen, though, which is good. Though I smell a .mp3 sample... am I onto something? Because you don't want to use those, EVER. ;) Listen to my song Nova to see what happens when you go too far into the habit of using them. XD

Drums, drums... well, your kick is weak and needs EQing so the bass will stand out more. It also needs some volume adjustment. The sample is fine.

Your hihat sample isn't the best I've heard, though I recognize it from VEC. Just a thought - when making trance songs, you don't just want one open hihat on the offbeat, you want a whole hihat line. Sometimes that's just two closed hihats one sixteenth note before and after the main open hihat, and sometimes it's an amazingly complex line the likes of which I still have to master. :P Give it a try sometime, it'll make your songs that much better in the end.

Odd, two clap samples. The first one, while great, is a little bit overused, and you had better be using it well if you're using it at all. The second one just doesn't fit, at least in my opinion. :\ Try to stick to just one clap sample throughout your song. If you have to, layer them, but that's the most you should do.

Your huge snare roll in the middle of the song is definitely a highlight! :D Nice job there. It's a bit too long for my tastes, but at least you keep it interesting throughout. ;)

I hear FX - chimes and the like. They're a bit weak, though, so you might want to raise their volume, too...

No big overall EQing problems stand out to me - everything has to do with the individual elements and not the song as a whole, which sounds great. So nice job there! :)

Overall... repetitive, and the production isn't quite perfect. But it's definitely a forward step, and decent progress. You'll be making great stuff in the future, I know it. >:) Keep at it!

DXSpirit responds:

Thanks Karco :). I always loved your reviews because you specify any little thing you see and helps me make a better job on my next subscription. I agree 100% on everything you've said in this review. Thanks alot :)

[-Invaders-]

Aww...

Just a little bit sooner and you just might have made weekly top 5 with this. :D Oh well, it's been a while since I've reviewed your stuff anyway, let's see what you've got.

First thing that comes to mind are those clashing notes I hear starting in the first minute or so of the song, mainly in the piano - I can understand you're trying to get across that dark, mean, feeling, but using dissonance like that could hurt your song more than it would help it. It's a playing-with-fire sort of thing... be careful. ;) Thankfully, in this case, they don't hurt the song at all - I love the atmosphere they pull off! :) Your piano sample is also very well-chosen, I'm jealous. >:)

Your Slayer guitars are well-disguised to the point I'm a little bit unsure whether or not they're Slayer, though my common sense screams out "SLAYER!!1" because I'd know that sound anywhere. :P Great job with that. The melodies/harmonies they play are great, too. Maybe you could have boosted the treble frequencies a bit more, though, so they're a bit louder and more easily audible without muddying the lower end?

Your drums are great, though a little bit distorted and gritty for my taste in music speaking. Maybe that's come from listening to too much trance, eh? :P But, my taste in music aside, they're very well-done. Nice job.

Interesting ending with the violin, and those alien-like sound effects - it probably would have been better if you had faded out those alien effects sooner, though. It's just over 20 seconds of them at the end, slowly fading out... wouldn't you consider that overkill? Oh, well... :P 5/5, and 9/10, great work with this! :D

One other thing - care to stop by my page sometime? A review for my latest would be appreciated, I was trying a new style and would appreciate the feedback. ;) Thanks a lot, and keep up the good work! ;D

Waterflame responds:

does that make me a proffesional pyrotechnic then? :3 lul.
thanks for taking the time to write such a long review! :] youre dam right, its slayer ;D its hard to not get the slayer sound from slayer really, lol. i did use it in trainstation as main synth tho o.O heh, but usually its hard. ;P i agree about that, they could be alittle bit louder, and theres still alot that could be fixed on this. but i made this on my old comuter, and if you own FL and have made a transfer before you know aswell as i do that all the sounds are missing. and you have to dig them all up again, and fix them up like they were. sometimes they even get fucked up, so it was hard getting back the feel it had :(

about the end, i dont really see it as an overkill, i figured it would be a intresting aftermath for such an intense song. but thats just me :P you might be right. ill stop by when i have the time :D altho im not to good at leaving reviews, ill try, since its you ;D well, as they say in the uk; cheers!

