Technocosm's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[hyper fantasy]

Drums are a little weak, pre-drop sample is questionable, and there's only really one bass here for the entirety of both drops... but...

I mean, that one bass is very versatile and a lot is done with it. Atmosphere's been gotten down pretty good, and overall pretty competently produced aside from the Drums.

[Chaos [Original Mix]]

Genre - Dubstep
I HAVE BEEN LIED TO...

[Verce Music - Restart]

Damn, I expected you may not have been scouted yet bc iirc, people who've uploaded less than 4 tracks can't get scouted until they upload their 4th - but you've been around a few months and got a decent amount more than 4 tracks put out there. Honestly surprised you hadn't been scouted already.

[Trivecta - Wasteland (Verce Remix)]

Pretty good overall, just feels like there needs a bit more going on in the drops.

You have volume automation, and occasional lowpassing, but not much else going on - which I feel like isn't enough interesting modulation if you're gonna make an entire drop out of one synth. Personally, I'd probably layer a bass under it, or try making the B-sections of the drops switch into something new.

Oh yeah, the snare's also pretty weak.

Other than that, good.

[Rebirth]

I gotta say, I was worried for a moment. Not that all unscouted music is bad, I listen to it often honestly because although it tends to be less competently made, it's usually more creative and experimental so it's still interesting to listen to... That being said it is rare to see top-tier tracks in the unscouted section. Unscouted accounts with official sounding names and official looking art uploading tracks like this tends to be a big red flag that a track is stolen and reuploaded under a new name. Sure enough though, I looked you up on Youtube and found your channel where you have the footage of the FLP of this track to prove you did make this- so I have to applaud this.

I found the intro pretty dull and drawn out, but that might just be me because I'm really not a fan of guitars - aside from that it's very well mastered, and the dramatic emotional vibe is certainly nailed.

As for the drop - wow. It may not be very original in structure, but those growls are borderline immaculate. I don't think I've ever heard growls where the vocal quality to them has been exaggerated to that degree. There is just a little too much... well I think it's noise in them, which makes then a teensy bit grating on the high end. That's the only criticism I could have about them though. It's like it has the power and expressiveness of Barely Alive's growls, without having to make the usual sacrifice required to make those growls of destroying your dynamic range in the process with the crazy over-compression that brings out that sound.

For a track like this I would usually complain a little about the drop needing a bit more variety, because for the most part all that changes throughout the first drop is the growl. Here though, I can't deny it, every variation on that growl feels significant enough to grab my attention, while still maintaining the massively satisfying quality of the sound - especially 1:30 and 1:46.

Actually, if I were to make any complaint about the first drop, the only thing I could say would be that it sounds like it's missing a little low end. It took me a while to even realise there was a sub playing during the drop, but I think the reason it isn't quite doing the job on its own is it's very wide and separated in the stereo image. The sound surrounds you, so it fills the atmosphere of the track with bass - but in the centre of the stereo image where all your growls and drums are, there actually isn't much bass. The growls do have some low end to them, but it mostly sounds like low-mids. They might benefit from a bass boost, or being layered with a more merged sub in the centre of the stereo image.

Then there's the second drop, a nice melodic switchup with the classic big supersaw chords. It's pretty effective, but if you couldn't tell, I'm trying to find everything I could possibly criticise about this track so that this review isn't just me saying "it's focken gud mate innit?" 😅 - so here comes c o m p l a i n t s . The sidechaining throughout this track in general has been pretty heavy, but up until this point, it's barely noticeable and arguably a stylistic choice that improves the track if you're into that kinda thing. With these big supersaw chords though, the heavy sidechaining becomes very noticeable, and just a little... well... bad... Still, this is probably the worst the mastering gets in this track, and if that's your biggest problem, then you're doing pretty damn good overall.

As well as that, the supersaw itself could also use a boost in the low-end. I get it's a high-mid focussed sound intentionally, because it's supposed to be an especially melodic-focussed element that contrasts the basses - but I still think that low-end is noticeably empty there. It doesn't have to be much, it can be subtle, but maybe layering in a couple lower notes with those chords - or even better, an entirely new maybe more subtle bass to support it and go under it would make it perfect. I would usually also complain about it just going back to the first drop format in the B-section of the second drop after we had that big melodic climax in the A-section - but honestly, I like the first drop so much, I can't bring myself to say that's bad.

