Hellstick's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[{425} CraZe]

ROAR!

Meh, you sure have improved alot since I first heard one of your songs - before you became a relatively big shoot:P
Anyway, I'll try to see if i'm still able to help!

The intro is nice! I totally digg the melody. The amount of reverb is just right, and the synth is nice as well! Perhaps it should've been a LITTLE harder, but it's ok:P
Already at 0:07 you throw in another synth, and shortly after a beat kicks in. It all works ok, but something is missing. Don't know what... I just think it is:S
Fuck that, you throw in a snare at 0:25 that's pretty nice, and it leades the listener closer to the climax in a verry efficent way. Good job on that as well.

Let's skip to the part at 1:07 where the 4/4 beat kicks in:P This is what i'd say should've been the climax of the song, but it doesn't quite work as well as I'd have wanted it. The buildup showed up to be a letdown, and the whole song just seems like one smooth transission to me. I want to be kicked in the face when the climax kicks in, but this was just boring:S

A small breakdown occurs at 2:01 and the song quickly carries on afterwards with a new beat, where after it ends.

In general:
The variation was creative, and i gotta give you probs for all the ideas you came up with, and the percussion is nice as well. However, it sounds like there's a synth pattern going on through the whole song. It makes it feel as if the song is just one long buildup, and it just doesn't work.
I also miss a more specifik bassline. The current one is... meh... It barely even excist as far as i can hear:S Eather that, or it just verry well hidden in the rest of the song. I personally think you should be able to depart the different elements of a song from each other. This is hard in this song, so that really pulls down rating i'll give ya...
Fuck that though. What i like the most in this song is the beginning. That melody is just so damn nice.

Anyway, I'm starting to talk nonsense, so i'll jump right to your rating.
I'll rate the song 6-7/10, but since it's closer to 7 than 6, i'll give you 7/10.
Also, you said you'd check out my new song. I just thought i'd inform you that it's up now:) It's made entirely with my mouth, so it should be quite interesting^^

PEACE OUT!

Michael425 responds:

First off, thank you for the lengthy review. I upload onto Newgrounds for reviews like these man. thanks.

Im glad that you think i've improved. I haven't work as much on music as I would have liked, but I still try to get better.

Right before you left this review, I was also thinking that the main synth might not be loud enough. So I think i will fix that and re-upload it.

I probably should have put the climax at 1:07, but i had only made a short tune for an 8 bar transition. The real part I wanted the song to build up to was at 1:37. That's where I made it go crazy i.m.o.

for the bassline, I didn't really use a specific one. I tried to vary it as much as possible. I admit this song can get a bit cluttered and hard to tell apart the different parts, but hey, that's why it's called CraZe.

Thanks for the great review man. Always good to hear from you.

and your newest song is sick as hell b.t.w. amazingly creative. **reviewed**

[Crazy Swede! - Roflcopter!]

Interesting

I mainly listen to happy hardcore or hardstyle and the souch, so I'm not that much into house. However, I do like a house tune once in a while, even though I don't know much about it. I'll try to leave a review anyway, but don't expect any pro advice:P

Here we go. The intro is funny. It actually had me laughing for a while, but I honestly think there's to much echo:S It kinda ruins it somehow, even though the "vocal" seems as if it would fit pretty nicely into a house song.
The bass line kicks in around 0:23, and fuck me, It's nice! a LITTLE more bass would've been nice, but it's still very well done!:)
The kicks kicks in, and the bassline stops again. My firt thought is that the kick is too low. The volume needs to be turned up. However, the kick ITSELF (in terms of sound, not in volume) seems like it has the right "housy" feeling to it, all though it needs to be more "punchy":)
Then the hi hat begins. Again, I'm not much of a housefan, so I don't know if it's because im inexperienced, or because there's something wrong with the hat, but it just seems a little to "oldschool" for me:S The bass begins again, and it fits in perfectly. I simply love the twists you gave it. Thumbs up on that again!
There's some sounds at 1:50 that sounds like they hit the wrong tone. They somehow fit in anyway, but you might want to fix it anyway:S
The breakdown at 2:07 is decent as well. Works fine.
The beat comes back on, and you throw in some effects, some percussion and some vocal mixing. It all goes smoothly untill the weird sound at 2:52. It ruins it for me completely. It's so damn anoying:S
The song then ends. I'd have liked a little longer ending, as I do not recall house songs ending so suddenly. But fuck that.

In general I only have two things to say really... Firstly I'd have liked a part simmilar to the intro somewhere in the middle of the song (just for good measure:P). And secondly the part of the intro from 0:01-0:26 seems to be louder then the rest of the song:S Kind of anoying...

