EctiBot's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Destiny Acceptance 2]

BiPolarBeat has already said many things that I agree with. This song is really good, and you succeed on the difficult parts which is to make good and rememberable melodies.Your mixing could have been done better, as I feel like the lead piano melodies doesn't really shine through the mix the way they should. Probably because thee other synths are colliding with it's space. Try finding which frequency range the lead piano shines the most in and cut or lower these frequencies from the strings with an EQ. Also, the lead piano needs to be a bit louder.
When it comes to dynamics, this song has a lot of potential for it, but it doesn't really use it.
In music like this you need to vary the sound levels to get that energetic and epic feel you get from cinematic pieces. The most important thing when it comes to dynamics is to vary your drums and percussion. You should want to vary the strength and loudness of the drums a lot.
Basically you want to work on your velocity settings for each part. Once you get your hold on FL-Studio, this will be a cinch to do.

Some real potential in this track, and I think it could be quite the epic piece if you polish it a bit :).

4/5
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MysteriousPresence responds:

Thanks a lot Ectisity for this really detailed review, but the problem is I can't use it to improve because as I already said to BiPolarBeat, I don't own FL Studio yet, I'm producing with GarageBand ! :3
But I can learn from your advices about the velocity though, thanks for that, I'll try to improve the volume of the different instruments.
Thanks again for the review, and glad you liked it a bit ! =)
Oh, and by the way, there was absolutely no synths in this music, so it's not synths that are colliding with the piano's space ! :P

[Piano Shuffle]

Amazing piece this! Didn't even notice that it was looping and was listening to it for 10 minutes without getting bored of it :D. Really like that old time classic feel with onlly a few instruments. A trumpet might sound good to add some more meat to the track.
Did you play the piano part live? Cuz it really has a human feel which I love :D.
Great job :D!

5/5
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sebastien01 responds:

Really nice to read that you made it loop for 10 min and still enjoyed it!

I recorded jazzy piano impro on my midi keyboard for 15 minutes with the metronome click on my headpohones and I took the best 1 minute from it.
After this I changed some notes and corrected some mistakes. I never changed more than 5% of the note's location on the timeline so the rythmic is 95% original from the improvisation, I wanted to keep all of the shuffle feeling from the original recording.

Overall this song is somewhere around 70-75% impro and 25-30% composition. There is still a little part (The last 20 seconds) where the left hand's low note makes it impossible to play with 2 hands, but it would be easy to make it playable again for a solo pianist with a few modifications and without changing the flavor of this part. I just liked too much these low notes on this spot :) Maybe I should add a bass for them.

Thank you for the review and the good comments! ;D

[Falling]

Wow! Really wasn't expecting this to be this good! A lot of energy packed into this, love the synths. The melodies and progression is something next to genius.
One thing I noticed though, is that the entire tracks sounds VERY bassy. Evben though tracks like these are supposed to have that bass feel, I felt like it was a bit too much. The bass frequencies pretty much overpower everything else in the song. I think Especially the high lead synths are something that I don't think needs that much bass. The high synths ( like the one you started with) get's gradually more and more supressed by the bass frequencies throughout the track.

Other than that, a great track though. Great work.
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RomanM responds:

Thanks for the review! I'll try to use this advice on my next project.

[Quicksand]

Before I begin with my review, I want to say that I remember reviewing another track by you called "Nebulae". Tbh I found that track to be uncreative in some ways and amazing in others. Your potential was really apparent in that track and I felt like you just needed to find your own style.
This is definetly it.

The sound design is not only good, it's innovative and really creative. The sounds really go well together and fill each other out. That part at 02:08 when the bells comes in is the definition of smexiness ;D! The progression is genious and has a lot of turning points that keeps the interest up. Youve been able to switch parts around in a very good way without affecting the general feeling of the song.
The part at 02:55 really is the essence of what you are simply great at. Not many would consider suddenly changing to a funk part at that point, but it works perfectly. That slippy-squaresaw sounds amazing :D.
There's a lot of great things I could say about this track, but I believe it all comes down to this being the essence of what your music is all about. It's a blend of dance and techno, and when you start adding funk elements as well you are heading for greatness.

