Echo's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[In My Dreams - Jxl180]

Repetitive bass...

Which basically screwed up what could have been a great song. Its small loop got immensely annoying quickly. When it did finally disappear it jsut suddenly disappeared, and then just appeared again.

The bass also served to completely block out any synths that could have been playing some awesome melody at the foreground, heck it even obscured the drums :S Pity it didnt stay out when it did go out really, the main synths had one heck of a main melody going.

As for the voice, its quite good, lyrics actually make sense and have a great sense of rhytm to them, remaining in sync with the music. They could have been slightly louder though....

Overall, not a bad track, and with more work it could become much better...

Darklight17
=Review Request Club=

P.S. Dont worry about the zero bombing, it happens to everyone. They really should make it that you can only give a low score if you review....

jxl180 responds:

Thank you for your review. You aren't the first to suggest this. I will try to see what I can do.

Thank you.

[Stargenx - Magical Pipe]

Wowz :O

Now this is waht i call a great song. Fantastic atmoshpere set off immiedetely with amazing work on the pan pipes. The intro was simply brilliant, mood and depth were great with amazing work on those panned sounds which gave the music more of a 3D effect if u know waht i mean.

The main part was extraordinary, with brilliant drums leading the melody on a whirlwind of adventure. The strings had just the right mixture of synthish sound and realism and the fantastic use of pads continued to build up the awesome harmony and depth. The one thing that ruined some parts was that sometimes i heared a note that didnt match with the chords (Eg. 1:38) and this kinda spoiled the smoothness of the piece.

A fantasitc outro too, with a great anticlimax after the superb action filled part. Transition into the different parts were as smooth as ice.

Overall, a great piece, but id fix those slight discordancies if i were you. If u did that ud have top 5 material in no time.

Darklight17
=Review Request Club=

Stargenx responds:

Thanks for the nice review!
1:38 was meant to be a little dissonant. But I can change that.

[Kaleidoscope Eye]

Hm,,,

This is one heck of a wierd song. The vocals at the beginning sucked, im sorry to say, they just sounded like random words coming from random directions with no order whatsoever. They also made no sense.

The next part got slightly better with the addition of some new instruments and some variety on the drums. But it still needs more work as that annoying whisper got creepy and started to bother me after a few secs.

The drums were the real highlight in this, because they were quite well worked and varied. At least they provided a decent background for the random voices.

The outro sounded really wierd, with a bad transition leading into it to top it all off.

Overall, this most definetely needs more work and a lot more variety. Im sorry but this deserves nothing more than a five.

Darklight17
=Review Request Club=

TheSongSalad responds:

Thanks for the review man.

[Out of My Sight]

Hm, not bad...

Didnt particularly like the intro, the chords u used were slightly too generic for my tastes, and they got repetitive after a while. U also overused the panning a bit too much and this got a bit annoying.

Melodies in general werent bad, although they did remind of a melody i heard on the radio somewhere. I liked the fact that the backing melodies blended well with the voice and supported the lyrics quite well. I also think that you overused the same instrument a bit too much, try to put more of a variety of instruments as this gives the song an extra edge of originality.

Vocals were the best thing about this song, they were well recorded, and the lyrics were quite clear and actually made sense. The effects used on them were great and not too much.

Overall, i think that with more work on melodies and instruments, this could really shape up to be a great track.

Darklight17
=Review Request Club=

MusicIsBliss responds:

Yeah, I made the intro last, so it was pretty half-assed; piecing together other parts of the songs for it. I didn't really like the result but couldn't think of anything better. I overpanned because so many of the instruments used the same base location for main frequency, which made it sound muddy when unpanned. Couldn't think of other things to add to the song, so I pretty much reused instruments, cause I'm lazy.

[SN | Obscene Amounts of Steam]

Wowz :O

Simply fantastic. I was left speechless by the end, taken aback by the sheer greatness of the track.

Intro was simply great, a brilliant build up and a smooth transitions into the main melody with some nice backup through the finger drums, which are btw amazing and totally original. Who knew fingers could sound so good?

Main content was fantastic, briliant ambient melodies, mixed together superbly with the glitchy drums. A nice sense of atmosphere and depth. Mixed together with a decent amount of background bass and a great harmonization.

Effects were superb, and they were used in just the right amount, so that there werent too much but not too little. Brilliant work.

I liked the outro too, as it closed off the sheer greatness of the track with a brilliant short climax and a fantastic closure. Nice work!

Overall, this is one heck of a track, its going straight on my favs list ;)

Darklight17
=Review Request Club=

SessileNomad responds:

woot new fav!

glad you liked it man :)

[[dj-Jo] Battery Life]

Fantastic work!

Interesting piece. A great intro with an astounding build up. For a moment, in the silent gaps between the starting drums, i thought my speakers werent working, but then that awesome melody burst through and i was nearly knocked off my chair. What a fantastic piece of work.

