Rottenbeard's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[MD2010 - War Theme]

Excellent song, but the mastering..

Musically I thought this was great, the piece flowed nicely and had a good epic feel to it helped by the heavy guitar, the fact I personally love orchestral rock hybrids doesn't hurt either ;)! The guitar chords sounded pretty good for a VST though the short solo piece didn't sound as convincing.

My only major gripe with this however is that you are crushing your audio with whatever limiter you're using. To much of the audio is being clipped off and it ruins a lot of the pieces dynamics, especially noticeable on the bass drum and cymbals. Ease up on the hard limiting and you'll have a winner on your hands!

Cheers,
Daniel

Step responds:

Thanks for the review!

"Musically I thought this was great, the piece flowed nicely and had a good epic feel to it helped by the heavy guitar, the fact I personally love orchestral rock hybrids doesn't hurt either ;)! The guitar chords sounded pretty good for a VST though the short solo piece didn't sound as convincing."

Yeah that was from Hypersonic 2, which is more aimed at synths, so sorry about that :P. Although yeah, I like orchestral/rock a lot too.

"My only major gripe with this however is that you are crushing your audio with whatever limiter you're using. To much of the audio is being clipped off and it ruins a lot of the pieces dynamics, especially noticeable on the bass drum and cymbals. Ease up on the hard limiting and you'll have a winner on your hands!"

Yeah you're exactly right. I'll definitely fix that when I get the chance.

Thanks for the great review!

[Gangsta's Paradise (Acapella)]

Epic.

Oh man I loved this,

Creative and hilarious spin on this song, keep up this kind of stuff man!

FolegAlmighty responds:

Thanks man. I had to get in touch with my inner hood.

[Pull Through (demo)]

Nice!

Nicely played, good singing and the lyrics flowed well.

Just curious but are you recording to tape? I notice an unusually high amount of noise, even for a cheap mic, so I was thinking maybe it was tape noise.

Anyways, the quality of the recording is not the point since the actual instrument and your voice sounded good despite the background noise, and the song was nice and heartfelt, which is what matters!

Cheers,
Daniel

toastedavalanche responds:

I wish I was recording to tape, but unfortunately not. It's just a really bad microphone,. I had to turn it up loud to get the levels right! There's a new microphone on the way though, so quality should improve considerably. Cheers for the comment dude.

[Tarboy OST - Two's a Part]

Nice!

Love the vocal harmonies. The quality of the recording is great and you have a fantastic voice. The whole jazz/big band sound is refreshing in this style of writing. Cant say I like the sound of the ride, but otherwise everything else is top notch.

Added this to my favorites! :)

Cheers,
Daniel

[Get Rough (Acoustic)]

Nice singing!

This was great, you've got an excellent singing voice. The chord progression is really enjoyable. Aside from the distracting magic panning of your vocals to the right channel, I really liked this. I wish there were more acoustic artists on NG!

Cheers,
Daniel

[Rock n Roll Queen ( vocal )]

Nice!

This is good! Nice catchy tune, your singing is mostly very well done. Your choice in snare is a bit questionable (heavy ring for this type of song, but it's a style choice..)

For the vocals, the quality of the recording is quite good though i'm hearing some background noise (fans, maybe?). My only suggestion for your vocals is that they're currently TOO dry.
I know that dry vocals is all the rage these days, but in your case the sheer dryness seems to be sucking air away from the vocal performance. Most modern dry vocal recordings do indeed have some reverb applied, but it's applied very very lightly with a bit of a pre-delay. In a mix the reverb is not perceptible, but adds some much needed air around the vocals.

This only applies for the vocal solo's. The harmony parts during the chorus sounded fine to me.

Anyways, 4/5 8/10. Keep more stuff like this coming! NG needs more stuff like this :).

CyprusX responds:

Thanks for the review . For the vocals I did the best I could think to avoid recording too much of the environment , but yeah , no soundproof room , And the fact that I used a 15 $ karaoke mic did not help either . I like my snares nice and heavy , even though I overdid it with this one : P.

Once again thanks for the helpful review.

[It Hurts To Fall Asleep]

Nice!

This was great. Has a real calm, grooving atmosphere, and I love the glitch beat, suited the song really well.

I'm also curious how/what you used to create the glitch beat? If it's just samples then it seems like it was really very tedious and so i'm impressed all that much more.

Anyways, good job on this!

Cheers,
Daniel

[MMPR Theme Remix]

The song is good, but..

I liked this, in particular because I always liked the power ranger theme. Your rendition of the song is excellent and quite epic sounding.

But.. what's the deal with this? The whole song is clipping all to high hell, and yet it's not even that loud, it sounds like you set your limiter output too low and just crushed the audio.

I realize this song is like 2 years old now, but for what it's worth, i'd suggest you go back and re-master it and take it easy with the limiter next time. Despite what some might try to tell you, dynamics in music is a GOOD thing! :)

Cheers,
Daniel

[A Wavelength of Dreams]

Pretty good!

I liked this, mostly. There is a very strong Pink Floyd influence here, especially for the first half of the song, which I was really digging. When the pace of the song picked up however, the melody seemed to contrast too much with the initial sinister/ethereal sound of the first half of the song which was a bit jarring to the flow of the piece (to my ears). Some of the synth choices towards the second half were also a bit questionable due to their overtly cheery sounding nature (again, a contrast issue compared to the first half).
Obviously the upbeat second half was done on purpose, so im not gonna knock you for it, but for me, personally, i'd have preferred the song to continue flowing in a darker direction, somewhat akin to Another Brick in the Wall (which is what I kept hearing as the main influence to this song, especially with the initial bass line).

At any rate, all in all, a well put together piece, with good production value and excellent sounding drums (and roto toms? :))
9/10
4/5

Cheers,
Daniel

[Intoxicated Yet Again]

I really like this!

Excellent song, great lyrics, really nice sounding melody. I was going to say something about the mix but it sounds like you just recorded this with a single mic, and it is what it is so I won't knock it for that, i'll merely rate this on the song its self, which is really good. There is some timing issues in your guitar playing but it's not a deal breaker. You also have a great singing voice, it's a shame the mic you're using doesn't do it much justice. The delivery was very heartfelt.

I might be interested in maybe doing a more elaborate (more instruments) cover of this song, if that's OK with you? If it is, could you PM the chords/lyrics?

Great work :).

Regards,
Daniel