[Synthesized Birth]

You made trance! :O

Though I need to comment on your response to the last review - mixing/EQing doesn't take THAT long in my case. I'm guessing it's just experience, and that you have an easier and faster time doing it if you practice more often. Remember my song Nova? XD And look at my quality now. ;D

Now for the song itself - and it's pretty good. :) Nice sidechained bass, higher synths are interesting, though a bit loud - you might want to make them a little bit quieter. Your melodies/harmonies are great! :D

As for the drums, since this is a trance song, you probably want a bassier kick that's way out in front. If the bass synth gives you trouble with that at all - though it shouldn't, since it's sidechained - then simply cut the lower frequencies until you think it's fine. After all, it's fine to have a semi-bassy bass synth, at least in my opinion - as you want that kick drum to be clean and easily audible. I can hardly hear your hihats, you might want to pick a more open sample, and I don't really hear snares used in place of the claps in a trance song that often... you might want to reconsider. :\

Another good idea would be to have the kick play a transition measure on the 8th or 16th measures of 8 or 16, and maybe you could incorporate the other drums into that pattern. It would help to make your drums sound a lot less repetitive, even for a trance song. (Listen to my latest songs, or just about any decent trance song, to get an idea of this. ;) )

Overall, 4/5 and 8/10. You could make some pretty good trance stuff with a bit more practice. ;D

Grillpie responds:

I didn't talk about the eq-in' in that last case. Mixing the synthage was a hell cause everytime I attempted to make the kick more audible then BOOM it's overpowering and I take it half a db down then I'm all "wtfz I can't teh heer it lolz D:" and stuff. Same with the gated synth, those detuned handsup leads, the strings also hats. Only thing I had no problem with was the sidechaint bass. I still think the kick and strings are too silent andAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA FUCKIT >:(

I hate the drums in it too. Glad we're two 'bout it

meh I'll leave the trance for you trancehats, and gb2 ambient

Thanks for the review! :D

[_-={An Endless Desert}=-_*Ext*]

Finally, eh? ;D

Sorry I took so long to get around to finishing my review - either I didn't remember, was busy, or wasn't going to write as good a review as I could have. (And together, these reasons form procrastination! ;D) I'll comment on your edits, on the new part, and then finish with the story. :D

Interesting new FX in the beginning of the song, though I liked it more before, without it - I feel it adds unnecessary energy to what I think is more of a sad and wandering song.

I'm hearing a few clashing notes right before the old ending, but it might just be me. :\

Nice transition into the new section! :) It has an interesting contrast to the first part of the song, and this could have been built on to make something awesome! :D You go in a different direction with the panflute and sitar - not necessarily a worse one, it's just not quite the direction I, personally, would have preferred. :P

I don't know about the section of the song from 2:48 to the end of the song - not every song needs a climax and it sounds especially unnecessary (and a bit rushed) with this one. It was well done, though compared to the rest of the song, I don't think it fits at all.

Storytime. >:) Aah, it's been so long since I've done one of these. :D

Abandoned by his caravan he has been wandering for days, now. Or has it been weeks? Each day feels like ten and with each step the sand seems to go out of its way to grab his feet - which have been aching for so long they feel numb now - and pull them farther in. He cannot smile, or even speak - his lips have become too chapped to move for anything but food.

Seeing the cruel slope of the sand ahead of him, he staggers and falls to the ground, as not only does it seem impossible from his angle, but the incredible dune stretches an incredible distance from his left to his right, a distance which he is not willing to walk, either. Yet the tracks of his caravan go around it. So he must as well...

And so his journey continues, through neverending days and nights of repeating frustration and misery. He can only hope to reach its end, as distant and impossible as it seems. It is his only hope.

Overall it's a pretty good song, I enjoyed it - it's just that, unfortunately, more of its cons presented themselves to me than its pros. D: Oh well, at least I enjoyed writing the story! ;D I'll review 8/10 - but I'll rate 5/5. I think this song deserves it. :D One last thing - recently I remade my old classical song Falling Farther into a pwnsome trance song - care to listen to it? A review would be nice, too, considering that I broke new ground with a new style and would appreciate the feedback. ;) Thanks, and keep up the great work - I'll be downloading this once I get home! :)

MaestroRage responds:

Hey Karco! Firstly sorry about the super delayed response, secondly *puts on reading glasses*

m'yes.

I don't quite know what you mean by new FX. I do remember I added more instrumental layering, that might be what you're referring too. I realize that adding more to it bleeds it's power in the regards of expressing sadness, aimless wondering, however it was necessary to make transitions smoother.

The ending wasn't changed as far as I can remember, but then again i'm responding to this review nearly a month after, and I don't remember a lot of things :D!

Quite right with the transition in the middle. Could go in many many ways, took one, unfortunately it was one that didn't click with you, a valid and respectable opinion, so cheers for that.

The ending you're talking about, is surprisingly the only part of the song I actually liked. I mean really liked. The tempo remains constant, what changes is the note durations. It may feel rushed because suddenly all the notes are nearly halved in duration, and things are happening much faster. With this sudden contrast from the songs original half.

Now with teh story :D!!!

