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ErikMcClure

151 Audio Reviews

99 w/ Responses

Noise

...but I have to admit, this is extremely well crafted noise. There is no melody whatsoever, the distortion makes the song sound like its raping the speakers, but its still tolerable to listen to, which I consider an impressive feat. When you aren't abusing the limiter to hell and back, the production is very, very well done. Sadly you waste this once the song starts distorting itself into insanity.

6/10
4/5

djInTheDark responds:

The reason why it is so distorted is because of the time constraints of the contest I had to get it in before I could properly master it. And does a song always have to have a central melody? This is contributed to the time limit because I didn't have enough time to sit down and right one. And also, I don't use a limiter, or compressor. I believe that if you can't control your own levels and values, you leave the song to fate.

Annoying

There's a single melodic line, but other then that, you literally play the same stupid note approximately 200 times over the course of the entire song. the "Song" in this case is a bunch of random FX noises and painful synths. You'd think that'd it follow some sort of regular beat too, but the rhythm is so absurd i can only identify it through the occasional melodic playings.

It sounds like you actually have the ability to make decent music, but its lost in whatever the heck this "thing" that you have submitted is. It's a lot of very strange samples that have been mangled beyond all recognition in some kind of bizzare attempt at making a song that is simply too random for it to make sense. The fact that it's painful to listen to at times does not help.

But hey, the production is good, even if you have totally ridiculous sidechaining. But I think totally ridiculous side-chaining is a part of the genre itself so I'll ignore it.

4/10
3/5

Superb

Even for trance, the intro to this is going overboard a bit. A minute in and its not changing very much anymore, its just the same thing over and over and over and over... Things start getting better once we hit 3 minutes though, and the intro is very impressive.

The production in this is top-notch, and the mixing is sublime. I really like a lot of the creative chord progressions running around in this song, that don't sound like they should work but yet somehow do. After the 3 minute mark you do a really good job of transitioning between elements and keeping the listener interested with variations and new melodies.

At 5 minutes I can hear the faint hints of a really impressive soundscape but you don't seem to elaborate on it, which disappoints me. Either way, we start entering into the outro at about 6 minutes with some really clever hi-hat work that I'm really liking. This whole song has the feel of a professional mix and is probably one of the few songs submitted to this contest that I've actually downloaded. This is extremely well done.

The outro is superbly done and the subtle synth melodies are perfectly executed. The ending is smoothly done and flows perfectly, avoiding the repetitive trap that the intro fell into.

9/10
5/5

Osher responds:

The intros are a bit difficult to do in progressive trance because in the first minute is suppose to be for the DJs to mix into the song.

Thanks for the review, glad you liked it.

Unfortunately...

This is not a particularly impressive song. The intro leads the listener to believe that we might be treated to something impressive, but then the song actually starts REMOVING things from what was previously believed to be the intro to the song, and then it just repeats the intro again, runs around with the bas synth and stops. That's not really a song.

The drum line is interesting and creatively done, but the base synth line is really generic and not very interesting to listen to, yet it is a major centerpiece to this song, which makes it really annoying, because all the variation is focused on one of the WEAKEST elements of the song! The single melody that you included might have been really good if it was really utilized, but the bass synth is just random sounding and doesn't really fit a chord progression all that well. There isn't enough atmosphere in this song when the entire song can be summed up with: A bell synth, a bass synth, plus drums. That's it. That's your entire song.

That's just not enough stuff to keep your listener interested, and the cliche'd bass synth does not help matters.

6/10
4/5

I-Saved-The-World responds:

Thanks for the review, lots of criticism i can work off of, much appreciated

Very well done

This is a superbly executed song. It's got a catchy melody, an intro, a breakdown and an outro. Some of the production could use a little work, along with some very questionable use of drums during the quiet part. The synths are very creative, and overall this is a song that has a style all its own and is quite addicting.

I think the beginning synth could use a work since its just a generic saw pad and doesn't lend itself to the excellence that the rest of the song is. That is, until the end, at which point things start getting repetitive. I would also suggest that for the outro, that the drums get filtered out (or just stick in a final melody to finish off the song with). The panning is really good with the synth, but this doesn't transfer over to the drums, which are all completely mono. Some additional atmosphere would probably help the song out as well.

Overall, very good work.

8/10
5/5

Skela responds:

Thanks.

Repetitive beginning

This song starts out very well, with an addicting atmosphere and a good drum line... and then it doesn't change for a minute. At this point we're treated to a new melody, which also doesn't change for another minute. Then we have a breakdown with some really weird chord processing going on that's a bit too random. When you're processing chords in ways like that you always have to pay attention to the beat so that you are strengthening it as opposed to destroying it.

At the 3 minute mark the song really shows off its incredible atmosphere, which continues into a soft and slow ending. This song is bursting with creativity and clearly shows a large amount of work has gone into it. Sadly, a lot of this is ruined by a lack of good melodic structure and the songs extremely repetitive nature early on.

I think you could benefit from some EQing on several of the instruments, a few of which sound like they're being played from behind a wall due to a lack of high frequencies. The overall production ijavascript:submission_controller.Get ReviewController().SaveReview();s otherwise fairly good. Again, the melody is what's lacking in this song.

7/10
4/5

SineRider responds:

hey thanks for the honesty. I like these kinds of reviews. I do have to agree with you, I didn't focus on melody too much. I'll have to rework it a bit before I release it on my album :)

Poor mixing, good melody

Unfortunately the FX in here is too loud and is very distracting from the main song. The instrument volume balance is off as well, and I think the song would have been much improved with some real dynamics to the instruments.

