Step's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[PPC2 - Forest I]

I definitely imagine a forest when hearing this...

An amazing start to what I'm sure will be a great trilogy. I enjoyed it quite a lot.

The melodies are light-hearted and catchy in the first half of the song, and at 3:14, when the choir ambience comes in, it was really cool. It sort of felt like the first part of the song is people going for a walk in the forest, enjoying themselves, and then they suddenly find themselves lost in the depths of the forest, and find out that it's no ordinary forest at all... Lol, cheesy as hell XD.

Anyway, the instrument choice here was really excellent, and in all the instruments felt really good together. I liked that guitar pluck-ish sound you first used at 0:13. Sadly, the quality here is off, and it really ruined this awesome song quite a bit. Some forest sound effects would do wonders over here, and although I think I did notice a few effects already, you should add more like the wind on the trees and bushes, crickets, more birds chirping, and maybe some things which leave the listener wondering about them, like sounds of footsteps.

The transitions were excellently done, with instruments being introduced so well. I was looking for a few more buildups here and there, but other than that, the structure is very good too, with amazing variety around, without making it sound random. I just didn't like the transition you did at around 3:14, to change from the main melody to the slower ambient one. It was sort of abrupt. What I would do is keep the main melody going instead of stopping it, and then slowly fading it as the ambient voices come in, instead of giving it such a sudden change.

The intro was OK, but those clicks felt a little strange. Still, I liked how the instruments all came in, they didn't feel sudden yet so many instruments came in at the same time. The ending wasn't that good, though, since it's just an abrupt fade. I think you should keep the fade, since it sort of pictures that the forest stretches on very far, and doesn't just end, but I think you shouldn't make it that abrupt, or, rather, make it seem more obvious that it's a fade, like at the end you could repeat the chorus that you played at the beginning but just a little louder and then you can start a long fade of about 10 seconds or so.

There weren't really any drums, and I agree with Darklight, you should add some drum beat with some reverbed timpanis, bass drums and some gongs or something in a few parts of the song, or you can add forest sound effects here and there as I mentioned above, since as the song is now, it just feels slightly empty, and you should remember that a forest is far from empty...

This is really fun to listen to, and portrays a lot of imagery of forests and stuff in my mind. It's got catchy melodies, excellent instrument choice, not a bad intro, good transitions, structure and variety, but I think the main problem here is the quality. Darn, I wrote too much. D:
9/10
5/5

-Review Request Club-

Monkeydelic responds:

Thank you :)

I've been thinking about adding some more effects, especially forest sounds and wind sounds and so on.
I'll work on the last transition, as i myself always thought it sounded kinda weird, but by the time it came to record it, i had already ended it the way it does, so there was no way of fading smoothly into that part.
New mic is coming up :)
And about the drums, i totally agree that it would do good with some kinda drum track, but i don't know if i should use a program to create drums, or just record them using stuff around the house, i'll have to play around with that alittle bit.

Thanks for taking the time to write such a long review, it is greatly appreciated :)

Namaste.

[One Gun]

Really cool!

This impressed me quite a bit, and although it has its defects, it's awesome :D.

As usual, the melodies here are just so awesome, but you rock at melodies anyway, so you should get used to me saying that in your songs :P. Loved the alternate melody at 0:26, and the one at the beginning was epic too. The main instrument over here did get quite annoying after a few listens, but the pluckish sound of 0:26 was really nice. I wish there were more instruments playing at the same time though, since the variety of instruments over here was nothing too special. Loved the pitch bending on that instrument though, it was just extraordinary, and so were the little sound effects here and there, like the reverse cymbal.

The transitions, especially the ones done with the effects, were done excellently, and I liked the snare roll at the beginning too. For a small loop, the structure here is excellent, with melodies flowing together so well, and this didn't get repetitive at all. Really enjoyed the intro, it started the loop up fantasticly, and this looped brilliantly as well.

The drums had made excellent transitions, were just the right noise, had excellent samples, fit really well with the song, were varied greatly and in general sounded really cool. No complaint over here ;).

The reasons why I gave you a 9 are practically because this was kinda short, and it needs just a few more instruments to it, with the main instrument changed a little. Other than those, this song is one of your best work so far, and sounds great, with a little video-game-ish and boss-battle-ish style to it. Good job, keep up the great work!
9/10
5/5
Download.

-Review Request Club-

[If A Dream Came True]

Why?

Why didn't you even get 1 top 5 from all of the about 80 of your submissions. I don't even see how 0-bombers have the heart to 0-bomb songs as amazing as these.

