Waidmann's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Breakin' the Moon]

This is quite a beautiful track. The arprggios and the leads flow really nice together to give it that nice ambient feel. And the basses dont dissapoint either :)

Although i have a suggestion to make this track enter better :)
One thing you could do is have a little tape stop effect thrown in a little before :58 and then at :59 or :60 you could just start the wobble and then start the rest of the track in.
i dunno thats my idea of just the drop....the rest is good though...not much change needed.

Food For Thought.
Keep it up :)

H215 responds:

Thanx for advice! =)

[bada bass full]

Hey man...to be honest i hear very little of Drum 'N' Bass in this track. The intro starts off dubstepy...and then progresses into something techno? ionno...You tell me lmao.

I like the idea behind the track. For this song to be drum and bass though the whole drum track needs to be redone to sound like traditional DnB in my opinion. Otherwise this is just dubstep...
The synths an such need work on their mixing...and some mastering issues on the snare. The whole drum sequence sounds a little distraught in the beggining...then again it sounds nothing like DnB to me. But overall its an okay track.

Food For Thought.
Good work.

formermom responds:

you think it would be more in the dub step category, ill change it

[Rust Vandetta]

Man.

I like your start...very chilled and pretty house-like. Although i have some concerns as to what happens after the :32 mark.

In my opinion i think you need to revamp the drums. Your Snare got alittle too much high freq on it...which i think is cool...but maybe lower the volume on it...so you can kinda outline the kick drum more...and make the whole perc track sound balanced. The Rev hat sounds okay although its very....loud. The way i like to do my revs an such is to put them under heavy reverb, lower their volume and let the verb do the tricks...potentially it couold do wonders...but i dunno what your scheme was for this track so ima let it go lol. but i would lower the volume of the revhat just for the safe side.

The leads are cool...synths add up pretty nicely. The whole track has that house feel...its put together pretty nicely so nothing to talk about there.

All in all i think its just a little problem with your mixing...thats it :)

Food For Thought.
Keep it Up.

ThePal responds:

I've heard the "snare bug" from quite alot of people already. I think i'll take it to work and edit that for sure.
And outlining the kick out more could also do a improvement now where I think about it, to give a more stable rhythm, maybe?
Reverbing the Rev's up more you say? The fact actually is, I took a normal crash just as you say, and reverbed it out long so it sounded like a Rev Crash. Same with the noise buildup. Not sure if it should be reverbed once more, though.

Thanks for the constructive critism though, it's very appreciated! :D

[Techno uplifter]

You're getting better.
Your tracks make a lot more sense now. Only issue i have is your melodies.
Some of them sound out of key...and that's okay...more practice will eliminate that.

Other than that you're doing a great job in improving.

Keep it up.

DESHIEL responds:

Care to remix this? :D

[The Next Level(hardstyle)]

Hey man!

Like the idea behind the track :)

Although i hear some complicationts with the track.

I think the vocals need to be touched up..like eq'd to the point where they sound really crisp and defined...

Also the gabba kick...Not bad of a choice..but i think maybe you could layer some. (2 is usually sufficient) But im not saying to do it right away..im just saying that you could do it progressively.
Like keep the one that starts at roughly 50 seconds. But then at the second drop you could sort of layer it and make it really hardcore.

Also i dont hear alot of bass :L sure the kick on its own can provide the bass punch needed for a hardstyle track to thrive...but i just hear the kick track going in with the hard lead and fx. (also some percs) what im saying is that in this case..the kick can provide enough of that punch for that "head bang" ya dig?

Plus i think that the hardsyle lead can lose some reverb..not alot...but a little bit...cuz it sounds like the reverb tail is drowning whatever comes later in the track

but overall the track was really well produced.

Food For Thought!
Keep up the good work!

(check out my track "Miracle Call" ...its not much but its what i meant when i said all of the above(sort of))

DJT3chnic responds:

Not quite sure what you're talking about with the Gabba Kick but, alright. The vocals do need some EQing, will get to it. As far as bass is concerned, from my experience Hardstyle cut lows with everything except for the kick. Some FXs will have Bass yes, but most leads always cut the bass. Either way, thanks for the feedback and criticism. I do appreciate it.

[X Files]

lol

Sounds like you need to rework the WHOLE drop portion of the track.
The drums need to be remastered for sure.
The bass (was that a bass?) needs to be remastered as well.
As minicoz said...i think seems like you already got way too much of the compression there already..so you probably need no more.

Other than that...i think that the whole ambient build-upto the drop was brilliant. Your choice of pads and synths worked really well in coupe and if everything goes smooth with the mastering...it can work out to be an awesome piece :D

Food For Thought!
Keep it up!

[Evolution of Time]

Hey man.

The lead that starts off the track (in my opinion) doesnt really fit into the whole ambient sphere that this track should be. i cant really place in what exactly they CAN be used for..but not here.

The orchestral element was a good way to reinforce the ambient element. (it was actually saving your ass lmao) But thats what i think.

I think that you should work on your mastering a bit...in this case you could make your percussions sound a little more punchy..and crisp.

When you got time...check out my ambient stuff. (all in all in an ambient artist as well...and im just trying to help a brother out)

Food For Thought.
Good Work.

JP-SuperFresh responds:

lmao

my ass has been saved!

[Survive Until The Sunrise]

Hey man.

Theres a few things i'd like to point out.

The sidechained padline that starts at 0:30 is quite overbearing compared to the rest of the track.
Maybe consider lowering its volume in the mix and sort of try to "blend" it in with the rest of the track. (Maybe use EQs to make it more of a background thing)
The vocal track that starts at the same time can be louder, plus it can have a little more reverb as well...(also EQ'd)make it really fly you know?

Percussions are okay. I think the clap can be alot louder though.
Also.
The sidechained bass that comes in at 1:38...it gets overbearing as well (meaning that your vocals..and the rest of your elements are basically getting "drowned" by that bass)...my suggestion, sink the volume of that sidechained bass a bit...and mix it with a nice sub-bass to give it that nice bass boost. Usually it wont be too loud or too quiet (just right ;)

Also try some transition use. A nice soft transition works best with some soft whitenoise that goes under some sort of filter (experiment!). Or reverbated vocals. (again, experiment)

Food For Thought!

Keep it up.

crazydaydreamer responds:

Thanks for your thoughtful food response! I'm going to experiment with the various tips you gave me. I'm glad you pointed out the volume issues especially, as i was having trouble getting an objective view of it.

Again, great advise. I look forward to stepping up my game.

[Tzu - D.O.W.]

Hey man!

This track feels...great!
I mean the intro is quite amazing to me :) The melody is soft and unnerving...of course i think what would make this track really fly is maybe some more soft pads...(with good, soft reverb) and match them in unison...or maybe search up some gregorian chants on the web...slice em and use that sort of element to maybe fill this song more..i think

The drums are good to me...but i much preferr that rich sounding "Skrillex kick"...fat yet nice enough for the ears lol...

Food For Thought!
Keep it up man!

Tzunami responds:

Thanks a lot Waidmann. One thing about my drums is that I've been getting used to using kits instead of samples, though, if the project needs it, I'll layer some samples on those to make them better. I could agree with the soft and subtle pads, I didn't want to be too effect heavy with the mix, but I did want to add a couple more elements to the song, just couldn't figure out what I could of used.

Thanks again for the review.