PotangNG's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Pico Game Over (Week 6 UST)]

Ay man pretty good! You did a great job with compression, but it seems like you forgot to increase the volume! You could easily increase the volume by a couple of decibels without clipping. Only other feedback would be that it seems a bit too happy and goofy to be a game over theme, but I'm still a rookie at music so maybe I'm wrong lol.

Keep posting music, once you hit like 3 or 4 music pieces posted I could try and scout you into the audio portal!

Edit: LOL
Edit 2: YEAHHHH there we go now we talking

Jazty responds:

Thank you kind sir

[Endurance]

Great blend of guitar, piano, and synths. I absolutely loved that piano break at around 40-50 seconds! I really love how it pops out! Drums are well made with variation. Transition at 1:17 is perfect!

One piece of advice I'd have for you is to make the lead guitar stand out more. On my studio headphones, it sounds like its behind other instruments. It doesn't have that same pop as the piano. The piano is louder than the piano when it needs to be highlighted. Give the guitar some love and bring it up to the front of the mix! If you're afraid of clipping, make sure to add a compressor! I'm pretty sure most amp VSTs have built in ones so you'll have no problem finding one.

The guitar tone also is interesting. It sounds a lot higher than I'd expect. If you want to really go "heavy metal," you could try a free guitar amp VST called Roots by Amped. One of my go to free amps when I want to make the guitar heavier in my unreleased rock song lol. Check it out and see if you like it!

Great song, looking forward to seeing more from you after your debut release of "The Blossoming"!

[Nespro]

Not the typical genre I listen to, but well done! It sounds really chill, almost like the pause menu songs in some games. Can't give any feedback because you're 10 times better than me, but all I can say is great job!

Psilenth responds:

I have just been doing this longer. I have been doing this for 12 years consistently. I spent a lot of time experimenting, learning, scouring the internet for tutorials and courses talking to other producers. I’m not a prodigy I was not born musically gifted. I just kept doing it because I loved it.

[Boss∞]

I like the melody! I think the sound selection could be a bit better, and maybe some bigger drums. This is a boss song, so it should sound EPIC and HUGE! Try some heavier synths, and maybe even experiment with a choir? Who knows, do what sounds good to you! Good job!

Broccoplant responds:

I did actually add a choir! It's subtle bcs the software wouldn't let me make it louder :,/. Thanks for the feedback!

[Jeż]

I like this one! The melody's nice! Since the melody is sorta short, I'd suggest either shortening the song, or adding a second melody to keep things interesting. Also ngl that chord progression is great!

[Laika The Space Dog]

I really like the spacey feeling this song gives! The drums are also a nice touch. I think the pause could be a little longer, but also maybe change things up a bit, it gets slightly repetitive. Other than that, you're well on your way to beginning your music journey!

[Recheck [NGUAC '24 KO]]

Coming here from the review for review thread... I'm not sure how to review this! It's already pretty amazing! When I listened, I couldn't really find anything to criticize! I definitely love the drums and bass, and the loudness is really good! I still haven't learned how to do that. If I had to suggest anything, I would add a little more variety to the energy of the track, as there's not much variation in the song. Great job!

Edit: yeah loudness. My song previously always were like -18 LUFs

Kz-N responds:

what do you mean with how to do that? if its the drums and the bass then its really only trying a lot until something sticks and using that as a base for future projects (like i did here), as of loudness i really don't reccomend you push for loudness as i personally have banged my head on the wall so many times by my mixes being ruined by it, so it really is something that you should hone in with patience (i am speaking as if i have worlds of experience but really im just saying to do better than me lmao), thank you a lot for your review, i really appreciate it!

[Robert Topala VIP]

This is great! Only thing to give feedback on is basic mixing. I'm on earbuds, with no sound modifications, but some of the drums stick out a little much. Mainly the kick drum during the build up.
Also maybe add some more high end synths, to balance it out?

Also noticed how you used this tutorial's melody almost identically lol https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nyDi2elBasg

[Undertale His theme (Rundi remix)]

OH MY GOSH THIS IS AMAZING! The drop is PERFECT!
Only feedback I have is the piano and drop lead. The piano I feel like might sound cooler if it were softer, maybe try a soft piano like Spitfire LABs Soft Piano?

And the drop chiptune sounds too thin at parts. Not sure if it's just me.

Only other complaint is that it's so short! I'd love to hear an extended version!

RUNDAI1 responds:

I tried to do something with the chords, but these notes are completely from the original. I was surprised to hear the rather unpleasant bars 1 and 3.

[Comfort in the presence of Horror]

I swear I thought I heard that doorbell jingle in here lol. For what you were aiming for, you've hit it perfectly. It gives that calm respite feeling that you get after a tough battle, and you finally get a save point. I've never heard something like this, and it's really really interesting, I'd like to see more of this! I really like that main instrument, the sort of string/piano/pluck sound (forgive my terrible ears lol)! Only things I would say is that parts of the song feel off time with others, and that it seems a bit long.

For example, at 1:06, it seems a bit off. This seems to happen a lot in the song. Nothing major, just something that got my attention. I'm not really sure if this is something you would want to fix, however, because it could very easily be the thing you want.

The song is also a bit long. It's an ambient song, so there's nothing super duper catchy in it. But I did feel as if it started getting really repetitive, around 1:50. I started to do other things while listening, which might be what you wanted, but it does feel stretched. Maybe you could make this shorter, and into a loop?

But take my words with a grain of salt, I've never listened to Ambient, so I could be completely misunderstanding things. Main point that I want to get across though, you're doing great! I'd like to see more from you! Good luck!

TurtleBox420 responds:

I talked about it in the reply to Jimmy down below, but this track is basically two Melodies, both made from the sampled guitar plucks with pad made from the same sample. The actual track is around 1:53, then it would hypotheitclly loop again which is kinda why I doubled it up for this.

The actual track is around 22 minutes, it's the 1:53 minute loop being fed back into itself through a mix of really wide verbs and granular delays, specifically Spacey, Portal, and some other weird plugins I frequently play around with.

Doing other things while you listen is great, that's kind of what I was doing while I let the track loop for 22 minutes, lol.

And for some more context, this is ambience for a game in development set to release in October, so unfortunately there's no in game examples of how the procedural delays sort of stack over each other with each loop.

I had a 1:53 cut here to upload but it kind of felt to short, I figured if I doubled the loop it would catch more granular feedbacking but it's really subtle. I'm thinking, based off a lot of the feedback I get here, that I'm going to cut these huge ambient loops into doubled up sections like this and possible add a layer or two of randomness within that window itself.

I get that I really love these tracks I do, but I also get that to people who aren't listening to them in granular loops they kind of come across as "the same thing for 2+ minutes".

I really appreciate your review, I hope you have a nice weekend.