MegaSphere's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Colonia]

Really repetitive. The melody gets stale quick. The drums are super weak and barely impactful.

What is completely missing from this track, is progression, it's all the same throughout the track.

SierraRising responds:

Well, darn. That sucks, I thought I was improving on progression. Sorry to hear the drums weren't strong enough, too.
I'll be sure to work on both in the future. Thanks for the review man, it means a lot to me.

[Don't leave]

I'd rather an actual intro and outro rather than it fading in and out. Mixing wise, way too much compression, the lead is too loud which pushes everything down. It's even worse for the kick.

Really not a fan of the piano.

The vocals are just bad IMO. I don't like how they sound.

00:45 I can't stand the cheering fx. The kick you put on every measure isn't that great. I think it'd be much better if you just had one and reverbed it.

The climax. You really need to find a better technique for pitching your kicks. (btw, is it your kick or from a sample pack, just curious).

02:33 FL Slayer? Lmao, please never ever use that plugin ever.

The arrangement is pretty good btw. I like the clearly dubstyle influenced areas.

Razorrekker responds:

1: I find most people don't like long intros and outros, so I didn't do those. My mixing sucks. I'm working on that. The kick sucks I know.
2: Better explanation as to why would be great.
3: Also, what's so bad about the cheering? Elaborate plz. I think you're right, it should have just been one, with reverb.
4: Admittedly, it's from a sample pack... I need to figure out how to make my own, that'd be far better.
5: Well, what else should I use then? I can't find any good guitar plugins that don't cost a lot of money, and I cannot play guitar at all.

I'm glad you like the arrangement and the dubstyle stuff.
This is my first song of this genre, and I only started listening to it a month ago.

[Feel Good Inc (8-bit)]

Please actually look up what chiptune is. This isn't even close to it. As for a cover of the song, some of the notes are off but the synths used just makes it horrible to listen to.

Dotfloor responds:

Well, for me, Chiptune is not a genre, but a sound spectrum. Should have probably labelled it differently, sorry.
Thanks though.

[Bittersweet]

Mastering is pretty much non existent but the mixing is very balanced.
Nice arrangement and melodies. You could do with using more FX for the build ups and break downs rather than just a single crash cymbal.

The synths, I think they could do with compression on them AFTER the reverb. This will make the leads have full power when they are on, and then the reverb will be brought right up when they finish playing. This makes your synths sound enormous which is what this track could benefit from. It wouldn't cluster the mix with sidechaining on the drums.

Speaking about the drums, seriously need to work on them. They have absolutely no power in the mix (sidechaining would help), especially that snare. I don't agree with the choice of kick either, probably just needs another layer and I think cutting around 100hz on it would help too.

Noisysundae responds:

Haha. The only thing I did on mastering was sidechaining the bass with kick. I'm still not a pro at it so thanks a whole lot for the tips of compressions.

I already used a soft compression on the bass around 100Hz which is exactly where you pointed out. I guess I should have changed the samples. They're actually crappy and I tried to make them sound better. :P

[[F] - Synthwave]

You're clipping dude. Work on your mixing.
The bass synth overpowers everything in the mix, it needs EQing to cut away everything above 200-300hz.
The leads and pads are really quiet. The arp is fine though.
The arrangement is cool except for the lazy outro where it just fades out.

Frictional responds:

Thanks for the costructive review MegaSphere! :)
I'll make a copy of the project and I'll try out your advices by modifing the mixing. But I would like to specify some thing:

1 - I used an EQ on the bass synth, but it was quite useless, since I wanted to make a very hard bass, and, considering that this is my very first SERIOUS project, it came out quite good.

2 - About the final fade, it's because I lacked a bit when I arrived at the end, I didn't have any idea. But I think you are right, I should have made an outro before sharing the track,

Anyway, thanks for the review, I appreciated it! :)

[Distance]

Even though you're technically not clipping. I can hear distortion on the master. It could be your limiter.

To help your drums go clearly through the mix, you'll have to apply some sidechaining. The snare is kinda weak too, you prob just need to compress it a little and boost the body of it with EQ. You could also make it shorter and snappier.

This track also isn't very balanced, It's really heavy in the 200hz - 400hz range.

Other than that, the drum patterns are fine, the chords are fine and the synths (other than needing a bit of EQ) are fine. Just work on your mixing and get a spectrum analyzer, try 'Voxengo SPAN'.

Hallow responds:

Not sure why I didn't respond to this earlier, but four months after your review and five months after making this, I agree with everything your review said. It's a pretty terrible song. :P

[Riot Underway]

The chiptune styled arps are pretty mono, they could be wider. Try using pingpong delay on them.

TheSpacePunk responds:

hey man!
Yeah, i'm doing this most of the time, but this time, i wanted to make it more aggresive, with short ryhtmic arp ;)
Cuz add any delay make it more spacious and "trippy", but, i'll take note btw ;)
Thx for your review dude :D

[Hail storm - ▓Rurrence▓]

You have potential. I think you need to listen to a bunch more hardstyle to really get the arrangement down. The kick is really poor. The pitch envelope needs to be a lot faster. For it to be considered Hardstyle, you'll need to distort it too. Good luck, keep trying.

rurrence responds:

hehe i made some new HQ hardstyle kicks though. didn't know how to make them before lel. i should go back to this project and redo it. thanks for the feedback. :)

[Hardstyle Attempt]

It was ok until it got up to the kick. You did a good job with the arrangement and progression, just a poor kick. Keep practising, it takes time but you'll get there.

T7ven responds:

Wasn't my kick, got it from a pack. Blame the 2011 quality lenny

[Gravity Engine]

Not sure about the arrangement on this. Doesn't feel well thought out. The drop, you needed to have high passed the kick before it for the bass to actually hit.

The volumes of the instruments is a bit all over the place too. Maybe try out sidechaining some of the synths so that your drums can pop through the mix?

You can use a free tool called SPAN to check the frequency spectrum of your track, which I highly recommend. You'd be able to visually see that your track is lacking bass.

Good attempt, keep it up.

Drewpy responds:

Thanks for the quick response! I'll look into SPAN right away, so thanks for the recommendation!