Karco's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[*Heart of Sword* // ZeRo BaSs]

Heh... our monthly ZB song. :)

And this time I'm reviewing better than ever. It'll take me a while to review both, and I probably won't be able to get around to doing both at the same time. But I intend to... ;)

Hmm... I'm not one to review hip-hop, but I'll do what I can. :) Good introduction, I like how the song develops. Nice introduction of vocals.

Huh, key change. Okay. The new vocals seem to favor the left side a bit much... and I'm questioning the quality, too. Careful there...

Your melody seems to be pretty good, knowing this is a hip-hop song. However, like I said, the vocals in the higher key are a bit strange, with the panning and sound quality. Careful, there...

Aah, now the song's building up to an explosion! And... it's not as big as I'd hoped, but then again this does have its hip-hop influences. So it flows pretty well.

Your harmonies are pretty good, no complaints here. Synths well-chosen, etc. No clashing notes here... I'm not so sure about the bass in the beginning, though... its introduction is a bit awkward and it doesn't really fit as well as the rest of the song.

Percussion is good. I like your samples, though that clap in the introduction at times doesn't quite sound good quality-wise. After the big transition, it's in-depth and varied, as always. Nice job there... no suggestions here.

You have hip-hop and hardcore/rave influences in this song, which is apparently what you were aiming at... so great job there. It's quite a change of pace from some of your latest and yet it fits your style perfectly... so nice choice in genre there. It's great if you ignore a few parts... downloaded and voted 5, keep up the good work.

ZeRo-BaSs responds:

Thank you for your awesome in depth review karco!!

Heh hearing vocals in my songs is quite unusual..damn it's pretty tricky to make them work :(
sorry for the clap sound..it actualy sounded good in the WAV.. in the 128kpb Mp3 it lost quality!

TY! ^_-

[_-={Blood Fields*Demo*}=-_]

A demo?

Aww, they're nowhere near as fun as full songs. Aah well... if it's a work in progress, I suppose a finished version will come sooner or later. ;)

Hmm. This doesn't quite have the same grandeur, the same great feeling as your other songs in the beginning. Also - your drums' quality is questionable. The reeverb detracts from the sound quality, in my opinion.

The melody of the song takes its time to develop, too. But once it does, it's good! It really gets that epic feeling that I think you're aiming at... however, the strings that play it feel a bit weak and could have used something in the lower range to support them... some brass, I think, would have done nicely and also the right ones might add to your attitude... if not, then some lower-end strings would help.

Interesting choice with the sitar... though it feels a bit out of place. I'm no expert with them... but single notes won't do if you want one in this song. I think that you should try getting a "strummed" feeling on the sitar, strumming a chord. Something like that. Experiment... I'm sure that multiple notes strummed together will have much greater effect than single ones. Of course, single notes are okay in between strums... like I said, experiment. ;)

I like those chanting effects there! However, they share the similar low-quality sound with the drums. Was this, by any chance, exported at a low bitrate? That might explain it... if not, well... keep trying to make it sound better, I guess.

You end on an interesting note... that high-pitched and plucked-sounding violin (that's what it sounded like to me) gives it a bit of that Meditteranean feel... if you know what I mean. :P It also gives the song a feel of regret, as if all of the warriors who participated in this brutal fight depicted in your song suddenly look at the firey, bloody battlefield about them and regret the damage they have caused to each other... and themselves. No, I'm not giving you any more of an story than that... it's a work in progress, after all. :P I'm saving the full thing for if you upload it on NG.

Last question - can you tell me about this Escalation game? I'm interested. :)

Great work, Maestro, though it could definitely use more. I'm looking forward to hearing the finished version. :)

MaestroRage responds:

Some very interesting suggestions Karco. Though I can agree with what you said, there are still some problems i'd have to learn how to deal with before I could actually deliver what you say.

Firstly, the lower end of this song is mad saturated. You'd be surprised, frankly I am too. I suspect it may be the reverbed timpani that eat up so much of it, as it's rather hard to hear them. The reverbed timpani are also not really low quality, I suspect that it's the mix and competition of other instruments that got in its way.

For the sitar, strumming does not work for the "droning" sitar as they call it. Strumming makes it sound like one giant sitaric white noise, if you know what I mean. I will try putting in a normal sitar, see if that works, i'm just worried of clashing then. I mean the song already has a fair deal of clashing in it, I worry what chords may do to it at this point *I am even considering removing it*

The choirs are probably suffering in quality due to instrument competition and reverb levels.

