Sawdust's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Clear (Rezurrected Mix)]

Bass was kinda bad

I liked the song, to be fair. Was a good dance song, percs worked well with the synths and stuff, was automated smartly, which I like. But it did get a tad bit repetitive, but that's probably because of the lack of say, a prevalent bass instrument than would sit more prominently in the mix. I can sort of make out something resembling bass, but it sits too low in the mix and is practically unhearable. I'd advise you retweak the song and have the bass be more prominent. Other than that it was a good song, and is perfect club material. Well done and all, that was really nice.

-Sawdust RRC

ReziUze responds:

Thanks you very much for the review! I will take this into consideration and next time add in more bass!

[Too Awesome For Your Phone!]

Good as a ringtone

38

It gets the job done as a ringtone properly enough, I love how it loops really great, how varied and rich in sounds and effects this is, I also love the tone you got out of your guitar, though I think some fuzz on top of the distortion would sound cool. I also loved the switch to acoustic guitar at around 0:38 where you also got some melody laid down, great part. It'd sound cooler probably with some pinch harmonics.

One gripe I have with this though is the apparent lack of bass. Sure, you EQd your guitar to have a lot of bass, but in the process you made it a painful process to attempt to find a slither of bass guitar in the jungle of distortion, I'd assume there was no bass, but if there was I'd advise you mix it differenlty next time so that bass is still pretty hearable and stuffs.

Good song.

Sawdust RRC

SantaBro responds:

Yes I agree about 38.

I have a bass in it, but when I do riff-based songs like these I usually just play that riff on the bass to give make it heavier. Here I also had to remove a lot of bass to make it suitable as a ringtone. So it will be hard to pick out the bass in it.

Thanks for the review!

[Kina Grannis-Valentine (Cover)]

Ambient, kinda lounge-y

I really like this piece you have here, the piano playing was topnotch and if I'm hearing correctly, very aptly backed by soft pads. I just love how the tone of the piano is, not too percussive, not too soft, which gives room for other sounds and harmonies to be made.

One gripe I have with the song though, as evidenced by the 8/10, was how muddy sounding the song got at times, probably because of a combination of the pad and how it tended to stay in one register. Now, I can't fault you for the composition aspect of the song, but you, as a player, could've probably improvised a bit more? Like maybe get more notes in higher octaves, generally transpose it up or something, so it'd sound less muddy. I dunno.

-Sawdust RRC

Jabicho responds:

Thanks so much for the review! yeah, I'll keep improving the improvisation part, giving more room to lower and higher notes. Thanks again!

[[S] Greg]

Funny.

I'd like it better if it had instruments other than the guitar. I mean Weird Al writes funny songs but that doesn't stop him from paying attention to the music. Other than that, nice job, I like the mixing on the vocals.

Screch responds:

Thank you! I do play other instruments, however I am working with a horribly outdated recording method. I've always wanted to play trumpet on a track but idk. If I get a better mic and a mixing table or something, what i'd probably do is redo every track I have on here. I'm just starting to learn the techniques needed

[I Feel -Trance-]

Terrible mixing.

The effects completely overpowered the song and the melodies weren't very clear. Actually, this song seems to be completely effects, the melodies and "leads" are in the background, inaudible and completely overshadowed by the effects, also the delay on the piano is annoying. And I don't like how it seems to start over at 1:00. I also don't like how there a lot of high frequency shit going on around the time the song starts over. I also don't like how it's so messy, unorganized and how it seems just like pads, kicks and a fuckton of effects rather than an actual song. Work on this some more.

Mans0n responds:

hmm i dont recall using a piano... but thanks for the criticism

you clearly don't know what your talking about.

[-)S(- Turn On the Spotlights]

Sounds like Daft Punk.

The vocals really remind me of Daft Punk, but I think they sound a bit too muffled, you should probably clean them up a bit, or re-record, but that seems a bit too tedious seeing how you probably did a fuckton with the vocoders. I'm sure you don't wanna do that again.

Also for some reason the song seems lacking, like a missing instrument or something. Probably because of how it lacks bass, and by bass I mean real clean bass, you should probably add another bass vst. Probably, other than that this song is really nice, good job.

Will responds:

Thanks for the review! I was trying a bit of a minimalistic style, that's why the bass isn't that filled out enough. And absolutely no vocoders were used :)

[Made To Be Broken]

Main bells sounded off

Phrase wise it was a bit off, but the melody was really really good. Aside from that there's not much to nitpick on, except for maybe more bass since this is supposedly a dance song and more power in the drums, or at least, more bass.

Actually this isn't a dance song at all, I can only imagine a tribe dancing to this, but still, good song.

AJUST responds:

Thanks, but the intro was based on my original idea for this song, in 6/8 and a little offbeat.

[=Paris in a Bottle=]

Melody gets annoying

Sorry about the harsh score, but I really didn't like this piece. Some problems:

1. The mixing of the piano, I'd suggest to tweak the VST if you were using one, and assuming you're using FL Studio I'd say you'd use the "Dance Piano" preset and add reverb to the piano. Just a suggestion.

2. The melody got REALLY annoying, and it didn't help that it repeated through the WHOLE song. More variation would be nice. No, mapping the same melody to different instruments and adding a synth accompaniment that then evolves to an equally annoying melody doesn't count.

3. Slowdown part at around 2:40 sounded wrong, like the bare low keys sounded off, I'd assume you'd need to move some notes here and there. Also it could've been nice to let the main piano melody interact with that more heavily, like alternating between chords and the melody, and assuming you're using FL Studio I'd advise you to look at the sample project in "cool stuff" called "Hanging On (Remix)" the piano style there would really fit this song, if you took the time to rework it, that is. I also don't like how it immediately segued into the main melody again, a sweep sound effect would be nice. Or a crash.

Anyway all in all I didn't like this song, and if you're using something other than FL Studio try to apply my advice to whatever sequencer you're using. hope this helps, sorry if you got offended but hey, at least my review didn't go like: HAHA LOL DAT WAZ AWESOME

Daydream-Anatomy responds:

No offense taken, thanks for taking the time to tear it apart with a wall of text:3

(no sarcasm)

I really appreciate critiques like this.
It was the dance piano, i tried reverb and chorus on fl, but it didn't make a difference really.

thanks again^^

[Clayface - Fluorescence]

No room for improvement.

The whole song was just great, IDM excellence and perfection, I love the mixing and everything and the kick flurries and the background accompanying the main beat, and the sound effects, those gave a great atmosphere to the song. Job well done, I hope you keep doing IDM.

mmmburgers responds:

Glad you liked the song. :D

And yeah, I definitly WILL be expirementing with more IDM in the future to come. ^.^

[Clayface - IDM]

Wonderful

Perfection, so far at least. The drums are excellent, and the piano melody is just fantastic with the drums. I suggest after the ending you add more, like a section with synth bass and arps everywhere. And pads. Pads up the ass.

This is great!

mmmburgers responds:

Thank you! And yes, I am working on a second part. Which will have more ambience that it already has. Sounding great! WOO WOO!!!!