AeroMusic's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Stepping Mellow]

riiight - as the best dnb I've heard on ng in a while thought I'd leave some feedback

drums:
I feel the snare doesn't fit at all - I'd prefer a different sample of a brighter snare, or even a rim shot
the hats sounded way too mechanic/synthetic, maybe a layered high passed break would give it a more live feel and added some shuffle which I feel was lacking also. I'd honestly bring the gain on the closed hats down a little, they stick out a bit too much
The cymbals you used I also think should have been pitched a bit higher or some more lows cut out. Sounded great on the intro and breakdowns just not so much in the main sections

another tip for drums if you don't already is compress them a little as a whole (via bus or group) or add a little processing to them all to make em more cohesive, the main thing with these drums is that they don't glue together so well

Kick sounded fine to me although I think it was kicking a bit lower freq than I'd want making the sub less impactful

bass:
nice higher end on the bass nice work there. sub didn't sound strong enough to me but only by a little bit all in all bass was great and I really enjoyed it (also if your sub hits below 35hz most speakers won't pick it up - even on a club system!)
I didn't enjoy the faster LFO synth too much, I would have cut out a bit of the highs on that

structure:
having 48 bars of an intro is a bit annoying mix wise (but not saying its wrong!) personally I would have added another 16 bars of the atmospheric section. Lovely chord choice and the piano worked really nice. Cool switch ups at the end of 16 bars and you added elements to keep it interesting

sounds:
the high register piano and atmospheric sounds were by far my favourite element of this song, they added so much character and depth - brilliant work there :) loving those reverb wood hits anorl

all in all very nice work mate

Chozz responds:

Very informative review. Thanks, a lot of points taken that I will use in upcoming tunes!

[Consume]

Cool man I'm digging this - I'm gonna try a constructive review

Firstly, the atmospheres and sounds were very nice and well placed. For the main drop they sounded a bit off like out of tune - especially that 0:50 riser (but tbh gave it a nice scary feel)
the bass just before the drop sounded like it clipped or distorted - I suggest turning it down in the intro to make the drop hit harder aswell
Your bass sounds were nice although I feel the sub got kind of lost and muddied - as if two sub layers were mixed. Love the woo kind of second bass sound thing - lots of your sounds seemed to be high cut too much and not low cut enough - I would of preferred slightly more high end on the bass samples
Nice switch up at 2:21 - but again I'm not sure if I just can't feel the bass properly or the sub frequencies are mixed badly
As useless as the review seems I kinda agree with the track being quite repetitive (I think this could have been sorted with variety in your pads - the overall structure of the track seems fine to me just the overlay of the same atmospherics make it seem repetitive)

Personally I would of liked the atmospheres not to have carried on into the drop or had vastly different sounds just to make it impact more
Risers were nice but seemed to finish a bit too early to have the impact risers can give

Drums were very well done kudos, the hats were nice and is the kick/snare just from a break? anyways sounded good and your kick weirdly had enough low end despite the problems I have with the low end of this track :P

overall solid work, I'm not too into this style of dnb myself but I can appreciate it nonetheless :)

theabysmal responds:

I love your detailed reviews.
You have a good ear for sound structure to notice that I combined two different sub layers.

Darkstep is rare on newgrounds, in fact I'm the only one doing it.
I appreciate your positive feedback even though this style is not your cup of tea.

I know the quality of my production will allow people to appreciate this underrated music.

[JustnotEnough]

liked your snare and kick - and the high pitched snare was nice but lost its punch (try layering the original snare with the high pitched one)

imo the song didn't really go with the picture - seemed like a beautiful picture with a very sinister theme though and this song was very major and happy

the structure was all over the place and didn't really feel too cohesive

I hated your hat/ride sound it sounded really mechanical and like a drum machine - you had some nice variation in the drums but usually came at weird times and made the whole song lose its energy (liked the hats in the cool drum bits though)

that white noise that comes in about 1:28 sounded really off and not very nice as did the the melody of that section, sounded just like you pressed random notes

nice reese but it was lacking lots of sub

nice progression and piano

bolisa responds:

Didn't know the picture was that bad. But ok, next time better i hope. I'll just go on with making music, and who knows, maybe i will get better with producing. See you next time then.

