EctiBot's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[After the Rain]

That melody!!! Marry me both of you plz <3.

johnfn responds:

the feeling is mutual, let's find a chapel!!!!!!!!!

(i was literally humming your song as i checked ng for notifications)

[Wick3dRabbit & Nekomika - Summer (Original Mix)]

Damn, this is good. Really like your style. The percussion was a little bit weak at times. The kick is especially not as powerful as it could be, so a lot of the energy kinda disappears. Still a solid track you got here :D.

Wick3dRabbit responds:

Haha thanks a lot! You are one of my favourite NG artists, and so i really respect your opinion :D Don't worry, my future tracks will be better, just wondering if you're into heavier stuff than this xD

[Cosmotrons Theme]

Really dig the way you mixed dancey 8bit 16bit sounds together with atmospheric elements, you really nailed the spacey retro game feel :D.

[Get on top (8bit Remix)]

Skullbeatz! Good to see that you're still around and as good as ever :D. I remember the original 8bit Flavour and Get on Top from before I even joined the site, it's actually what made me interested in music-production :). Awesome sound design coupled with a great melody. Absolutely love the kick in this, sounds awesome :D!
Keep it up, and continue to make gold like this ;), so glad I found you again :D.

[Hydrogen (Loop)]

Nice, this site really needs more jazz :).
I didn't really like the kick in this, it's way too subby for the style you're going for. Kinda like you tried to mix an edm and a jazz kick, but I would rather advice you to either use a pure jazz kick or a pure edm kick. Really like how you blended electronic sounds into this. The percussion needs some fills at the end of each 4th or 8th bar, or else the drums become really repetetive.
Also, I think the loop would work better if you removed the kick from the first 10 seconds.
Nice and original style this, keep it up :).

normalgeist responds:

Thanks! And also, yeah sorry about the kick, these were all default drums in FPC and i didn't really change them much. I'll keep that in mind.

[Jungle Tussle]

I really dig the feel you got going for this. The sounds are all soothing to listen to and they are all mixed well together. The problem I have with it however is that while it is a cool and nice beat, the entire track is just a beat. There are no chords, bass or dynamics, so I can't help but feel like it's lacking. It's a bit complicated to explain this so I'll split it into parts.

Dynamics:
First of all dynamics. As your track is right now dynamics are a non-existent factor. To make a track sound like a full song you need to have parts thate are more or less energetic than others. At one part you could have more powerful drums while at another part your track ould have a more mellow feel. The important thing is that you can't let the listener get bored of your track, you need to build up and calm down your track at different points in order to keep the interest up. That leads into the next thing.

Variation:
I usually tend to use to words when describing lack of variation in music. One is "repetitive" and the other is "samey". By saying a track is "repetetive" I mean that the track is repeating itself in terms of melody, arrangement or percussion. You do have a lot of melodic variation in your track, and you do switch up your percussion a lot, which you've done in an attempt at making the track less repetetive. The problem however is that a track can still lack variation even though it's not reptetive, and that's if it's "samey". By "samey" I mean that the general feel of the track lacks variation. The intensity, the sound levels and the dynamics of the track are completely stagnant. You need to switch it up a bit, or the listener will get bored after a while.

Depth:
One thing I quickly noticed in your track is that it really lacks depth. There are only two different instruments + the percussion. It's not that minimalistic music is bad, but you still need to have more layers to your music. Personally I'm a fan of using chords in music because I feel like a track is lacking if there are no chords present. However I know that there are other ways to add depth to your tracks like having more complicated percussion, great basslines, sound effects etc. The bottom line is that you need to add more layers to your music or else it just sounds a beat loop.

Melody:
I think you have a lot of interesting melodies in this one, but I also think there is too much melodic variation. Earlier I mentioned that your track isn't repetetive because you melody has a lot of variation, but this isn't always a good thing. When people listen to a track like this they will remember it by the melody. However when you switch up the melody this much, there really is nothing there for the listener to remember. Instead of varying your melodies so much, try making one good main melody which you come back to several times. You can parts where you vary it in between, but the important part is that you at some point come back to your melody. This is what we call a "main theme2, it's what your track will be defined and remembered by and is really important or else the track will quickly become forgettable.

Points of improvement:
I think the best thing you can do to improve is to listen to other artists that use a lot of dynamics in their track and hear how they switch up the energy level of the track in order to keep up the interest. For this kind of musical style Envy.newgrounds.com is a great example and also johnfn.
Also be careful of varying your melodies too much. There are thousands of tutorials out there about melody making.
Last, but not least, always try to improve your music for every track you make. Always think about what you can do better. All your tracks that I've listened to seem to have a lot of unrealized potential. Just keep at it, ask for feedback from other people, and keep on improving :).

- Ectisity
RRC

GreyHooves responds:

Excellent, an in-depth analysis. I'm glad you pointed out the dynamics, because for a lot of pieces, I don't really spend too much time on them, and reading your review, it makes me aware that listeners will notice that lack of effort put in. I did listen to it again and since I was focusing on that aspect, I did notice just how flat it sounded. Lots of variation but no shifting of energy. This was a remix from an earlier piece, so my original thought was to improve upon it. I might end up doing it again sometime in the future, it's a fun piece to play around with. Thanks for the review man

[Deep sea and Young fish]

Holy... This is actually beautiful. It portrays such a deep story accompanied with beatufiul sounds and wonderful composition. I would love to see you add some more orchestral instruments around this.
Please do Old Fish

Veronina responds:

Thanks for listening! I made this song because i broke up with my ex so I think it's hard to have an Old fish one ...

[[COVER] Les Cloches de... l'Ascenseur ?]

I love this! Les Cloches Du Monestere is one of my favourie piano pieces, and I love what you did with it :).

Troisnyx responds:

I actually don't quite like what I did with it. :O I feel that I've desecrated it somehow. But, glad you do like it.

[Emotional Distress (NGADM 2017)]

Great track! Really love the chill feel you got going on, and the production is of a really high quality. I think it's way too long though, I got a bit tired listening to it after a while as there aren't enough variation in this for a 14 minute song.
You got some real sweet feels going on in this one, but I think your talent would shine through brighter if you packed a lot of interesting ideas in a shorter track rather than spreading them out in a long one.

[Dubwolfer - Information Highway]

Not ba, a really cool concept :). Really like the crazy melody. I would adivce you to have a specific main melody that you reintroduce at different parts of the song. It's the same reason as to why songs have a chorus that is sung multiple times, as a musician you want the listeners to remember your song, and to do that you need to give them a main melody to remember. Right now you have a lot of nice melodies, but the melody is ever-changing so I don't really know which melody to focus on. While melodic variation is good, too much of it will make your track sound incoherent and without a proper base.
Also, it's a bit empty, mainly because you don't really have any form of chord-layer to fill up the emptiness. Maybe have a pad or something play some chords in the background? The needs some more punch in the hi-end to really get that "umph" sound you want. Try to damp the low-end a bit and give the kick some more hi-end. A good kick should be clearly audible across the frequency spectrum. The snare is a bit difficult to hear because the bass synth is overpowering it. There are different ways to fix this, but the main idea is that you don't want your snare and bass to occupy the same area.
While the track has a lot of melodic variation, the bass synth plays the same notes throughout most of the track, which make it appear a bit samey. Also to have a good arrangement you need to have some dynamics in your track. Remove the bass at times so that the listener can appreciate the times when the bass does play more. If you never turn of the bass, the listener will very quickly get tired of hearing the same bass synth over and over again.

Overall a decent track with some cool ideas, but I know you can do even better ;). Keep it up!
- Ectisity