Karco's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[==(Absentminded)==]

Good stuff! :)

Long time no see SBB, how goes it?

I've been quite into catchy music lately, so this was a pleasant surprise to find. I'm especially loving the general rhythm and the various fills in here, which make the track for me. The chromatic lead is great as well.

The track feels a bit repetitive now and then, and I feel you could have added in some extra variation somewhere. The clap sounded long to me as well. Now that the track's been on loop for a while, though, it doesn't sound so bad. The kick sounds a bit hollow, but it may just be that I'm unused to hearing that kind of kick. I will say it fits the track fine. Otherwise, this is overall very fun to listen to.

One more thing: I'm thinking this would make a great house track - do you mind if I give a remix a shot? Because I'm so tied up with school I can't guarantee a finished track, but because I like this original so much, I can say it's very likely. Also, a few stems (bass, eighth-note bell, lead, mouth samples, etc.) would make my life easier, but I completely understand if it can't be done for whatever reason. Thanks, and good work!

[xKore - Magenta Mist (NG Edit)]

Great concepts, some areas need more work.

And I'm fine thanks! :D I'll get right to things...

Your mix sounds great, but the frequencies overall are strange and unbalanced - were you by mistake compensating for something? Your kick needs more punch to it, and your bass is lacking in the same frequency area and could use a touch more mids. There's something wrong with your mids too, I want to say your mix sounds of smiley-EQing, even if that's not what you did. I would even say the frequency balance is uncomfortable to listen to, I feel unusually fatigued listening to the track for this long (though others apparently aren't - this is still an issue though). It's certainly not my new headphones, my reference mixes confirm that for me. Depending on how you mixed the track this could be an easy or difficult fix, but since the track is great in so many other ways, I would at least try. :)

No matter how complex your other synths are, your bass still always defines your progression, which is sadly i-i-VI-VI. I thought you knew better - and this surprises me more than usual since everything else about this track is so original, what with the IDM-like drums and all. With this progression it's impossible to build tension past a certain degree, and the track becomes more suited to backgrounds than for active listening. Whether that's what you were going for or not I can't say, though with all the creativity shown in other ways, the track definitely has big potential for the latter.

Otherwise, you manage energy well throughout the track, your numerous synths keep things alive and moving. You enter a buildup stage at 3:04 though, what I don't understand is why. Imagine this track playing at some kind of club - to me this buildup is anticlimactic here, and for a moment the energy falls flat. The noise build just before that could have been the buildup instead, and you could have kept the bass fade-in, moving it back accordingly.

That's all the criticism I have for you though! The track has lots of character, and your synths and drums are all amazing, you seem to have developed a sound of your own. I second Sungazer's suggestion, you should make more like this. :)

[Sungazer (OM)]

Sadly, generic.

Having read Fierra's review and your response, I felt it would be appropriate to clear up some confusion and then leave a review myself. ;D

About the kick - first of all I don't remember ever offering advice for this track, much less this specific version. Though I like the sound itself, I'm going to have to agree with Fierra here that it's loud, overpowers many other sounds (listen to the sub bass at 2:29 vs. 3:12), and even distorts. That being said, I get the feeling that in this case you believed my advice just because you wanted to believe it - whether that was true or not, though, everyone's opinion counts. I can't be right on everything, nor can anyone else.

I think everything could afford to come down in volume a fair amount, the track peaks almost everywhere except for the break in Audacity. For someone your level this is literally a crying shame - shouldn't you know better by now never to go over the 0 dB limit? I don't hear any distortion either so the track might be squashed as well, it certainly seems so. While mixing, leave yourself several dB of headroom (space between peak levels and 0 dB) and NEVER put anything on the Master Channel until the mix is 100% finished - if something sounds bad, don't blame the overall sound, it'll always originate from your individual sounds after all. Master Channel effects are to be saved for "master"ing, logically enough, and even then should be used subtly without squashing the track too much.

