StereoTactik's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[*Made Of Fire*]

How the fuck is this professional DnB?

You shouldn't go around calling yourself a professional since you clearly know nothing about the real world of professional Dnb that reaches past Pendulum.

I mean, how hard is it to understand? Drum... the drums in this are OK. The kick is weak and the snare needs more low-mid frequencies at 200-250Hz. Bass... here the bass is nothing but a simple, mildly distorted and phased sawtooth. It needs more low end, distortion, and should ALWAYS be mono.

Concentrate on the Drum n Bass more. They should always be the main instruments in drum n bass. If you don't like that, then just call it something else. But trance arpeggios and crowd cheers just don't belong in Drum n Bass.

Go to Wikipedia's drum n bass page, you might learn something. Also stop by LiftedMusic.co.uk to get some inspiration.

I'm not saying there's much wrong with your music. I can tell a lot of effort and talent has gone into it. But you just can't go around calling this stuff "Professional DnB", because it's light years away from it.
3/5
ST

ZeRo-BaSs responds:

Thank you for your costructive criticism! :)

Btw as Paragonx9 says, uploading to this site a totally pure DnB track (go hear "Exodus" by Noisia or "Knite Riderz" by Matrix and futurebound)would have been too dangerous because only few people like pure and rough DnB (i do =) so i tried to mix DnB with VG elements; Shouldn't i call this DnB?
But trust me the samples that i used aren't simple sawtooths (i hate phasers)

Thank You!!!

p.s. Don't worry about my musical knowledge :D

[Shifting Sands]

interesting ideas

You had good tom patterns, but the samples were too boomy and muddy.
The other drum samples you brought in sounded nice, but the hi hats had too much high-frequencies and not enough mid-range sounds. However, the percussion lacked a powerful kick to keep the beat.

The plucked instrument thingy was a cool addition to the piece. At some points, the melody sounded random and sloppy, though.

The background pad synth added a nice backdrop, but the simple sawtooth was too simple. A few effects and filters would have made a better sound.

The bass synthesizer was also kinda simple, and did not have enough deep bass frequencies (30-90Hz).

As the track moves on, there are some interesting progressions in the instruments, and some good FX samples. The bass disappears for some reason, leaving the track sounding empty.
Also, the tom line got repetitive and didn't fit in with the main part of the song. Toms are really only meant for fills and intros/outros. There are very few drumbeats that use toms as a main instrument. If you had gotten rid of the toms during the middle section and emphasized the kick, snare, and hi hats, the drums would have sounded much more fresh and well done.

The mixdown got muddy at parts with the bass. Things got too loud and clipping occurred. The toms probably had something to do with this.

Overall, this song is definitely NOT Drum n Bass. Drum n bass generally consists of a heavy kick and snare, and a thick, complex, distorted bassline. This would classify as Video Game, Miscellaneous, or Classical.
Use more effects to thicken up your sound, and watch your level meter throughout the song to prevent clipping. To make sure clipping never occurs, place a compressor on the entire mix. Turn the ratio all the way up (1:Infinity on most modules) and set the threshold to 0 dB. Lower the attack as quick as it can go, and voila, all the work is done for you.
4/5 Keep on working!
ST

R0tt3n-Appl3 responds:

man, talk about johnny raincloud... the sad thing is that most of what you say is true! i found this review to be helpful, thank you lots

[Don't Hold Me Back]

Jungle-ish

I'm glad to finally see some more real DnB on Newgrounds!

The intro was bad. There wasn't much progression, though, and it didn't flow very well. It got boring.

The amen is a good drum loop, but don't overuse it too much. If you're trying to make an old-school style jungle song, they're good, but in this song they just sounded out of place.

With all the pitch bends, the bass sounds random and un-melodic. The sounds are fine, but you need to develop the bassline more. Also, the two different samples overlapped in some parts and didn't sound very good.

Overall, this song lacked crispness in the high frequency levels, and sounded muddy. However, I'm giving you a 4 out of 5 because I know what you were trying to accomplish and I don't think you did a terrible shitty job at it :D

4/5 Do you use Reason or FL or other?
ST

Cretin responds:

FL 5. Yeah, I didn't really spend to long on the mix down because I know theirs not that much people on here who would care/notice, but I'll make more effort in future. I know what you mean about the bass sounds, but I think overall it came out ok (as a concept)

[Violent Syndrome--_--(1:59)]

Orchestral DnB goodness, yup!

