EctiBot's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Hectic restraint]

It's siick that this is your first project :D. Love your style. Only real complaint I have with this track is the mixing really. You should go through some tutorials about mixing, because if this was mixed well this could be among my favourite songs of the week :). The mastering is very well done actually.
Can't really remember when I started following you tbh, but I'm really glad that I did :D: This song is great :). Would really like to collab with you sometime :D. Love your style :).

-Ectisity
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BlastBeats responds:

It means a lot to me that you like it. And currently I'd feel quite embarassed to collab, you know. Most of the time I really don't know what to do, and I'll look like a useless nitwit. But I'd love to collab once, later. You made my day ;).

[-Give me a challenge!-]

Really cool intro, and I really like the structure and idea of this :). My only complaint really are the levels in this. Sounds like the song is actually clipping, but you have just added a limiter on the master track to bring it below 0. This a bad idea because you destroy the dynamics of the song. Try bringing your individual levels down (you could always just route all your levels to a send channel and use that to adjust the volume of the all the levels at the same time). Once you have brought all your levels down so that the track doesn't go above about -6db without the limiter, then you can start mastering the track.

To me it sounds like you are using a mastering plugin like maximus(or just using fl limiter to boost the volume) to make the track sound louder, which is the right idea if done correctly. But you have to remember that before mastering you need make sure that your individual levels are adjusted correctly so that your volume on the master track won't surpass 0db AFTER you are done with the mastering. In this way you are ablo to give the song a much more professional sound, and you are also able to keep the dynamics in the song.(musical dynamics are basically just the variation between high and loud volum(forte) and soft and quiet volume(piano).

Other thanthe leveling and mastering though, a pretty good track.
Ps. Btw, I know why you aren't able to replace your audio file. I'll just send you a pm about it :).

-Ectisity
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Felocai responds:

Wow, that'a a valuable review!
Your right I'm actually using maximus in all of my tracks.
Thanks for the advices.
:3

[Castles in the Rain]

Arsonist pretty much picked out what I loved with this track, and Shurrikane picked out what I thought could have been done better. the piano sound very synthetic, and by that I don't only mean that the piano itself sounds synthetic, but the way the piano is played. Remember that a human piano player won't play each note at the exactly same velocity level. Try varying the volume of each iundividual note to make the playing sound more realistic. I'll add a link to a very good video below that explains this more in depth. The guy usues fl-studio, but the same applies to Reason or any other DAW for that matter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PUlTzficds

Other than the piano sound, this is a really solid track. The percussion toward the end get's a bit drowned by the synths, but I really liked the beat you had going there.

-Ectisity
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IndustryStandard responds:

Good advice on the piano synth. I was aware that using MIDI instruments(at least when you simply click them into the piano roll instead of playing the riffs) could sound too robotic, but I was never really sure how to fix that other than trying to play the riff myself. I've since found a better piano instrument that uses samples instead of synthesizing the sound, and altering velocity shouldn't be a problem. thanks!

[Equilibria - Unsustainable (Entropy VIP)]

Wow! Let me just tell you that all the time you guys invested into this track really payed off :). A trule amazing piece filled with a lot of emotion. Everything from the pads to the wobbles are packed with emotion. The structure is very good, and the melodies are really, REALLY good.
I remember critizising the mixing in "Nebula" quite a bit, but all the mixing problems I had with Nebula are non-existent in this one :D. The mixing is spot on throughout the entire track. The kick is especially good and fits very well into the mix.

Great job with this one :D!

-Ectisity
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Dylnmatrix responds:

Thanks man! I'm glad I fixed those mixing problems that you had in Nebula. With how much time we invested, I wanted it to be our best track yet. Really happy it payed off.

[Tides of Time]

Simply amazing. Just truly a stunning piece. So packed with emotion that it's unbelieveable. You really have a great talent for composing. Really wish that it was longer, but at the same time I also feel that the track was able to convey exactly what it wanted before it ended.

Simply a beautiful piece. 5 stars.

-Ectisity
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DSykMusic responds:

Thanks so much for the review and kind words!

[Techno From The Cosmos]

As Arsonist said, there's a lot of potential in this, and I could immediately hear that you have a lot of talent for this kind of music. There's a few things you can tweak a bit to make this sound even better:

First of all, the hats. Cut the low end of your hats in an equalizer to remove that annoying "cheap" noise. For EDM music like this you usually only use the higher frequencies of the hats. In adition to cutting some low end, you should also cut your higher frequencies so that the hat's doesn't sound to sharp on cheap speakers and cheap headphones. I would cut everything below 2000hz at least, and everything above 17000hz. The eq'ing in a track makes or break it in my opinion, so I would really advise you to look a bit further into it.