Anyway, sorry for my crappy english, I hope you were able to understand me:P I also hope my review was helfull! I'll go check out some of your other songs right away:)

-Hellstick

Johan1993 responds:

Ya, im neither a big house fan, im more like listening & producing hardstyle :>

thanks for the review btw, i find this really helpful :)

[Fuk U! Where Do I sign?]

Improvement!

YAY! A track's going out to me:P
I'll make this review really short though, so you'll have to bear with the little advice i'll give you...

The beginning is a little too noisecore-ish for me, butit fit surprisingly well with the rest of the song when the beat kicks in.
The glitchy sound is a nice touch, and they fit in really well. I dig them for sure:P
The bass line is better as well... I like the melody, and the fact that it sounds somehow like a guitar of some sort aint bad eather. However, there is a part in the middle of the song where you've put in a somehow happy n' jolly melody. It doesnt fit in, since the rest of the song have a rather dark feel to it...
The drums have to much treble, and you should try to add a few effects, even though you previously mentioned that you try to achieve that "minimalistic" drum and bass sound, where the drums and the bass is the only instruments in the song.

I'm sorry this review was a little rushed, but i'll give you a rating between 6/10 and 7/10 this time. Mostly because of your improvements:)

Pissomatik responds:

Oh man, I was was looking forward to the school'n. LOL Thanks I appreciate the review. I'm actually working in 2 different directions it seems. I actually added the intro part after everything else(inspired by older NIN), I remember someone telling me that one of my songs opened up too suddenly. As for that middle part, you hit the nail on the head, but that's what I was going for so it worked out great. Thanks for the compliment on the bass line. It's wierd because it's actually the same instrument with the same effects throughout. It's one of those "Happy Accidents" that Ishkur mentions about EDM on his site. All I did where it goes down in tone was literally changed the note and it did that little growling thing so I left it. One thing, if you've noticed is that I've been trying to do melody/glitch. It's a challenge to get the glitch to flow with the rest of the song so I'm glad to hear you that you liked it with everything else.

[Lucaspiration]

The review I promissed:)

First of all: You requested honesty in your newsbox, so I don't hope you hate me after this review:)

Hmmmm... I guess the sudden start is excused for the fact that this is a loop rather then a song, so I won't go into details with that. However, if you ARE going to make it into a song, I highly suggest that you make the intro a little more calm without the fast beat.

Anyway, the first hand impression of the drums is good. They get a little anoying in the long run though, and need some more variation. It mostly sounds like the song is around 30 minutes long, and have been repeated 3 times to make the song 1 minute and a few seconds long:S
The bassline gets anoying after a few listens, and it sounds like you hit the wrong notes some places in the song (for example at 0:03-0:04 and at 0:11 and so on)
It's simply to deep for my taste.
I also think I'll have to agree with the guy bellow, and say that it need more overdrive. You should also try n' split the bassline into smaller bits, and make it a little more rythim-ish , instead of making it "1 long conected bass", if you get what I'm saying:P It would add an interesting touch to the song.
The percussion is nice though. I really like the places where you stopped the percussion and then gently started it again slowly, as heard at 0:16 and at 0:34 again and so on. Nice details on that part.

The beat itself need to be more "punchy". It's simply to soft somehow:S

Oh well, I think that's about what I had to say:) I hope my review was able to help (if just a little), soooo... good lick with your future productions. I will try to check them out:)
Untill then, this song will have to do with a score of 5/10. It's not completely crap, but it's not perfect eather, so a score in the middle seems fair to me:)

Peace out, and happy mixing!

-Hellstick

Pissomatik responds:

Works for me. I am however trying to acheive depth in the bass, forgive me as I'm into ol'skoo jungle, but I guess with what I have here I might just go ahead and do the overdrive. Thanks for the input. As for the drums, I just went D&B standard. I'm attempting to get away from standardisation, which has been quite challenging. Oh, well. (Ok, I don't know what happened, but as I tried to respond the pic and score from below were blocking my "Respond!" button and now they're up in your review. WTF? Sorry for this extra bit here but everytme I click on edit then respond that dude pic and score go up the page. Anyone else experience this? Of course it could just be something with IE 8 beta.)

[Like a rocket (Dj Janze REMIX)]

Haven't heard the original...

But this remix sure does kick ass:)
I was a little affraid it'd turn out out crap at first... Mainly because of the spring/bounce thingie being a little to loud and the melody being a little weird.
It started so suddenly. I'd have liked an intro of some sort to prepare the listener for the track, but you jumped right into it instead.