The melody is nice, but some of the variations get boring, and some of them sound almost out of key, which is not good. There's a lot of tension in the conflicting notes in this song due to the conflicting chords that are used. You get marks for creativity though, and the general idea of the song is at least decent. Unfortunately the song starts out really nice with the flute and then dissolves into a bunch of melodic variations with little instrument change.

The song's close to getting the idea across, but it keeps forgetting what it's trying to do. The feelings are inconsistent and it doesn't have a real solid idea to do it. You also have some very bizarre panning choices - did you try mixing this with headphones at any point? It's mostly the violin.

7/10
4/5

Well at least it attempts a melody

The bassline is not very imaginative, the drums are very samey throughout the song, although they were at least slightly decent at the beginning before dissolving into a giant mess. I am actually impressed by some of the guitar effects done in the early part of the song, which do appear to have melodic structure to them. Sadly, while I was hoping the song was off to a good start, at the first minute mark it sounds like you have no idea what your doing, and the whole thing is terribly amateur.

After this, things just start getting worse and worse and worse, as the guitar that was once melodic is now an offtune dying sound. The drums are also extremely questionable. All your drummer is doing is hitting a hit hat and then randomly hitting a snare drum. That's it. For almost 2 entire minutes. Meanwhile the guitar has been so incredibly distorted its barely even identifiable as a guitar.

Bad idea for an ending. It was a bad idea for an intro to start with, and to END the song on that kind of a breakdown makes it even worse. Since you just had a relatively slow section in the middle, you'd want to at least climax the song instead of letting it die. As a side note, you don't sound like you know how to play the guitar well... but at least you didn't overcompress everything to the point of absurdity.

4/10
3/5

Kirbyfemur responds:

I would have probably gotten more out of a review that just said "Sucks" than this. There was nothing honestly helpful about this. I'm glad you can point out that I'm terrible at the guitar, that REALLY helps me learn more and build upon my musical knowledge. (Feel that sarcasm)

Also where are you hearing this random snare, no where in the song does the drum part hit random noes. Maybe a lot of off beats, but not random.

Where you trying to help me, or just point out the bad parts? You've pointed out some parts that are bad, but then don't really say anything useful. Same goes for the decent to good parts. And i've noticed this on some of your other reviews.

So please, next time you review something, try to actually help rather than just give an elaborate version of a "This sucks" Or "Oh I like this" review.

No.

This is a piece of crap. I'm sorry, it just is. I've heard decent heavy metal, and it usually does actually have some semblance of a melody, or at least better production. This is closer to some kind of death metal grunge kind of thing that is no longer music and has degraded into a noise contest.

It's kind of hard for me to criticize specific portions of the song when the entire first 3 and a half minutes are literally just insane drums and random guitar riffs with horribly done, incoherent guttural... whatever the hell you call it. I did actually hear some sort of guitar solo at about 3:30, but it was completely out of tune and sounded like the guitar was dying. Actually this entire song sounds like its dying, but that part really managed to stand out in being utterly and completely horrible.

The production in this song is unbelievably terrible. You can't hear anything because the compression destroys everything, the drums become a giant mess, what is left of the guitar is clipped into nonexistence, and it's kind of like your ears are swimming through a giant pool of crap.

2/10
2/5

I need a gigantic bucket of brain bleach now.

Pure-Metal-UTA responds:

Hmmm, I'm thinking of a way to respond to this...
I will admit, for this song, my EQing was poorly done, but this reason can be easily explained, as it probably can for any other of my songs with this bad EQing.
My computer is a POS, I have the money to get a much better one, and I will be very soon since it's the holiday season.
Elaborating on my POS computer, it runs on 512 MB of RAM, has a 40 GB hard drive, and is really old. It was made from used computer parts.
Because of my computer, I have to listen to 2 tracks at a time, which means that I EQ two tracks at once, otherwise it gets extremely laggy and you can't make out anything. I do usually render the piece and then see what issues lie from there, but it doesn't help a whole lot, and would be much better if I could just listen to all the tracks at the same time before rendering. But like I said, POS computer.
I personally really like this piece, and now that I think about it, yeah, there are some bad things about it. That doesn't neccisarily mean that it sounds like crap. It's still listenable, as seen from the reviews before this one. Also it depends on what kind of metal you listen to. This one in particular is DEATH METAL. Think about that.
To be honest, your review didn't help much at all, but thanks anyways.
\m/

Variation is Dead

Seriously, no one varies their drumloops anymore, which normally wouldn't bother me except the name of this genre is DRUM'n'bass, not REPETITIVE'n'bass.

This song is just way too repetitive; It's a 30 second intro followed by the exact same thing for an entire minute, followed by 20 seconds of transition into another minute of the exact same thing with an additional melody slapped on, followed by another 20 seconds of an ending melody transition, which then abruptly stops without any resolution whatsoever.

The first section needs drum variation and melody alterations. The transitionary part in the middle is very good, but the melody is only 2 bars long and simply repeats endlessly, it needs to be longer and have more variation in it. The ending was almost good except that you cut everything out and then landed on something other then the tonic, which is a big huge fat no-no.

The production in this is fairly good, but the song just isn't cutting it. Even as a DnB song, you don't put in any variation with your drum loops, with makes the whole thing a giant loop. The lack of creativity in this forces me to give this a very low score, since it's one of those songs that just doesn't have a soul to it.

6/10
4/5

Angry Programmer Bunny

Erik McClure @ErikMcClure

Age 33, Male

Software Architect

University of Washington

Fundament 🜂 Software

Joined on 9/21/06

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