aliaspharow's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[The Abyss (v6.66)]

It's nice to see that an old friend has not wasted time on improving their form. This is truly some awesome techno!

[Rods Critical]

An absolutely inspiring journey through sound! Definitely one of my top 5 favorites in the audition round so far. The composition for this song is really what got me to stop scoring and leave a review as its a balance of striking melodies and a pace that makes the track feel like a living organism. From 1:10 all the way to the end literally made me stand up and hold my headphones up to my ears.

I'll have to be more critical next round but for now all I want to note is that the intro is a bit abrupt, if it would of been longer a more progressive build, starting much quieter (like the middle of your track) I feel like it would of fit the rest of the song a bit better. also your bass rumbles seem to be clipping somehow at 1:24 as well as in other parts in the song. At first I thought it might of been due to the newgrounds waveform but after downloading it I notices it still in the record.

Thumbs up from me buddy! Good luck in the NewGrounds Audio DeathMatch!

[what you do when things go wrong?]

Where did this come from and how does this have less than the appropriate amount of listens? Sick nasty dude

[Executing Scripts]

Very reminiscent of Blackhole's sound, the pads in the beginning really suck you in and the melodies are great all around. That being said there's quite a bit of clipping in the louder sections and the large amount of reverb and loud pads does muddy up your mix a bit after :50 and 1:45. I think some light side chaining for your kick could probably help a bit too.

All in all great melodies, instrumentation and drums! Keep it up.

feandesign responds:

Thank you! Well yeah, I tried to do the mastering all by myself without that crappy built-in limiter but it turned out to be worse than expected, lol! And I think the main reason for all of that bad stuff was me composing this track in a lower volume, on headphones... probably the worst way to make music - I could use my computer speakers but the thing is that I might be distracting others since I'm not living alone yet. Anyway, I'll consider fixing and updating this song here, once again thanks a lot for pointing out all those problems as well as the pros of this track. Much appreciated!

[ダマスカス "Damasukasu"]

Clean as always. You are opening me up to the silky smooth side of glitch hop. I love the guitar the most out of the bunch for sure. Didn't know you were back to your old magic! I'll be back for sure.

DreamEater responds:

Thank you very much bro, mainly writing Chillhop and lofi nowadays but really enjoying the process. It’s really good to be able to write again. You rock dude

[On Go]

Holly cow. 5/5 on your 3/4th magic. I honestly wasn't sure you were the same composer that I had talked to years ago but I see now that I was right to believe in you all those years ago (Has it really been that long????) This shows absolutely genius composition in more ways than I have time to express to you. That being said I do hope we can talk soon.

Absolutely beautiful composition +
mesh of unorthodox instruments ++
time signatures and time changes!? +++
I cant.

Onefin responds:

Hey man! Yeah I'm like super appreciative of your support way back when, I never would have predicted getting here haha

Thanks for the kind words! I've like spent many years refining my own insanity so now I make this kind of crud :)

[Calygon]

Very well done! If you know my music then you know im a reverb slut and you take complete advantage of it in all the right ways. When you bring in the main melody around 0:50 that sounds so amazing, thoes supplementary synths really add to the melody as well which i dont hear a lot of people getting right on here. You are the epidemi of potential on this site at the moment. in a some years time i garantee you that you will surpass even me. just remember not to let any style define you. follow your true musical ideas. it will never hurt, and even can greatly help at times, to be influence by other people's styles and ideas but one can only achieve musical nirvana by following their true dream of what music can be.

keep doing what you're doing because i love it.

Onefin responds:

Hey! aliaspharow

First off, thanks a ton for reviewing! It seems the R4R thread has been pretty dead recently, so I've had no luck over there :/

Yeah, the return of the main riff at 1:08 is my favorite part of the whole thing. Before that section existed, this was a couple month old dead project (what killed it? an inability to pick a good sound for the main melody at 0:50), but once I added it in, the revival process took shape. And now, I have a finished product, my first original track in months.

"not to let any style define you" Got it. I'll try my best! Thanks for your support! :D

[The Prophet *WiP4.8*]

Ooo the pad work ;) god knows you know how to uplift, great way to start an intro for sure.
The build starts and i can never prepare myself for your drops, especially not nowadays.
the build hits and "HOOOOLLLY FUCK NOW IM DANCIN'"
in your words im sure you'd say "Not bad for a bedroom producer" Hopefully one day you'll wake up and smell the roses ^^

2016 the year of the Chain

[BVYS N GVRLZ]

Okaayy! Gonna try to keep this review as structured as possible. Straight out of the bat I will say this:

Here's another amazing song! Greatly produced with all the right attention in all the right places. It seems even with a short amount of time you are able to put a great amount of work into your tracks! Catchy melodies that will certainly stay in your head if you listen enough time accompanied by a very tasteful selection of instruments give this track all the right vibes in all the right places. That being said some abrupt transitions do seem to bring me out of the atmosphere at times.

Intro: Although I will be the first to admit that I use this technique far more often then I should, On the grand scale of things I think the little fade in is pretty abrupt and I would of enjoyed atleast a couple bars of build, but thats just me. Right off the bat you have some great melodies and some carefuly chosen chords that I really love! Idk if thoes voices are synth made but they actually sound really well transposed the way you have them and that funky guitar really kicks out the song with a dope vibe. You sure know you're sampling! One thing that does catch me is the end of the chord progression, a couple of the chords around 0:19-0:20 didn't seem to totally fit in, but that's just an opinion and I do myself often find it difficult to finish a chord progression in a way that makes it fluid to loop again. 0:24 that lead got me hook, great sound, great melody, definitely what this track needed to get the listeners attention. Been trying to do a lot of leads like this lately but you've pulled it out flawlessly

Breakdown: Really changed the vibe coming into this one! Wish you would of used some filters leading up to it as it was kind of out of the blue, but that's just how I do things. This part is well mastered and has a surprising amount of things going on if you actually take the time to notice it all. Not sure if I'm a huge fan of some of the transposed samples (feeling kind of hypocrite-y since i did something similar in mine lol) but the rest of the melody work in this section makes up for it in my opinion... a great deal of this section comes down to opinion honestly, when it comes down to it, I believe breakdowns are a section where artists can really try to deviate from the general flow and you've really got some signature stuff in here which i can definitively respect. Again with that small vibrato lead that refuses to repeat itself xD <3.

Buildup: By far my favorite part of the song. The ad-normal beat in parts is stellar, showing off your percussion work and the amazing synth work in this song! Very professional indeed! Not much to say in this section as I don't think you could improve in this part besides adding reverb! (I'm a reverb addict, can you tell?) Dope as hell and comes right back in to the chorus strong as hell.

Outro: See part one as allot of it is the same, and that is perfectly acceptable for the first few bars and you expanded the melodies and the lead(s?) in the part that i absolutely loved. The fade out was also very appropriate given the abrupt entrance... kind of Madeon-y? anyway, dug it.

Overall: Epic ass song with few things to complain about even after my 40-ishth listen. This is my top pic so far for this round of NGADM.

Possible improvements: (I actually had to re-read at this point because that's how forgettable the cons are to this track are.) More fluid transitions maybe? a truelly progressive intro? Longer plz? Build up before the breakdown(am I the only one who does dis)? Yeah that's about it Bravo!

my score: 9.5/10

My condolences for my previous mistake on the forum.
Reviewing the 10 previous submissions as promised.

midimachine responds:

thanks for the awesome review! you da man.