Oh well. My wories disapear at at 0:14 when the melody start. Gotta give it to you... You REALLY hit the nail on the spot with that melody - it rocks!:)
At 0:27 you put on 2 of the most well known instruments in the hard dance/hands up genre. The kick and the bass. It's a pleasure to listen to, but you certainly need a clap of some sort.
Also, the beat is awfully monotomous. There's no tiwsts or turns. Just a plane old 2/4 kick with no changes. Same goes for the percussion and pretty much everything else in the track...

Anyway, the break at is ok. It's a little to simmilar to the main theme, and it kinda leaves me with a feeling that the break isn't there at all.

The main theme begins at 1:51 again. It's still nice, but it a qlimax needs something extra. You know, that little something that makes it more kick ass then the rest of the song. What you did, though, was practicly copying the part from 0:27 to 0:54 and put it in again.

Anyway, you did really well on the mastering (as the description suggested), and I have no idea why anyone would ram the 0 buttom without a propper reason:S
I'm not saying this song has no flaws, 'cause it definately have a few, but it's WAY past the 0 rating:)

I'll give you 4/5 and 7/10:)

DJ-Janze responds:

wow thank you very much ! :) i know what you are talking about. you can call this radio remix , it starts so suddenly like you say. and everything you say is so true, i remaster this tune today night , i upload new version tomorrow. your comment is helpfull! i try your help ;) comment tomorrow the new version, i try to be more creative.

[Take on my bootleg]

YARH me hearty:D

Oh god, this reminds me of a remix of the exact same song that I made myself XD It's here on ng if you'de like to hear it or something:P

Anyway. I can hear you used a cut out from the original song for the beginning. This is rather risky, since you need to figure out the pbm of the song to make a propper transition. You didn't quite manage to succeed in this transition so that alone is pulling the score down by one:(

Anyway, you used at 0:17 which seemed out of place somehow:S The beat starts, and the jumpstylish part begins:) I've heard a couple of remixes of this song, but I don't think I've ever heard a jumpstule remix, so that's nice for an exchange:P
There is too much distortion though, and it's like the track itself changes bpm multiple times duirng the one and a half minute it last - it's realy confusing:S

The synth itself doesn't really fit the rythm untill around 1:18 where you gave it a little twist and made fit in a little better:P
You buildup is pretty nifty, but you need some more percussion, and you should REALLY fix that distortion on the beat to achieve a more "clean" sound.

Peace out:)

Pyroific responds:

Tis just a demo, and it's nu-style hardstyle, not jump ;)

[Night Time (Re-Edit)]

Fucking awesome

Sounds like there's too much distortion on the kick in the beginning, but that's about the only bad thing about the beginning. The percussion and effects indeed do kick ass, but I can't help but think it was just a random bounch of samples that you randomly put togeather.
But oh fuck... Am I surprised at 0:52... It's like getting hit in the face with a sledgehammer of awesome! I seriously didn't expect a synth to kick in there, and i must admit it does sound hell of awesome! :D
My only critique about this part is that it sounds a bit confusing somehow...
The bass kicks ass as well, and it gives me gosebumbs when the bassline change at 1:39.

On to the breakdown and the buildup: You have an impact consisting of a kick and a crash at 2:24 and at 2:38 again, and they simply need more reverb. The spheres is nice though, and the vocal at 3:04 suits the song very well. It somehow reminds me of some oldschool dance song, and I like that!:)

Anyway, the melody kicks in, and you did realy well on this part. At 3:56 you spice the melody up a notch, and it adds a nice twist to the song:)
At 4:25 the synth and stuff from the beginning starts again, and this too sounds awesome. It all gets a little confusing at 4:49 though, because of the secondary synth you threw in... It doesn't fit in somehow... and then again it somehow does:S It's hard to explain, but it doesnt matter, since my wories disapear again at 5:16, as the track is nearing its end.

Overall this is an very well made track, and it's clearly above the ng standarts. However, this song is very confusing at some points, and thus I can't give it a perfect score. You should know that I rarely deal out tens, since I think a song should be practily perfect to reciev a perfect ten. Thus 8 is a very high rating in terms of my standarts. I was realy close to giving you a 9 though, but I will stick for with 8 for now. I will definately check out some of your other tracks when i get the time, and I hope to hear more of your music in the future:)

Peace out!

Teck071 responds:

Thanks mate thats the best review I've ever had, I only really did this in 2 hours...so yeah alot of flaws but glad you like it!

[{CC} Nothing Survived {CC}]

You're improving!

