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JRob

25 Audio Reviews

17 w/ Responses

As Eric Cartman would say, "kickass." Just the kind of dark, heavy-hitting, Industrial-Electronic music I've been looking for recently - this is going in my playlist with the likes of Quentin Grey's "Tiga" and Cradle of Filth's "Dance Macabre." One suggestion though - I would raise the volume on the vocals a bit since they are being drowned out somewhat.

Lich responds:

Thanks for the response.
Now that I have picked up some Monitoring speakers, any tracks similar to this will have boosted vocals and better mastering since I will be able to hear everything better :)

Very atmospheric and very fitting - though I might suggest experimenting with the reverb, slightly adjusting the reverb size to help provide a much better cave ambiance. It would be really cool if we could get a team of Newgrounds members to make a game (most likely an RPG mixing elements from the likes of Skyrim and Final Fantasy) based off of your musical world using the songs in this series as the background music (along with others' audio submissions) - this series would really make it feel more lifelike. Wishful thinking on my part, but it would be pretty kickass though.

DanJohansen responds:

Experimenting with the reverb is a good suggestion I think. I might actually take up that advice for the album release of the tracks. But I am kind of liking the unified sound going through the entire album right now, but DEF a good idea.

If you make a serious RPG sometime, let me know when you are way into developement and ready for the music. I LOVE RPG's lol

Holy shit dude. I wasn't expecting the change to rave. I have nothing more to say about this.

AeronMusic responds:

Thank you. I love some rave! I'm glad you like it too, if I think so!

Okay, first I would like to say that notewise the song is great (5/5 great that is), but what takes away from it is the mixing/mastering (if you have ever seen any of my reviews or descriptions on my songs, you would know that mixing/mastering is top priority for me - I usually get really annoyed when I'm having a hard time in that general area). Starting at 0:28, the bass isn't loud enough (not the drums, the synths); from 1:50 - 2:20, the drums are overpowering everything else; from 3:13 onwards, the bass drowns out the higher range synths - bring up the treble range synths and lower the bass just a slight bit there. Other than that, just a little bit of fine-tuning may help. I like the song, the synths have somewhat of a Megaman feel to them.

RetromanOMG responds:

Thanks for the comment, especially since you pointed out flaws in the mixing. I don't have a particularly sophisticated audio setup, so I can't always catch these things, but with your input, I can definitely go back and make changes.

You seem to have been zero-bombed - I tried to help fix that. This song is very atmospheric and flows very well. My only issue is that there is a tad bit too much tension on the snare drum; dropping the volume for the snare a notch may help or try fixing the tension, but overall, I give this a 9/10.

Pivvot responds:

Yeah, I noticed. Well, thank you for your support and the favorable review!

\m/

Chanting, huh? If you would like, since I have enough knowledge of the grammar and such, I could translate something into latin so you can put actual chanting in the song. For example: "Surga Daemon! Rapta oppida et urbes adversariorum nostrorum!" (Rise Demon! Ravage the towns and cities of our foes!)

DanJohansen responds:

That would be awesome man, I'll keep that in mind in case I make other such tracks, Not sure I can pronounce it right though XD

Your mixing/mastering is starting to come along nicely; it's not quite professisional yet, but you're getting closer and closer with the last couple uploads. On that note, also since a couple people mentioned the compression, I wanted to put an idea out there - why not keep a copy of one of the earlier versions in the mixing process - a demo version; a good number of people like the more raw, powerful sound the earlier version of the song has (kind of like Cradle of Filth's "Principle of Evil Made Flesh" original album title track version versus the Bitter Suites to Succubi remake).

"Toxic Land" is quite the fitting title for this song - I can definitely see all the metal barrels of toxic waste overturned, spilling their contents everywhere and people walking around with gas masks and the like.

Metallica1136 responds:

Thanks for commenting on the mixing! A lot of people have commented about my mixing and mastering improving. Exactly my goal.

Up until Amplified Rage, i actually did upload all my songs raw and unmastered, but i Just recently started mastering them for Newgrounds. I definitely compare them though, good idea man!

Yeah, you and I have the same imagination it seems, I named Toxic Sea that title because i imagined a bunch of toxic barrels with yellow nuke symbols floating in a sickly green sea, and a boat sailing through it. What you stated about Toxic Land, is pretty much how I think about it as well! :D

Thanks for your review man!

