kirbyrocket's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Duality]

Salut, saludos, and salutations, Harry (if I may call you that)! I have listened to your upload here and to all of your other uploads to see if you have the potential to create great Electronic Dance Music (EDM) in the (hopefully near) future and possibly other types of music as well. Your potential to create great music determines whether you get scouted or not in most cases here on Newgrounds. Without further ado and to skip this introduction; this is what I have to say:

After listening to your other EDM tracks that you have uploaded, I must say that I am quite impressed with what I have seen. Although some of your tracks are still remixes, they seem to be quite original and unlike anything that I have heard before. This can be both a good and bad trait depending on where you want to be as a composer and what perspective you view it in. So far, you have uploaded house songs to Newgrounds; this is not a bad thing, however. Let's talk about your track here, Duality:

Duality has a good melody, a good trance pluck, and is just overall pleasing to the ear. The kick that is used compliments each other instrument in the beginning.

At about 30.5 seconds, the snare that is introduce feels out of place and could use some filtering on its cutoff frequency. At about forty-four seconds, the high-pass filtering (I think I butchered the name) is too high and just makes it hard to hear. Consider playing music with that filter in a loud area like public transportation: most people would not likely hear anything if/when there is a section being played like that.

The synths at about 45.5 seconds sound very pleasing, but they just aren't loud enough really. They seem much quieter than anything else really and make the 'drop' look much less of a drop. Most house songs don't necessarily need a drop, but more of a refrain in the sense that sounds well.

At 1:15, the same pluck that is used is just used at a higher octave, making the pluck overtake everything else. This is something that you want to heavily avoid. At 1:45, the same snare that was used previously is back and still is out of place. The refrain at 2:00.5 doesn't feel so much of a refrain anymore since the one pluck is still louder than everything else.

The ending seems to just feel like a cutoff rather than an ending to the song. Adding a reverb, or echo, does help with ending a song, but it doesn't completely finish the job.

SUMMARY:
Overall, this is a pretty decent upload. You definitely need to work on your filtering, your audio balancing, and your endings. I see the potential in you to get somewhere, but only you can reach there. I am going to scout you on Newgrounds. Congratulations! I hope to see some great tracks uploaded in the future!

[Death Moon]

SHK, you absolute legend. I've seen your work before and it's absolutely phenomenal. I am so elated to see you finally moving to Newgrounds and uploading your music here. What better way to celebrate it by uploading the amazing Death Moon?

There's nothing wrong with this entry at all! I don't see a single thing that could be worked up upon!

Not scouted? That's not a problem here! You have now been scouted by me!

Bless your soul, and keep making great music! :D
-Sydney "Kirbyrocket" Henry

[Communication Rights]

This is a very abnormal piece. There were a few things that bothered me and made me dislike this track. I'll start it in chronological order:

In the beginning, some of the instruments appear to be offbeat. Keeping a steady tempo is something that many great composers do in order to make their song flow more smoothly as it plays. If you get the instruments to play where the notes hit just right, then you will see a much better outcome in your work. This was not much of a problem later as the piece began to progress.

At around 2:30, you added a gritty noise that seemed to be extremely out of place. From there on out, the piece sounded as if it was apart of a completely different piece until around 3:20; even then, it still appeared to be very different from the rest of the piece. It's good to have a bridge in a piece, but it's not good to make it sound TOO different.

At around 4:00, another gritty noise begins to play in the background and progressively gets louder. This sound is not pleasing to the ears due to how out of place it is. There is no rhythm for it to flow with; and as it gradually gets louder, it begins to take over the entire song. The echo at the end does help fix this, but it still does appear to be quite loud and out of place.

From 4:32 to 4:37, you can hear a humming sound being played ended by a hat. These sounds are completely out of place -- as they do not go anywhere with the rhythm or melody. These definitely things that shouldn't be put in a track to end a piece.

Finally, the drums didn't appear to fit appropriately with the chiptune instruments being used. Real drums don't fit for a chiptune song; however, you didn't label your genre as Chipstep or Video Game, so I may be wrong in thinking that it is indeed chiptune.

You have potential, but I don't think you are quite there yet. I hope to see more content from you, and I'd love to see your great improvement in the near future. I may not scout you now, but hopefully, in the near future, you will improve greatly and become scouted.

Best wishes. Bless.
-Sydney "Kirbyrocket" Henry

Kerosyn responds:

Abnormal indeed! Honestly, I don't like this track either. To be fair though, making the second half completely different was entirely the point (check the description.)

While I don't actually see all of your points here, I do appreciate the feedback. That said, this song almost a year old now, so my next upload coming sometime in early July might interest you.