Hippokopter's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Bits N Pieces]

It's certainly not bad very much at all, but there are a couple of things I'd like to mention.

From 01:41 to 02:03, you have an interesting chord progression that uses what's called a borrowed chord. This song is in A minor, but the tonic chord (the "root" or "home" chord) is "borrowed" from A major.

That means that the melody is gonna have to do some funky business with what scale it's in at different points in time, depending on what chord it's over. When the melody is being played over that A major chord, you have to make the melody in A major, which you did. But, over any other chord that's not borrowed, you have to act like you're in A minor again, which you didn't.

No worries, it's pretty technical, but it's just something to be wary of.

(I don't want to sound condescending at all, it's just that I don't know if you know music theory... xD)

Secondly, and more importantly, a song should never, ever, EVER, E V E R take a year to finish!

1) You run a very large risk of becoming overly attached to that song, and you'll find it hard to move on from it.

2) You won't want to make another song because it feels like it might take another year.

3) Making songs faster makes you improve faster. The amount of improvement is directly related to how many songs you make. Makes sense, right? So, if you make songs faster, you improve faster.

Just... don't catch perfection-itis. If you do get it, my best advice is to stop caring. Just put random crap on NG or something. Don't worry if it sounds good. Make it just to make it for a while. If you want to be more active in eradicating that disease of perfectionism, then you might want to consider adopting the "20 hour guillotine," where after working on your song for 20 hours total, you immediately export your song and call it completely finished. (There are VSTs that track how much time you've worked on a song.)

Still though, this is pretty nice. I like the style of it. You may want to smooth out your transitions a bit, but otherwise, I like it.

BiTSTER responds:

Thank you! I kind of just left this track in the pile of other unfinished tracks. It sort of went brain dead for it when coming up to the breakdown but I had finally managed to think of something. I'm not too keen on music theory, so I'm a little lost at the part where you mention the borrowed chord. And now I must DEFINITELY research what that is so I don't make the same mistake twice! As for music in general, I wish I was as enthusiastic as I was when I was younger when making it. You're absolutely right, a track should NEVER take a year to finish. I've been focusing on video editing and graphic design mostly and music has just been a thing on the side as of late, but hopefully I'll jump back into releasing track after track like the old days! I really appreciate the feedback. It means more to me than you think. I look forward to hearing more from you if you ever take interest in my songs! Thank you for listening! :D

[Apocalypse]

This is so cool! I don't listen to synthwave-y stuff that much, so I don't know what the typical synthwave song is, but this sounds really awesome.

The only thing that disappointed me was the drums in the drop at 01:53. Usually, in anything that could be called EDM, the kick and snare are hugely important parts of the drop. They're loud and in-your-face, but only when they happen. Some people don't like it them quite so loud, like Cymatics, and some people insist on them being crazy loud, like SeamlessR. I like either style, but the point is, they're not almost in the background like you had them in your drop. :P

Other than that, I really liked how full it sounded. Always plenty of background elements, but also something to focus on for a lot of the time. Nice work.

Quick couple of notes:

There's two parts where the lead doesn't use the same notes as the chord it's over: 00:48 and 01:04. Like, I get how you want to repeat some melodic riff twice there, and it feels good to do that, but it clashes with the chord. So maybe find a different riff.

When you use alarms in your music, like the tornado alarm things at 01:19, the song becomes... too real... It's an intentionally alerting noise, and using that alarm in a song might make people unnecessarily alert. It's even worse with cop car SFX, in case you ever think about using them, because those sounds occur much more often, and people are more likely to be tricked into thinking the cop car is real, especially if you're playing whatever song has the cop car SFX in an actual car.

That's it for me. Awesome song!

[Dawphin - Rapture]

YOU'RE A CHRISTIAN TOO!?!? :D

Ok, so I like a lot of what's happening. I don't know how many songs you've made total, but it sounds like you've made ~25. If you have all the songs you've ever made on public display, and you haven't even made 10, then you're doing something incredibly right! xD

But, there might still be some things I could offer.