Another advise is that the high pitched saw lead you use after the 1 minute mark is a bit to sharp, and painful to the ears. My headphones are fairly neutral when it comes to frequencies, but in small and cheap speakers (like laptop speakers) the high end in the track usually get's boosted, making the sharp synths sound even sharper and very unpleasant to the ear.
Again, you could solve this solve this problem, but you can also just put a highpass filter on the mixing channel to remove some of the highest frequencies. Highpass filtering is a good way to get rid of high and unpleasant frequencies.

Except from the eq'ing though. this track was great :). Really liked the idea of it, and it has a really nice "dancey" feel to it :). Good choice of the synths. (Maybe add a heavier subbass to really reward the ones with bass heavy speakers :)?)

Great job :).
Keep up the good work :D.
-Ectisity
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Condooo responds:

Thanks for the in-depth analysis, it's really appreciated :D Yeah, I'm completely new to the scene, so the whole aspect of EQ'ing is completely foreign to me. I'll take your advice and apply it in the future.

Many thanks :D
-Condooo

[Sasquatch Goes Boating]

A lot of good ideas in this. Really liked the structure and general concept of the song. There are a couple of things I need to nitpick on though.

First of all the kick. The kick makes or break a song, so you have to make sure that you put a lot of thought into choosing what kind of kick you want in your song. I'm not sure if you can use kick samples in the demo version of fl, but you'll come a long way by switching the kick with a better sounding one. Once you get your hands on the full version you might even want to design your own kicks :).

I also wished that this song had built itself up throughout the track. As it is know, it sounds kinda flat and plain. Try adding some mare melody layers and maybe some more percussion as well :).

Again, there's a lot of good ideas in this, but it seems like the demo version is limiting you from making this into something truly amazing. Just keep it up, and when you one day get Fl I'm sure you'll be able to absolutely blow my mind with this track :).

-Ectisity
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xxUltimaWeapon responds:

I always appreciate your feedback, Ectisity. Overall, a lot of my songs, including this one, just need to have a lot more time spent on them. I definitely and learning how to adjust the kick to fit the song a little better. Also, you can really tell I wasn't sure what to do with the last bar of the song, with the weird distorted synth melody at the end hahaha.

[Kim Calls]

Pretty epic track this :). I'm a huge fan of this genre. Really liked the synths you used, and the mixing is spot on. The structure is great, and the melodies are amazing. One thing I noticed though, was that you are being very careful with percussion in this. Waaay to careful. You should add some claps and hats in your drop. It's the percussion that really makes the listener want to dance, so without it the track sounds way too tame. I also felt like the ride you have layered together with the kick and actually also the kick itself could be a bit louder.
You could also vary the melody slightly in the different bars. Like changing one or two notes so the track doesn't get too samey.

Overall a pretty good track though :). If you feix the few problems it would definetly deserve a 5.
-Ectisity
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AlenK responds:

Thank you for the response. I took into consideration what you said and i made a new version uping the levels of the kick, ride and snare, and i added somemore hihats throughout the mix. I varied the melody as well so its not so repetitive. Thanks for the help!

[Smoke]

you know, I saw that this track had a low rating and no downloads at all, so I expected it too be bad, but I actually really like this. Loved the guitar parts, and even though you don't have a perfect voice, it still does add a bit of "flavour" to the track with that voice. Kinda sounds like the guy who'll just sup on the corner of the street and just sing his heart out :).
Really liked the lyrics as well :D.

4.5 stars
-Ectisity
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SerPounce responds:

Thanks a bunch, I'm really glad you enjoyed it! I actually recently tried street performing/busking for the first time, I was surprised by how fun it was, it could very easily become my thing.

[The Gauntlet V2]

As Arsonist said, this is really the definition of an epic piece :). The instruments mix very well together, and this almost sounds like it was recorded live.
One thing I want to point out though, is that the mixing of each individual instrument could have been done better to make them simply sound a bit better. Especially the horns had some frequencies that really anoyed my ears. Try listening to the instruments and identify the frequencies that sound good and the ones that sound bad, and cut or lower the bad frequencies.

-Ectisity
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DSykMusic responds:

Thanks again for your review! I'll keep the frequency issues in mind on future mixes.