EctiBot's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[AIM - Chaotic Fight]

A.I.M Judging Review
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An instant good and powerful beginning, which I can always dig. As has been mentioned several times before, the general sound quality of your instruments are really poor.The sound leveling and mixing is all over the place, and the instruments intertwine with eachother quite a lot. The Fl slayer guitar is really bad, as Fl slayer is always a bad idea.
The song itself is actually pretty good imo. The melodies are great, the arrangement is creative and varied and you build tension in a good way. The piano melody at 2:47 was kinda bland and uninteresting though.
The drum progression are kinda uncreative and samey. I would have switched them up a bit too keep up the interest.
The length didn't really bother me that much. Sure you repeat the same melody and patterns a couple of times, but I feel like that degree of repetition is ok in a track like this.

The biggest problem with this track lies with the instrument quality. If not for that I probably would have given you a higher score, but as of now, it deducts from the overall production.

TheMusicalGhost responds:

Thanks for the review. I should've known not to use FL Slayer since it sounded bad, but sadly I didn't find any other instrument that would've been an alternate to the guitar :(

[AIM - Chasing Titans]

A.I.M Judging Review
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Interesting piece Really reflects the darkness and action in the art very well. The mixing itself is actually very good. Felt like some o the percussion elements sounded kinda flat at times. The arrangement is a bit repetetive and I wish that you would have varied it up at times.
All in all I felt like the track was a bit too minimalistic. Though is not always a bad thing, I feel like this track would come more to life with some more elements, greater buildups, more tension etc.
I get that you made it minimalistic to focus on the smaller ships in the picture, but it deducts from the general production quality IMO.

[WADEBOT]

u guyz... u guyz never disappoint do you XD. Dope track :D!

[AIM The Legend of Uncle Dave]

A.I.M Judging Review
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Can always appreciate good guitar work, and this one is really high up there. It gave me the nostalgic adventure feel without being something that I'd mark as unoriginal.
I felt like it was a bit repetetive at times, and you go back to the main melody a bit too much. Really glad you played this yourself and didn't use guitar samples. Those times when the guitars a bit off timewise gives the song a more humane feel, which I love. Also have to say that it requires great skill to play something like this, so kudos to you!
Though the track sounds great by itself, I feltl ike you could have added a bit to the dynamics by adding some other instruments as well. As it is now it kinda lacks the dynamic feel of an adventure.

Daveisgr81 responds:

Thanks for the positive review - very kind!

I'll see if I can arrange the piece for a larger ensemble and use the variety of instruments to give it more musical depth... I'm glad you responded to the timing issues positively too. It was a problem cause by my computer's inability to process a huge number of audio tracks at once - a human feeling created by a computer problem, how ironic!

Thanks again!
Dave

[AIM - Spectrum-X]

A.I.M Judging Review
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Love the melody work in this :). Isn't too complicated, but gives of a great feel regardless. The mixing is done really well, and the drums sound great. Tbh, I felt like the piano at 0:55 was poorly mixed into the song. Piano can certainly work in tracks like this, but they need to mixed very well, and have the right reverb settings and EQ. Otherwise I think the track was really enjoyable.
Could maybe have portrayed the aaction feel in the art a bit better, but I still think it fits.
I can hear that you have a bass going on in the background at times, but I wish this was a bit louder, because as it is now it kinda disappears, and I can't really hear it if I'm not concentrating on it.
Except from the piano, the rest of the sound design is really good.

Teckmo-X responds:

Yeah I had received notice that the piano part wasn't a good fit before but I want to try and experiment with something else in my songs. It was more of an idle song to be honest. The bass was a bit low as I didn't want to much override on the synths. Still looking for improvements as I go along. Thank you for the time and patience for your review.

[AIM - Those Walks]

A.I.M Judging Review
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Like the feels you got going in this. That weird thing you do with timing sounds way better in this one than the other one. The melody is really cool and funky, and it gives me a retro/oriental feel whch I always can enjoy. Also has a lot of cool hip-hop elements. The main synth is a bit too sharp on the ears and is kinda unpleasant in my opinion.Though the melody itself portrayed the art quite well, I didn't feel like the synths did, like RF said. Too much of a retro feel IMO.