The story was brilliant, well expressed and formed. I'm sorry I didn't remember to listen to your track, I will do that immediately! I will write you the reviews you deserve my good sir, you have given me so many.

Thank you for the honest review, and story. I'm glad you liked it!

[Drum'n'Bass-off =WB=]

I'm no DnB expert, but...

...I said in my advertisement I would return a review to those who reviewed my latest, and I'm going to keep my word - so here I am! ;D

It starts a little plain, though with a nice-sounding synth - and really begins to pick up and become interesting around 0:37. :D The drums are amazing, though they're also a bit too trebley in places - some EQing might be in order here.

Any reason why that sawtooth-ish synth that comes in at around 0:57 is panned to the right?

When the bass synth comes back in at 1:09 or so, the song begins to sound really cluttered - there are too many loud instruments, and the song generally becomes a headache. :\ Careful.

As for your composition, it's decent - not quite amazing, but it's catchy, and I like it. :) A bit repetitive, though, I would have liked to hear you build on it, maybe make a second riff to diversify things up a bit. ;)

Nice ending, though a little bit abrupt. Can't complain overall, though. :)

I enjoyed this song! :) I'll vote 4/5, though you were pretty close to that 5 and would have gotten it had this song had some better mixing. ;) I'll be checking by your page now and then... keep up the good work. :D

WritersBlock responds:

Yeah, I'm still a bit oblivious to mixing and usually I'd try to make a balance of the instruments but after I exported this, one of my VSTs stopped working and I haven't found out how to get it working again, otherwise I'd have done stuff with the volume, panning etc.
Thanks for the detailed review, great tips and advice.

[_-={An Endless Desert}=-_]

Hmm, this must be your MAC entry, huh?

Considering how you've submitted it under Ambient... :P I can't say I agree with your genre choice, though - it sounds like any other classical piece, with a lot of extra reverb. It's definitely closer to ambience than a lot of your other songs, though...

I really like your melodywork, as well as the instruments used, at the section that begins at around 0:52! :D Quite uplifting, in a sense, though I can also hear desperation, and a bit of stubbornness - as if the guy walking through the desert somehow KNOWS sooner or later he's going to get somewhere, and he's not going to stop until he does. Interesting. :)

The panflute at the very end was a bit dramatic, but that's probably just my taste in music speaking. I'm also hearing a loop, and though it's a bit cut-off sounding, it actually sounds pretty good! :D Were you being absent-minded or something again when you submitted this as a song? :P

The image of the desert is great - it's not quite perfect, but it's a small difference anyway! To make it stronger I would probably have made a bit more use of the low ranges of the piano, like you did in the beginning of the song, while EQing it so it doesn't make the song sound muddy that way. Did you experiment with those reverbed-sounding strings in the background, too? Maybe removing them would add to the empty, wasteland feeling - but maybe it would make the song sound TOO empty. I have no idea. :P

As for your story... well, I don't have time right now (I'm at school right now... shhh :P) but when I do I'll get back to you in a PM. ;) Great work with this, I'm looking forward to hearing more! :)

MaestroRage responds:

quite right Karco, this isn't really an ambient track on the grounds it has a discernible melody. Right away I realized my folly after studying Ambient a bit more. I just can't help it. I see chords, I see no melody, I fix :(

I should have used more lower on the piano, that is a good suggestion... probably should have read through and responded to all these before I went off to make the extended version... oh well, updating is thar for a reason :D!

I did also play around with the reverbs, and attempt to clean up the muddy low end. Thats such a problem with so many of my works. I really need to learn how to equalize the low end properly >:(. Removing the strings = disaster my good sir. They stay.

Thank you kindly for the review Karco, greatly appreciated, i'm glad you liked it!

[A World's Rigors]

Definitely an improvement, right from the start!

Either you've found new resources that are a lot better, or you've found new techniques to use those resources you've already got, because this definitely sounds a lot more like high-quality soundtrack music than what I was expecting. No offense. :P
For the most part, the composition is very good, though in places it wanders too much with that bell-like instrument. (I don't like that instrument very much, either... a bit strong for my tastes.) The highlight is more the harmonies than anything else compositionwise - they're amazing, and some parts I'd just love to have repeating over and over and over, but I'm too lazy to scroll up to the NG player to do it. :P

I'd have to say that the percussion in this song is a bit weak, or at least in my opinion it is... mostly it's either drowned out by instruments playing the same rhythms as it is, (is there some mid-to-low-range drum in there?) or by instruments overpowering it (the hihat-like instrument, for example). In every other case, though, it's good.

