boney-man's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Fertile Grounds and Open Skies]

8/10

It was OK... I can't listen in too great detail because someone is sleeping in the other room and I don't feel like wearing my headphones. But from what I do hear, the pads are nice, but a bit loud compared to the drums (even for ambient). And TheKoltred, while being an ass about it, was right - it needs a bass. He didn't say it needs a "wobble saw bass detuned 50 cents." A regular ol' sub would do this song great justice. That's pretty much all that's missing, and then the mixing could be a little better. But overall, not a bad song. Keep it up.

~Ackute
8/10
4/5

SessileNomad responds:

agh fine ppl ill go back and throw more bass on the sine sub im running

[Untitled - Preview]

Keep going!

At first I thought the drums were too weak, but when it dropped it sounded fine. Very smooth tune. Maybe I'd lower that saw (?) synth that fades into 1:07. Just a tiny bit. The atmosphere you've got here is great, definitely finish this one!

~Ackute
5/5
10/10

[YOURS 4EVER]

Yeah.

It does sound like early-mid 90s jungle. It's quite enjoyable... I've been listening to and producing modern dnb all day... and now I can relax with some oldskool stuff here. Great job man. I honestly can't think of anything bad about this... the music is great, the mixing is great, it's all great.

~Ackute
10/10
5/5

[PandoraTranquil - Transcape]

Yes.

This was one of the first good drum & bass songs I ever heard on NG. Someone showed it to me in 2007, and I was like "whoa this is great" and I downloaded it, but never reviewed. So now here I am reviewing it. I, too, like the range of emotion in this song. The bassline and piano melody in the second part are so catchy, I love it. I love this song overall. I used it in one of my recent drum & bass mixes; it fits perfectly with J Majik & Wickaman's remix of Inhaler - Something About You. I could send it to you if you want.

So yep, anyway, here's a long overdue and well-deserved review. This song gets 10/10 and 5/5 for being awesome. Keep making stuff like this, man. I love it.

~Ackute
10/10
5/5
+DL

[Rudy P. - Virus (NG Cut)]

Hi there

I'm gonna get straight to the point. You certainly know what drum & bass is, as opposed to a large number of artists on NG. Now onto the actual content of the song... the intro was an odd length, not one I'm used to in drum & bass, but that doesn't matter so much. You do know the structure of a drum & bass track, you're just doing it too short imo lol. Yep. Not to be a dick here, but I don't think this sounds like Spor at all, although I can tell how it's influenced by him. The bass is REALLY wobbly, which is great, and I like it, but I'm not detecting any sub here :( Just layer your current bassline with a sub and happiness will ensue.
Now onto the drums... They were good, I like how certain hats were sidechained to the kick (or so it sounded...). My biggest complaint with the drums is the snare's lack of power. Hopefully you didn't reverb it, because it sounds like you did... that takes a lot of power out of the snare. It's really high pitched, and doesn't really stand out in the mix; I like its high frequencies though, so I'd suggest layering it with a thicker snare... one that has power in the 250-300 Hz range (not exact values, I don't have any of my EQs open to check, but it's around there.) In the intro, the kick sounds nice and powerful, but when it drops, I don't feel the kick is punching through as much as it should.

So basically those are my only complaints about the whole song - the lack of sub, and the lack of power in the kick and snare.

Also the end is pretty sudden. But good job overall.

~Ackute
7/10
5/5, because it's actually drum & bass

Fuiste responds:

I'm so thankful for reviews like this. As I keep saying, I'd rather get a 5 from someone who knew what they were talking about than a 10 that just says, "it was awesome" I've gotten considerably better at making drums since I did this track too, and yes, the snare is reverbed, my bad... I've moved into a more electro-breaks style recently, but I still make the occasional DnB track here and there. I might upload one soon.

[~UT~ Stairway to Heaven Remix]

Nice job.

This is great man. I think I recognize a part of your snare... is it a VEC1 snare?

Anyway, nice job with the remix, you really gave it your own feel. I can get into this, and it's great for me to take a step back from drum & bass and listen to some breakbeat for a bit. So nice job man. I'm feelin' this.

~Ackute
10/10
5/5

[Brainsick [DEMO] - 2008]

Not Spor.

To Upyourface, I don't think it sounds like Spor... sounds more like Billain.

I think the only reason I'm reviewing was to say that. Personally I loved the bass at 0:35. This song is great. Good luck with the labels, we know how they are lol.

~Ackute
10/10
5/5

[ellipse]

Yeah man.

This song is great. Drum & bass on Newgrounds usually isn't drum & bass - but this is. You should be proud of this, and yourself, because there are very few songs on NG that I like as much as I like this. The drums are nice and hard, but if I had to say anything about them, it'd be to make the snare harder, but it's good as is in my opinion. The reese was pretty awesome, man. And of course, that piano... sounded real, nice job with it. Is it from a synth/samples/recording or what? It sounds like someone actually playing it.

Overall, amazing job. Nice combination of genres. I think I'm downloading this... and I literally NEVER download NG music anymore... so that's another reason to be proud. Good work.

~Ackute
10/10
5/5
+DL

broove responds:

Awesome! Glad you like it. The piano is kind of played by me.. I believe it was some kind of VST plug + my MIDI keyboard

[*Time Traveller*]

I have to review this

Yeah man. Good job on this track. When you first sent this to me, the melody seemed kind of awkward to be honest, but it's actually quite catchy now. It's stuck in my head. So good job with that. Your drum work is quite good... The ghost snares might be a little louder than they should be, but that's my only complaint about the drums. They're well-made. My only complaint about the whole song is its structure... it's basically correct, I just felt the bass could've come in earlier for the 2nd drop. When the bass was there, it was great... that bass is nice and deep. But for a huge part of the song there was no bass :|

Other than that, nothing. This is a good song. As I told you on AIM, your little touches make it even better... like that saw-sounding synth with delay, that comes in at 2:32, that's under the beepy synth. Nice touch. The whole atmosphere of this track is nice and chilled... you do that well.

Your mixing is getting good too. Nothing is sticking out too much, nothing's clashing... it's great. Now you just have to try to get that "massive" sound lol, like I do. It's so hard to get... I need to practice :|

So good job!

~Ackute
10/10
5/5
No DL because I already have it... lol

Jenni-Harry4eva3 responds:

Woo. Long review. I love those triangle leads <3 Learned a thing or two with Delay Bank. It gives it more of a beep sound rather than the triangle lead itself.

I wanted the ghosts to kind of stick out a bit more rather than be massively side-chained. So it's kind of lightly side-chained.

Yeah, structure's just a tiny bit off. It's like 48, 64, 32, 64. Well, the bass I felt was reaaally special lol. It's going to be my third time using TS404 and 3xOsc together to make a deep sub.

Most definitely want to achieve that "massive" sound lol. XD Practice for the both of us. Thanks man!

~[IZK]

[Substitute - [IZK] & Ackute]

Yay

omg this song is so amazing! :D
really though, it's one of the best songs i've worked on.

you had really great ideas for this one man!

~Ackute
10/10 of course

and to Mr. SteakandKidneyPie, I do not understand you. What about rock?
To Loader2K1, we're still not sure if we're posting the final mix here. If IZK agrees, we might try to send it places if you get what I mean... lol

Jenni-Harry4eva3 responds:

Yay. It really is amazing. =) You had some pretty sweet ideas too.