EctiBot's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[The Chase Begins]

I remember judging your A.I.M piece last year, and yet again you are able to perfectly portray the atmosphere you are going for. The mixing is top notch, the sound design is amazing and the atmosphere in this is of the chart. Great work! Take my follow, and I hope you continue to submit music on here :D. Alltid fint å ha en annen nordmann på newgrounds ;).

erlendflatin responds:

Thanks for your kind words :) I will try and upload more of my stuff on Newgrounds, I upload a new track on my youtube every Friday. So I will probably upload some of my earlier works here, but on a set schedule, so maybe 1 track per week or something.

Aner ikke hvor hvem andre som er nordmenn her, veit du om det er mange på Newgrounds?

[Broken Game]

This is a really interesting track! The mixing is a bit chaotic though. at 0:15 the bass suddenly gets heavily compressed. I don't know if you did it on purpose or if the kick just ocmpletely kills everything else. The kick btw is way to bassy. It completely dominates everything in the song, making it really difficult to hear the other elements. When you bost the low-end too much, it just ends up compressing the high-frequencies in the track. Really adivce you to take a complete different approach for the kick, boosting the low-end doesn't make a kick more powerful, it's the high-end of a kick that gives it that pumped up sound. Really difficult to comment on the other aspects of the mix when I barely can hear them, but the hats and especially the claps doesn't really blend that well into the mix.
The tracks get very repetetive after a while as you basically play the same melody over and over with very little variation. There's nothing wrong with repetition in music, but to make it work you either have to have a very intriguing melody, or make tiny variations at times. I also think this track could use som extra elements, as right now you pretty much just have a single bass with percussion over it. Also, as this is a video game track you should also try to have some dynamics in your track. You could have som calm and some energetic parts for example. This contrast is very important in all types of music, but especially in music that's made for games.

You do certainly have an interesting idea going on here, but the mixing isn't of a high standard and I felt like it could really use some more work. Remember to carefully mix your low-end to make sure that your mix doesn't become muddy. I know that this review and score might seem harsh, but rather than feeling angry or discouraged about it I hope you consider my adivce as I did have the exact same problems in terms of mixing and arrangement when I started out, and it took some very harsh reviews from some very skilled musicians to make me improve, and remember, I wouldn't take the time to write a review like this if I didn't want to help. Keep it up :).
-Ectisity

FGK2015 responds:

About the mixing, I never focused on the mixing one bit. :P

Variation here was a problem and so was the melody as there either was none or too much (whichever sounds best).

[JOURNEY]

Really like the feel of this track! Some really neat melodies in here. The drop is a bit weak, mainly because you have no chords playing there. Chords are really important in musicl ike this, and without them the track just ends up sounding very flat. also, all the percussion elements doesn't fit in with the rest of the track. First of all I think you should use another kick in this. I don't know if you are using the one you have now because you are going for an 8bit feel, but that kick really doesn't work regardless. try picking a kick sample that shines more in the high end. If you listen to generic edm, you can hear that pretty much every song uses a kick that shines through the entire frequency spectrum, and it's this that creates that "umph" feel you get from them.
Also, try varying up your melodies a bit, espeically at the drops. The drop-melody should be the main "theme" in your song. Good EDM drops introduce a new melody, and I think this is what you should go for as well. Right now you just have the same melody all the way through with little variation, which really makes the track samey(repetetive). I suggest that you try listening to some artists that you like and hear how they structure and build a song.

your overall mixing isn't too bad, but there are times when the frequencies clash, especially because of the snare and claps. Also, the high frequencies of the lead bug my ears a bit, try toning them down.

The strongest part of this track is the melody, but there are a lot of issues that can be fixed. Keep it up :D!

LLCALIREP responds:

Thank you so much for the feedback!! I'll will take your advice!!:)

[BrightSide]

Ahh, I remember this! Great work with the drums in this, and the melodies are really neat. Think you could have experimented a bit more with the melodies in this, because some are a lot better than others. Especially the solo part at 1:20 has some melodies that sounds a bit too random.
I really like the bass sound in this, but it sounds a bit seperated from the rest of the track. Hard to explain, but it feels like it hits me in my throat for some reason. It's probably because you didn't want the bass to clash with your lead, but it is a bit disturbing to me. Might just be me though.
The mix sound a tiny bit chaotic at times. I think this is mainly due to the bas, but the hi-pads you use clash with the lead because they both fight over the clarity frequencies from 2k - 4k. I would probably dampen the high frequencies of the pad a tiny bit and maybe mess a bit with the stereo field to ensure that the lead and pad arent fighting eachother.