Even though I think this track was really good, I'll still deduct half a point. The reason is the eq.
the giant saw that comes in at
01:27 is stealing a lot of the shine from the bass parts and the slippy square. I would recommend trying to analyze at which frequencies the different synths shine the most, and try to lower or cut that particular frequency from the other synths.
Also it sounds you are letting some unwanted frequencies pass through in your EQ. I recommend cutting some of the lowest frequencies from ALL your synths and samples. How much of the lower frequencies you want to cut depends on the synth, but a general rule is that you cut what you can't hear. As an example, high pitched synths like the one at 02:57 pretty much only shine in the low and hi middle frequencies, so there's a lot of low frequencies that you can cut. if you use fl studio, add a parametric eq on all your active mixer channels(except the master), select one of the presets that says something like "20hz - 18khz" and move the low end cut point(the place where the cutting starts. It will be at 20hz in this case), until you find the point where you start hearing that the synth noise changes. You want to cut all frequencies to the left of this point.
If you don't use fl-studio, pretty much all Daw has a simillar eq plugin that does the exact same thing. Unwanted/uneeded frequencies like this which you think you can't hear, makes the mix sound muddy when all the synths come together, so I really recommend learning and mastering this technique.

Overall a great track, and it's amazing to see someone who has requested a review has grown this much :D! Keep it up ;).

4.5/5
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Drewpy responds:

Wow thanks so much for the review! I'm totally going to work on getting better at eq, thanks for all the tips! It's so cool that someone would take the time to give me all the tips and information that you gave me here. Seriously, thanks a million

[Dididduction 1]

As the 3 other Review Request Club members have already said, there are way to many wierd elements in this song. Though as I see that you already have received feedback on how jumbled this track sounds, I'll focus more on the technical stuff.

First of all, the sound design needs to be done better. A lot of the synths you use are clearly premade GB synths, and though I don't think that's a problem at all, you need to spend some time working on each synth and make them sound good. Usually, I point out what things you can do to make the synths sound better, but in this case the problem is that they haven't been worked on at all. Really recommend that you learn the basics of eq and compression it is probably some of the most important tools for us music producers, but they are way too often ignored by beginners.

I would really recommend that you watch some youtube tutorials and read some articles about music production, because your general problem is that you need to work more on the processing of your production (eq, mixing and effects). It's kinda difficult to review something like this because it's particularily designed for a GD level, and I don't know which parts of the song are like that because something happens in the level or not. If you ever make a normal track, feel free to request another review from us again, and I'll be able to make a more detailed review :).

2/5
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DididdProducions responds:

I wish I could say I can one up you. My grandpa is taking a collage course in these kinds of things, so if I have problems, I'll ask him. Thanks for the feed back! (ง ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)ง

[a castle in a magical forrest]

Quite the extraordinary composition this. Really like all the melodies and the way you have layered the instruments.
I'm not sure what kind of tools you have avbailable before you upgrade, but this track lacks some more work on the reverb and delay parts. When you make an easy listening track like this with relatively few instrument layers, reverb is incredibly important to help it reach it's true potential and make it sound bigger and more ambient. The instruments you should want to give more reverb are especially the main flute and the strings. What I would recommend is imagining the sound each instrument would make in a grand concert hall (if you haven't been in one, just listen to some live conert recording). Your goal is to imitate the sound the flute or the strings make in a concert hall by tweaking the reverb and delay settings.

Also, I really was missing an apparent bass layer. If you have any tuba or eupho samples available, I think it would make the track sound fuller if you added a distinctive and apparent bass layer. The part that starts around 0:34 would especially sound amazin if you added some bass.

Overall I really liked this piece. I like to focus on the negative aspects of a track when I'm reviewing because I think that's what really helps people to improve. Still this wasan amazing piece, and I can see some great potential here :).