I recognize the following from VEC: the loop in the opening, and clap, crash, FX, and hit (kudos for almost separating it from the second half with the LFO though, I did that once in my PoE remix :D). I also hear many Nexus presets - all of these kill the character of your track. People won't remember this as Kr1z's track - I and many others will hear Manuel Schleis' sounds instead. For this reason I can guarantee this sort of music will never get signed and really could only be "successful" on Newgrounds and similar sites. If that's what you want, fine, but if you want to take your work any farther there's work to be done.

Supersaws are by nature unoriginal - if I were you I would have no more than one supersaw to a track to leave room for more original sounds.

I don't like the idea of your two synths playing the bass role, one as an almost offbeat sub (it sounds like one when the kick's playing) and one as a lighter arp. Why not give the track more character: take out the sub bass synth, then move the arp farther in front and add a new sub underneath. This way you're killing two birds with one stone by cleaning up your mix and making the track more memorable. Of course this is all only advice as you're probably not going to rework the track - right? But apply it to future productions.

I don't like the anticlimax - it's unfulfilling for the listener who has to keep waiting for the peak and it breaks the flow of the track. Buildups lose their effect when you use three (2:40/2:54/3:00 - the last is short but still a build in energy) to reach the same peak after all. I would have managed the energy differently by building constantly in that time, moving onto the peak by 2:58 at latest, adding in the drums right away.

There's a second break that's not really a break at 3:40, all it does for me is kill the energy. It's fine to want variation, but don't try to go for a long track because most Trance is like that - I'm sure the track could have been much more concise and enjoyable to listen to had it been a 4-minute radio edit instead. If you want to go longer, repeat the break-build-peak pattern, instead of just having a breather from what otherwise would be a 2-minute peak.

The composition here doesn't interest me. It's not i-VI-III-VII generic, but it's generic for a Trance track. Aim for something exciting to hear, that doesn't have to strictly stick to a major/minor key, that resolves into itself well. Having only 3 bassline notes also adds to the generic feeling.

Keep at it, Kr1z, and don't let me discourage you TOO much. :) I'd close the review normally but I'm out of spa

Kr1z responds:

First of all, thanks for ur time and advice!
It's only my 4th trance track yet so I'm learning :)

I don't have audacity or something :( I also didn't master the track.
My speakers are 30EU stuff so I wouldnt know about the peaking.

I'll remember the dB space advice.

Concerning the vecs yarr:
Loop is sliced :) Clap is a layer. Nexus presets are layerd, mod'ed, sequenced. It's still nexus, I can't use anything else becuz I dont know how :$

I'll remember the supersaw thing.

The subbass is slightly sidechained to prevent interference with the kick. That's why it sounds off beat =P

Second break was a lazy way to variate the song.

I agree on the radio edit. Would be more enjoyable indeed! I'm considering making one.

About the composition, I've never been good at being really original. I've never had any lessons in musical theory and I lack experience.

Quite discouraging. But thanks for the review, somebody had to say the truth.

Thanks for ur time, and u keep going :)

[xKore - Droppit (NG Cut)]

Nice stuff.

Genius rhythms here, you should be proud of this. I'm not going to write a full review this time, I just thought I'd just leave some support. You've been submitting a lot of good stuff lately, you deserve it. Care to PM me a full version sometime?

Nice work. :D

[Lost Heaven (Mafia Mix)]

Not bad...

Some nice concepts here, this track could have gone a lot farther though. I'll go through the reasons point by point:

The mix. It's quite busy and really should have been cleaned up. Namely, the sidechained detuned bass synth - you seem to have several bass synths and this one's the least necessary. Unless there's very little going on, all it does is clutter the mix, and it's detuned a bit too much - the track could have done without it entirely. That other bass synth you had (bad thing there - never use more than one bass synth in a track, low pads are ok but never at the same time as the bass synth) that came in at 0:26 or so was a lot better, I liked that one - a bit dirty for my tastes and could have been a little bit cleaner, but much better. Basically though, if you eliminate the sidechained bass, that alone will clean up the mix a LOT. From there it's just levels.

