Kwing's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Genesis]

The noise and effects you have over the piano add an interesting texture, but the piano should be mixed a little louder so it can be heard more clearly. The first 30 seconds sound like an intro, which makes it all the more jarring when the song cuts off so abruptly. The final measure really feels like it should be building to something, but instead all we get is a noisy outro. Not bad, but too soon.

[Unreal Reality]

This was okay. The melody doesn't really go anywhere, but it's not just one or two phrases looped either, so I appreciate that. Some more decisive composition, harmonization, and smoother transitions would help, but as-is this sounds kind of like it was improvised.

colorsCrimsonTears responds:

Thank you for a critical, but not insulting review.
I'm of course, still learning with music, and am completely
self taught! I'll take what you said, and hopefully be able to keep
it in mind on future works.

[Awaiting Inlake]

This sounds rather repetitive. That's fairly normal for dubstep, but a combination of the instruments you're using and the same samples being used amplify the effect. Some slower soundscape type stuff in the background would give the sensation of the music moving forward, and a couple extra layers might help with the simplicity.

There's also some tonal inconsistency. I'm a big fan of harsh samples, which you introduce at 1:20 and 3:10, but they don't really fit with everything else you're doing.

CodebreakerS responds:

Yeah this was my first dubstep song and I'm much better at making it now

[Space Cat]

Feels a lot like some of the NCS releases. Nothing terribly adventurous here, but the overall quality is good and the melody is pleasant. Where this track really shines is polish. There's very little to nitpick here.

CloudNinja responds:

Thank you!
And I would like to know what "Polish" means?
I feel like, personally, the only issue I'd have with it is it's overcompression. But that could be just me.

["Steppin Along" WiiFit Step Rhythm sample]

I have an extreme dislike of trap snares, but I have to admit most everything else in this track sounds really nice. There's a good amount of energy present from start to finish. In general I did find this to be redundant, but that's to be expected for hip hop. The only time that really bothered me was around the 2:00 mark where it looked like it was building to some kind of drop.

DJ-AfterBurnz responds:

Haha, I respect the input and appreciate the review. Thanks

[Covenant]

Scoring this is extremely difficult, because I really like the minimalism of this track and I think it accomplishes what it set out to do, but it's also a lot less like music than just about every other submission. The tension is definitely here and every sound from beginning to end just feels RIGHT.

Chickenizer responds:

Thank you so much for your thoughtful input!

[Clouds (Future Bass) - BB520]

A bit of remastering and this sounds like it could be an NCS release. The chords sound nice and there's a good variety of sounds used here. The main issue (and it's really quite pervasive) is that the drums aren't loud enough and the synth sounds kind of muddy for most of the track. I still gave this a high-ish score due to the composition, but I would really like to see this redone.

BlueBerry520 responds:

Omg thank you! I did make it in the demo, but I recently got the full version and I have reopened the project, I didn't add any sidechain. Until now, but thanks for you feedback! : )

[Peace time]

Dawdles a little too much for my liking, and not just because of the slow tempo. This is too loud to be ambient, but not substantial enough to be anything else. As an intro or outro track to an album I guess it could work in a pinch, but I'm having a lot of trouble imagining where else a track like this would make sense.

BBouthillette responds:

When I compose music, I sometimes have trouble knowing what kind of music it is.

[Norwegian Lullaby - Awaken]

Not sure if this is more synth or video game. I guess the inspiration from Civ VI makes sense. I like the melody and harmonizations, but the deviations from the main loop are too few and far between. Like the stuff at 3:02 is good, but why did you wait almost the whole song before introducing a bit of variety?

[A Tarnished Sky]

Wasn't a huge fan of this. I'll admit to having some bias due to whatever software you're using just not sounding very good, but the composition here isn't exactly stellar either. It's very slow moving, and doesn't seem to be going anywhere.