4.5/5
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TheJawns responds:

Thanks for the advice! It's definitely useful, I'll keep it in mind :)

Yeah, I think I have some tuba samples to work with. I'm not sure they are great, but I guess part of the challenge is making the most of what you've got :)

Also, thanks a lot for the production tips. I'm definitely looking to improve that; I hope to take some classes next year, so I have a better understanding of exactly what's going on. I can't blame it all on the software ;-)

[Trine - Main Theme (Piano Cover)]

Went immediately to my piano to try to copy this, and I couldn't XD. Great playing! I love Trine myself, and this piece had those little details that made it different from the original, without negating the feeling you got from the original. Love the pianopieces you've uploaded as of late, keep it up :D!

LucidShadowDreamer responds:

Why hello there!
If you want to learn to play this, you can see the notes pretty easily in this video, made by Atin Piano:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9KR1_zV7GQ

There should be some sheet music in the descriptions too ;)

I don't remember how I learned to play this myself, it was so long ago. But today I revised my entire way of play the piece anyway :p
I'm glad to hear we have another fan of the game here! The music and visuals are so lovely :)

It's nice to hear that people have appreciated that I try to upload simple piano music, even when I don't have much time to make much else. Thanks!

[Get Up!]

Since the negative things already have been said, I'æll start with the positives.

First of all, the melody is very nice and makes you wanna dance. The arrangement is actually genius in this . It's the part most people have difficult with, but I think you pretty much nailed is.
As an EDM producer myself, I actually seem to have enjoyed this track more than most others. Mostly because of the melody and arrangement, but overall I thought this was pretty good actually.

A tip I can come with is to use more chords to spice up your leads. Instead of just layering chords with one single melody line, try to make the different notes in to entire triad chords. This will make the song sound a lot fuller.
Also, try finding some better drum samples, or try learning how to make good drums. The sample you are using in this track isn't actually that bad, but it takes experience to know how to utilize it in the best way, so I recommend trying to find samples that sounds good without too much work.
The mixing can use a lot of work.Try to simply go through tutorials on how to properly eq a track.
The part at 1:55 where you slow down the tempo of the lead doesn't sound too good. The idea is good, but you have to be punctual when doing this. I don't know if you are using fl studio or not, but in Fl studio, use the beat markers in the piano roll to know how much you can delay a part by, and still make it fit the beat.
Last, but not least, I'm going to repeat what people have said in a way. Actually, what you lack isn't music theory, and tthere's actually nothing in this track that implies that you need to study music theory (though I really, really would adivce it anyway). The problem you need to face, is that you need to use your ears to hear the difference between good and bad. Before you decide that you have finished a song, don't be engulfed of the hype of having made a good melody or arrangement and just stop there, but try to think, "is there any way I can make this song better?". If there is, do it. Never stop trying to improve your songs, that's how you learn.

Though I will give this track a 2.5 due to all the accumulated fault of this track, I did actually enjoy it, and I think there's something for you in Dance music :).

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attak1616 responds:

Thanks for the long reply, I really appreciate the time you took to write it. I was trying something a bit different with this track to be honest, I could have spend a bit more time on it truthfully but as you pointed out I was pretty hyped.
I'm going to try and learn music theory, the last time i touched upon it was about 5 years ago when I was learning piano but I only got to the beginning of grade 3.
Also someone else pointed out to layer drums on reddit, so I'm going to try doing that from now.

I really appreciate all feedback even if it's negative, it helps me improve alot and helps nudge me in the right direction in terms of where I'm going with music production. I've still got a long way to go and any support like reviews and criticism is very helpful.

[The Forest Of The Mind]

Knew this was going to be good from the first seconds XD. Just had that feeling. The synths are amazing, the arrangement is genius, and the chords and melodies are incredibly soothing. I don't really feel like there's anything to correct on this.
Overall a true masterpiece that I really could imagine being used in both movies and games. Great work :D.

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95TurboSol responds:

Wow I don't know what to say, I'm honored! Thanks :)

[Trial N Error - Attempt 6]

Aah, I've really missed that good old sample based music here on new grounds :D. Great use of the vocals and chopping in this track. I'm really digging it :). I felt like you could have varied the drums a bit more, right now it sounds like one continuous loop, but if you vary it, it would keep the listener interested for as long as you want. Also, I felt like the snare drum was a bit harsh in some frequencies. Maybe identify the bad frequencies from it with and EQ and either cut or lower them?.

Overall a pretty good track :). Deserves more exposure than what you have now.

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