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Right off the bat, I'm seeing brick-wall, sausage-casing mixing -- leave more headroom before mastering.

Drop is freaking fire. Had to stop what I was writing (I did this review on paper in a coffee shop) to comment.

Really interesting take on the tune; just too over-compressed for me to enjoy properly. Drums between drops are also a bit too loud, another symptom of heavy compression, and the mix lends itself to almost white-noise levels most of the piece. Despite that, it actually feels shorter than it is, which should speak to you about your phrasing: you're doing something right.

Fix the EQ/Compression issues, and this is a solid 9/10 for me.

Thanks for coming out to NGRMC!

Hippokopter responds:

First of all, it really means a lot to me that you wrote this review by hand in a freaking coffee shop first, just so that you could tell me about what you think of this song! Thanks so much!

About the premaster - most artists actually mix to 0dB just because that's easier to think about. To clarify, by most artists, I mean the ones with millions of fans and thousands of producers imitating their styles: VR, Panda Eyes, etc. Not that I don't get what you're saying, but it's not like I'm sending my songs off to a mastering engineer - heck, I do every song in just one project file! All I'm saying is that headroom is something that this genre doesn't need too much of. :)

As for master EQ, yeah, point taken. I just got a book on mastering, and boy does my mindset for EQ need work. xD

Finally, I really appreciate your comment about phrasing, I've never known what good phrasing is, and so it's nice to know that I'm doing okay on that front.

Again, thanks for leaving such a detailed review! :P

Diggin' the intro. Could definitely do with more low cut on that reverb though.

0:45 our chords are starting to sound harmonically condensed and chunky. Careful not to cram too many low frequencies down there or you'll start to get that choked timbre. Intervals between lower notes are way more dissonant than intervals between higher notes. If I'm not crazy, search up lower interval limits and you'll see what I mean.

Sounds like your sub may not be on the root of each chord. This gives an interesting but not necessarily satisfying tonality, as we again have that chunky feeling.

1:36, nice big open section, but your sub isn't enough to hold it up on its own. Prop up that nice, spacy, synthy goodness with a grittier bass on top of that sub, nice and clean. Growls may do nicely.

You've taken an adventurous approach both stylistically and instrumentally, but it really feels like a lot of the same stated in different timbres, definitely enough that 4:48 minutes is a lot of time to kill.

Probably your best section is 2:45. Most balanced, best growth. That said, it does grow on me the longer I listen.

Watch out for clipping. 2:53 I thought I heard some straight up overdrive on that transition. In short, instrumentation was fine but I'd have loved to hear some new material on this. As is, it sounds like a lot of the same for a really long time -- a classic symptom of overly long tracks.

Still, enjoyed the piece. Look forward to seeing you next year!

Thanks for coming out to NGRMC!

Interesting chord progression. Considering I've heard the same melody/key for the past few days and haven't heard these 4 chords yet, huge plus.

I can see you're going for a synthwave vibe. One thing I'll get out of the way right now, this track is brick-wall sausage-tube compressed; the longer and louder it goes on, the more it resembles a cacophony of birds. I'd recommend about -6 dB headroom before applying any such compression to the master. This track is almost totally relying on said compression to keep it from peaking over 0 dB and clipping. A quick fix to ensure this never happens is to mix in 32 bit floating point, but you should never really have this problem to begin with.

A track should already be sounding balanced before you touch the master; if it isn't, fool with the individual track levels until it sounds nice and pretty. As is, it's so loud, I can hardly hear individual elements like the snare in the mix. Why? The snare was already not quite set strong in the mix before compression was applied, pushing levels even further out of balance. Definitely recommend some time studying mixing and mastering.

Also, on the subject of 80's vibes, you'll want to check out gated reverb. Gated reverb snares are massive, strong, powerful. I feel this is the sound you wanted on your snare.

Beyond that, the mix, was very tinny and mid heavy. Watch your spectrum so that you aren't peaking so bad in those talk-radio fizzy frequencies. If you naturally have problems in this aspect as I do, first, check that you are not mixing on consumer-grade equipment, most of which has bass or treble boosting "enhancements" that give a false representation of sound.

Secondly, there are mastering help aids like TB Euphonia which can help with frequency management on your masters. Simply create curves from the music you like and TB Euphonia will process your songs with it.

Thirdly, if you use Win 10, make sure you aren't using Bang & Olufsen or Realtek Audio drivers. They used to be the best in the business, but now they horribly compress and EQ output like a cheap Beats knockoff, making it impossible to get a good impression of your mix.

Beyond that, great composition, just some minor gripes.