Not much else to say, I think I've covered everything already. :P Great that you're finding the time and motivation to make more full songs worth submitting like this, keep it up! 5/5, a download, and a 10/10, just because I'm so impressed by this. ;D

Mataro responds:

Well, to be entirely honest, this was made completely with the Tgsfx soundfont or whatever it's called :X

'Course I threw in some reverb too.

I wanted the song to have a more ambient feel than to really be a driving piece, there IS a deeper drum in there. It's a timpani, and it gives it the low end rumble. It's also what you hear as the song trails off. The other percussion just gives it kind of a light pacing I think, which is what I was aiming for.

The piece is composed on a 4/4 scale at 140 bpm, because yes, I am that lazy :P

The piece was also, however, composed inside the timespan of about an hour. Only thirty of those minutes were actually spent working on the song. I made the whole damned thing in about a half hour. Don't ask me how. Miracles happen apparently x.X

I personally thought it could use a bit of touching up here and there, but I gave it to a buddy and he said it was ready to submit. Being as tired as I was, I wasn't going to argue :X

Glad you enjoyed it, there are a few intended uses for this song, we'll see what happens with it x.X

And thanks for the five. After looking at your profile, I realized your 5 is worth like a bajillion points. So feel free to make a daily trip to my page and fifen everything. >.>

That is of course, after you fifen everything on your page >:D

[Purple Heart]

Ah, it's this one! :D

Why'd you name it Purple Heart, though? "Stand, Fight" was just fine. :\ Oh well.

The atmosphere in this song is great! Everything contributes to the same awesome atmosphere that is hardly ever pulled off as well as this. :D

The composition is a bit shaky in a few cases but is overall very nice. Same goes for your sample choices. I'd have saved that sample for the later end of the song, though...

The clarity is amazing! The only complaint I have is that slayer guitar of yours waaaaaay in the background where nobody can hear it. You could have made it a bit louder, couldn't you? Or at least you could have EQed it so the frequencies of the guitar you wanted to hear would stand out just a little bit more... I can hardly hear it and I don't think that sort of guitar is supposed to play that quiet of a part. :\

Overall, also a very nice song, too! 5/5 on this song - and I forgot to vote 5/5 on the last one, so I'm going to right after I finish this review. :P Keep up the great work.

Mataro responds:

To answer your first question, a Purple Heart is a medal given to soldiers who were injured or killed in combat fighting for their country. The song itself is war-themed, the name reflects the battlefield and the risks on it.

I agree about the atmosphere. Needs a bit of EQing maybe, but I had some great samples on hand x.X

The chord progression in a few areas I had to fudge a bit, I don't really consider this a final version, but I'm moving on to other stuff for now :X

And yeah, I agree about the guitar there. I was pretty proud of the clarity.. The guitar was actually sort of a leftover from a seperate project within the same song. It just kind of got left in there x.X

Thanks for the 5, and I read your other review too, I'll get around to responding to it at some point here x.X

I'm going to head over and check out your new piece, I'm sorry it's taken so long. A lot of things have fallen into my lap recently.. I'll talk to you about it over Msn x.x

[Utopia (Original Mix)]

Fine. >:(

If you want me to review this one, that works too. :P Let's see what I think of this song...

Is it just me or do you introduce your songs like that a LOT? A pad or something, then the kick fades in.

Has it become a HABIT of yours to put that bass on the offbeat?! XD I won't bother you much about it after this but you really should try something else sometime.

Quality is, again, a problem... there's distortion everywhere, again. It's a mix of too many things overall in the song, and too many things in the same frequencies. Low-to-mid is my guess. Maybe if you listened to other artists with good quality, you would get some ideas? Or you could look into some more advanced techniques... not like I have, anyway. :P Try limiting your synths, too - maybe as an experiment try to make a song with only three or four good synths. For example, a lead, a bass, and something in the middle, i.e. an arp or pad. It just might come out pretty good. ;)

For some reason I'm thinking the composition and energy levels just don't go that well together - if this song had less energy to it - maybe a slower beat - and the clarity was much better, THEN they would... I don't mean this as actual criticism, though. :P Just my opinion.

The way those crashes are used on the transitions - one on each beat of the last measure before the transition - I've heard that about as often as I've heard the bass on the offbeat. More, actually. It should be easy for you to figure out the rest of what I'm going to say, I'm sure you can and it's less work on my fingers, typing. ;D

Overall... I can't really give it much more than a 7. :\ For the rating, it deserves a 4 more than it deserves a 3, though, so hooray for rounding up. ;D It's good, but there's definitely a lot of room for improvement. So keep at it, you're bound to make something awesome sooner or later. :D

A-New-Decade responds:

Did you not listen to the end? It's amazing! =D