Karco's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[_-={The Dead's Witness}=-_]

Well, I have time. (Not really.)

I should be doing homework now... how irresponsible I am. =P I'll review this anyway.

It starts out nicely... your drums give the song nice atmosphere - I especially like how you get the crowd to shout different things every time... well, maybe it's only two "words," anyway, which is okay.

Woah... what's that effect there? Doesn't sound orchestral but it sure sounds awesome. Gaah, I don't know what it's called... it goes, "chaah" or something like that and plays now and then. I really like that, it fits very nicely.

It definitely tells a story... you do a great job of getting that feeling in this song. Once I'm done looking at the technical crannies of this song I'll replay it and give you mine.

Your instruments, as always, are well-chosen. No suggestions this time. They're all clear and easy to hear, which is good.

Overall a great song... I should have gotten around to reviewing it earlier, it's good. Just wait until you see the story I have for you. I've voted 5, and downloaded it. I've reviewed 10, too - I honestly can't see why any of the 5 scores deserve less, which means a lot. Great job.

All right... storytime.

Sunrise. An army on the horizon... hold that thought, my image just changed to sunset.

Sunset. An army on the horizon, the sky blood-red and wavering behind them. The sky is cloudless. They walk on an enormous, battle-scarred plain.

The war is over already, the fight won, all is peaceful - but those born to fight knowing nothing else now have nowhere left to go, nothing left to do. They roam miles away from the city, longing for the energy, the passion, the excitement they seek and experience in battle. They will not get it.

As the sky darkens, they march on. They keep walking even though the sun has set on another day, and on their purpose of life. It's nighttime. The moon rises.

Wow, this was one of my better stories in a while. Symbolic in quite a few ways. I'm fairly proud of this... what do you think? Hope you enjoyed this review. Keep submitting... I hope I won't miss your next submission so badly like I missed this one. XD

MaestroRage responds:

I do believe you've written quite a story here Karco ;). It is indeed quite symbolic, my favorite being the nighttime that has shrouded over the fighters as they live in every bodies dream, which is their nightmare.

A time for peace.

You have done well with the story congratulations, i'm glad you were able to knit it together :D.

The instruments were infact changed a lot during it's construction, and the final product doesn't have the violin playing such a crucial role, and a panflute took over much over the lead, hopefully one day I can show you all!

I will definitely keep submitting, thank you for the review, i'm glad you liked it ^^.

[Live for the Moment]

You've made better.

Hmmm..

Hate to say it, but it sounds waaaaaay worse than Quest for Truth. Most of your instruments are waaaay too loud - someone's given me this advice before, that they all get too loud because mixing gets out of control. Try to not let that happen. Examples of this include several of your synths, and your drums, which I couldn't hear as well as I should have.

You didn't achieve that perfect atmosphere, either, that you did in Quest for Truth. Some of your synths are waaay too loud, or are badly chosen. Notes are clashing everywhere, too.

Hmm... not quite one of your better songs, in my opinion. Still, keep trying - you're not going to get it right every time, right? Keep going. I've voted 4.

Swift-Reason responds:

maybe i'll try to take a closer look at it and remaster it. hopefully there is something I can do to make it sound better. but you're right, you can't be good all the time....oh well, thanks for being honest.

[DP02- Heaven [D]]

Good song, but could be improved.

It starts out with a bit of an annoying synth, but as soon as you bring in your pads (which are awesome!!) and your percussion, it gets better. You build things up quite nicely in the following section, but unfortunately you don't add too much to justify it. Also, the part right after the buildup is very short... it feels like 2/3 of your song is the part before the buildup, and only a bit of it is the actual part of the melody... sounds like you could work on this a bit more and actually finish it.

On what you were trying to get it to sound like, it definitely sounds like a Peaceful Trance piece... but a Dance Party? Not so much. Keep trying.

Overall? It's a decent song but could use work. I'd vote 4, but I don't want to bring down your perfect score. I'll vote 5 instead. =) Judging by the time you've been making songs for, I'm sure you can make better... so keep making songs! ;)

I hope my advice has helped... any chance you could drop on by my audio page sometime at http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/view.php?id=1828837 and maybe review either of my latest two songs? I would definitely appreciate it.

DJ-DaVinster responds:

Thanks for the review!

The synth was supposed to be better, btu the one I found was too glitchy, so I went with this one. The pads was accually 2 different instruments (Sytrus' Male Choir & Vanguard's PAD SuperWarm MS). As it says in the title, this is only a demo. I'm going to fix that buildup bit so it doesn't feel that long.

The Dance Party Collection was just a collection of various dance & trance pieces.

Thanks for the encouragement!

I'll check out your stuff soon!

-Vinny (DJ DaVinster)

[[The world is ending g-R]]

Hmmm...

It's good, for one. Your melody sounds off-key, but it fits anyway. Your percussion sounds really good and is one of the highlights of the song... your harmonies I can't really hear, but it's like this song doesn't need them.