Thanks for coming out to NGRMC!

Pardon the brevity of this review; I wrote it out in a notebook in a coffee shop!

Bell synth is super sibilant in that 18-22k range. Watch that in your EQ.

Absolutely did not expect the olskool dance hall/club touches throughout this piece. Huge and very pleasant surprise. Particularly loved the sample you chose. Nice, punchy, and makes me wanna dance. You've also sliced it well.

Your verse sections by contrast are a bit empty/tinny with that lead synth. Although the writing is fantastic, the mixing -- needs more bass, less volume on the sample, and could probably benefit from side-chain.

Overall, enjoyed the piece. Better, more balanced mix, and I'd give a solid 4. As is, it still stands on its own pretty well, just needs a bit more cohesion; look at the waveform. See how the choruses are huge and the build peaks don't even touch that for the majority of the piece? That's what I'm talking about. The structure of a song is always obvious, but your verses need to stand out in their own right.

Thanks for coming out to NGRMC!

Nice long chord progression -- I respect you haven't taken the easy way out with this piece and just slapped on some 4 chord sauce, especially with the atonal portions to follow.

0:28-0:59, this lead section is a bit long for my tastes, and said lead is both screaming loud and lacks a lot of modulation to give it that breath of life.

Overall, lot of atonal elements, and it often uses samples which have become so cliche, I've deleted them from my library -- like that lex luger riser. There just doesn't seem to be any case where it sounds good anymore. Making your own risers is going to impress a whole lot more tbh. Though, these sounds are memetic; people like them because they're safe, so I don't blame you for popping 'em out every so often.

The only thing I really feel this piece is lacking is some sub to give your drops much needed oomph, and perhaps harder mastering compression. If there is a sub on your drops, while I was first listening, I couldn't tell it apart from some mild background noise in the coffee shop I was in at the time of writing this review. I tried turning it up some more to hear but the snare was uncomfortably loud in comparison to the rest of the track, so I turned it back down.

One thing I do like is hanging out on that major I chord. Gives an otherwise roaming piece a sense of home.

Thanks for coming out to NGRMC!

TodukenMusic responds:

Tbanks for your review <3

But, i didn't used a Lex Luger riser, i used a riser from Vengeance Dubstep Sample Pack Vol.1

And yes, I need to make my own risers for more originallity hehe

Forgive the relative brevity/incoherence of this review; I did it on paper in a coffee shop slash book store, and now I'm rewriting/adding to it, lol.

Starting out, kick drum is too loud during your intro; perc in general is much too loud until the chorus. This sounds to me like your vocals haven't been properly compressed, along with your guitars.

Listening on speakers, they sound less thin than they had on my monitor headphones, but watch those high notes; I can feel you really reaching at points, sometimes overshooting or going flat. May check out some voice training by Ken Tamplin. Every issue you're having, intonation, overall volume, pitchy head voice/falsetto, his singing course addresses (and most of it can be found on YT, albeit more sparsely than in the DVD/online materials).

I can't tell if you're sitting or standing, but if you're sitting, definitely recommend standing to sing. It will make a huge difference in your air stream. Another few tips from the series -- you know how you laugh? From your belly, right? Breathe from there. Let your diaphragm, not your chest, drive your singing. Practice good posture, good tongue posture -- open up like the doc has you in his office with a tongue suppressor, so your singing resonates off of your palate -- if you're doing it right, it should make you feel like yawning -- and if you practice with scales, and I recommend you do, the staccato HAH-HAH-HAH-HAH method is the way to go.

This alone improved my singing in a single session, enough I feel the need to re-do every piece I've ever sung on tbh. You've got a good voice hiding under there. I can hear it peeking out. May be something to look into.

Now, writing here is pretty good; good chord progression, steady pacing, good variation of texture. Never too soft, never too hard. Guitars overall could stand to come up in the mix except for the naked section before 3:00.

Final chorus ends abruptly, bringing all the instrumentation back. I would have slowly pared it down to another naked vocal/guitar section. Bringing everything back is a signal, "We're going to have one last, long chorus," and then poof.

I will say the vocals, both written and delivered, sound very non-native to my ear -- BUT your chorus itself is viral. It's the verses that need more of a natural touch. As I was writing this review out, long after the song ended, it still hung in my head.

Overall, some minor gelling issues between synths and guitars, but otherwise I dig it.

Thanks for coming out to NGRMC!

TheMoebiusProject responds:

Thanks! Very helpful! This was done in only a day so yeah it is pretty rough. You are right about the vocals, Could have been better had I given it a little more detail and practice jaja I practically made it and recorded it as I went. Anyways, thanks for the review. Gonna make some adjustments and make it a full on song. Wish it does go viral :P.