This is dance at its very best, the drums were varied and astoundingly brilliant, providing a steady and quick paced rhytmic background to the rest of the music. The bass was present in jsut the right amount, not too loud and not too low, just perfect for a song of this quality. The melodies were out of this world too, with a fantastic instrument choice and amazing work on originality. NIce work!

Score = 10/10

P.S. Note that this is your judging review from the NGADM Round 3 G2 which i posted so that ud get more reviews.

Darklight17
=Review Request Club=

dj-Jo responds:

Alright!
Thank you!

Looking forward to the next round :D

[.:A New Life v2:.]

Great work, but u didnt credit me :(

Just so u know, in case supersteph54 had the nerves to tell ya thathe did all the work himself (in which case tell me so i can slaughter him), it was me who replaced the Samples and i also gave ur chords some slight adjustments, but nvm.

in terms of the songs, it is simply sublime. A fantastic choice of instruments (obviously :P). The intro was instantly ear catching, with a great melody on the pizzicatos and nice backing by the piano. The chord progression was approximately unique and well balanced to suit the atmosphere of the music. Id love to hear the guitar that goes with it and hear how the song sounds like when finished.

Bassline was well balanced and provided a good sense of depth and strings were brilliant. Drums were fantastic (Supersteph54 told me to say that :P) and gave the whole thing an extra sense of rhytm and life.

Overall, great work, and hope u make it to Berklee!

Darklight17
=Review Request Club=

GronmonSE responds:

Haha, he told me in the first PM's he sent me. His ilok key broke so he did it at your place. I just forgot because we exchanged a lot of PM's. Credited in the author comments :)

Thanks for the kind words. I hope so too, I'm dying to go there!

[SN | Shift | SN]

Astounding work.

A briliant intro, with a great use of panning and effects. The instrument u started off with provided a nice climax into the next part, and a great use of drums helped too. The glitchy music was quite well done too, and it actually sounded quite nice on my speakers, even though they're as broken as a year old nail which has been pounded by several huge hammers at once, but hammers aside, nice work on the intro! ;)

The melodies were great too, but they got slightly annoying due to the fact that they didnt have as much variety as i would've liked. Dont get me wrong, its a great piece of music, and the melodies are awesomely great, but it got slightly repetitive in some parts. What i particularly liked was the piano melody towards the end, as it set off the atmosphere u needed brilliantly, and provided a fantastic change from the mood it started off with. The other instruments were well used too, but they sometimes got a bit too crowded together in my opinion, and it was a bit difficult to actually decipher the separate melodies in some parts.

Bass was excellent, with just the right amount of background for the melodies. I've got nothing to complain about this part as it was waht really set this piece off well, and the excellent use of chord progressions helped to make this song more interesting.

Transitions werent bad, although they werent ur best either. For my part, i liked the transitions you used in your earlier songs during the NGADM better, but these were decent too. They didnt break up the flow of the music, although they were slightly abrupt in some parts. Perphaps you could smoothen them more somehow??

Drums were as great as they could get, with a nice flow of variety and a hefty degree of originality throughout the drum line. Nice work on this part, especially as you managed to balance the drums with the melodies so that they werent too dominant but could still cause a graet deal of effect. What slightly bothered me about the drums was the fact that they stayed the same towards the end, and cut off from the overall degree of great originality.

As mentioned above, originality needed some more work in some parts as both drums and melodies took a bit too long to change, With a bit more variety, this song would be much better.

Outro was superb, with a brilliant closure to waht was a greatly interesting piece. The fantastic use of the piano to end it really closed it off well and provided something new to end the song with. Nice work.

OVerall, a decent piece, well-paced an worked out, with a nice mix on instruments and a great deal of interesting melodies.

Intro = 2/2
Outro = 2/2
Blend = 2/2
Transitions = 2/3
Bass = 2/2
Originality = 2/3
Drums = 1.5/2
Melodies = 3.5/4
--------------------
Score = 17/20 = 8.5/10

P.S. This is your judging review from the Semi-Final Round of the NGADM 2009.

Darklight17

SessileNomad responds:

meh it sucks

[[dj-Jo] 2 Minute Lunch Break]

NGADM 2009 Group 2 Round 2

This is simply legendary, something to be noted in the Guinness book of records. Its simply amazing! Pristine beyond perfection. Intro was instantly prefect, with a cool accelarando and brilliant mix of instruments and drums. Depth was great too in this part. The bass was brilliant and well placed with just the right amount of volume. The effects you used to climax are great too, and the main melody simply continued the awesomeness. Harmonizing left my mouth wide open and the smooth transitions helped in keeping it open. Overall, there's nothing i can say except simply superb!!!!

SCORE : 10/10

P.S. This is your judging review from the NGADM 2009 Group 2 Round 2 and i posted it here cos its cool to have more reviews.

Darklight17

dj-Jo responds:

Thank you very much!
:D
I like more reviews by the way lol