anthonyragus's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Dungeons' Garden (Cover)]

Super interesting take on the original. Leavesz is so talented, and I think they don't realize how good they are yet. I love the glock melody at 1:43 and marimba+cello melody at 1:03 and 3:06; I wish they were more present so I can hear them siiiing!

One of the things I've changed over the years, in general, is using way less reverb than I used to, both lowering the volume and shortening the tail. Sometimes I even compress the reverb aux track a bit. You'll still get the spacious feeling of reverb, and you'll gain clarity and focus.

[Cloud Caravan (SNES/Genesis)]

Whoa, that is a HARD SWING. All aboard the swang train, The Super Mario World-sounding keys solidified the nostalgia factor for me. Great chromatic passing movement in there too.

In the "verses", one or two of your bassse are panned to the right. Is this this for balancing something on the left? It seemed a bit right-heavy to me.

What is that sound effect at 0:33 and other spots? It's super interesting.

Jojo responds:

According to someone else, a lot of my songs sound more full on the right channel and not enough on the left. Must be a hearing-perception thing. It's something I'm working on fixing.
It was intentional this time however since I use multiple bass instruments throughout this track and it sounds more alive to place them in different positions.

As for the sounds at 0:33, if I remember correctly it's several sounds layered together for the bellish instrument with a snare placed at the right points to make it sound more popping. And the cha-ching sound is from Mother 3. ^w^

[THE CAVE]

Heck yeah, staccato flute adds levity to any situation. What's the foley / ambience in the background? It sounds like a distant construction site paired with a slightly sample crushed forest ambience with crickets and cicadas. HOW WRON WAS I?? Great work, it's a sideways-head-bobber for sure.

Pan01 responds:

thank you!

and yeah it was meant to sound like there was some kind of machine system inside the cave, i did not hear the crickets sounds in the fx i used until after i posted the song so thats actually a mistake lol

[Ebb & Flow (2022)]

Amazing, you're approaching THE ideal symphonic metal sound. Such good writing and processing. I love the arpeggiating countermelody. This is incredible, and I hesitate to make suggestions, which are more subjective sylistic choices than anything. Overall, if I were good enough to produce this, my take on mixing would be to lower the whole orchestra by between 3 and 6 dB and bump up the solo guitar by at least 4dB (e.g. 01:24 and 02:45). However, the mix does work well for the section from 02:31 to 02:45.

Oh, feel free to reach out anytime if you'd like to use real trumpet. I feel like taking on the challenge of your trumpet writing, hehe.

[It's The Most Crab Apple Lime On A Pear (A Liam Neeson Car Key Christmas)]

...Oh. These lyrics....Oh no....My brain hurts....10/10 Amazing work.

[nice car]

Hey, I had a listen to a few of your tracks (including this one), and I super dig your style. Dark, minimalist, with some kind of liminal space feeling to your work.

RiverK responds:

Thank you! I do love a good liminal space.

Your own library is impressively diverse!

[Venus (Original Mix)]

Heck yeah, I didn't know you were into psy! Great chord progression. I hesitate to make mix suggestions, because everything is glued together so well, but I wonder if the high percussion could be brightened without taking over the mix, maybe high passed higher up and gently raised level, not sure. Oh, is that melody a reference at 7:55? It sounds suspiciously similar to a 2000-ish trance classic that I can't remember right now.

[Moments (OST Equilibrium)]

So much fun. As soon as I heard the triple feel, I knew it was getting real. There's an interesting sidechain compression feel that I'm not used to hearing in psy, which caught me off guard. I would like to inquire about bass release, which is long enough to where I don't quite hear the individual plucks of the bass. I'm just being picky because everything else is as close to perfect as possible. If that and the sidechain were stylistic choices, I'd be interested in hearing why that would be done. Great work.