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All Audio Reviews
99 Reviews | 32 w/ Responses
you did a good job of breaking up rhythms here, but where's the speed grind? Whats the point of playing slow if you can't pop out the16th and 32nd notes? You've got tone issues going on; it sounds like you bastardized a good live recording by letting some gay post production program get it's filthy hands on it.
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And there weren't a whole lot of good breakdowns, either. I mean, it's cool you can transpose, and the finger roll technique you're using is nice, but all it takes is a little rhythmic variation to make this song have a lot more grasp to it. Then again, that probably only makes so much sense to me because I'm a drummer as opposed to a guitar player.
Author's Response:
Yeah, You're right about the making sense to Drummers, I'm completely Retarded When it comes to Rhythm, Time Signatures and Shit.
I have no Idea what you're talking about :P
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Very Rammstein, in all the good ways. The only think I could possibly think of wrong with this track is my prejudice against all techno and programmed music. Good enough to be played in any club I'd hang out in. Congratulations.
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It just doesn't sound like you're operating all the full spectrum of the EQ. Since I know this is punkomatic, I know where most of the drums and guitar riffs are from, which kind of sucks. I'm hoping there's at least a real guitar in that mix somewhere; that would be awesome.
I assume you recorded the punkomatic playing in the background through a second mic again?
Author's Response:
Well, let's just start from here - I am extremely ignorant when it comes to playing music. I used to play drums but I sucked. So this was made only in punk-o-matic and nothing else, I think I achieved a good effect in general. It doesn't sound like punk but more like heavy metal and it's different than 95% of the tracks I've heard created in punk-o-matic, which all sound similar.
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But the drums sound... blank. Like, either he didn't give a shit that he sounded stock, or maybe just programmed drums by a guy who didn't know much about syncopation.
Don't get me wrong; Guitars->GREAT there's nothing *wrong* with the drums, so much as they just don't seem to be balancing with the guitars as far as composition goes, which makes this song kind of lopsided in my head. The same thing could also be said of the bass in this song, namely, where is it?
Still, a great thrashy piece.
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The rain effect could have used a little more dynamic modulation, instead of just being a constant drone. When I first heard it, I thought you were using a bad cable or something. Then I realized you probably used some sort of composition program, and that it was intentional. The thunder piece then made that obvious. Real rain comes in sheets, it doesn't fall steady. Yeah, I'm being a nitpicking fag. Sue me.
Also, you spent too much time in the melody, and not nearly enough in your bass register. Bass notes aren't just there to reinforce the in-line melody, the should preferrably be doing their own piece of polyphony. Dixie-land jazz is good stuff, and I think it would fatten up your compositions if you were to study it a bit.
All in all, nice solid video game music
Author's Response:
Your comment about the rain is pretty strange, as it is an effect sampled from a real rain. Same goes for the thunder strike sound.
Also, you're not the first one to say i don't spend enough time on bass. Yet, i tried to make it a bit more present for this one, and i think it is already too much.
But anyways, thanks for the review and advices !
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I love how you used touches of compression and subtle eq'd reverb decay on the drum samples. The vinylizer you ran on the samples also helped knock off a lot of that "OMFG PROGRAMMED" sound the various fruity loops faggots seem to have.
The track still sounds extremely keyboard driven to me, however, and the vocals sound a little over wrought (yeah, I fucking said it. OVERWROUGHT. The american idol style is NOT to be emulated; it's to be ridiculed) For example, I couldn't hear the supposed "guitar track" in the mix, either because I'm deaf, OR because the guitar sounded EXACTLY like a key board, which I consider a bad thing.
This is still a fucking excellent track though, no doubt. And that's coming from a guy who is definitely not a fan of the whole "soulful ballad" concept.
Author's Response:
Well that's awesome, because I didn't use FL, giving me an excuse not to make it sound like FL, and this is an awesome review in that it gives me a bit more time to explain the track, style, etc for the sake of people who have likely never heard this sort of music before - i.e. anyone outside the UK.
The track was written for a big college project, in which we had to closely emulate any style we wish. We got free choice over what style we could do, however, we get more points depending on how close to the style your track is when completed.
The style you're hearing here is called Trip-Hop. It's a sort of ambient acid jazz originating from south-west England, around the Bristol area, and started off with key bands such as Massive Attack and Portishead in the early 90s. It was extremely keyboard and loop driven and almost all have a breathy female vocalist.
I'm not one for using loops, so apart from the very subtle guitar which I recorded and looped myself (you can hear it most after the end of the first chorus, about four bars into the middle 8), everything here is sequenced, but written in a way that adds the essence of what sampled music is. Everything flawlessly loops, there isn't much variation in any of the individual loops and the grungalizer (which you sort of correctly recognized as a vinylizer, though I've never heard it called that before) was used to not only cover up loop imperfections but to add another little bit of depth.
I didn't have as much time to work with my Vocalist as I would have liked, but when compared to Massive Attack and Portisheads tracks, the vocals seem more or less spot on to me.
Oh and trust me, that isn't a touch of compression, the whole track is compressed to the drums - another trip-hop sound, but it creates such a subtle boost that it's perfectly enjoyable :D
Thanks for the review.
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This was awesome as a solo, but it would have been a lot better with a full band. The riffs were honest and authentic, although they didn't push the limits of the instrument too far.
Nothing says real blues like riffs that START OUT fast as fuck, then get depressed and end up long drawn out wails.
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For a blues piece. And swung rides just don't sound right in midi. My ears just don't work that way.
My snobbishness out of the way, a very nice smooth piece. There are things I would add to it, but again, taste.
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But a little muzaky. Really good lullabye type stuff for falling asleep too. Really nice use of chords and stereo effects.
It felt really 1960 early psychedelia pre LSD.
Author's Response:
Hehe... thanks.
Muzak usually doesn't have any dynamic change, though, but I see where you're coming from.
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