spikel's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Own A Home Underneath]

Definitely my favorite I've heard from you, how do you come up with your progressions? Just riff around on the guitar?

FOUNDDEADINLA responds:

A lot of my riffs are done in parts, in order to give them complexity, but most of my chord progressions on guitar are just riffing and stacking riffs and chords by ear.

[The Song That Kills You]

This is some pretty great stuff! First off, I love the chord progression. I'd never heard the term doomgaze, but it suits it pretty nicely. Always been a fan of MBV and the like as well as industrial and darker stuff. I docked points because it's a tad repetitive. Good work, the outro is sweet. Waveform looks good and it's plenty loud for me. I'm gonna try to send you something soon maybe we can collab on :)

FOUNDDEADINLA responds:

hopefully i can finish the demo's and send some to you aswell. Yeah doomgaze was me misremembering the label blackgaze but i like doomgaze better.

[Song About a Guy]

Nice dude, keep working on music and you'll get where you want to be. It's a little repetitive, reminds me of some of my older stuff I'm still fond of. Your mixing is pretty good too. A little overcompressed, but that's better then being super quiet or jarring volume wise. One of the synths reminds of a free VST called Alieno which I really like. Did you record guitar for this?

FOUNDDEADINLA responds:

The only non native fl synth I have is Serum. (also woah didnt realize how overcompressed this mix was lol ill have to fix that--might have accidentally put something on the master.) But yeah I record my own guitar for all my music as opposed to VST's. I mostly use Hardcore (plus other native effects) for my guitar tones.

[The Strolling Rock John]

Honestly, the lead is perfect for a chill electronic song. The drums are setting this back, an electronic kick with a little bit of sub bass + release and a snappy snare would have this sounding pretty nice. Whatcha using for music production? I've got infinite advice and I only give advice that doesn't cost money to do. If your DAW supports external VSTs I could send you my VST folder, I've pretty much made all my music using free VSTs for better or worse.

There's a pretty good VST called "Drumkit1". It's a poor man's "addictive drums", I use it a lot whenever one of my songs has real sounding drums. If you wanna go the rock route I totally recommend that.

GigaSpiritRole responds:

I made this when I was using electric platforms to create music. This was made using FL Studio. However, I no longer like using software because it's too technical. It's not too hard, but most software is too technical for me to feel that it's worth it for me to learn.

I now play live instruments. I recently bought an Egyptian flute called Ney. It's supposed to be one of the hardest flutes to play and some people take years to make a sound on it. I made a sound on the first day. So i'm practicing hard to get get good enough to produce music and share it with everyone. Thanks for the review.

[Smile Electric Sun]

This track is wacky in the best way. It sounds like a bunch of kittens bouncing on a trampoline somewhere in space,

Midnights-Ocean responds:

The trampoline space kittens thank you. :3

[Sect]

The beginning sounds better than the rest. I'm gonna guess you haven't been producing music too long, and don't take that as an offense. In fact composition wise I think you are more fluent than me and many others. You need to work on mixing bass, and bass is difficult. In fact it's better to have a trebly mix than a overly bassy muddy mix because it literally distorts and ruins the mix. But what you have here, you can work with, you just need foundation. A bassy instrument that follows your chords, bass is very easy to compose! The hard part is getting a feel for the mixing of the bass. I don't know what software you are using. But if you have fl studio, try the Parametric EQ 2, and just put it in the master mix first, don't mess with it here. Just look at the visual feedback, you'll see most of the feedback on the higher end aka the right side. So when you mix your bass in, check back to this to see how your overall mix is balanced. If you start to see heavy coloring in the lower range (left side) , then its prolly too bassy and you'll here this in the mix. Just experiment with it. You do really need to experiment with bass for sure, and it doesnt need to be stressful. If you know how to use external vsts, the TB303 vst is one of my faves. If youre using fl studio, check out the TS404 and really focus on the "cut" "Envelope" and "res", and the attack, decay, suspense, and release. If youre super confused, message me pls:)

MysteriousPresence responds:

A lot of people advice me to work on the bass !
You're totally right, that's something missing of my tracks ! I'm gonna work on how to use this instrument and add a bass in the future ! ^^
As for the software (prepare your heart, don't die please), I'm using GarageBand (I hope you're still alive) ! I assume this software is really poor compared to others, well my GarageBand is a little better as I downloaded recently all the instruments from Logic Pro X (a better GarageBand) !
But I've been saving money for 4 months, and I now have the budget to buy Producer Edition of FL Studio (the one I would like -SYTRUUUS <3-), there's just one problem : when will it be available on Mac ? :'3
Thanks a lot lot lot lot lot lot (yes, 6 "lot") for the review, I'm sure this will help me ! :)

[~SW~ Thurm ins_wa_]

Hey dude, this is quite a piece of work you've put together. Excellent, slick use of automation gives it a nice edgy feel. It sounds really high tech and you've done it seemlessly, great sound that takes quite a bit of effort! I'm jealous of you for having Omnisphere ;). It reminds me a little bit of the music for The Binding of Isaac and Super Meat Boy, just in a more futuristic setting.

5stars from me, I didn't really expect any less to be honest but you've been progressing quite a bit for a long time.

Keep it up.

SkyeWint responds:

Hey, spikel!

Interesting thing, there's actually barely any automation, almost *all* of this is automatic effects or raw note parameters.

Omnisphere is sweet. If you can, you should totally save for Omnisphere 2. It's worth it. Trust me. :D

[Action/Motivation]

This is ridiculously good man! Excellent use of space, has the touch of an expert.

kanashibarimusic responds:

thank you so much for your kind words. :)

[Minds Collide.]

Very good trance song.

This song feels very complete. It seems you have spent quite a lot of time on it and it has turned out very nicely. The melody is solid and the song flows together nicely.

Randomizor responds:

Thanks =D

[Terrae - Oblivia (Opening)]

Wonderful!

I really don't know where to begin! This is a fantastic piece of music. The instruments sound rich and pure and the percussion really adds to the epic feel of the song.

I honestly have almost nothing to criticize here although I do wish it was longer. This song could easily go into an epic video game such as The Legend of Zelda , in fact it would fit perfectly!

This piece sounds extremely professional and well polished. I'm sure many artists dream of getting this rich, full sound.

Great work! Keep at it!

Zero123Music responds:

Cheers a bunch spikel! :)