There's this website called EDMProd, and they have really good articles about music production, specifically, what the optimal mindset is. Be sure to look at some of their other articles, but these ones are definitely some of the best on that website:

The 5 Stages of an Electronic Music Producer: https://www.edmprod.com/5-stages-electronic-music-producer/

The CODA Method: https://www.edmprod.com/how-to-make-professional-music/

5 Hard-to-Develop Skills that All Successful Producers Have: https://www.edmprod.com/5-skills-successful-producers-have/

Speaking of great stuff, nice song! It sounds very full and lush with all the spacey FX going on. The drops felt a bit odd, and the drum pattern got repetetive, but other than that, I really like it. In my experience, those problems will work themselves out overtime, so don't sweat it too much. Make what sounds good.

Godspeed. xD

Dawphin responds:

Wow. This means a lot! Thanks for liking my music! Btw I've been producing for a long time, and I just haven't published a lot of music. I still have a lot of songs to come later on!

[Hakai]

Animestep. Well okay then... kind of odd, but whatever... xD

Pretty good, but there's one thing that will make you want to slap yourself for not realizing it...

There's hardly any melodic content.

I say this with sympathy. I know how easy it is to think, "I mean, there's chords and drums and stuff, so it's ok, right?" Well, for the most part, people don't care about chords and drums unless they're really exotic. Even when that's the case, drums still don't matter too much. Otherwise, it's the melody people like. And for much of this song, there's not much of a melody. What you could call melodies are more like fleeting lead lines, they never seem to repeat. (I'm not entirely sure if they do repeat. It just doesn't feel like it, and if they do repeat, then sorry. :p)

It's a good idea to try to have a melody or two happening as often as possible.

As for actually making melodies, I'm not gonna lie, sometimes it's kinda hard. But, there's one pretty nice trick to remember when making melodies: Big skips.

Think of the Star Wars theme. Think of the Superman theme. Think of how memorable those are. It doesn't seem like this at first, but they're memorable because there are big skips (5 or more semitones). Try to make melodies with bigger skips, and they'll be more memorable. Don't ask me why that's the case. xD

Also, and probably more importantly, if you don't know what motifs are, you need to learn about that. (People might say "leitmotif" instead of motif. Potato, potato... wait, that doesn't really work in this, um... format... xD)

If you want to, you can just throw down some notes in https://onlinesequencer.net/ and practice making melodies that way. It can export midi, so if you end up making something you really like, you can download it. It's kinda nice not to always have to open up a DAW for that. :P

That's the main thing. You might also want to focus on mastering. I know Cymatics has a nice guide for mastering, you might want to check it out.

Don't get discouraged, though! You really are doing a lot right. Just keep making dubstep and you'll get better overtime. :D

charliux210123 responds:

Thx dude, i’ll try to improve next time

[New Dimension]

This is really awesome! I think the chords in the drops could have used some distortion, but other than that, I really like it. Can't wait to see what GD's gonna do with this one. :D

[Superhuman (Victory)]

You got some friggen crazy mastering or something going on! xDD

Quick note about that mastering, though - sometimes having a bit of dynamic range can be nice. It adds a bit of flavor to things. Like, if your mastering had, maybe 2-3 dB less overall compression, the part at 03:15 would be a bit more impactful, if not quite as loud. And in all honesty, you probably don't need any more than 2 dBTP in the drops. (True peak decibels are strange. If you don't know about them, suffice it to say that 0 dB of gain is very rarely any particular volume when it comes out of speakers or headphones.)

I said that was going to be quick? Oops. xD

Anyways, the other thing about this whole song is that the drops kinda need some work. Not in the arrangement, I think you've got the arrangement down here, but in the sound design and post processing. A decent portion of the time, the main sound in the drop is kind of weak and thin (like at 01:38 and 04:04). Some noises, though, I really enjoyed listening to, like the machine gun thing at 01:50 and 04:41. I don't know where you got your noises, so I'm assuming you made them yourself, lol.

I dunno. I certainly thought this was pretty good, if a little bit over-distorted. I like it. xD

[hit em up]

I really like this, actually. The master is super aggressive, the drums are pretty sick, the basses are meaty, and the rest is dark.

But, there are some problems with this that are a bit odd.

First of all, the drops. You start off both of them without drums, and then the drums come in. However, when you do that, you have to be careful to let the listener know where in the drop they are. Usually, that's just done with a well placed semi-large fill or two. Here, though, you just repeat a pattern a bunch, and all sense of direction and time is lost in an odd and awkward way. Just be sure not to do that next time. :p

It's weird, like, you think that having just a bit of space at the beginning of a drop should just affect the beginning, but its effects permeate the entire drop.