You know, i've never tried exporting this higher then 128kb/s. I highly doubt exporting it higher would help, but this IS perhaps my busiest piece, so perhaps it needs more room. I'll try 192 next.

That plucking sound, an awesome instrument. I know exactly what you feel and mean, and thats why it was there.

www.escalation-online.com is the game in question. We just started the new website so it's a little scattered, but the game will be out shortly. The full piece of this will probably be a main theme/battle theme within that game.

Thank you greatly for the review Karco, always a pleasure! I'm glad you liked it ^^.

[{Hollow Man} [NG Cut]]

Most effort EVER?

Wow, I'm prepared to be blown away. :D I hope I have time to review this song amidst homework and otherwise... >_<

Good introduction... great atmosphere and a bit of an ambient feel, too. Love those pads... Ooh, I like that note progression, lots of tension here. High energy... wow, the effort's definitely here. Strings and all... VERY epic. The storm's brewing... You're blowing me away and the song has barely started.

The song comes down just as it was rising up... it hasn't seen its full potential. Calm before the storm, I guess. :P Aah, there's that familiar melody. And here's the buildup...

Aah, there's that glitchy-sounding CnB DnB I've been waiting for. :D You do take your time introducing the melody and could have done it after eight measures instead of twelve.

Your melody's good. It's simple. I suggested in the preview that you continue work on it, that it has the potential to be even better. Mind you, it was good as is... and it seems you took the advice of your other reviewers, leaving it so. So I'll go with it.

As the song goes on the glitching begins to drag on. It gets boring. It's good, but you definitely could have made it more interesting, i.e. introducing those violins earlier. You could have taken it a step farther with a choir, making it sound extra epic. :D But I can only wish... :P

Your harmonies are good... no comments here as they're not a big feature of the song. They're definitely good, though. You could have made them a bit more noticeable, but then again they're not the focus of the song. ;) No clashing notes, you're good here.

Your percussion is good... I especially like it in the buildup section... those samples are GREAT. They somewhat fall apart later on, once the glitch sounds enter, until you notice that snare drum there. But as long as the glitching is there, the snare drum is the only noticeable one... maybe the kick drum if you try. It's a bit disappointing that way... but if that's the direction you want to take the song, I can't stop you.

I LOVE the great, epic atmosphere you have in some parts of the songs... the strings magnify and multiply that feeling. I wish I had heard it more often... :'( You should make a song building on that dark, epic, stormy feeling sometime... that would leave me at a loss for words. :O

Not much else to say about the song. You could have used a bit more diversity here and there but it's typical CnB DnB - and that's great stuff. Keep up the good work, looking forward to more.

[[TCM] Stress (PREVIEW)]

Huh, you're submitting often...

All right. Well, here's a review for you anyway.

The song starts... well, not audibly pleasant, I have to say that. The synths don't complement each other. Worse still is that string-sounding synth that comes in, and it's horribly off-key, in a different one, actually, from the rest of the song.

There isn't really a melody in this song... if you'd like to consider that string synth one, I'll tell you this - send me the .flp and I can change the key to match. And... if it actually IS in the right key... you need to find a better string synth. XD

Your harmonies don't complement each other at all. I could see it working if you had chosen better synths but your synth choice right now is giving me a headache. >_< Keep trying here.

Percussion... well, it's decent. I can't hear them because of how low the harmonies are, though... I do hear an unoriginal clap sample, though. That's all I can hear.

You know... I wouldn't really call this DnB. It feels a bit slow for that. I would have submitted this under Techno.

Not much else to suggest on this song... I'm disappointed. I'd say you leave it as is and start work on something new. If you really want to continue working on this, I would continue once I'm a lot better, and then I'd start from scratch. Otherwise I'd leave it behind for good. That's my opinion, though... I'd suggest waiting for a few other reviewers before making a final decision. Now, here's hoping they come... for your past three songs, I've been your only reviewer. XD Keep trying.

MtMTheCandyMan responds:

OHHHH BUG AWF!

LOzzLe! What's up Karco? Sorry I didn't get back to you on this review. Amazing. I usually respond in minutes O_O. Thanks for the GREAT review as usual.

*Hands Karco BEST REVIEW OF (whateverweekthisis) and my babies that he immediately grabs and consumes*

[[TCM] Foreshadowing Events]

All right...