The melody is alot better then the ones you made when you started making music, and the synth used for it is clearly better as well.
You're improving without a doubt, and it please me to hear that, as I asume it means that my feedback help:)
ANYWAY. I hear that you've figured out how to make a better beat. Big thumbs up on that:)
I don't know if you can hear it, but it's like the melody disapears a little at 0:24 because of the bass and the kick. That's because there's too much bass, so you might want to turn the volume on that down a notch. Speaking of your bass, you need to give it more treble, and turn the pitch up a little. It simply have a way to low frequenze, and I have a hard time hearing it at all:S
The break at 1:14 is a nice releaf, but you need details, and there is to much reverb. You need to experiment with sound effects and souch, as it'd spice your music up alot.
There's a lagg of percussion as well, but I don't know if that's a part of "the genre" you used for this track, so I won't go into details about that:P

Overall it's an okay track. Clearly one of your better productions:)
voted 3/5 and 6/10

corncamper responds:

Your feedback definetly helps ... You pointed alot of stuff out that i will probably change soon ... meaning when i get time. Thank you for the review =)

Btw .. 6 is usually "Stupid and uninteresting", but i guess you have your own ways of votement. Respect for that.

Haha, well :D Need your feedback! Msn pl0x xD

[Synth remind me (Instrumental)]

Gotta agree with the guys bellow

Shit dude, I'm sorry, but I gotta agree with the gentlemens bellow:S The melody is absolutely horrible, but I guess you somehow made up for it with the beat.
You have alot to learn about harmonies, and about what tones that goes along nicely togeather, and which doesn't.
The song as a whole was very repetive, and the horrible melody kept returning, so it was hard to focus on the otherwise nice beat and percussuion.
I'm sorry, but I cannot give this more then 5:(

TEMPHUiBIS responds:

Hi there, first off, I'm very sorry it's taken me THIS long to respond, I didn't use this site properly as much as I intend to now so I never got ya comments, I wanna respond to everyone who commented before.
Like I said to the others below Sorry about the melody, I think Harmonies and chords were always one of my weak spots, I'm trying to make a comeback and better myself now. I admit this wasn't really one my best tracks.
As I said earlier the reason why the melody repeatative was because I initially had vocals on this track, with verses and a chorus. Although I took out the vocals, the song was still structured to be like a verse, chorus, verse, bridge (you get the point lol) and the melody you all hate was actually the chorus hehe so I suppose that wasn't a good sign for the people who disliked the melody was it lol. I'm glad you all still at least liked the percussion and I wanna thank you for giving it a listen (6 years ago lol) I hope you might like my tracks if you heard them, I'm going to be uploading more that I made in 2009, I'll be uploading those soon. I'm hoping if you listen to them, you'll enjoy them and I could impress you with future work.

[Juggernaut (Remix)]

Love the vocal:P

First of all... FUCK! The intro from 0:00-0:32 kicked ASS! I didn't even get to react before a hard beat takes me to wonderland:D
The beat from 0:32 and onwards is pretty kick ass. You made alot of nice twists and turns, and I realy like the voice clip. It gets a little boring though, since the melody don't start before 1:48, and the kick is about the only thing in part from 0:32 to 1:48 that has variation. You need effects and some more synths to spice it up a notch, because it's more or less 1 minute of the same music as it is now. ANYWAY, on to the melody:P
I'm sorry to say this, but what a let down:( The synth you choosed was simply to soft, and the melody itself was boring. I didn't sense any mayor disharmonies though, so that's a plus:)
The break is boring as well... It's more or less completely the same as in the into and buildup to the theme... You should try'n make a secondary melody to get some variation, because in the current state, it kinda sounds like the song is 2:30 minutes long, and have bean repeated.
ANYWAY, the qlimax was kind of a let down as well... You put in another synth at 4:48 that doesn't fit in eather. It causes disharmonies in my opinion.

The overall impression wasn't as good as the intro made me think it would be, but the sound quality was realy nice (as usual), so i'll give you 7/10:)

DJ-Infinity responds:

If you ask me, I'd say that that is a decent score if the track was such a let down ;)
But at least you aint bullshitting me with the usual "ZOMG ITS FANTASTIC I LISTEN TO EET EVERYDAY!!! 10/10!!!" kinda review that some others give.

One of my problems is making songs which have the intro and outro of a vinyl pressed track so that the kinda same thing goes on for a while.
As for the melody, i do suppose that there could be some sort of added layer to it; if not just a simple lower octave played in unison, then perhaps also an alternate tune to go with the main melody.
As for the disharmonies, i think those were intentional, that is if by disharmonies you mean the -2 semitone notes that are being played with the chords, as I wanted to emphasise it a bit more =P

Anyway, I appreciate your full opinion of my track. I can only improve on the next one (i hope) =)