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DarkBlueFX

84 Audio Reviews

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Nothing wrong here, sounds like some good Christian 80's R&B to me.

Your format is solid here and you've clearly picked up on the ideas that always worked for a lot of DnB music.

I'm guessing the atonal piano in the intro was intentional, I'm actually going to go ahead and say maybe that's a good idea because it will give people something easy comment about immediately (so sneaky of you...). Plus that makes sense with your 'growth' theme.

In case it's helpful though, the next "lowest effort, highest reward" thing to learn next would probably be learning how to use a compressor or a limiter, heck even if you just throw it on the master, I won't tell anyone.

1:42 - This part just really sucked me into the song, that was cool.

would love to hear you lean further into the weirdness, props!

I really like the bass arp and lead you used for this! I think your vocal arrangement is already solid for this, staying a little monotone seems to work, which I think is just because I remember listening to 80's/90's show ads with electronic music and monotone vocals (and as synthwave, that is definitely an accessible reference point).

Some people forget the subtle pitch bend on synths, I love hearing that so thank you (RC-80 by chance?). I think that sidechaining your vocals separately from everything else would be worth trying, because the sidechain is a bit strong and if you still wanted a hard sidechain, I would at least leave some room for the vocals (I think your vocals sound good, I wouldn't be afraid to show em off :) ). When your lead comes in at 50s, I wonder how gradually bringing down a low pass filter would sound to signal the end and at the same time make more room for the lead, might be worth trying.

I think this is a successful POC, good job!

crabcore4lyfe

One skill that you are getting from trying something like this is learning how to emulate details within established styles. You kind of emulated palm muting of a guitarist in the intro, you picked up on guitarists volume gating their sound with the drummer hitting kicks in sync with it, you picked up on some metal style percussion rhythms pretty well too which can be a bit difficult to draw in. You also used a transitional element well at 1:53 and cutting out the percussion to signal another phrase. That lead at 1:55 is probably my favorite part of the song. I think that you also did a good job picking electronic instruments to work with the piece.

I think the guitar is also a bit too overbearing, one easy trick to letting the percussion shine through is to just throw a compressor on your master with the threshold set to the peak volume of the guitar (or all instrumentals) and then adjust the ratio where it feels right. Also, most piano synths are velocity reactive, so you can get some expressiveness in the piano by playing the velocity of the notes, it's definitely worth experimenting with.

If you like metal and electronic, Drivepilot is a good source of inspiration, but if you're going to do more stuff like this you really need to use a real guitar (or reach out to some guitarists on NG! We are a community, use us). I'm curious to see how JDawg interprets your song.

Razorrekker responds:

Glad you picked up on the crabcore-y-ness :D
Yeah. The rhythm guitar in this is too loud for the other sounds in the chorus, and I plan to fix this song sooner than later, because I don't really want this song to live like this. My 'real guitar' budget, skills, and budget to gain said skills are at almost literally 0, unfortunately. So, I'm making the absolute best out of what I have. Thank you for the review! Very helpful!

I really like the rhythm that's established in the intro, you kept it a lil bit loose. More specifically where the bloops hit their highs establish a slightly different rhythm that what the instruments coming later establish and I think that is cool. The mixing of the percussion is nice, the kick and snare has a nice transient to it and the placement of the cymbals do make it sort of feel like a natural-ish beat that could be played on a real drum kit. At 48s I think there's a bit too much drive, or maybe that's the resonance on that low bass. It is nice for 53s when the mid and high elements are absent because you can really focus on it at that point. I like the reverbed square that came in after that too.

I like the second drop because you committed to the resonance-y bass and the percussion for a bit and I sort of liked the minimal vibe it had. I could compare to the sound of 'Wall Fuck' by Flume, where they also use a lot of drive on their instruments. So I think your inclination for using drive on so many elements is not misplaced, it can definitely work.

You're also good at using the video-gamey 'bloop' trill apeggio things if that makes sense, those are neat.

*reads description*
You already sound like an artist!

I wouldn't be overly critical about your voice, it works very well for this song, especially considering you have your voice as you main focus here. You definitely nailed the trance vibe; the arp sequence, piano, and delay/reverb effects you used here sell that, plus I like that you have some movement in your synth to keep it from getting monotonous. The sub also sounds well-balanced on my setup.

Props!

This is good! The percussion here works, I wouldn't change anything about that. I think you had the best atmosphere at 53s. I also like the left-panned reverbed synth that comes in at 1:14, the little background elements definitely add some 'aesthetic'. Did you use izotope Vinyl for the vinyl simulation? If not, definitely check it out.

I think something you could work on is the 'communication' between your elements. Like the percussion and the low-mid bass I think have good communication because they both create a good rhythm together. The first lead synth, the bells and arp that come in seem to work with each other, but not with the underlying rhythm established by the low-mid bass and percussion. Also I would try pitching the little 'ahhh' vowel somewhere else just because it sounds dissonant and no elements after that seem to complement that dissonance (so don't get me wrong, dissonance can definitely work in some situations). Also of the spaces you created after that I think are fine, and very true to what vaporwave is.

Keep it up my dude!

I personally really like the feeling of this song, I think the arp layered with the abrupt low square is my favorite sound to convey this atmosphere. You made this very uncompromising in its' theme but I think if you found a way to transition to a different feeling (the eerie feeling should stay, my first thoughts want to go to something uplifting to give contrast to the dark feeling). I like that the song sort of swelled in a somewhat consistent manner, that kept me grounded when listening to it.

Keep it up, it's really cool!

You're out of my league to actually give constructive criticism. I just appreciate your work and especially your mixing.

If money is something you're looking for with music production why not lend some of your mixing skills? I can't believe you only spent 11 hours on this, that is amazing. You clearly have an ear for mixing electronic music (and quickly). I'm curious how you would mix other types of music.

11:17 is my favorite part, when listening to the song for long enough that chord really stands out. Your mixing here really stands out a lot more to me than your arrangement in this though. In terms of the mixing though, part of me wanted to hear you play with your stereo image more, based on the mixing I'm sure you have the tools and skill to get creative in that respect. Then again, your average NGer probably isn't going to be listening for stereo image. Some people will probably say this is too long, but just playing the song without looking at the end time kept my attention throughout it.

Cursedsnake responds:

Same as for tinymanx- Best comments ever. Thank you!
I'm planning to make a live stream where I'll be making music and stuff. But I don't know yet because I'm stuttering and thus I don't really like talking, which sometimes affects my community involvement- As you might have noticed because I rarely write back :P
We'll see. Thanks again!

boop boop BooPa doop

Age 29, Male

Motion designer

University of Minnesota

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Joined on 8/11/15

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