So this is the finished version of your last song? All right... hopefully you did more since last time. >:( But we'll see.

No criticism I can offer you, right now... great percussion, I have to say. It's not weak at all. The melody's great, too... as is the harmony.

Not much is changing... you need more variation! The song is dragging on! What did I tell you...? ;) :P

So... you're going to get very high scores across the board for this one... except for diversity. You could definitely have done better there... ;)

Most of the other criticism worth noting is what you didn't fix in the preview that I pointed out in its review. ;) That's why this review is so short compared to my others... but it's pretty long anyway and I just COULDN'T let it go at a score of 2.50 and reviewless. :P

So... looking forward to seeing that collab of yours. :P Keep up the good work.

MtMTheCandyMan responds:

Thanks Karco. I kinda' forgot about adding the new harmony and submitted it like this X-P.

[Legends (Pulstated)]

You must like to remix.

Of course you do. Why else would you be doing so many? XD And you're good at this, too. Review time...

Hmm. Your introduction is very clubby... and on a dark note. But you take this song in another direction later on with your melody... I like this a lot. Again, I guess I can't give you credit for the melodies in this song... but they're awesome!

As always it's very melodic... you're very good at harmonies - the pads, the bass, it's all nice. Those "wind" effects are especially used well too... but they're not harmonies. :P

Your percussion is great in this song... I'm not so sure about that clap, though, as it seems a bit harsh for this style of song. I'm not entirely sure what else you'd be looking for, but I think there are better ones out there if you look for them.

As always you get that great trancy feeling. Everything contributes to it to some degree or another... great job there.

Normally my review would be a lot longer, but I've been reviewing all day and I can't think of much else to say. :( It's plenty long already, though... hope it's appreciated anyway. :) I've voted 5... Keep up the good work, Pulstate, I'm looking forward to more.

Pulstate responds:

Great review, but i must disagree about the clap, i think i picked the perfect one for this TYPE of track.

Don't worry about a shorter review even though it's still long!

:)

[Dark Mist]

DnB, huh?

I remember when I was making one of those. You reviewed it, too. :P Time for me to review yours...

Not much to say about your introduction... decent note progressions, nice stuttering! I like how you use that throughout the song...

Your melody (that comes in later in the song) is good, creative rhythms and notes, etc., though you could have had more diversity in it. The synth was well-chosen. Other than diversity, you've done a great job here.

Huh. The song just got slower.... piano, now... not bad, but the right synth would have been much better. Aah, the song's faster now. That's better. :P

Your harmonies are great and really give off that DnB-ish vibe. No clashing notes or anything... my one problem with these is that I hear too much of the same stuff. I hear what feels like three different sawtooths, all at once. Potentially the same synth, though I doubt it. You need to have diversity in synth choice as well as notes, you know... ;)

Your percussion is great, but there's a flicker of that feeling I get whenever I hear FL presets. It comes from the snare drum - that one could definitely have been better chosen. You had the right idea, you just needed a sligtly different one. Other than that, your drum samples were well-chosen, and well-used... no other criticism.

I get a very nice, dark, almost industrial DnB vibe from this song. Great job there. The "stuttering" adds a lot to this as well... very creative touch there. Diversity in synth choice could have made this better but it's very good to begin with.

Overall, nice job. Voted 5 and downloaded... I'm looking forward to hearing more from you, Drumr. :)

[[TCM] Preview 1]

Good... I say continue.

Hmm. Creative rhythms, I like this! It's a head-bobber. I'll get right to the bulk of the review, ok?

Your melody's great, but you could build on it a LOT more over the course of eight measures. I love the synth you've chosen for it, too! No suggestions here other than building on it more.

Harmonies. Well, the one that you have is good, synths and all. Nothing to suggest here, since you only have one harmony. You're going to need more throughout the song, of course. ;)

Drumming is great in this song. It kinda reminds me of what I used to do, creative rhythms with the kicks, but keeping the hihats on the offbeats. Those hihats, actually, I find a bit weak... so you should make those louder. And the kicks - try to stick to one hit every beat, on the beat, but it's ok to have some variation every four or eight measures. Your samples, however, are great! I also need to point out that I hear reverse cymbals - follow up on that with a cymbal at the end! ;)

This song would almost have a DnB-ish attitude, if it weren't for your percussion, which is fairly square if you don't count the rhythms for the kicks.