Amazing stuff, if it wasn't already obvious, I am definitely scouting you. 😅

[WaffleJuice - Серёжка]

---
Criticisms:

- Not a fan of the reese bass that comes in at 0:20 - I'm not really hearing any of the low end on it, so it doesn't have much weight to it.

- The Snare is just a little flat. It probably doesn't need much of a volume boost, but it could do with some sidecahaining* to give it some oomph, and some reverb because without it the snare sounds a little disconnected from the rest of the track.
*(Sidechaining means reducing the volume of other instruments playing for a second when the drums hit to make them punch through more and be heard more clearly)

- Maybe more of a personal thing - I think the voice samples in this track could be ok, but as it is now it feels like there's just a bit too many of them interrupting a bit too often and it disrupts the flow a little.

- The bass design is a little bit generic.

---
Positives:

+ Although the bass design is pretty generic, it is pretty competent as well. It sounds pretty good, and although there isn't much variety in basses, the few that are used are very versatile.

+ Aside from not really liking the way the reese in it sounds, this is a pretty good intro and buildup.

+ The mixing and mastering is pretty good overall. Tracks that constantly peak or tracks that are constantly utterly flat and have no punch to them are pretty common to see with unscouted dubstep tracks, since mastering is a real mess with dubstep, and something even I still struggle with a lot. Here though, aside from the issues with the snare I pointed out, and a little bit of general muddiness with the basses - This is pretty good. It doesn't peak an unpleasant amount, but still hits pretty hard. A track like this could easily have felt very empty, but these thick basses just absolutely fill the whole spectrum.

+ The switch at 0:53 is my favourite part. The call and response square pluck with reverb may not be a new idea, but damn does it sound good here.
---

[Shard]

Honestly, for as cRaZy and QuIrKy as this track is, the sound design here isn't even bad - it just has some big structure issues that make it feel like it's going nowhere a lot of the time.

that switch at 1:11 to 1:50 honestly sounds really good, that alone I would give 4 stars, but this as a whole is kind of a mess...

Chongo875 responds:

Thank you so much! Even though you didn’t think it was that good, I still appreciate it!

[RUSH]

Not much going on in the first drop, but not bad for a first track honestly. There's some of the expected issues you see with most people's early tracks.

Sound Design is a bit generic
Drums are pretty flat and don't feel like they exist in the same place as the synths
Some moments where I'm pretty sure the sounds are going off-key (most noticeable with the bass wobble)

Having said that though, this definitely shows some effort to fix those common issues. The drums are still pretty flat, but at least they do feel like they hit relatively hard. The off-key stuff honestly isn't too bad either, and for the most part it's successfully integrated in a way where it isn't that noticeable, and is usually successfully utilised to produce tension instead of just sounding bad. Even the sound design, as generic as it is, is competent. Even if this is made using presets (not sure if it is, but I'm gonna guess so). I at least have to give some points for using the presets appropriately.

A lot of criticism there I guess, but it's to be expected for a first track - overall I think this is a good start, and despite those issues I'm still happy to give it 3 stars at least.

[Adventure]

Pretty good honestly, overall a very effective blending of chiptune & dubstep stuff.

The drums don't have that much power behind them, and there are only a couple sounds in this track that are really 'dubsteppy' basses - but the couple it has are used pretty effectively.

Probably my main complaint with this track is I think the bitcrushed ambience introduced at the start that's constantly playing throughout basically the entire track is just too loud. Already making a 100% bitcrushed track is gonna reduce your range of possible frequencies with sample rate reductions, as well as your range of different volumes you can have with bit depth reduction - so it makes the job of making each sound distinct harder.

Still, it can be done; and even when not done perfectly, it can be excused to some extent for the sake of the gimmick. Here, I don't think you can get away with it though, because on top of the bitcrushing, you also have all of your basses and arps fighting to be heard over the ambience. They cut through it pretty effectively when they're at their loudest, but the second any sound dips just a little below its max volume it quickly gets completely engulfed by the ambience to the point it becomes really hard to distinguish it from that constant vocal droning.

If that weren't the case, this may just be a 5-star track to me, but that factor holds it back a bit for me.

Edit: I scouted you - I don't think you can be listed as an approved artist until you have made at least 4 tracks (at least, those were the rules when I was getting scouted), but once you've uploaded 4 tracks onto Newgrounds you should hopefully start appearing normally in the Audio section.