Drums. The kick's difficult for me to judge because of everything going on in the bass ranges. It definitely doesn't boom enough, and in some sections it's almost inaudible. Hihats and snare are great, but I wish you had added a loop or two to fill out the hihat line a bit - one open hihat on the offbeat, even with the occasional fill, is hardly enough for a Trance track. I hear one FL sound, a hit that you used - I do think it sounds nice, but sadly it's way too overused. Couldn't you have used something else?

Synths. I'm finding that you have tons of chorused synths, supersaws, etc., which isn't a good thing at all! D: I didn't realize it at the time, but my Paradise on E remix also used way too many supersaws - synth diversity isn't something you can go and ignore now. Choruses and sawtooths aren't the only sounds at your disposal, so go and use the rest! (To give you credit, I do hear some different sounds, and I don't actually know for sure what you're using - this is only what I hear.)

As for the composition, this is a cover - but I can still critique you here! I haven't heard the original, but I can say there's tons of melodic potential you haven't tapped into, namely that partially dissonant progression you begin to use at about the center of the track. It's really not used as often as it should have been - though if by cover you mean same structure as well as composition, I understand why, considering this was originally out of a video game. If not, put it everywhere, and take advantage of that dissonance, as it can really give the track character. :D

Sadly, the arrangement is quite repetitive. Again, understandable if you intended to use the same structure as the original. But if not, you really should have used that dissonant progression to keep the track interesting, and perhaps shortened it some so it didn't feel like you were just trying to add a few extra minutes onto the track (which at times it did). The progression doesn't quite lend itself to the break-build-peak structure found in Trance, but I bet you could have included that somehow as well. ;)

That's about it! An interesting track, good effort. :) Hope to hear more from you in the future!

WritersBlock responds:

Thanks man! This should help me out a whole lot. I feel that things are starting to fall into place easier the more I practice, but really, this sort of detailed review gives me a much better understanding of a genre I've only scratched the surface of. Thanks so much for your detail and critique, I hope I can put it to some good use and maybe scrounge something up for this MAC competition.
<3

[@ndrea - Candy Dance]

Are you serious?

Generic tracks like this are why I've decided to stop submitting here - how do generic, Nexus- and VEC-abusing, virtually effortless tracks like this make it up to Weekly 3rd? I don't care that I haven't even looked for something better, this couldn't be the third best song submitted all week.

FIRST THING. THAT CHORD PROGRESSION. IS NOT YOURS. YOU DIDN'T WRITE IT. IT IS THE LEAST ORIGINAL THING YOU COULD POSSIBLY PICK (AND I SAID PICK, NOT WRITE) FOR ANY TRACK.

Seriously, that's in caps for a reason.

- You used a Nexus loop preset, OF ALL THINGS, for your bass synth. It's a plain saw synth, playing a preset rhythm (with a kick on top, that doesn't do the track any good either).

- You used a supersaw (which is, what do you know, a Nexus preset!) for your lead. Just as original as your chord progression.

- You used a 16th-note bell arp. Also overplayed.

- You used a "come on" voice sample that doesn't fit at all.

- Your kick is obvious as a Vengeance kick. Even if you say you got it somewhere else, which you might have, it's still blatantly Vengeance. Layer it with other kicks, and tweak/EQ/etc. the samples, to disguise the Vengeance sound.

- Your clap is thin and generic, your hihat line is an open hihat on the offbeat and then a 16th-note closed hihat rhythm playing inconsistently. Also unoriginal.

- The FX in the end muddies the mix until towards the end of the sound.

- The kick and snare roll rhythms are decent, I'll give you that - but considering how generic the track is, I somewhat doubt you even wrote them. The FX is no doubt a preset sample.

Listen to more music before you make your next track, generic tracks aren't worth anyone's time and the only reason this has become as popular as it is, is because it's in the Weekly Best. And this could possibly be the most generic track I've ever heard. And why would I, or anyone else, want to listen to your music over the music of someone else who makes the same genre of music, but much better, more often, and more originally than you do? http://karcoreviewalt.newgrounds.com/ - read it and commit it to memory. I wrote it just for cases like this.

