Hippokopter's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[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?

[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"

[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

[Rager - Dead Space (Dubstep)]

First of all, this song is just kind of middle-of-the-road. Don't get me wrong, I know how long it takes to get to middle-of-the-road level, and I commend you for the tenacity you must have, but at the same time, it's good to know what to work on.

With that in mind, the biggest problem I spy is instrumentation. This is pretty simple, especially for electronic music. The idea is to have something playing in the three main ranges at all times, the ranges being low, mid and high. But, at most, you want only one instrument per octave. In my experience, the kick and snare don't count as "instruments" when it comes to that, but the hats do, as long as the hats are fairly constant.

Usually though, I use that rule to say, "this section doesn't sound full... oh, there's nothing in the low end." I don't usually have to worry about too many instruments.

Another thing: mixing. Dubstep is probably more simplistic when it comes to mixing, honestly. The biggest thing to worry about is the presence of the kick and snare, because they add so much to the energy of the track that you want them really loud, but not distastefully loud. Because of what compression does, in order to have a result where the kick and snare are at a properly loud volume, you need to have them rather ridiculously loud in the premaster. It sounds like you didn't do that very much. I can hear the sidechaining, but that's not going to cut it in dubstep. xD

Finally... 01:36... Wubbix's Spag Heddy tutorial much? xD

Really though, a lot of being an artist is stealing other peoples' stuff. It's not like ideas have copyrights on 'em.

Overall, alright. Just keep plodding along.

Rager57 responds:

Haha yeah that's exactly where that part comes from lol.

[Codebreaker - Paracosmic Screech]

In general, this is pretty good. The orchestral parts are pretty repetitive, and the transitions are rough. Other than that, though, the tone of most things is pretty decent, most basses in the drop are alright.

One quick thing though - the choir at 00:50 doesn't sound good, and I know it's just because of what VST you're (probably) using, and I'd name it but I don't remember what it's called, Sonatina Choir or something, right? Do yourself a favor, go out and download DSK ChoirZ, it's immeasurably better. http://www.dskmusic.com/dsk-choirz/

Also, about transitions. First of all, like a lot of other problems out there, it'll work itself out over time.

Second, and more specifically about transitions, there are a ton of sample packs, noise synths, noise generators, noise generating websites (like this: https://www.random.org/audio-noise/ ), and just synth techniques that can be used to make FX. If you want to get more creative, try freezing reverb and messing with the parameters over time. Or do the same with delay. Or, mess with the source - add really noticeable FX like redux or some really gross amp, or just a massive amount of ludicrous distortion. Just go nuts, and you might get something useful. :)

Final thing - reverb, something of which you don't have too much of. Here's some of the free reverbs I recommend:

Protoverb - https://u-he.com/products/protoverb/
Experimental, and kinda cool for a more "gnarly" reverb. Also just fun to mess around with.

Ambient Reverb - http://stone-voices.ru/vst/ambient_reverb
Just a nice sounding reverb, in case you don't like the one that comes with your DAW.

That's about it. Just keep making music, things will work themselves out.

CodebreakerS responds:

Reverb and Chior Problems fixed, Bad trasitions still, thanks for the feedback

[Obligation]

The drops are pretty enjoyable, but the rest is a bit bad - but don't worry, it's fairly easy to fix.

See, the cluster chord or whatever the crap it's called right at the beginning and at 01:33 lead the listener to think that the rest of the song is in F#, because among other things, that's the lowest note in the cluster. (The cluster chord thing can also be interpreted as an F#madd9 without the fifth, and the 9th brought down an octave, if you know a bit o' theory.)

After that, I honestly can't make heads or tails of the two or three different keys that seem to be happening, but I think you get my point that the notes get jumbled up.

The buildups sound fine, mostly because they're not tonal, but after that, you land on a key for the drop - A. Not that A is the worst key for hard bass music, that award probably goes to B or C, but that it's not a very comfortable key for glitch hop/dubstep. It's better for genres that have more chord progessiony-type stuff happening, like melodic dubstep or future bass.

All in all, what's the easy-ish solution I alluded to before? Switch everything to F# (minor), and edit the drop sound design accordingly if need be.

Other than that, I think this song is pretty cool. Nice work.

Laydran responds:

Thank you for your time, I really appreciate it! I'm not the best with music theory but I think I am retarded for putting that lead before the second build up in other notes.. Thanks again, cheers ;)

[can u feel]

Well I suppose I can feel the crazy loud bass, although it's probably too low for most systems to be able to accurately play back. It's also kind of repetitive, although I'm not an expert on this style of music. Other than that, sounds really nice, especially since I can tell you're using Ableton like me. xD

By the way, you wouldn't happen to have Serum too, would you? Because then, you and I would be the only two people on this whole fricken website with the same DAW and main synth, meaning that collaboration may be deserving of some consideration... just saying... xD

hGea responds:

Thanks! I agree, it's probably too low, even for a sub bass. And it gets repetitive and all I can do for that is blame myself for not making it better and trying more things with this track.

Sadly I'm not using Serum nor Ableton :( That sub and many things in this track are made with 3oscx which is a vst for FL. So yeah sad to say it.

But if you have a track idea in mind you can always convert it to string files and send it my way:)

[Yashinoki - Back to the Future (BiTSTER Remix)]

I like the character! The FM wobs feel a little bit out of place, but other than that, it sounds rich and full. Just out of curiosity, what DAW do you use, and do you have Serum?

BiTSTER responds:

Thank you!! I use FL Studio and I have Serum as well!