The orchestral stuff is awesome! You are a genius with that stuff. It kinda disqualifies this song as DnB, but that doesn't make any less awesome!

The kick needs more mid and low, and should be louder.
The snare sample wasn't really a great choice IMO, but it's fine.

That bass is BAD ASS! Reminds me of twisted Aphex Twin shit. It would have been even awesomer with some LP modulation.

Towards the end, the sub dissapeared and it made me sad :(

Overall, great diversity and awesome bass! Just fix your drums and polish up the mix, and you'll have a hit song!

4/5 Now for Security Breach...
ST

[Bittersweet Symphony ZENON MIX]

Hmm...

This is a hard one to judge.
It's inevitable that once you move to a different program, your skills may fall back a little bit before you go back to normal.

From the top:
Not much to say about the first part. You have your strings and your bells.
I though you could have done better on the hip hop drums. The high hat line sounds very fake without an accent pattern, and the clap is sorta weak. The kick is fine, though.

Bass: Nice, but too much distortion. You have to always make sure that your bass doesn't sound like someone pressing down two random notes at once. Also, it should be louder in the mix.

Drums:
Kick: I think it has too much boomy low frequencies. Either put more decay on it, or reduce the bass.
Snare: You tweaked the Reason snare well, but it can never sound as good as snares from sample packs (I know you have plenty of those).
Crashy stuff: Good, but too loud. Also, HP them a little more so they don't interfere with the rest of the song as much.
HHs: Not really pronounced enough. I recommend finding 3 or 4 good HHs with a lot of low mid thunk, including and open high hat, and making an interesting pattern that compliments the bassline and drums.

I like the part with lots of kicks, although it sounds muddy with such a big kick.

The pads drown out the bass too much in my opinion.

Around 1:20, things start to get kinda muddy and busy. Nice tom fill, though.

I also didn't hear enough subbass frequencies that weren't coming from the kick.

Overall mix:
Kick softer and less boom.
Bass louder with more bass and less distortion.
Pads quieter.
Fix some muddiness in the strings at 1:20.

It was really short, also, so you get a 3/5.
Great work, though. You and Reason will accomplish great things...

[-[ Crunch EXTENDED ]-]

NIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIICE

^^^ :D

Well....

The beginning is lazy. Woah a kick and snare. Thats great, but put something more into the intro. Pads pads pads!

I dunno if you've ever heard Sucker Punch, but those hi hats aren't really meant to be used individually for 8th notes. It sounds awesome if you use all of them and make some crazy pattern with them.

The half-time drum pattern is pretty cool. Very original for a dnb song. Although in more advanced terms it disqualifies this song as being dnb, it still sounds cool.
What would sound leik a bilyon teims betr is if you switch back and forth between half time and normal time throughout the song. And when the drums go halftime add in some more cymbals. This already sounds awesome playing in my head :D

Bass: Awesome! Great modulation. You keep it nice and simple, which is good. You may want to add in some more distorted high frequencies, though. If you listen to greats to Unknown Error, the basses are only called basses because they used to be basses. Now they are beasts that roar and scream and kill things.

Synth pad things: Insane!!! You get good effort points for that.

However, you get lots of negative effort points for the drums. Lol. At least you used them pretty well.

Overall, the song sounds really muddy and mixed. I think it might have something to do with the Monster kick, or it's something else.
But Bass=sick and the next version of this will be awesome.

4/5
ST

[Shaman Part 2--_--(4:02)]

Thanks!

Hey, thanks for picking up DnB again for me :D

The intro to this piece probably defines its masterpiece. The vocals, pads, effects, all so great.

And then of course there's that signature "ZENON" acid bass sample. Did you make that yourself or did you use a sample? Cuz if you made I wanna know how.

As the intro gets more and more bassy and distorted with that wacky distorted bass thing and the half-time drums, the song really gets grooving. That synth snare is a good sample for something like that.
You are a master of Hi-Perc, by the way.

And then theres the main part. I always liked that bassline! However, I think that the cymbals and stuff get too loud in the main part and make my ears hurt. There also seems to be a lot of stinky compression going on.

Snare. Like I said, a synth snare is good for effects and intros and stuff, but as a main instrument I think it's weak personally. I think that for the main part you should have switched back to the old snare that you used before.

That screaming pad that plays opposite the bassline is a great improvement IMO.