That's it... I say continue on it! Great job with this... if you do continue, I'm looking forward to the full version. Keep up the good work. :)

MtMTheCandyMan responds:

Thanks Karco. This means a lot to me. I can really learn from reviews like this.

[This is the Future]

Giant review for your first with FL!

Then again, they're always giant reviews... :P Aah well. Either way, here it is.

Hmmm. All right, kick-opening. Nice pad there, but it sounds a little plain, like an unedited waveform I'm not going to bother naming. Still, nice note progression. Buildup. Hmm... your drums could be better... and now, later on, there's an intensely horrible synth playing an intensely horrible melody. >_<

Well, your melody - your real one, not the aforementioned - is actually pretty good, and sounds logical. As is the synth that plays it, but your problem is that it's very weak and should have been louder! I would have also liked to see variations in it over the course of, say, eight to sixteen measures. Do that and we have a winner! The horrible synth and melody mentioned in the last paragraph... forget that. In all honesty you didn't need that.

Harmonies. Well, I only hear some weird bass, which is a nice try but I hear it among the drums, not among your synths! The awful melody could also be considered a harmony but honestly I don't want to consider it at all. >_< Again, this song has a lack of harmonies, though you're putting more effort. Aah, forgot - there's also that synth/pad, but it doesn't sound good among the other synths, for some reason. That one was more of a buildup/introduction pad... it didn't quite work during the introduction.

Percussion is better. MUCH better! You try to be original, which is good... and I hear variety in your drum samples. Kick, clap, snare, and... shaker? :O You'll want to try hihats. Your samples are creatively used, good, but it's best to just stick to the kicks being on each beat, which I don't hear in this song, until you really know how to use your drums, etc. But it's a decent attempt at drumming, I'll give you that.

I hear a few rough transitions... nothing to say about those. They could definitely be a bit smoother.

Once again, nothing to add concerning attitude and emotions... you haven't quite gotten there yet. Remember - you want all of your synths, all of your melodies, all of your drum samples and drum rhythms, all to contribute to the same attitude, the same emotion. If you can do that then you have your first emotion. ;) But to do that, you'll need a bit of inspiration... so go find some! >:)

Nothing to say... I hope I haven't sounded harsh - I'm getting it into your mind what is good and what isn't about your song and your style. Hope all my advice helps... keep trying. :)

New-Milkman responds:

Yes, the second synth put in there is very annoyiing! I tried to put in something else, to try make sound like the main synth, I just couldn't find what I was looking for... maybe next time.

When I was making this song, I couldn't save anything so it was actually sorta hard, but I could get all my ideas down at the time. Perfecting the volumes was a bit hard though, because it sounds different with headphones and through the speakers. I was going to adjust the volume on the main synth, but I already closed FL when I realized it >_<

I still don't really know much about harmonies, so I just experiment with sounds... for now. I might figure it out soon.

Better precussion? I guess. I love being original, no matter how it sounds (well, to an extent). I heard the shaker, and it just HAD to go in a song. I love it.

The transitions were going to be better, just that Audacity wasn't working very well for me at the time. No fading is not fun ...

I thought there was attitude. I based it on a thing that reminds me of Halo/ Futurama. Where the person comes out of something, then he sees all this futuristic stuff, and the main melody kicks in. O well, I'll try harder.

Nothing to say? What does that mean?! Your advice helps. It isn't harsh if you can give logical reasons for why you think that. Thanks for the review!

P.S. Good luck with Atmosphere!

[==(Rising)==]

zzz

All right... new song. Not much to say about the beginning - like Maestro said, it's definitely quite the calming song. I hear a quiet pad in the background... nice choice there. And... is that a guitar? Also a good idea.

You do take a while to get the song to progress, but I suppose that's what ambience is all about... taking your time. =\ Still, it gets boring.

New pad... I'm liking the sound of it and it's playing a melody that's subtly telling me to go fall asleep.

Huh, I just noticed your drums. They're good drums, too... though that closed hihat could have been just a little bit louder so it could be more easily noticed without disrupting the calming feeling you have. Nice effects, too, though I'd have liked to hear more of them.

Sheesh, I yawned! XD Next thing I know I'm going to fall asleep and my head will hit the keybtjfjtnvhyrhvgggggggggggggggggggWHA?

The atmosphere in this song is great. Quiet, calming, heck, I could hear this playing in certain games. A 5, 10, and a download, SBB, more like this sometime is a good idea. :) I'll get to submitting that hilariously crappy song of mine sometime today if I feel like it. XD