ErikMcClure's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Absent (Preview 1)]

More stuff

I feel that the hihat could have brought a lot of improvement to this song if you messed around with it more, espiecally if you took the reverse hihat you used to introduce it and worked part of it into the beat.

The song has the feel of progressive trance, but it either does not build up fast enough or there isn't enough substance to keep the listener particularly interested. The effects are good, but the main synth sounds completely ridiculous. I would recommend either making a better one or layering some effects on it so it doesn't sound so cheesy.

I would also suggest introducing a melody somewhere inside this 2 minute preview, otherwise no one's going to listen far enough in to find it. This song just needs more stuff in general. A synth bassline, for example, would have brought a lot of life to the drumline, which right now sounds like a bunch of FL presets and isn't altogether that good. Once you get into the second half of the song, you introduce a couple of more layers that make it sound halfway decent and i think you might want to consider skipping the intro entirely and just building the drumline off that instead.

Either way, good effort, but probably not going to make it to the top 5.

6/10
4/5

Aydin-Jewelz123 responds:

Thanks for the long review dude, all of it has been taken into account :) ive literally spent an hour on it today and thats it so far, so there is much progress to be made, i will experiment with different sounds and see what i can make out of it.

[Generic Dance Loop]

PANFLUTES FTW

Granted I prefer using an actual panflute sample, since IMO it sounds far more epic.

This loop is actually very well made xP

10/10 for lulz
5/5

gregaaron89 responds:

Where do you get panflute samples anyway?

And honestly I just threw it together in one afternoon, sloppily mixed and uber compressed it... yet somehow the mix sounds better than some of the serious songs I do that I spend weeks on... also it's the loudest thing I've ever made :P Maybe that's why. YAY COMPRESSION

[One Last Chance (WiP/Demo)]

I want this song >C

This is seriously amazing. The usage of classical instrumentation to bring out the emotion blends in perfectly with the synths, and the melody is beautiful. Its difficult to critique a demo, but the main portion of the song feels like it needs just a touch more atmosphere. Other then that, this is stuff I would buy if I wasn't broke :P

9/10 - because its so short :C
5/5

[Hyper-Adrenaline Loop]

Very loud

The melody in here is fairly good, although in terms of what the song's trying to achieve you might want to put in a few lower notes instead of just having rests in a couple of places. The song seems excessively loud though. This is made really obvious at 0:27 when the song drops off a cliff. This would have worked if you stuck a crash in there (and if your crash wasn't drowned out by the synth), and then slowly faded in the main synth back in. Other then that its fairly good for a loop.

7/10
4/5

SpliceMan responds:

Thanks for the review!
I admit, it is a LITTLE loud :P
It's still my first loop, so I thank you for the advice.
~Splice

[Katlean prime]

Very well done, however...

The main motif in this song is superb and very catchy. Unfortunately you have significant quality problems (most of which have nothing to do with FL studio, trust me), and because this song is designed for a somewhat boring situation, you shouldn't expect a particularly high score on newgrounds. That doesn't necessarily mean its bad though.

I would recommend learning how to EQ your instruments, as it will greatly improve your sound quality. I would also try to put in must more panning usage and stereo seperation.

On the song, I think that you have a very catchy idea here but you keep raping it with that horrible dissonance. Sure its a funeral home, we get that, the main idea conveys that instantly, you don't have to ruin it with dissonance just to try and get the point across! It doesn't sound creepy, it sounds _bad_.

Other then that though, the actual idea you came up with here is really awesome.

7/10
5/5 cuz the songs rated so ridiculously low

P.S. Your topic on the BBS is probably going to get locked,

Calamaistr responds:

Yea its locked now but i dont mind that much about it, you people have swayed my opinion in a heartbeat by your well thought reviews, i understand everything you people are saying but i dont hink i need a EQ since i just learned that its possible to load multiple instruments into the same pattern of FL, ill be working in fl again i guess, not because i cant get anywhere without its modern quality or anything but because i want to see what i can do with it. I always got something to fall back to anyway.

:)

[Kw- Dark Caves (FB)]

I love Descent :)

I think this would fit in very nicely in a descent style atmosphere, but IMO if you brought in some slow drums a lot earlier in the track it'd fit a little better. Most of the game is spent blowing things up, not wandering around a wasteland, so if I were trying to do a descent song i'd keep much more focus on the percussion in general (which was one of the main things that made descent 3's music so unique). Also I've noticed that descent music used a significant amount of pitch bending and resonance, even in the percussion, which was largely absent here. Still, a very nice work.

8/10
4/5

nightsurfermusic responds:

Cool, thanks! :) I largely based this off of Descent 3 Level 4 and level 14, that real ambient music. I figured this would be good for exploring a cave or a destroyed military base or something. :P

Thanks for the review!

[HP - Battle Heart]

Huuuuuuuge improvement

This is giant improvement over your previous songs. The main melody here is really awesome, but you don't use it enough, and you MURDER the poor violin. You have GOT to swap out your primary instrument or it grinds into your head. The song in general has lots of melodic variation but little to no instrumental or frequency variation. I can hear a bunch of other instruments that would work here, as well as nice strong strings part somewhere. Something to fill the gap. A very mellowed out synth pad would also work if it was fairly realistic. A flute would work. Anything, really, just USE ANOTHER INSTRUMENT. Seriously.

Other then that, solid idea here, but work is indeed needed. You have to introduce new instrumental concepts, new beat patterns, new rhythms, etc. in order to keep the audience interested. The bland percussion here does not help either.

8/10
5/5

[Lion King - F-777 ReMiX]

Holy crap

I didn't think this was possible. To the idiot down there who thinks this is unoriginal, when an audio artist has made some 50 or so original songs, a remix now and then is perfectly fine, especially if its as wonderfully crafted as this. I've had this same melody stuck in my head for ages and to hear this re-imagining of it is simply amazing. I tend to prefer the intro over the actual beat, myself, but it's still amazing to listen to.

1:52 is absolutely godly. In an electronic music genre, you managed to capture the essence of the original orchestrated song, which is nothing short of astounding. I'd like to see someone other then F-777 do that.

10/10
5/5

[Abyss - F-777]

Very cool

While not what I would consider your best work, I can hear a lot of experimentation in this song and its resulted in quite a few nifty effects. The melodies, as usual, are awesome, and melodies always win. A tad too noisy and loud for my tastes but the song itself is very well made.

8/10
5/5

[Blackhole FX]

Interesting

HEY LOOK IT'S MY NAME xP

This has a couple of interesting melodies, but I'm not much a fan of the insane FX going on. The production though, as usual, is ridiculously good; since that's the overall aim of this song, I'll give you a 5 anyway since it succeeded at what it was trying to do.

8/10
5/5

axeFX responds:

hey man, thx for the review. I'll try and build off of this, see where it goes. Blackhole ! your the man!