Thanks for the great review master.

[Str8-Bit (Level 2)]

loving your tunes mate, fav artist on this site right now keep it up

i've got no qualms with this whatsoever

MrStr8face responds:

Thank you so much! Glad you enjoy it! :D

[Strangers feat. Rachel M]

shit what a cracking singer, but let down I feel by lacking production imo

I love the lyrics, arrangement, chords and general composition of the track my problems I think are solely on the production side of things

okay, here we go
-firstly, the vocals I think are way too loud in comparison to the rest of the mix, I say you should bring everything up volumes wise and bring the vocals down a bit (if you're having trouble with clipping you could eq out some frequencies and try parallel compression on them)
-I think most of your instruments sounded too dry, maybe try adding in some more atmospheric effects or a pad
-the bass should be alot more bassy
-I wasn't a fan of your drum samples either (probably intentional but still) the snare felt way too weak and electronic, I would of loved a brighter snare - longer tail, more live feel and bit more punchy/compressed
-the kick was technically good, punchy + bassy enough but I didn't like the drum machine feel of it (like the snare)
-I couldn't really hear the hats too much either, I'd say more top end - and whilst I'm on hats, you could of done with more of them! just to fill out the drums a bit more
-also I didn't think the harmonising parts of the vocals really harmonised well
-contrary to the whleoa I feel the opposite haha, vocals are too loud and the effects sound fine I quite like them
-love the strings :P
-liked the filters on the drums
-the half time section was cool in terms of idea but the drum samples have way too little tail to carry it through

anyways catchy tune, the more I listen the more it grows on me haha one of the better, well executed dnb tunes I've heard on ng (of course all the above is just my opinion)
-aero
shit that was a longer review then I meant to do

Keegs responds:

Holy cow! Haha. Thanks for the criticism. I agree with all of it. I just did a House/Trance song with the same vocalist trying to right the wrongs of this track!

I was worried that the vox were too low so I brought them up and set the master to pump slightly whenever she comes in but now that you point it out, it does seem too overpowering and kills the groove.

Thanks again!

Keegs

[Cissy strut remix]

Yes, think you're my fav artist on ng
Just the kinda shit I love

Absolutely class arrangement + samples, and tempo dropping - 1:38 was worse than an andy c rewind haha
Loved the drums aswell

I think the bass is a bit too hard for such a nice samples, maybe too much high end/distortion. But thats just me - I'm sure it's meant to be like that
I think there should of been a louder/clearer sub bass (or maybe turn it down an octave, think I can hear one but theres not much)

oh god I love that bass riff, excellent production once again

freezwalm responds:

that's very nice to hear! :) it's normal that you hear to much bass, to much distortion, no sub, etc. because I have extremely crappy gear. I make my tunes on 20 euro speakers from creative (without a sub) or on my 12 euro headphones from philips (they suck balls as well) so it's impossible for me to make a good sub bass, or to get the amounts of distortion right. (i'm a student, no time for a job, no money for gear) and furthermore, I've never had any lessons on mastering or equalizing, so I'm just terrible at those things. I'm just very lucky to have a lot of creativity :) and i really enjoy making tunes! i'm happy you like them ;)

[Facing the danger!]

Firstly, I'd write more if you replied to the reviews- as I feel that you might not read/take on board what I write. So I'll make this kinda brief :P

Beautiful orchestra and piano samples, very clear and pro, the piano had not too much direction and sounded random at times near the beginning mostly and the looped section
Both the kick and snare weren't powerful enough, not enough compression or maybe bad samples (more so on the snare)
The chords sounded beautiful at 2:00
Sounded epic though and very professional nice work

CeeeX responds:

Definitely going to ignore you from now on.

-just kidding x3-

Thanks for the feedback and you're spot on of the fact that the kick didn't come as powerful enough. I wanted to get a kick sample that had much more impact, but I didn't have any good kicks, so I tried my best at the time to make a good kick as well.