JRob's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Poems for Darkness]

That staccato at about 2:00 actually sounds intentional; you really did a good job of covering all the little hiccups and errors, because it sounds perfect to me, even as someone who's played piano for about half his life. I think you should stick with this (and stick with the staccato at 2:00, because it actually sounds really good like that) as your final product.

Get that sustain pedal fixed anyway, though (it should be easy enough to fix on your own, though - something might be loose; I get the same issue with mine, and all I need to do to fix it is to just tighten a single nut).

MetroPiano responds:

Thanks for your review! I'll be sure to try and fix my sustain that way, cause I never thought of that.

[Tone Test]

That guitar sounds fucking awesome - though it makes everything else sound lacking in terms of quality. Sure, it's just a tone test, but I'd suggest finding the best combination of effects and such on the drums and bass to complement this tone before going any further with it.

Metallica1136 responds:

Thanks! Yeah, the bass and drums aren't anything too special,. but I just added those instruments so they could fill in their parts.

[MMZ4 Falling Down (8 bit)]

*hugs*

The Megaman Zero series pretty much my favorite game series (Final Fantasy might take its place though...but it has some really weak games *cough8-11cough*).

Like AuralMuser said, the pitch on the melody is too low (it's in the wrong key - sounds like a fifth off). There were a couple of missing bass riffs, but then again, you are limited by 8-bit.

[Zinity - Demonolic]

Well done, though not entirely perfect. The song didn't really develop much and felt static to the point where it would have been overly repetitive, but you managed to work around that by changing up the beat midway and keeping the song at a short length. I feel like you should've put more into this song; you should've had it go somewhere - added more melody, dramatic buildups, and transitions into more parts to give it motion to develop it into a full song (though for background music, it does very well). The mixing/mastering was nearly spot-on - I'd suggest boosting the volume and the reverb on the piano a tad.

[Visions of Tomorrow]

Very nicely done and very innovative in terms of style/genre, though the percussion gets a little too loud at a couple transitions, so I suggest toning them down at those points (around 5:00 and 6:40)

Phantasma000 responds:

Thanks for your feedback! Yeah, I had some difficulty mastering those build ups with the snare, but I'll look at it again.

[Sariel's Past]

If the timing is used correctly as BGM/VGM, this could really make an epic scene even more epic. As WxNv stated, it does feel out of sync and disjointed, but, as I already mentioned, if used correctly, this has a lot of potential in complementing whatever it plays in the background for. So, you really should focus on presenting this as more BGM/VGM material and maybe even make a loopable version.

[LeviathanNetwork-ReInject]

You did a really great job remastering this (although, personally, I feel that it feels a bit too clear at points - the muddy quality of the original appealed to me more - It is a good thing that you did a re-upload rather than replace the audio file on the original); it feels more synthetic than the original, better fitting the technology theme of the song. A suggestion though - could you try running the last bit of vocals through a vocorder and autotune (I know what you're thinking; autotune = no talent, but there are cases in which it could supplement the theme/feel of the song - especially here) to give it that robotic feel to match the biotech theme; I bet it would fit very well.

Lich responds:

Thanks for the review.

I've already tired to run the ending vocals through a vocoder and it didn't sound that great... honest :3
I'm planning on doing 'Reinject's' of one or two more of my tracks so I'll be probably be giving some of my older or even unreleased stuff a polish-over if you are interested in listening to them.

[The Long Summer]

I'm speechless. For a song in a genre that I almost never listen to for enjoyment, it would have to be perfect for it to do that.

[From Forge to Battle]

Maybe have a strong trumpet/brass section with some snare drum? So far so good though - just try doing something else like playing some RPG's like Final Fantasy. Skyrim maybe? Inspiration should hit you eventually.

[Before Dawn]

I would've rated it 3/5, but I gave it an extra half simply because it's not generic mainstream dubstep and you went back to the roots of the genre. This could have easily been a 4/5 or a 4.5/5 song - the bass part at the beginning goes on too long without anything else going on and starts to become too repetitive. At 2:25 - 2:27, something about the piano starts too hurt my left ear - some kind of audio artifact occurs - you might want to fix that. Finally, the volume on the drums could be boosted a bit, especially the kick.

Avalon69 responds:

Thank you for the review! I'll have a look at the things you mentioned, glad you enjoyed the song!