jennex's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[R43]

Potential!

The riff and harmonies are what I would expect of a trance inspired tune! The sound design is appropriate but a little clichéd, the sounds are good, and as I said appropriate for the genre! but they do sound very much like the same sounds in any trance song. That's more of an observation then a criticism! nothing wrong with sticking with what works.

The one criticism I do have is regarding the piece's pacing. The rise and fall pacing of trance is present in your piece! but at the end it doesn't seem to properly fall back out smoothly. Typically trance tracks naturally come back down to just the bass drum beat, with a good reason! so the DJ can mix them smoothly into the next track. A DJ would have a very difficult time mixing this track for that reason.

yeajimmiboi responds:

Thanks for your critisism man I apreciate what you are saying man, when I finish the tune off i'll add that bit at the end thanks bro :)

[LO - Love for Strings]

Nice.

You have masterfully captured the 'peaks and troughs' style of song structure that is necessary for good trance. That alone is highly commendable, good work!

On a technical note, I think I hear clipping distortion on some of the louder parts. I think you could improve your piece a lot in general with some tighter mastering work, specifically I think some tighter signal compression would do wonders.

I like the diversity of sound in the patches as well! but I also think some of the patches are a little cliche. Certain sounds seem to be very standard and necessary in trance music, but don't be afraid to try newer, stranger patches! that is after all, one of the things electronic music is all about.

Oakwood responds:

I agree with everything you ssaid there, pal. About the distortion, that is due to the lower bitrate. I also had to lower the plugin quality so that that the filesize would shrink abit, so the sound might be a bit 'whobbing'. But there still went a lot of mastering in here. I still find your advice helpful, thanks :)