Melodies, as stated in the other reviews, are just beautiful, but I don't even know why I even say that in every review I leave on your songs. It should be obvious now, lol XD. The piano melody was very nice, and so was the flute melody. Instruments are just amazing, except the piano which needs a bit more fullness to it (like some reverb or maybe a less abrupt piano sample), and the piano, which had a bit too much of a pitch bend to it. Other than that, the instruments sound so great together. I absolutely loved 2:17 as well, it made a nice climax to the song, and felt just so epic. Brilliant strings too, and the choir voices were cool as well.

The transitions were made perfectly, as usual. Good job on the reverse cymbal, and the buildups were gradual, professionally done and out of this world. Extraordinary structure, with no chorus but no randomness or repetitiveness to it. I honestly can't make a song sound random without a chorus repeated every 16 or so bars, but you made the song sound so fun-to-hear, varied, and great. The intro was great too, and if I had to go through it, I wouldn't change a thing, but unfortunately, the ending didn't impress me much. Piano endings are quite hard to make without sounding like a sudden stop, so I think you should remove the quiet piano at the end and added a final long-ish note with the flute at the end.

Drums, like Darklight said, are slightly too quiet, and there was a kick which was reverbed quite a lot, and didn't fit much with the song. Other than that, from what I can hear, the drums are quite well varied, although nothing really too special.

I rarely give out less than 10/10 in your songs, and this is just another review with that score =.= . The only things which bothered me a little were mainly the drums and ending, because other than that, this song has no right to not be in the top 30. Even your old songs impress the heck out of me. It takes a lot of talent to write a song as amazing as this, and you're full of it. Keep up the amazing work, can't wait to hear more masterpieces from you.
10/10
5/5
Download.

-Review Request Club-

ErikMcClure responds:

Most of the problems you mentioned are simply because its an old song, but I don't want to change it for fear of ruining what I consider to be one of my best songs.

[We Believe Ep.2 - F-777]

Just another fantastic part of the awesome Megamix

Amazing job, this song is excellent.

The melody here is really, really awesome, and catchy. A happy melody, but still really fun-to-listen-to and great. I loved when you switched to longer more ambient notes somewhere around the middle of the song, and the bells added a nice touch to a song as awesome as this. The instruments are honestly just superb. Do you make them yourself, or if not, what samples do you use? They always sound so great. Nice use of the sound effect too.

What impressed me a lot here were the transitions. They stopped the song from getting boring, since the main melody is repeated quite a few times, but the way the melodies linked to each other so well just kept me listening till the end and keeping it on repeat for ages. Drum rolls, effects, percussive booms, I really don't know how you can make such nice transitions. The variety here isn't really an issue, and although there aren't many alternate melodies, this song didn't get repetitive at all. The intro was really good, and it was a great idea to have it linked from Ep. 1, and the sound effect used just made it sound even better. The ending was OK too, and sounds nice when having it linked to the third episode.

The drums, as usual, were flawless, and the way they matched with the song was amazing. I don't see how you're able to make drums sound so well. Amazing samples too.

I usually write longer reviews than this, but I don't have much to say for this. It's too awesome for words. Really, keep up the amazing work. Now to go and review the other series... :P.
10/10
5/5
Download.

-Review Request Club-

[We Believe Ep.1 - F-777]

3... 2... 1...

I've listened to all of the We Believe series, but never got round to reviewing them, until now, and I must say, this series is epic, and this song starts the series greatly.

The melodies are awesome, especially the one at around 1:17, and the part a few seconds after where it switches to long notes was extraordinary. Instruments are fantastic too, with some really unique sounding ones. I liked that sound effect you used throughout the song (and throughout most of the series too :P) which you first used at around 1:29, it helped the song flow so much better.

Transitions are a definite win too. You mixed the sound effect I mentioned so well throughout the song, and the melodies fit in greatly together. The structure is great, and even though this doesn't have a fixed chorus, the melodies fit really well together. The different effects you did and awesome variety of instruments gave this a lot of variety too. I see you used a vocal preset in FL Studio taking away the 'prepare for launch' at the beginning :P. I fit really nicely with the song though, and I liked the sound effects you did at the beginning. The ending wasn't that great, but I guess that's because it expects the 2nd episode to answer to it, so it doesn't really matter.

Percussion fits so well in this song, and are just the right loudness. Very, very good samples, along with some amazing variety throughout the song. They never got boring, and made some nice transitions. I liked the kick you used here too.

It's a really awesome song, and a great start to the series. I can't really find anything wrong with it. Keep up the great work, man, you're definitely one of the best artists here on Newgrounds, and songs like these are there for proof.
10/10
5/5
Download.

-Review Request Club-

[ECHO - Reverb-X (2009)]

Nice :D

It's quite cool sounding, even though it has a few defects.