The attitude and style of this song are very good, as this song sounds very professional. You use your effects well, though it sounded like the song could have used a few more at times, just to spice things up.

What I didn't like was the ending... it was a bit too abrupt. It sounded less professional than the rest of your song as well... but those are my only problems with it - other than that, it's fine.

Your synths/drums/etc. are well-chosen, which is good. No problems here.

Overall a very good song. It's really too bad you're leaving this style, you should come back to it now and then. Voted 5!

Hey, you know, I recently made an end-of-the-world-type song, too. I didn't get the idea from you, I swear. =D It's fairly different from this, anyway... hard, dark DnB. Fun stuff. Any chance you could stop by and review it? Much appreciated.

g-r4ve responds:

I checked your stuff out... but never found that song ur talkin about

[March of the Clowns]

Here's a LOT of advice for you...hope it helps.

Hmm. So this is your first song ever? Then expect a long, painful, technical review...mehehehehe. >=D

Well, for one, it starts out a bit too quietly, with only a few drums. Your drum patterns are fairly simple - you do change things up a bit, but you're missing a few crucial things. Firstly, it sounds very off-key. In most Techno songs, you need a kick drum of some kind taking the first beat of each measure. The two hihats you open the song with are waaaay too plain and sound offbeat whenever you use them. I'll elaborate on that when I go into song structure. The snare drums are weak, and any other drums I haven't mentioned either were unnecessary or too quiet for me to hear them. Overall, they're simple, and unprofessional-sounding... you need, (A) better samples, and (B) better rhythms and organization.

Okay, so I'll move on to your melody. It's decent in the beginning, though it gets worse as it goes on and takes waaaaaay too long to loop. Neverending or long melodies often, in my opinion, make a song worse. You need something consistent and catchy to come back to. A melody is what the listener hums, right? ;)

You have no harmonies in this song, which is a huge dissapointment. You need a bass to hold things up in the back with lower notes... actually, your melody would make a good bass if you just lowered it an octave or two. Then you'd just have to think of a melody, which I described above as consistent, catchy, and something the listener would hum to. Mind you, there's more to harmonies than that - you could have used a pad, maybe, and a few other synths playing harmonies would work nicely - remember the melody's always louder, but never overpowering!

There's no attitude in this song, no atmosphere - but I can't expect that from a first song. You do come fairly close to having one at times, though, which is good for a first try.

Your sound choice could definitely use some work. I explained most of it above, but I'll summarize myself about it here as well: Your drums aren't well chosen, you're missing a kick drum, you need to replace a few drums, i.e. the snare drum, your synth that plays the melody isn't very well-chosen and gets annoying, and then you didn't even have any harmonies to begin with.

One tidbit of advice is that I don't think you listen to enough techno - try listening to some of the better artists on the portal and famous professional techno artists often and you'll figure out the structure of the songs after a while.

There - if you read all of this, I certainly hope this truckload of advice helps you out. Unfortunately, this song's going to recieve a low score even by first-song standards, but I'm going to be kind enough not to do anything about the current score it has. Still, that doesn't mean you should stop - it's not like the best techno artists woke up one day and started cranking out their hits, right? Practice and you'll get there someday. =) I hope all of this advice helped.

New-Milkman responds:

This is THE best review ever. I <3 long reviews over ones like mine, because then I'll actually learn from other better people. The only problem is that I don't know what you're talking about sometimes, so it looks like it's time to do some learning Google style. You are awesome, thanks for the review! \m/ (-_-) \m/

[Let Me Hear You Rio]

Professional-sounding...

It starts out quietly and you evolve the song into quite the Trance.

A piano solo... hmm, and bass with it. You do a good job here, though you take your time moving along and adding new things, even for a trance, in my opinion, though eventually you do.

Kicks, good... and now you bring in the rest of the song, with the hihats and everything... your synths/sounds/ec. are very well chosen here. I especially like your percussion, which is simple and well-done.

Overall a good song. Keep going, I can see you making some great stuff someday. You have my 5.

One last thing - any chance you can stop by my audio page sometime? A review for either of my two latest would be nice, too. Much appreciated.

JVUnderground responds:

This is the type of review that I love. Thanks alot.

[Weekend Has Come (Pulstated)]

So you want to be the best trance producer, huh?

Sorry I've taken a while to stop by - I haven't had time. Let's see what you've made as your latest.

Wow, just from the introduction it's sounding very, very professional.

So basically it's a bunch of lyrics which go for a bit too long in my opinion for your introduction... that thing that's supposed to be a group clap, I think, doesn't fit the first time you introduce it in the interlude with no lyrics, as it sounds too short and not reeverbed, but once you reintroduce the lyrics it sounds good.

Later in the song when you've got a hihat playing twice in quick succession, it sounds quite unprofessional and unrhythmic and was a bad move, in my opinion. You do it again later with similar results.

Your ending is decent - no comments here. Overall a very good song. If your first submission was your first song, you definitely have a faster learning curve than I do, for we started at about the same time... hah! Good job with this, keep submitting. You have my 5. Go ahead and PM me if you ever want another review, it's never too much.

