anthonyragus's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Lonely Town]

You're approaching perfection. I can tell this is exactly what you were going for, and I can imagine this in so many different uses, contexts, etc.

I struggle to think of feedback. If I were the mixing engineer on this, I would sculpt the snare in two ways, tame the high sizzle and bring out the mid-low body. As it is now, the snare sounds high-passed in an unnatural way to me. I would also ever-so-slightly increase the overall bass level and bring out the harmonic distortion in the bass a bit more. But take this suggestion with a grain of salt. This style isn't my forte.

Fantastic work

Casper responds:

Thanks!

[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

[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!

[(Club) Axis Time (Equilibrium OST)]

based sine wave

ClubbinMusic responds:

and what's wrong with that?

[Vessel Full of Dreams]

Amazing work here, another example of foley, sound design, and that quintissential mechanical-but-soft upright sound, joining together to produce something truly special. Your transitions roll through like waves pushing to the shore.

Phonometrologist responds:

Where did you come from? Been listening to your tracks, and they are fun, interesting, and intellectually stimulating. Thank you for stopping by.

[Discordance Within]

Oh yes, this is the good stuff, somewhat evocative of Arvo Pärt's Für Alina, but even more spacious. The closed-ish pandiatonic harmony suits the pacing well, especially with how certain strings ring / sympathize. That walking bassline around 5:50 is satisfying, especially after hanging around, more or less, the middle of the keyboard. i enjoy visiting this minimalist area when noodling at the piano, letting harmony ring out, and breathing in the space, but you've inspired me to live there and see something through to "completion"; fantastic work.

Phonometrologist responds:

Thank you for sharing your thoughts on it. Arvo Pärt uses his own method to achieve the desired result, and I wanted to create my own technique to determine the musical dictation. I wouldn't have been disciplined enough to keep the structure's integrity if I didn't go by a certain guideline.
"The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one's self. And the arbitrariness of the constraint serves only to obtain precision of execution.” - Igor Stravinsky.

[Devils Lament]

\m/ This is a fantastic use of MOR (if my ears are correct). Your mixing is getting better and better. That middle section is awesome, a great balance of repetition and variation.

Lashmush responds:

Hey, thanks for the feedback! My whole approach to mixing is new now so the results are clearly showing its a better one. c:

[Dubstep - OH NO]

This is pretty cool! I like the bassline and the high string drone that floats over everything.

The problem that stood out to me was combining the sample with the buildup and post-drop. You could have two distinctive time feels, one swung and one straight. In fact listening to the outro it kind of sounds like that's what you wanted. But if you're going to have that sampled vocoder thing in a straight-felt section, you need to quantize it to straight 8th notes so that my brain doesn't freak out hearing both straight and swung at the same time.

There are other things regarding mixing that I won't go into, but great job for trying something new! My first attempt at dubstep was a disaster. Quantum shit was flying everywhere.

Zazzy responds:

The outro was to a part I never finished and decided to drop because FOOK IT I'm a lazy bastard.