The melodies are definitely the best part of this song. Catchy enough to stay locked in my head and never get out, probably. I loved the piano solo at the end not to mention the part at 1:22, where the trumpet answered to the two notes before it. Speaking of the trumpet, let's move on to the instruments. Well, there's definitely a unique sounding batch of instruments around here (who knew a TRUMPET would fit in an electronic dance song?!). Still, unfortunately, the fact that they're all presets, or sound a LOT like them, makes your song sound very generic. If you're downloading something, make sure it doesn't sound like a preset or you'll get loads of people like me complaining about them. Still, I won't take the score down because of the preset use, since the melodies compliment them really well. Still, as SessileNomad said, the bassline was much too repetitive, so you could work on that ;).

The transitions were awesomely done, and the melodies flowed excellently together. I liked the drum roll you did to introduce the drums, so that they wouldn't come in too suddenly. The structure is great too, and the song, although had quite a few repetitions of the main melody, still didn't feel repetitive. Maybe it was the variety of instruments. Anyway, now for the intro. Definitely a good way to start the song, and the buildup after was excellent. The ending was really good too, even though piano endings never come out that excellently. Maybe you could give a big chord to the piano at the end along with that reverbed kick thingy to give it more of an ending.

The drums, although are catchy and nice, were presets as well. I didn't notice much editing you put into it. If you're going to edit a preset, make sure it doesn't sound anything like the original, if you don't want it to sound generic. If you really want to use Improvised Bongoes, then I suggest taking the bongoes playing at the end of the preset away, since they sound ugly. I think they're the Op 5 of the preset, just right click Op 5's knob under Output in the matrix to take it away. Well anyway, apart from the fact that they're a preset, they still fit very nicely with the song. I think they could be a little louder though, but that's nothing a little mastering can't fix.

Definitely a cool-sounding improvement to the original (sorry Scooter-16 :P), so good job. Practically, the only real problem is that the instruments are mostly presets so they sound too generic. Other than that, excellent job. Oh, and don't mind if I gave a 10 on Scooter's and a 9 on yours, I wasn't so harsh back then :P.
9/10
5/5
Download.

-Review Request Club-

Echo responds:

hehe You? Harsh? Nah... Who would honestly say that....(I would!) Shut up Conscience! :P

Yeah, i guess i did use some presets but since they were in the original i couldn't change them too much, copyright and all. About the Bongoes, i lowered the volume on the bongoes at the end. Didn't remove them completely though. Will do that in the revised ver...

Thanks for the review man! Cya
Darklight17

[Deep_Town_Blues [Box-Killa]]

Not bad :)

It's an OK jazz piece, but still has a few defects.

The melody in the background was great, especially the bass, and the guitar sounds quite nice even for improvised. I didn't even notice it was actually improvised until you said, but it still is a little random. The instruments are nice, especially the sax and the bass, along with the guitar, but I guess that's because it's real anyway. I think you should take away the reverse cymbal you used. I usually like hearing reverse cymbals in songs, but this is supposed to be jazz, and jazz performances aren't able to play a reverse cymbal as far as I know.

The transitions here are OK, and the guitar's melodies were all introduced quite well. Quite a good song structure, and great variety, if not just slightly a bit random. I just think the backing melody, as Darklight said, was too quiet and too repetitive, although awesome at the same time.

The intro was fine, but I think you should either remove the first repetition of the sax melody at the beginning where there's no drums or add 2 repetitions without drums at the beginning, since as it is now, the drums seem to come in at the wrong time. TBH, I really was hoping this wouldn't have a fade, since fade endings very rarely turn out good. I was thinking, maybe you could remove the fade entirely, play the very first note you played in this song with the sax one last time except a full bar long, and then give it some silence at the end. It should sound better than the ending.

The drums, like the backing melody, were very repetitive as well, and practically were the same thing throughout the whole song, while being too quiet as well. Still, the samples weren't bad. I think you should remove that snap though and maybe add a ride cymbal, since usually the cymbals in Jazz sound much more echoey and not so abrupt like that hi-hat you used there. The drums fit pretty well with the song though, especially with the backing track, apart from that problem which Sonofkirk mentioned regarding the bass which I didn't even understand a letter of it because I'm only Grade 3 Theory :(.

Anyway, overall not a bad little mixture of Jazz and Blues. Not a bad job in general ;).
7/10
4/5

-Review Request Club-

Box-Killa responds:

lol im at level 0 theory and i understand completely, i suppose ive just go a nack for it lol. Yes to everything you said lol, except the drums do come in at the right time lol, listen to it a couple times lol.

thanks to the review, i sorta just found a nice progression and didnt really extend upon that, i just wanted to improvise and record it lol, nothing that special. But thanks for the review :D if i ever get some good gear i will make another one :D

[Sapphire's '09 Voice Demo]

Wow, that's some talent you got there...

Definitely the best voice acting audio piece I've ever heard on Newgrounds, awesome job.

