pitbulljones's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Cisc]

Your brutal review.

It's too god damn loud. Right off the bat. You start so high in level you have nowhere to go.

Your compressor is pumping to your bass kick, each kick drags the level down. Multiband it, the pumping effect is horrible.

Tone wise it's fine, saws, sines, tri's. Melody is good. There is an interesting tune here if you took more time in balancing the mix. Lower all the levels. Thin the parts, pan.

Resolve the comp pump.

5 as always

knightspear responds:

Good grief, you're totally right about it being too loud! I didn't notice that until you pointed it out. Its good to have a fresh pair of ears.

Thanks so much! You have given me many things to work on.

[Curtains]

Oh yes!

Bit of pixies, some stone roses.

The tune. Structurally is great. I think every part is right. tonally. musically.

I think the actual production needs significant work. The opening riffs aren't timed. it sounds like the track was done in parts. The vocals are drowned in reverb, where they should be upfront and bright. They sound great but just lack production.

Tighten this track up, practice to a metronome til you get it right. Sloppiness does not translate to looseness. If it's skill, be less busy, if its will then find a better player.

its a 5 all day.

pbj

ConnorDeVaux responds:

Thank's a lot! I agree on a lot of what ya said. I think my main downfalls are that I get too gun ho and I just never could play to a metronome. All in all I'm self taught on most everything i play and record with and thus never really got properly broken into stuff like how to mix well or play to a metronome. I'm still trying to get better tho due to comments like this, so thank you

[Blessed Rain After The Drought]

ok.

What you have here has huge potential. I think the piano is cute. The vocal synth, though abrasive has a good melody.

I would remove the vinyl scratch sample. Change the vocal synth to a horn or viola with tremolo. Then throw a glitch breakbeat.

Be brave, add the beat. A melodic bass. Some subtle side motifs. Make a 7 a 10.

5 as always

pbj

[Earth Vault (rough sketch)]

Seriously stop it lol.

You make music that literally tingles my cerebellum. Seriously, if I were to pray to a god this would be my worship music.

Mate, there's so much good going on. The timbre, sympathetic beats, huge swells. DROWNING reverb. It's pure bliss.

This also seems brighter and wider, judicious EQ application to. It benefits immensely and doesn't suffer from low end muddiness.

5 all day

pbj

Midnights-Ocean responds:

Your reviews make my day every time. Yes thank you! I have been trying to remember to go wide and bright on the front end for the tape recordings. Eventually I'll learn a good sweet spot for using this machine. I hope to turn this particular idea into a real tune sometime. So much stuff to do though. Glad you are enjoying my sketches ^_^. Very happy to hear you don't think the low end is muddy. Means I am improving in my tape recording techniques. I purposely turned the repeats on the delay way onto the dry side, so the bass would hopefully not muddy up.

[Save a Slice for Me]

Ooooooo just open with the beat. That's nasty grime. This is a revision of one of your earlier tracks? I'm 99% sure it is. The one I wanna throw guitar on.

The sparseness helps immensely. Imagine a fucking rapper on this. Yeah boy, I'm on this like stink.

A tiiiiiny critique, your compression/limiter is 'pumping' the mix, have a look at the knee.

5

pbj

Syntrus responds:

changes were made

[Swallow Silver]

Well this is interesting. It's not my style as you know. But damn man, your tone is miles better, there is so much good here. I think you are going to go far.

I think it's just too loud overall. The end at 2:30 on is the perfect level and balance. That is where the rest of the track should be volume wise. Because you open so hard you leave nothing to go higher. Drag them drums 10db down, your guitar 8db, then use the headroom for key points. There's a part that sounds like a horn at 0:39 ish but it's lost in the mix due to the high level. 0:48 to 1:05, it's ALMOST perfect that riff is perfect but you're rhythm overpowers it.

Structurally it's really good, there's ebb and flow. There's contrast and all the parts are technically sound. Every aspect of the mix is clear and expressive and the distinctions between your heavy and soft parts create dynamism. I really enjoyed those segments from a personal level.

Redo this track, just roll the levels down and allow it to breathe. Pump the backing, reap the benefits.

Maybe find a slightly more natural kit or reverb them.

It's a 5 all day.

pbj

hoorayjay responds:

Goddamn thank you man

[Old School Mellow (rough mix)]

Oooooooo you have some 90's house synths. Korg Wavestation/legacy cell?

Ok, it's a bit washy, low mid dominant. Some of your kicks are off beat. There's some signature tones in use. There's potential for a track here, thinking breaks. But it would require significant work to get your synth choice to engage due to their cliche'd tone.

Tape is lovely, drive it bro. Pay attention to the upper end though.

5

pbj

Midnights-Ocean responds:

Hey thanks the feedback.

Only synth I used for this is the roland fantom x6. It's a smattering of all kinds of stuff. Some of it crap some of it very nice. The kicks only appear off beat when the hats are muted, so I'm thinking I'll make a more straight forward kick beat for the muted parts. That or just add something else to keep the time while I have the hats muted.

Not sure what I could do about the synth. That's just the nature of the patch, those cliche house chords. I personally like them but I'm sure people are sick to death of them. gota remember, the x6 is from like 2004. a LOT of the patches are really cliche lol. If I could find a NEW synth that actually had on board micro tuning, I'd consider swapping. This caught my eye: http://www.ashunsoundmachines.com but I don't see anywhere about it having micro-tuning. It's really not a thing designers seem to care about. where as, ironically, most digital synths from the 90s have on board micro tuning.

Yeah I'm so used to digital's tendency to be too bright. I gota remember tape is the total opposite. Gota really fill the treble bands up. Get a nice balance.


I think I will add more to my sequences and re-record the entire thing when I can. : )

[Little Foot]

Fuck me. I can feel the perm from here. Brilliant 80's rock.

Faultless

KrinnValKhristi responds:

*fluffs bangs*

[Ná bí ag caoineadh (Don't Cry)]

Well you ain't bad are you! God damn fret wanker haaaaaa.

Yea, 5.

[The Ballad of Joey Domino]

Hell yes!

Jesus, what a beautiful track. I mean I've heard the pattern millions of times, but them vocals. Well in. Could i suggest a drowned reverb on the harmony? The clean double track is a bit too well done, a 50ms of drift will fix that.

Two tiny faults, can't hear the bass and the mix is a bit too loud.

I love it though. It's a professional release. Right up my street too.

5 as always

pbj.

Going through your other stuff now.

MistyE responds:

Thank you so much! Yeah the mix is definitely a bit brickwalled lol, I should re-master it for good one of these days.