It's a good thing you noted that you know the sound quality/mixing was rough, as that is one of the first things I pay attention to when listening to a song. A great song you've come up with; it's very dynamic - doesn't stay in one place leaving the listener to get bored and press "stop." Also, although this is more of a personal view, you should probably do more songs like this, mabye experiment even further, instead of doing about 99% thrash (there's only so much you can do with only one particular style - I always try to do something different everytime), that way, if you ever actually become well-known (going to be pretty hard, considering many Newgrounds artists like us are suffocating under tons of over-promoted, untalented, mainstream crap (minaj, one direction - you get the general idea) and talentless attention whores promoting their "music" on other YouTube channels) and you decide to do something noticably different for a change, you won't easily be labelled a "sellout" since you established early on that you don't do just one style. Your call, not mine - just my opinion.

Just fix up the mastering and mixing and you'll be good to go. If only you could use a decent studio for recording - I would offer you a good studio to use, but sadly, like I already pointed out, I can't since I'm still asphyxiating due to the stench of all the crap the music industry is tossing everywhere (if only we could be rid of this industry so that music will regain its status as an "art" and not that of a "product," and independent artists will have a better chance at success).

Metallica1136 responds:

Thanks for your review, man! This is probably the most detailed one someone has written for me (which is not a bad thing at all) Yeah, this song was meant to be very progressive. And the opposite of repetitive. Yeah, I am thinking about maybe experimenting with lower tunings a little more, and doing these kind of songs oncassionally. Haha, I hear what you're saying. Shit like Nicki Minaj and One Direction is so terrible, unoriginal. You can't tell the songs apart. Complete shit lol. Yeah, the main reason why the majority of the stuff I do is thrash, is because, I thought people would consider me a sellout just for experimenting with a different style (like when everyone jumped on Metallica's nuts for the black album) But screw that. If people consider me a sellout just for doing a song in a tuning like C or C#, fine.

Yeah, I will mix and master this properly some time. I am learning to master music like a professional. It's no easy task, but it's worth the work. Thanks for your review, man!

Expert mastering and mixing, the section at ~1:06 is awesome and sounds like Twilight Princess twilight overworld theme, and the way the themes are presented and then come together at the end all make this song deserving of 5 stars. Don't you think you should start selling your music? You have a PayPal that some fans have been sending donations to, right? Bandcamp (my preferred choice, since there are no startup costs and no upload costs, and you keep 85% of the sales - 90% after a certain $$$ amount in sales has been made) and CDBaby are two pretty reliable and easy to use digital distribution site, and I think you would do pretty well on there.

Amazing. You gave the song sort of an "adventurous" tone to it; it's light and flows well (whenever I do a song that portrays a snowy or icy setting, it either has a "dangerous" sound, like a blizzard, or it's very still and calm, like a wintry day. Also, I always feel the need to add bells or vibraphones - or a similar instrument - when composing that type of song, so I was kind of suprised that you did without - you used a piano instead, which also gives that "icy" touch, and I also used it in one of my winter themed songs so I can relate perfectly to that). In regards to the recent review (below mine, or on the next page, if more reviews move it down), this somewhat reminded me of an RPG, lesser-known and with a different music style (DRASTICALLY DIFFERENT) - but with the same ambiance/ambience, by the name of Okami (towards the end, when in the northern land - you have to have played it to know, woof woof - great game by the way). The instruments fit and complement each other perfectly; I don't think this could have been put together any better than you did it. You should definitely do more music like this and the other classical/theme setting pieces in your "music world" series.

DanJohansen responds:

Awesome review man, you really went into the tune's concept and saw what I was going for.
Bells are something I considered back and forth a lot here but in the past when I've made Winter tunes for personal projects, I've always used them so I thought Piano has much of the same effect just like you stated :D

And yeah, it does have the same kind of ''drive'' like Okami doesn't it? I didn't think about it but I see it now, that game is fantastic, lots of great music, and I am def getting the HD release in september, it's such an artistic game through and through I can't wait to experience it again.

I shall keep making these types of tracks to complete my world good sir! Thanks a lot!

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