No doubt I'll get flamed for this review - nearly two years of making and critiquing music like this couldn't mean anything in comparison to some random kid who's browsing through the Top 5, could it? And it's definitely easier to believe all these people giving you 10 reviews, but believe me - this crowd will praise anything, unless it's downright noise and spam. You're not better than anyone else in getting their support, as they'll support anyone they find on the Weekly Top 5.

Last point, I may seem harsh, but I'm not all-out flaming you, rather, I'm criticising your track. Perhaps in a fairly angry way, but it's criticism regardless. And in any case, does simple praise improve people at all?

End of rant/review.

AndreaDigita responds:

Okay look...

I just started producing music and I might not be as good music maker as you...Im sorry if you think this track doesnt deserves its place on the top5 but that wasnt for me to decide, even I was impressed when I saw it (and extremely happy about it, I wont lie), but a thing that I wont tolerate is you giving me low scores with full criticizing reviews and NO help at all.

Reviews like this doesnt help an artist, its just the kind of review that tries to kill the popularity the artist is getting, but your review is completely useless to me, theres not even good constructive criticism on it, you just told me a very long list of things you thought were bad but you didnt gave me any tips to get better...

I just got this awesome opportunity of getting some exposure and now I can finally be able to get recognition for my future tracks (which will be obviously A LOT much better than this one), I promise I wont let you guys down...but you must understand my objective when making this song was to gather all of the different styles (of the dance artists) Ive heard on newgrounds and incorporate them into the song and adding new original elements created by me (like the snare roll you mentioned, I made that, its no sample or present of any kind and the last "FX" you mentioned, which I made it also using a bassdrum sample and pitching it up), perhaps thats why you consider this track EXTREMELY generic, but that was somehow the objective, to make newgrounders say "hey, I recognise that style from Envy!" or "WOW! Thats dj-Nate's style!", I hope you can get my point. (And btw, I did made the chord progression, its not a Midi or sample of any kind, you can look around the portal or on dj-Nate's account, YOU WONT FIND THE EXACT SAME MELODY ANYWHERE >:( AND THIS IS IN CAPS FOR A REASON!)

Sorry, but for my consideration you were extremely rude to me and complained about the unfairness on newgrounds and many things totally unrelated to this, so for me, your review is totally useless.....

Thanks for nothing.

[{dj-N} Perfect Sunset]

Careful Nate.

Popular as you may be, I think you could, and should, definitely be putting more effort into these tracks.

First thing, I hear that Nexus piano and the VEC hits in the intro - first thing, you've used that piano, or pianos that sound like it, way too often! Why would someone listen to or play a song like this over a more popular and recognized one that sounds virtually the same?

You seem to have recycled your two leads (that you brought in right after the piano) which you've used in numerous other tracks. This is just another example of cutting corners - if you want it to live up to this "100th submission name," and win the MAC, this isn't the way to do it...

Your bass is an offbeat bass, another recycled idea not just by you but by virtually everyone. And considering that you've used it in what seems to be nearly all of your tracks (exceptions being tracks like Intercept, which is much better in my opinion than this is), couldn't you find something more original to do with it? Some catchy rhythm, arp, or pattern? A bass synth can sit there and do nothing to build to a track, or it can add to the track with its own unique role, say, in the intro, or used in some other creative way. And in this case, as well as many others, you seem to have taken the easy way out. Look up Paul Van Dyk - New York City (Super8 & Tab Remix) on YouTube if you want to, while not necessarily in the style you're aiming for it'll show you just how far it's possible to take a bass synth - in this case it's half of the track.

At 1:07 and sections like it, your mix is way, way, WAY too cluttered. "Complex" isn't an equivalent for "good" at all and making that mistake can kill a track, like it does for me here. Let me list what you have playing simultaneously:
- Kick (sounding like it's raw from VEC - layer!)
- Hihat Line
- Clap
- Bass
- Bell
- Strings
- Lead
- Second Lead
- Piano
- Occasionally a hit or two (which also are raw from VEC - filter, EQ, reverb, delay, chop the sample, do whatever it takes here!)
And then some of them have reverb, or delay, or who knows what, and I may have missed a sound or two.

