la-yinn's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[the night sky transforms]

Yeah I'd say it does what you want it to do, it's a calming ambient piece. Has some nice textures and sounds to it, there's nothing interfering with the overall vibe of the track.

I can hear some low bass and strings coming in and think they're wonderful but I just wish you'd have mixed them in to be just a tiny bit louder and/or a bigger part of the track. The main wobbly synth that starts at the intro keeps driving the piece where I feel like the other pieces together (strings / bass / melodic textures) could basically form their entire section.

I notice you moving towards that in the later half of the track but I was hoping you'd amp it up even further. That bass could have a few bars where it gets a bit louder and it would add a lot of emotion to the track, as it alternates between the different elements of the music.

Nice work though!

Rombit responds:

Not gonna lie, I got kinda lazy with this one, it was just a wildcard cuz I had to get something out today and I didn't really feel like making an actual good track like yesterday. It's just filler until I find some more inspiration. Thanks for your comment! Definetly check back tommorow for something better (hopefully)!

[Make over machine]

Pretty chill vibe, I dig it. Has a bunch of positives going for it in terms of composition.

Only thing I'd critique is that it's mixed VERY softly, making it hard to hear whats going on without cranking my volume to twice what I usually let it sit at. Go to the master channel on your mixer and just add like +10db through the use of a limiter or compressor. Otherwise tracks like this get lost in the sea of newgrounds uploads, whereas I'd say it's pretty legit as it is.

DaxCamdaxian responds:

Thanks for taking a moment to point out that the mix was too low in volume, I really appreciate it, it's fixed now 👍

[Orbiting The Sun 3 Times (Jamuary Day 15)]

3 years fly by like its nothing eh?

I quickly took a peak to the other track you linked for some reference on where you started and where you are now with this piece. You definitely have grown a lot when it comes to building a track around the ambience, instead of just having some ambience haha.

I think this track would benefit a lot from having sweeping pads to compliment the melodies. You tend to overuse the same synth and it gets repetitive for such a long track. If your computer can handle it, try to work in some other sounds to take over the melody to break the monotony.

The counter melody you bring in at 2:56 for example is really nice but it doesn't shine because its the same synth sound. If you'd replace the main melody with a different synth, you'd get a lot richer texture to your music. Or even just remove the main melody for a little bit and then bring it back in later.

Keep doing your thing! 3 years down the road you'll be young beethoven, dw

Urielthepro responds:

Thanks for the review!
I'll try to take that into account in future songs.

[Cyb3r 7r4v3l3r | Electronic | Royalty Free Instrumental |]

Elevator music in space, yeah?

Going to the mooooooon, haha.

I like the structure and overall texture of the beat but I feel like the drums are pushed too far out of the mix. I can hear you have a snare in there but only because I'm REALLY looking for it. The reverb on some of your melodic components is too wet, they're interfering with eachother and making multiple parts on the spectrum a little bit muddy.

Generally, adding reverb to multiple parts of a track isn't a bad thing but it sounds like you have long delay and high wetness on multiple things at the same time. Try letting 1 thing shine at the same time and automate some parameters on the reverbs to change em up, definitely helps drive the ambience along too!

Aalasteir responds:

Thank you for your thoughtful review.

[FD - Finely Aged Space Cocktail]

Dude, this is such a vibe. Actually so good.

Rinsed it probably three times over the last half hour or so. I love this stuff.

I took the opportunity to check out some of your other stuff, mainly the hip-hop-esque tracks you posted 1-2 years ago. Also very good. You know your stuff.

I just really wish you did some more dnb / jungle tracks!

ForgottenDawn responds:

Cheers, thanks for listening :)

[You Make Me Feel... (DnB)]

Very mellow, for sure. I can appreciate this for what it is, the break in the 2nd half is very nice and fills up the piece well. I do think you could add more dynamics or modulations to the main driving pad though. Experiment with automating the reverb and cutoff together to drive the piece forward a bit more. You can also add another pad as a second layer and then automate that aswell to make them flow over into one another, complimenting the main melody.

Perhaps some lyrical samples at the intro and mid sections could fill up the gaps currently present in the mix. If all else fails, don't forget to master the track so that it's a tad louder overall. You have a lot of room to do this without ruining any transients.

As it stands it's pretty cool though, I enjoyed listening to it! Reminds me of a lot of mellow jungle tunes. Keep at it. :-)

Fun fact, I remember Big Bud from when I first started listening to Bassdrive.com 15 years ago. He just released his promotional mix for his album, think I still have it on my pc. White widow remains an absolute jam to this day. I tried looking up 'Alzair' to get an idea for what style you were referring to, but both youtube and google left me hanging.

xanxoepico responds:

Ay thanks for your criticism, I definitely could've worked on it more, but I kinda ran out of ideas, and I've also been on a very relaxed mind when it comes to music due to jamuary Lol

Also I messed up the track I meant was "Alzir" not Alzair XD

[Why Do Anything At All]

You exist so that others may appreciate you being your existential, wacky, groovy self.

Stay groovin, stay existing. Cut the meaninglessness though. Youre better than that. :-)

Side note, it's cool to come back to this place and still see familiar names around. I really need to pop in more often.

Quarl responds:

I'm better than nothing, the next blog I write is gonna be a cascade of videos and pictures of our cat that just passed away. Allow me a little sadness right now la-yinn, I'll be manic again in a month :3

edit: theres a sense in comfort seeing them old names <3

[Keep (ft. The Emerald Ruby)]

When we got paired up in the same pool I immediately remembered some of your music from years ago and how even back then you made some legit beats. Kind of saw you as the main competition.

Things have only gotten better since then, eh? This grooves like mad! Its wildly different than what I thought you'd post since I remember you posting more electronica / EDM based music back then.

Keep the beats flowing and GL in the deathmatch :-)

midimachine responds:

thanks! i have access to a lot of goooood stuff thru my job now so that has changed things for me a bit :)

good luck to u too

[3 AM]

Dude. Tune! I feel like between the mixdown and the arrangement, the mixdown is the real winner. That break is very crisp and tight. Maybe a bit too overpowering for the rest of the track though.

I feel like the intro could introduce some bass elements and have them stick through the bridge to fill it up a bit more though. And the piano is kind of out of place; probably FL Keys? I hate FL keys. Only way to make that work is to layer itself with many notes octaves up and down and to seperately adjust the volume of the notes to 'pick the right frequency' if you will. Oh, and a fuckton of reverb. And some volume attack on the notes. And pre-transients. Really, it just sucks. Dont use FL Keys.

Tune though! Dont expect this kind of work on NG but sometimes you land on nice exceptions.

5TanLey responds:

It's actually the giant piano library for kontakt 5, but I managed to make it sound like fl keys lol.. too much compression maybe.. or I could try some other vst

anyway, thanks for your thoughts :)

[Sonic Forces - Sunset Heights]

Im usually scrolling down the DNB page for anything industrial or neurofunk related, but a part of me remains impressed with videogame remixes. When they're done *this* right, at least. It could just be me but I feel like the lead melody during the drop could've been ever so slightly louder.

Either way, this was 3 minutes well spent.

PaulyBFromDa303 responds:

Thank you very much for that input that really means a lot! Yeah the volume was actually something I really struggled with. Once the full version is up on my page you'll hear the Hawaiian guitar a lot more prominently as well as the steel drums. But even then I still had to compress the guitar +60% and somehow, I too feel like it wasn't enough. Perhaps this will be something to investigate once I get a chance to use those instruments again

Thank you again for your honesty. I love reviews like this