Anyways, one thing about music theory quick - the panda eyes arp you mention is in a major key. However, your song is in a minor key. That leads to this strange semi-atonal feel. I personally like it, but I feel like if you're gonna make something atonal, you go big or go home for the most part.

In this specific case, you could remedy the problem by putting the song into a key called double harmonic major. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_harmonic_scale )It has a major third, but also sounds really dark, so it could work. But again, if you want to go full throttle atonal, then by all means, do that. :P

And one final thing - at the beginning, you have a big clippy impact. It sounds pretty good, but just know that in Geometry Dash, any impact at the very beginning will always get cut off or otherwise dulled. (I recommend you test it out for yourself.) If nothing else, just put a bit of space before the impact, or make the intro have a slower attack.

Idk if you specifically play GD, but just in case you're thinking about putting your music there, that's something to be wary of.

As for actually getting whitelisted by Robtop, well... I don't want to be too specific, but I will tell you this: The squeaky wheel gets the oil. *winks stupidly*

[ELEPS - EFFORT (DUBSTEP)]

SO MUCH DISTORTION!!! xD

I actually really like how loud everything is, and I LOVE the style, but there's so much distortion that it's kind of hard to enjoy most of it!

My solution to that has been to use multiband distortion. Three bands is fine. Just distort each band to taste. :p

Otherwise, this is sooo awesome!

[Free samples, presets, and instruments]

Pretty sick! I can tell that you guys worked hard on the presets and the website. I really like your tom fills! I'll have to use your stuff sometime. :p

Just a couple of things, though:

1) At least in Christian theology, "magik" is satanic. I don't know if that's what you were going for, so I don't know how you should take that, but just know that putting "majik" on some of your stuff looks not-quite-right to some. (I don't think that was your intention, I'd just like to let you know if you don't already. :D)

2) Your Serum presets, while interesting, are kind of wonky. The proper range for each preset is somewhat all over the place. I, personally, like making bass presets that sound good between C0 and C1. Cymatics makes bass presets that sound good generally between C1 and C2. My point is that you ought to choose an octave and stick to it, just to make it easier for people to scroll through presets and not have to worry about octaves.

3) The Serum wavetables are pretty awesome for the most part. A lot of them are resampled, which is fun, but if you don't do it properly, the wavetable becomes pretty hard to work with. (The worst offender is probably the second wavetable in Superova for Serum, "Actual Lazer," for example.) Probably the best way to avoid this kind of issue is by importing the sample using Serum's "dynamic pitch follow" option.

As a sidenote, bass wavetables usually sound a bit better if you use Serum's highpass fundamental option in the wavetable editor's "Process" tab.

I really don't mean to sound bossy or anything, I don't want to come off like that, but I'd rather tell you things that you already know than withhold things from you that you don't know.

Also... is there a way that I can contribute presets and wavetables and stuff? I love sound design, and I love giving free stuff, so is it okay if I do that somehow? :P

TheMajician responds:

You dont sound bossy at all, only very helpful! Actual Laser was one of the first wavetables i ever made just be resaming some harmor. Each time i dragged a wav file in i would drag it to all convert options, some sounded better than others it depended on the file. But then i learned about custom formulas, so for example, if the file is in C, then i put C0 into serums formula bar, and it resamples almost perfectly. As for the wonky preset thing ill definitly take note there, especially since im working on a really large dubstep pack (trying to get to a gig) as far as Magik goes, idk if you mean like David Copperfield type stuff is included, that certainly isnt against the Bible, but yeah, like Coven stuff amd witchcraft and other rituals are. But no that wasnt what i was going for, i myself am a strong Christian and chose “Majik Sounds” as my thing cuz im “The Majician” i appreciate you noticing and caring though

As for ou giving us sounds, well, all i can say is welcome to Audiophile Alliance! The weekly recap video and intro video on or YouTube explains what we are all about
Someone ese made the description tk that video and idk if he out our email address there, but if it isnt send stuff you want people to hear here:
[e-mail]
The video explains how it all works.
Thank you for the helpful feedback, tell your friends, and have a great day!

[Paper Skies - Celestial]

I might just have to use this as a reference track sometime.

PaperSkies responds:

I'd love to hear what you do with it!