Pulstate responds:

I'd love more reviews mate, all the reviews i can get. :)

[_-={The Metal Visage}=-_]

A great song deserves a great review.

So here's a very, very long one. I might review one of your more recent sometime soon, too.

Your story's very interesting... after the suggestions in terms of the song itself, I'll share whatever comes to my mind.

You begin the piece (and by begin, I mean everything before the laughter) very elegantly and very well. You do a great job here, it seems a lot of effort went into this.

The part immediately following the laughter is good, though I feel the brass, in the beginning, didn't do enough of a job supporting the song with lower, longer notes. Later on, though, it's better but still lacking. Reintroducing the lower strings from the very beginning might have worked, though I'm not entirely sure.

Unfortunately, I'm not that good with instrument names, but when you bring everything out to an interlude-ish section with that violin-like instrument (name?) and later introduce a choir, it sounds epic (the entire song does, actually, but here is its peak in my opinion) and if you had been able to figure out how to get the choir to actually "sing," rather than just one vowel, it would have sounded amazing. Great work overall, on this song.

Images, images... I get a desperate, put-off argument between two sides. One is sad and desperate, the other annoyed and irritated, a hair away from anger. The introduction, before the laughter, is the lower side of the two presenting its case and wishes, the part right after that up to the interlude-ish part the other side taking control and hitting anger, as the other side shrinks back and vanishes for the moment as attention shifts entirely to the angry side, giving a soliloquy. (A speech alone. You can blame Shakespeare English class. Hah.)

The part after the interlude is the lower, not-in-control side returning the argument, with a little more force this time. Unfortunately, the song ends before the argument can finish, and unfortunately my story is cut off. But it's yours you were crafting this to and you did a magnificent job with that.

One question - no, it's not about reviewing - where do you get your instruments for these songs? (There's a chance I may start an orchestral song sometime soon.) Any non-soundfont site in particular? (Though a soundfont site would work, too.) Unfortunately, I have yet to get the Soundfont player... I'm trying.

In any case, this has my 5, 10, and download. Keep up the great work.

MaestroRage responds:

wow, impressively large review Karco. The instruments before the choir were spiccato violins which is pretty much just quick notes played on the strings.

I like your image, two sides arguing eh? Truth be told my story has some arguing in it as well, but things are exploding while the talking goes on :D.

The beginning did take a good deal of effort, not so much because of it's construction, but more so for me learning some small things in making electronic music which is still a field I am wanting to explore.

As for the instruments, i'll send you a pm explaining!

By soundfont player you mean the one in Fruity Studios? I don't think you need to set that one up, just drag and drop the soundfont instrument onto the mixer window.

Anyways, PM time! Thank you for the review, i'm glad you liked it ^^.

[Misshapen Dream]

Has its good parts and bad parts.

Hey, a new song! Review time!

Hmmm... well, it starts out very amateaurish-sounding - the snare drums aren't a good choice at all. At least, not that one.

The song does get better as it goes on, though... now I see where it got the title, Misshapen Dream. Synths sound offtone and the song's overall inconsistent - though you do that well. Eeeeewww... now there's a really loud synth playing the same note and overpowering everything else. Not pleasant on the ears. Thankfully, the section after that is MUCH better.

Not much else to say about the rest... this song has its good parts, and it has its bad parts. I do hear what sound like quality vocals later on, though I could be wrong. Normally I'd rate a song like this a 4, but I'll give it a 5 just because I'm nice enough to keep it at its perfect score. Hah!

Any chance you could stop by and review my latest, Nova, sometime? I'm really proud of it and consider it my best, by far. Much appreciated.

DistortionResonance responds:

Sry for it taking so long to reply back but yeah I will check out your song and review it only fair you gave us your input might as well share ours.

[Dirty Filla (Revised)]

Another great song. =)

Your kicks that you start with are a bit annoying, but then the song gets great as you introduce everything. I notice a distinct style common to this and your other song, Quest for Truth... this belongs in a video game. =) Though this seems to fit a boss fight more, rather than an adventure level like Quest for Truth does. =)

Your synths and drums are well-chosen and organized, and the song's melodic - but not to the same genius degree as Quest for Truth. One nice touch is that... there! Just for a second, it sounds like a chase scene. Which is a nice touch you give it without making it lose its seemingly intended attitude.

Parts of this song seem to be a bit cliched, as well - but you do it right. You're really good at this... just a question - what program do you use to make your music?

This is another great song - it has my 5 and download, though you'll have to work just a bit harder to get that 10. ;) Keep submitting songs, and please PM me if you ever want another review... it's never too much! =D I look forward to more from you. =)

Swift-Reason responds:

When I was in the process of making this track it kinda reminded me of the song that JP from the movie Grandma's Boy was listening to in his office.

I really enjoy reading great reviews like this..not necessarily because you liked the song but because you took the time to write such an in depth review. But I do appreciate the appreciation for appreciating my music..lol

Thanks
Swift-Reason