Isn't something wrong here? Listen to a professional trance track and you'll rarely hear more than five synths or so going on at the same time. Clean this track up and you'll probably find it a lot easier to listen to than before. Put your drums farther in front (though don't necessarily make them louder, just more audible), cut the bass on your bass synth some, and you'll probably already be hearing some improvements.

And then the mix has way too much bass to it as well, be it from the strings or from the bass synth. The track clips frequently around 1:26 with the piano playing chord after chord, and it sounds like it's clipping when the bass is in there as well. I don't know if you just threw an EQ on the Master Channel and boosted the bass with a Low Shelf or something, but this would hardly sound good on a big speaker set with a sub, let alone on my headphones. It might just be the headphones/speakers you're mixing with, in which case, you seriously need to find new ones. These aren't doing you any good...

I don't like your progression. It's nice but uses very simple chords, as opposed to some much more moving 4-note chords and progressions you could be using, that would have added to the feeling of the track and made it much more likely to win the MAC. Though if you ARE using four-note chords, I can't hear them at all...

Why is your piano playing low notes during the peak? Don't you have enough going on in the bass ranges right now? Seriously, at least highpass it, you're murdering your mix here. :I

Your rhythms, namely for the leads, are not only repetitive but also really overused rhythms. Can't you come up with something a bit less generic, if not because you want to, then just to make up for the generic and overused kick, hits, bass, piano, lead synths, and progression? (And already, you can see how the unoriginality of this track stacks up just by cutting corners.)

Continued on my alt.

[p4c-Midnight]

Lacking in a few ways, but above-average overall.

I'll get right down to things...

The beginning (minus the crash intro, you could have gone without those) is great, quite original-sounding, especially your fill. :D You say you were trying to sound stock, and your sounds do remind me of FL samples... if they were, bravo, I didn't recognize them at all!

Your clipping/crackling is probably coming from your filters, so play around with those a bit. Lowering the Master Volume, and then raising it on the MP3 post-render might do it some good too.

Drums come in, they sound nice. I'd like to hear some more complexity to your hihat line than just one big open hihat and a smaller closed hihat sample. I'd like to hear a fuller, rounder kick sound - there's less response in a small area out of the bass frequencies (you have punch and sub, but very little in between), for example, which gives the kick a hollow sound. Clap sounds good, no comments there.

Your bass synth is a bit too distorted, I'd smooth it out so that it's a bit closer to the bass you had in the beginning.

The transition into the guitar sounded ok to me, what didn't sound good were a few clashing notes I heard in your chords, look through those again and make sure they all stay in the key signature. I'd also suggest making the guitar a bit more central and less panned-out, just so the song's a bit nicer to listen to.

Overall this is some of the better Trance I've heard on Newgrounds, but it doesn't measure up to label-quality, which should be your next goal from here (note I said label-quality, not getting signed - that part's up to you ;D). Having detailed my biggest points, I'll end the review here, as I've got other things to do - but check out my article at http://karcoreviewalt.newgrounds.com if you haven't already, there's a lot of advice there that could do you some good. :)

p4c responds:

ya that crash intro was kinda unnecessary but i thought it was cool with the outro echoing the same thing i.e. recurrent theme. if i expand it thatll change.

i played aroudn wth filters more and crackling is going down wooo wooo! ill also do that mp3 business, and ill spend more time balancing out frequencies now hehe. your review alt. is pretty sweet! il see what i can do about hats, too, though this song is pretty inherently simple, so i think that throwing a convoluted hat line might be a good or bad idea depending on how it turns out... also, the strumming of the guitar already complicates that section with the strumming, so maybe that's enough? ill see.

im glad you liked it, and i guess im getting better than before :D akkkhhh yahhh! thanks for the in depth review and the link, it srsly does help.

[When a Tear is Shed - F-777]

Not at all perfect...