Forgive the brevity; I did this on paper. If I'm correct, this is the first iteration of your submission -- great, will make a good baseline for evaluating the next piece.

Opening house beat had me primed for some super chill disco, and that looks like what we've got here. One of my favorite genres. Synth lead feels like a modern EDM fusion. Chord progression satisfies -- one of those infinite loop progressions. Smooth as glass. Extra half star.

Obvious synth bass is obvious. I'd have liked some more modulations with that and sharper articulations. Slap bass is super punchy. Synth bass has the proclivity for just laying there in a mix if you don't really watch it.

You may appreciate the free bass synth ABPL from Ample Sounds. Massaged the right way, it does funk and other non-low-tuning genres flawlessly. If you decide to check it out, do also pick up AGML; I haven't used it in a long time, but if I remember correctly, it's a nice Taylor Acoustic.

Now, your arrangement does feel a bit empty with just bass, lead, and drums -- what feels like a drum loop at that. Pretty cool that you whipped it up in a few hours though; efficiency is a thing to be prized in the music business.

Chord progression is great -- sounds like the vocals are too far down in the mix, and the bass is slightly too loud though.

Lead sounds pretty good, but I might add a bit more FX or glitching just to give it that extra touch of life. You could try anything from filter mods to gated reverb, phasing, chorus, etc. 2nd repetition is always a good opportunity to layer in harmonies (thirds may be a good choice here) or variations on the melody.

Lemme know if you have any questions I left unanswered. I know this isn't super specific!

That initial fantasia-ish pike reminds me of a song I used to listen to -- swear I can't remember the name, but it was a remix of some Tinashe song. You'll know it if you've ever heard it.

Now, our intro is quite long, 2 minutes. Not a huge issue, except it gives me a lot of time to focus on the articulations and rather centered panning of lots of your orchestral synths. At 2:16 I'm confronted with this airy timpani; there's so much reverb on it, that's just about all I hear.

With better libraries, this could be a banger. Do note there are tons of free libraries out there if you're willing to spring for Kontakt, and if not, there are also tons of samplers/romplers out there for you to make these libraries yourself. As is, the strings at 1:16 sound extremely washed out, depending almost entirely on reverb for any sense of breath; this leaves them sounding muddy, also.

3:15, that lead is up way too high in the mix, and too dry. The rest of the instruments themselves are far too reverbed to pick out clearly.

Rubito piano sounds fine to me. Perhaps a hair late, but one could always drag that first bit out a little more to cope.

Overall, very imaginative take on the piece. Changing the time signature and genre, twice? Who'd'a thunk. :P I was also very pleased by your chord progressions in general, especially 3:00 to close.

Thanks for coming out to NGRMC!

SplatterDash responds:

Hey, thanks so much for taking the time to to judge my piece! I really enjoyed getting your feedback on this, especially since this was the first time that I tested out a couple of free VSTs, including DSK Overture and Orpheus. Because this is the first time I used them, some of the sounds (mainly the strings and timpani) may have sounded a bit off. I'm hoping I can get a better sound someday with this.

I can honestly agree, 3:15 was a challenge with the lead. I wanted the melody to stick out, since the glass piano was being drowned out by everything else, but the device I used made it stick out either too much or, when I tweaked it, too little. I actually had the same problem at 3:27, and that of course didn't work out as well :p

I've been getting tons of comments about the intro being too long, and listening to it I can understand why. The reason why I made it as long as I did was because I was inspired by a piece called Atlas, which can be found here: https://youtu.be/Bw2Up2BRRII I know how I could improve that intro in the future, though, so hopefully I can improve that easily.

Thank you again for the review! Decided to take a different route and do something different with the melody, so I figured an Eb melody in 7/8 would do. Really glad that you enjoyed this, and I'm hoping that I can get used to more VSTs. Maybe I will even come back to this and make it better :D

Super unique take on the main melody. Not often I see people take chip into the competition environment, and even less often I see a genuinely entertaining 8-bit remix. You make those chip instruments sing, although the outside elements like the kick stick out a bit in the mix due to the condensed texture chip tends to have.

I have nothing but the highest praise for your lead writing and phrasing, as well as fantastic use of those static-y 8-bit sweeps. Just jammin'.

Thanks for coming out to NGRMC!

I make beats, metal, samples, patches, dnb, original game soundtracks, RVC voice models, and Russian/ English translation covers. Follow for monthly music producer freebies! Рада помочь русскоговорящим. Семплы вложены в ссылках вниз)))

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