Overall a really solid and original track. Hope you make more like this for chipscompo :D!

LunacyEcho responds:

=> solo melodies

Ahh for that solo I was trying to do a bit more of a rhythmic focus! I guess that makes the lack of melodic focus apparent :P :P

=> bass sound

The bass sound here was inspired by funky slap basses—except I don't have any of those, so I tried to make a similar sound using a synth. :P

=> lead clash with hats

Ooh, I never thought about doing that. I don't have much experience in mixing and mastering, so this isn't the kind of thing I'd look out for naturally, but I'll definitely do that in future songs!

Thanks so much for the review, Ectisity! And good luck in the NGADM :) :)

[NGADM 2017 Auditions Podcast]

NGADM HYPE!!
Your voice is smexy btw, you should do more podcasts!

ChronoNomad responds:

Haha, thanks a bunch, Ectisity! I think it's safe to say that there will be more. :D

[Misdirection]

This would have actually destroyed us all if you had submitted it XD.
Absolutely an amazing and unique piece. This is such an incredible mash of genres that it creates something entirely new. Really like the direction you went for with this. A fantastic piece of art :D.

zybor responds:

sorry i didn't reply to your review in a while. been busy week since our department was hit with IT problem and i didn't even got time for NG. (suck to be a sysadmin)

thank you very much for your review dude! :D

[Desolate Dream]

As i already told you in CHIPS, this is beautiful. Hope I one day will be able to make an entire piano composition as beautiful sounding as this :)

LucidShadowDreamer responds:

Oh, you certainly can! You have a great sense of melody, after all. Naturally, it's easier for me to get a dynamic sound since I actually play like all of my piano tracks. But you can do it in a DAW too, SoundChris is proof of that!
Thanks for reviewing/listening to it again!

[AIM - Chris, the Boat and the Tormented Sea]

No words. Simply amazing, omg.
Just played this randomly on the subway on my way home for work, and I almost cried. Just too beautiful.

LucidShadowDreamer responds:

Aww, thank you, dude ^___^
I'm glad that you liked it so much!

[Ultimate Deadlocked V2 - F777 - Remix]

Interesting revamp of one of my favourite tracks :).
I think the idea you have of making a melodical version of Deadlock is pretty cool. The Arrangement is clever and well-done, the melodies is well worked into your own style, and even though this is a remix, I felt like I got to know you as a musician through this track.
The ending was very well done.

One thing I want to comment on however is that the lead-synth sounds a bit cheap as it has some higher frequencies that bug my ears a bit. Also, I wish that you had a more apparent bass in this as I feel like it is really lacking in the low-end.

-Ectisity

VorticityMusic responds:

Thanks! I don't get many reviews like this! Which lead-synth is it? What part of the song does it play during?

As for the bass, I am not quite sure how to improve that! But I can see that parts of the bass do not really come across in parts of the song. But it's more apparent near the ending, right? But all the same thanks for the advice and tips. This is what I need in the review section! :)

[Supernova]

A while since I've listened to one of your tracks :).
Must admit that I was a bit sceptic when I saw how long your track was. Not often I see a 12 minute long electronic song on here. However, I loved how you used that length to slowly build up your song. The minute intro was a bit too long imo, as I don't really feel like it adds anything to the track. From there on and out the arrangement was done really well. It's amazing how you can get so much out of such a minimalistic style. I can clearly hear how much work you put into this. It's such an amazingly chill track to listen to.
The synths are perfect the mixing is great and the general feel of the track is really soothing.
Kinda felt like ending with a standard filter and fade was a bit anticlimactic, but it works.

Great work :D! Can't wait to hear more from you :).
-Ectisity

Cursedsnake responds:

12 mins is nothing ;P