First and most obvious thing, avoid obvious sounds. Your piano and guitar are easily recognizable to anyone who pays attention to their music after hearing two or three songs that use it, for example. The bell sounds like it came straight out of Nexus... in fact, just by the sound of the track, it seems to me that everything came out of Nexus. Careful there. :\ I also don't like the octave your guitar is played in, I think it'd do better an octave up. It sounds a bit awkward down in the middle notes.

Drums are also blatantly Vengeance, especially your kick. You'd do well to layer your sounds from now on, when done right your kicks (as well as nearly any other sound you layer) will sound a lot fuller, and a lot more original, and what's more, it doesn't take very much practice to get the hang of it.

The biggest problem for me here is that there are no defining moments in your track. The melody's not all-out uplifting or even catchy at all, and the fact that you only use major and minor chords (or at least, that's what I'm hearing, which matters most in the end anyway) for your progression makes it boring to listen to and not catchy at all, compared to a better-composed track.

Try to avoid simple minor or major chords when writing out your progression (which you could do on a pad or some strings just so you can hear the entire chords at once, or on an arp to hear the notes in the middle more easily) - they won't help nearly as much. You can base your progression off of minor or major chords, but try adding a fourth note on top to build on that chord - the relation between the first chord, the second chord, and the fourth notes on top of the two of them (and all four of these, not just any two) will dramatically impact your track. For example, in the C minor scale, the Ab Major chord? Add a G on top and you'll get a deeper chord than your duller three-note Major chord. And if you add in an F - Bb - D - G chord next, then not only do you get a second chord with the same depth, but a bit of resolution waiting to happen in the third chord. Get a bit more creative than these shallow three-note Major and minor chords. ;D

Another thing that bores me is your structure - you seem to have the Breakdown - Build - Peak structure, except you've crunched it into a three and a half-minute track. You leave out buildups entirely, you just gradually bring up the energy a little bit and then throw it all in - though "it all" isn't much at all, the peaks don't feel that powerful either. By the time you get to them, you've already got nearly all the synths in there, and are just adding in the drums. The entire track feels repetitive because once your progression comes in, it never leaves! Vary things up a bit, you could have gone back to the simple progression from the intro for a break, for example (though that's not a good progression, way too simple, I shouldn't have to explain why).

As for your mix, just some minor complaints. The hihats (save one clicking closed hihat on the offbeat that I don't like very much) seem to get crushed under the rest of the synths and drums - your clap has the same problem but not to the same degree. The bells also are fairly quiet. Don't let your pad play too low - the lower notes it plays in this track muddy up the mix.

Your bass is too quiet! I just noticed it now, after letting the track loop quite a few times. First thing, take it off the offbeat, that's the easy way out and it's just as easy to be more creative than that. ;D Second thing, find a synth that will stand out. Bass synths can help you quite a lot if only you take advantage of them right. Listen to other Trance tracks for some ideas if you want to, I'd be glad to recommend a few, but never ignore your bass! That kind of mistake will only hurt you if uncorrected.

I think that's about all I've got to say. Please respond to this review and to the points I made, as I put quite a bit of time into it (and finished with only 39 characters left) and would like to hear that it hasn't gone unappreciated. ;D

F-777 responds:

Wow awesome long review =D!
I'll respond to your points best i can =).

1. Ye i was lazy in this one I used quite a bit of nexus but i did edit everything except the guitar.

2. I did layer the drums =P...but obviously i didn't do a good job haha!

3. Defining moments...nope your right there =). But that was part of the whole new feeling i was trying to give this track. So i am well aware of that but its exactly how i want it =).

4. Melody = well i personally like this melody...a lot =P. But melodies are impossible to make so everyone loves them =P. But ye i like it =).

5. Hmmmm i did not use simple chords. I had a 6 note chord then another 6 note followed by a 8 note for the long drawn out chord =). BUT i didn't embed a little melody or much harmony shiz with the pads so maybe thats why it seems so simple.

6. Well aware of the mixing im terrible at it lol.

7. BASS!!! DAMMIT YOU FOUND MY WEAKNESS!!! AUGH!!! I suck at bass's =P. Everyone i tried it made the song awful so i ended up just using a crappy one and turning it WAY down.

I appreciate the awesome review =). Especially from you =).