[AIM - Airto-Windo]

A.I.M Judging Review
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First of all, I really didn't enjoy the opening synth. Feel like the sound design could have been a bit better. As it is now it's really unpleasant on the ears, and it sounds a bit cheap.
The Arrangement is quite cool in this, and I really thought you caught the spacey feel of the art.
The way certain elements like the main synths and the snare is slightly off timewise is cool some places, but I felt like it was a bit too much at times, and it was difficult to enjoy the song when I felt like those off beats constantly interrupted the feels.

[Aim - Midnight Skies]

A.I.M Judging Review
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Kinda doesn't matter that you only have time for one submission when you pull out this.
This track shows a top notch musical sense. The mixing is almost flawless and the arrangement is great. What really sticks out though is the amazing sound design. Very rarely I listen to a track where ever single synth sounds satisfying and pleasing to the ears.
I felt like the wobble at 0:53 could use a bit more reverb on it. Also, I wish that the outro was one or two bars longer. Kinda ended a bit abruptly.
The track fits great with the starry sky image, and you even added that sound sample in which made me think of thee girl in the picture.

Mixing: 5/5
Sound Design: 5+/5
Arrangement: 4.5/5
Art Relevance: 5/5
Overall: 5/5

8-bitheroes responds:

Thanks for the review, i wasnt expecting such a good score! I appreciate the feedback and the time you spent listening to it :)

[AIM - A Dark Cave]

A.I.M Judging Review
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The problem with the strings isn't only that it lacks reverb. Probably is enough reverb on it as it is. The problem is the stereo-seperation on it. As it is right now it sounds monotone for some reason. Strings are always supposed to be stereo, meaning that I should feel like like the sound is coming from both my left and right side and not somewhere in the middle. The piano sounds really poor. Gotta completely replace that soundfont in my opinion, but you a lot of improvement could be done with some simple eq and reverb.

Didn't really enjoy that electronic lead mixed in with the classical instruments. If you are going to mesh classic and electronic elements, you need to have an equal number of classic and electronic elements, or the piece sounds more like a clasical song with an electronic lead rather than an electro-classic piece.

The track in general is quite samey and could use some variation.

Though I do get how the track might depict a cave, I honestly didn't feel like it properly caught the dark and ambient feel of the art at all.

Arrangement: 3/5
Mixing: 2/5
Sound Design: 2/5
Art Relevance: 3/5
Overall: 2.,5/5

Some decent ideas in this track, and I did like the chord progression, but there is too much that kinda deduct from the enjoyment.

[AIM - Bass Girl]

A.I.M Judging Review
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First of all, I want to say that when the bass in came at 0:07 my ears were bleeding. Way too sharp hi-end, even in the bass. I would suggest adjusting the hi-end on the bass. When the guitars came in it sounded a lot better, though I still had problem with bad hi-end. The problem isn't only that the bass is way too much boosted in the hi-end, but it's also that the frequencies getting boosted are the bad frequencies that are painful to most ears.

Otherwise, the arrangement is amazing, though maybe you could add one or two more riffs to make it even more interesting. Really great work at that end. The melodies are all epic and enjoyable, and the chord progressions are well thought true. the guitars are well mixed together, and they sound very well together. The drums are very well done, though I feel like the hi-hat had could have been mixed in a bit better. Almost sounded like the mic was to faar away from the hi-hat,(assuming that you recorded it?)
fits well with the art. Really liked how you added bass solos to emphasize the bass in the picture :).
Overall a pretty good track, but the hi-end problem is killing it for me.

Arrangement: 4/5
Mixing: 3/5
Sound Design: 3/5
Art Relevance: 5/5
Overall: 3.75/5

TSRBand responds:

Thanks for the detailed review :) sorry about your ears! RealFaction mentioned those issues with the bass tone as well, so I'm definitely going to have another look at that sometime to try and tame these rogue frequencies. The drums were arranged with EZDrummer 2 so it wouldn't be too hard to bring the hat up a bit either, playing/recording beats like this on a real kit is pretty far out of my league!