The variety of voices are amazing, and were played out very, very well. The one of the little girl impressed me quite a bit. It honestly sounds like a different person is saying every single one of those.

Amazing job on the effects in the background too. The one at the beginning was the best, and I liked the effect you did on your voice to make it sound demon-like somewhere at the beginning. Towards the end though, there weren't many more sound effects or anything. Maybe you can add a few melodies playing along with your voices which fit with the scene in most parts.

Other than the fact that I think a bit of music in the background for some scenes would be better, this voice acting is amazing. Keep up the good work :D.
10/10
5/5

-Review Request Club-

[[Assios] - Midnight]

Wow, this is great :D

You've got a great song going right now, but just some problems make me give you a 9 instead of a 10. Aren't I cruel X).

The melody is awesome, and very catchy. So was the bass. The instruments here, although a little bit on the generic side, are still quite awesome, and the string addition at a little more than half through the song was quite unexpected and was excellent. Dunno why, but fast paced strings always fit well with midnight-ish songs :S. I like the little effects you did here and there, like the reverse cymbal or sweep thing you did at the beginning. I don't think you should add applause in this song though, since you're supposed to be picturing yourself driving down a highway while it's midnight, and applause sort of took that picture away from you and gave you a picture of an audience watching a performance of this song instead. Maybe you could add a wind effect instead, picturing the wind soaring by?

The transitions here were great, and I noticed a lot of nice drum transitions, reverse cymbals and fade-in's. New instruments were introduced perfectly, and all the melodies fit excellently together. Song structure is great too, so my only real complaint here is that it was quite repetitive. I didn't really notice any alternate melodies, and the only thing which was a break from the original melody was the ambientish part towards the middle of the song. This needs an introduction to an alternate melody somewhere, and although the instruments are nice and varied, the amount of melodies need working on. Good job with the intro, it started the song up excellently, and the ending was good too, but you should add a lot more silence to the end, and maybe add a long ending note as well.

The drums here are quite original and really fun to listen to. I liked the kick you used here, although as Chromonaut said, it's too unfiltered. Other than that, I noticed some really awesome things in the drums, like that sound at 2:15. Was that a reverse kick or something? Whatever it was, it rocked. I liked the double snares too. There was a nice amount of awesome sounding samples too, and in general, the drum beats were really well varied without getting random. They were just the right loudness and fit excellently with the song. The drums here rock.

Well, it's an almost flawless song, but like all other songs, it has a few negatives. In all, I really enjoyed it, and if you work on the stuff I said above, this song will be perfect in my opinion. Overall, great job, and sorry for the long review, you've got to get used to that when being reviewing by me ;).
9/10
5/5
Download.

-Review Request Club-

Assios responds:

Whoa, that's really a kickass review you've got there, THANKS! :D

I totally agree with you, especially on the repetitiveness-part. When I listened to it after I had uploaded it, I thought it would be better if I had an alternate melody at 01:52. I was gonna do it (I even have the melody i was gonna put there in my head), but I just haven't done it yet. I'll definitely do it now tho', thanks! :)

I'll also make sure to test the song with other sfx's from 0:17-0:30, instead of the cheering sound.

And yes, the sound at 2:15 is a reversed kick.

Thanks again for an awesome review!! :)

[Cast From the Stars (Chill MX)]

Nice :D.

Really good job, I enjoyed it a lot. Still, you keep some of the mistakes you did from the old Cast from the Stars.

Some of the melodies are quite different to the original, and sound really good, especially the piano parts. I just think that, as Bluepulse said, it's missing something. You should add some more effects and reverb on some of the instruments. Give it some more of a space-like feeling to it. Still, the instruments are all great, especially that instrument playing along with the piano at the beginning.

The transitions are great, especially using the reverse cymbal thing to transit from one melody to another. Awesome structure too, and although this song is very long, it's not repetitive at all, and I understand how hard it is to do that. Nice intro too, but the ending is practically the same as the other one. It's a good ending, but definitely needs more silence after, like, say, 3 seconds at the least. Then, you could add a delay to the last note, or maybe you can do a quick fade the instrument that plays with the piano at the beginning. It feels too sudden as it is now.

The drums are awesome, and exellently varied, with one of the best drums samples I've heard in a while. A little simple at times, but in all they're really good percussion that fit nicely with the song.

Well, I can't say it's better than the original, and I can't say that it's worse. This one's slower and more laid back, while the other is faster and action-packed. It depends what you prefer. Still, you executed both of them very well, so great job :D.
9/10
5/5 - Zerobombers FTW :D!!... not.

-Review Request Club-

Bracksta responds:

wow thanks for the great review! right now i am doing a collab with gravy and he is mastering it also so i will see what he does and practice my EQ skills and lil thinks like you said. AND THANK YOU FOR OFFSETTING THE BOMBERS, lol. peace bro