Hippokopter's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Fairydust - Lights]

Pretty nice. Some wubs in the drop seem out of key, but other than that, I like this.

[Venomite - Shift]

NEVER EVER EVER EVER E V E R bring attention to someone's own opinion before they've formed one! If you bring any attention to what they might think about the song, they start to think in terms of "how bad is this song" rather than "how good is this song." It only gets worse for the songwriters like that. Other than that, you know what I think about this song! xD

Venomite responds:

Can we get an oof in the chat

[Kingdom of Whales]

Decent sound design, decent style, I like what you've done here. The only two concerns of mine are that 1)the kick and snare aren't in swing for basically the entire song, and 2)the basses in the drops aren't very clear.

I couldn't tell you how to get the kick and snare in swing because I don't know what DAW you're using, but if you're using Ableton (***w̴̡̖̓͋h̴̯̉ì̶̜ĉ̴͎̕h̴̖͊̇ ̵̣͠y̷̘̌̀ỏ̸̤u̴͈̚̕ ̴͖̻̽͝s̶̺̈͝ḫ̵̹́͐o̸̭͑u̵̪̫̎͝l̷̹͝d̶̠̍̔ ̸̦̘̀̒b̷̹̹̾e̷̤̐̎***), you can look up how to use the groove pool.

As for the basses being sub-par in terms of clarity, I'd recommend two things:

1) When you design basses, test how they sound against pink noise, and I'd recommend doing it with a VST called Pink: https://www.credland.net/pink/ See what parts of the basses stand out against the pink noise, and that'll be what the bass will sound like in a more cluttered mix like this. Speaking of which...

2) Work on level setting a bit. This just takes practice. You can find multitracks on which to practice here: http://www.cambridge-mt.com/ms-mtk.htm The website is under construction, but the downloads are quite good for practice. Unfortunately, it's mostly stuff other than electronic music, but there are a few EDM songs in there. Definitely check it out.

That's about it. Time to get crackin' on another song! xD

REPLY 11/30/2018: Yeah, the midrange stuff, not the sub.

RiSUKU responds:

Heyo! I was looking forward to getting some constructive criticism and I (finally) got one xD
Thanks for the comment though! I will try to make the drums swing more next time haha (they didn't swing as much cause I didn't turn the swing up) (also i'm using FL Studio so yeahh xDD)
I will try out the VST real soon, thanks for recommending! :D
And yus, time to get crackin'! xDD
Thanks for the comment, again :)
EDIT: By the way, when you said the basses in the drop, you meant like the growls and not the sub bass right?

[Dr. Phonics - Level One]

The wubz were calling, and you had to go. xD

EDIT: That's also like the second time I've heard that "level one" sample, the first being Mastodon's "Get Ready." Where the heck are you finding that sample? xD

[The Funk]

What the funk. xD

First of all, the sound design is great. I like the basses you made. They layered well with the rest of the noises.

However, it sounded like you had some notes clashing from time to time. Most often, it's a melodic note clashing with the chord, but sometimes it's two different chords clashing I think. Just something to be aware of.

Pretty nice overall, though.

[Blood Money]

Pretty good. The only problem I spy is that the drops aren't in time, if that makes sense. Like, I can't tell where "beat 1" is. Tonally, though, this sounds great.

Curious to know, is there any particular reason that this is called "Blood Money"?

11/28/2018 REPLY: I can tell that the time signature is in 4/4, but I don't mean that the time signature was fluctuating. I meant that the regular indicators of where beats 1, 2, 3, and 4 are were missing in the drops, such as chord changes and the regularity of the drum pattern. I understand that it may be "edgy" to "break the rules," but the "rules" are there for an extremely useful reason.

I suppose my question was worded poorly. How's this: was there any particular philosophical basis as to why you decided to make a song called "Blood Money"? If so, what was that basis?

DelitescentAria responds:

Beat one is the horn, the song is very much in 4/4

And the drop shout is literally blood money

Glad you liked(?) it

Reply 29/11/2018

I purposefully didnt have anything else when the horn rings. I also don't think there is such a thing as rules in music. Sure then, the song might fall out of a certain genre but its fine isnt it. Maybe it is edgy, who knows. I just made a song and thought it sounded good.

As for the philosophical part, it's really nothing. I just found the drop shout and thought "aight cool that's the name"

[To Live Love and Explore - TAGPilot101YT]

According to your profile, your last name is "toegap" backwards. But, you probably wanted me to say something useful after leaving a 3 star review, I guess. xD

First, the song is very long. I don't know if that's on purpose or that's just how it turned out, but when you have a really long song like that, it becomes kind of a drag to listen to, unless you know how to squeeze entertainment into every last second of the song.

Speaking of entertainment, setting aside the drops, this song is very repetitive. There's always the same guitar in the background, and it even plays the same note in the melody almost all of the time. This makes it almost hard to listen to, all the way anyways. This is also rather tough to fix. The best I can tell you is that the song should be shorter, and only repeat things when you feel like you really have to. Otherwise, try to come up with something that you think would fit the style of the song.

Second, the beat is erratic in the drops. It's not something I feel like I can nod my head to, because not even the snare is hitting at anything like regular intervals (which it really ought to, if the kick is going to be erratic, which it usually can be).

Third, there's some serious clashing going on at 01:09 and 03:25 that really needs to be fixed. That would just involve transposing it.

Fourth and finally, the mix seems biased to the left during the drops. I don't know why, but the chords kind of shift over to the left sometimes. If the chords are going to go to the left, make sure they go to the right equally.

Don't be discouraged about all that, though. Timbre-wise, this sounds great. I'd use a different kick outside of the drops, but that's it. The kick and snare sit decently in the mix.

In the end, I kinda like what Dory says - just keep swimming.

[Melodic Vibes]

Yeah, pretty much what Ryan said about the mixing and frequency balance. The drops are alright though.

TrickshotMusic responds:

ty lol

[Radical Fracture]

Hrm.... xD

First I'll talk about the non-drop stuff, and then the drops.

The non-drop stuff is alright. My biggest problem with this is that it's not mixed too well. The basic idea behind mixing is making everything sound good using pretty much just level adjusting, panning, and EQing. Reverb, delay, compression, distortion, and other effects tie in as "sweetening" elements, but they're not absolutely necessary. The biggest piece of advice given to people about mixing is to use reference tracks, and to think of the reference tracks in terms of mixing. For instance, I could pay particularly close attention to the relation between the level of the lead and the background chords. I say that's the biggest piece of advice because I don't use it, even though I probably should. xD

As for the drops, the sound design probably needs attention. The thing is, it's not something that'll improve overnight, far from it. It'll take a lot of experience, and especially a lot of songwriting to know what sounds will be good for a song. What I suggest you do is mess around with your synth of choice a lot in between and during songwriting, to get a better feel for how the synth works, and what you can do with it. Then, you can test what you've made against the wild world of songwriting and see what still sounds good.

Another thing I think would be beneficial is this: if you go to my profile and read the very bottom of any of my news posts, I have 3 links there. You ought to read all of them, they're great, but at least skim through the one that says something to the effect of "The 5 Stages of a Music Producer." (I forget exactly what the title is, that's kinda awful. xD)

Overall, it's just gonna take time. Be patient. Try to be content with the fact that you'll have to work long and hard for any results, and you'll be rewarded.

GVerognee responds:

oki thank you!! :D

[TeslaX - Winter Night]

I'm a little jealous honestly. xD