The rest of the breakdowns and such are really cool. You really know how to use FX right.

Gotta have that 3-step in there.

I think that overall, after the first main part, the song starts to get weak and lose its coolness. The mixing gets a little off-balance and the frequency range gets thrown off. I think that instead of having so much newer, weaker stuff, you should have brought back the main "Shaman" bassline. Maybe you just overcorrected the lazy style of progression in the last song :)

SO overall, yeah, this is much better. The intro is perfect, but the main part and beyond is where the song loses its touch.

5/5 Thanks again for attempting DnB!
ST

PERVOK responds:

Well... it was an attempt.

[SADSPOON IS OLDER--_--]

Incredible.

Cock joke.

5/5
ST

[{Hollow Man} [NG Cut]]

Great! Howeva...

Intro:
You have that same cool intro with the pads and the atmosphere and the da da la la poo poo, and you added more percussion stuff that's good. Lots of diversity there.

The orchestration sounded pretty good. I'll talk more about that later.

The final buildup at 1:20 is pretty nice. It keeps me waiting in suspense even though I know what's gonna happen next ;)

Drop 1:
Drums - Great! The kick and snare need more punch and dominance in the mix, though.
Bass - I can hear some changes you made from the preview. Great sound!
Pads n stuff: Everything else adds nice atmosphere to the piece, but remember to keep it down in volume so it doesn't overwhelm the important stuff.
Overall mix - Muddy as a pig in shit. I can't hear the cool drum and bass frequencies enough, and something is generating muddyness and it's really annoying lol! That part needs better mastering.

Then there's a wierd little break thing with the drumline and a pad. I don't know if you were going to put something else there, but it sounds too open to me.

Nice tom fill. Kinda unconvential, but that's what DngB is all about! :D

Drop 2: (after the toms)
In comes the melody! The synth sounds better than before, good change there.
Actually, when I said I didn't like the synth, I meant that you should get rid of it entirely. Ah well. At least it sounds better than before.

Yah, the melody is ok and all, but don't let it take over the bass. It was too loud and made the bass not as cool.

Bridge:
This is where all the fun happens. The new bassline is pretty awesome, and the drums are still good.
The FX in that part are too loud and distracting, though.

In this part especially, I can hear that the song sounds too slow.164 is slow for a dnb song. That part alone in the mid 170s would sound almost better than the other part entirely.
Drop 3:
Nothing new, just bringing back that old melody. Which is a good thing. That's the best way to make a song sound much cooler than it is, take a break from the cool part a bit, play something else not as cool, then bring it back! YAY! lol.

Ok, now the scolding part:

Orchestration: I dunno. It's a really cool thing for trance or something, but in dnb it sounds kinda out of place. That's just my opinion.

Melody synth thing: Ok, great melody, but let's take a moment to break down the genre:
Drums - you got those down.
Bass - not much complaint there.
So you have those two. The two dominant components that make the genre what it is. The third component is NOT LEAD SYNTHS. THERE IS NO THIRD DOMINANT COMPONENT. DRUM AND BASS. THAT'S IT. I'm not saying that you have to be DJ Krust and make a song with just drums and bass. You have to be DJ Krust to do that. Just don't put in the synthesizer things.

This is mostly Pendulum's fault. They started the whole thing, playing lead synths along with dnb beats and calling it dnb. But it's really not. No, ladies and gentlemen, Pendulum is NOT DRUM N BASS. They are just Pendulum, and they will never amount to anything more then Pendulum. Darkstep drum n bass is not all about crazy lead melodies or guitars or wobbly basses. It's about punchy drums and big distorted basslines. Sci-fi style pads and fx sounds also add a whole bunch of flavor.

So please, just stop making the leads and put more effort into the bass instead. The bass in this song is great, but I can never get enough of it because it's being blocked out by the lead and the pads and all the stuff in the background.

Newgrounds has absorbed this stupid style of music, and most people who think they make drum n bass actually make some sort of wierd dnb-trance-vg crossover I call Drum NG Bass (DngB).
This song is pretty far from most DngB that most people make, but it is still DngB.

Overall mix: Too muddy. Drums need more punch, bass needs more loud, and everything else needs more quiet.

Don't get me wrong. I can hear intense amounts of effort in this song. You are one of the hardest workers on NG, I can give you that. And for that reason, I bestow upon you...

A 5/5. Lol.
ST