Rampant's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Acid Paradox - Monster]

Simplistic; a little dull

Here are my thoughts on the track.

First off, it's dull. Thematically speaking, it goes nowhere. There's very little in the way of decent composition, which I suppose is about standard for D.N.B and dubstep.

The song is dull and shambles along, not really developing and failing to keep my interest. Not really fitting with the lyrics, or the title of the song.

I'm not a fan of dubstep (as is probably evident from this review), but isn't it supposed to be a fast, upbeat genre with heavy emphasis on having a good groove?

The mixing is alright, it's a little bass-heavy, and it sounds like its panned a little to one side, which is off-putting (most pop tracks have center-panned bass). Next to the bass, the drums by comparison sound weak.

The supporting melody also sounds like it was 'borrowed' from Clint Mansell's "Lux Aeterna".

Overall, it's not the worst dubstep track I've ever heard. But I can't give it any more than a 7/10 because of the lack of complexity and thematic development required by other genres, and the reasonably simplistic mixing techniques employed.

[never stop lovin you(June]

The thing is...

...I would actually have sex to this song. Oh, it's only a minute and a half long? No problem, I'm sure I can finish in time.

This is a really grooving sex track. I mean, it's like the perfect tempo for getting your funk on and everything XD You also manage to make it sound like porn without relying on the funk style.

I wish you the best of luck in the contest!
- James

HighBallers responds:

thanks for the review bro. oh yeah i know its short. dick her down and get out, lol

[Acid Paradox - Press Start]

Awesome

I really love the flow of this track. The parts where you decide to either strip the instrumentation to its bear minimum, or completely stop the track for a sound effect (e.g. the Super Mario pause at 0:55), are really cool and very well placed.

The bass is awesome, of course, and the drum beat is simple but effective. And full of 8-bit goodness.

And really, could there ever be a better game to be inspired by than GoldenEye 64?

[mountain river]

Title

I know music is a subjective thing, but... I think you need to study a bit of theory before loading stuff on to the AP.

Dissonance is an important part of music, but you can't have a song of *just* dissonance; there need to be resolutions, you need to be actual chords.

There's no melody here. And I'm sorry to say it, but this isn't music: it's just hitting random notes and saying "finished."

To boil everything down to a few points:
- there's no mixing
- samples sound terrible (there are a ton of free soundfonts and VSTs; even adding a little reverb can make them sound better)
- no discernible melody
- no dynamics
- music theory errors galore

You have a couple of small instances where there's *almost* a theme, or at least something you could use as a motif, but then you quickly move onto more random notes.

I'm not sure how this is in the Top 50, and what puzzles me even more is why this is in the 'Classical' section when it's not even remotely classical.

[Ivory Angel]

What is there to say?

It captures all of the emotion of anyone who has been -- pardon the expression -- kicked in the balls by love. (Which is why I spend my time writing music, not pursuing relationships xD)

I'd offer constructive feedback, but there's really nothing that could be improved.

Electric-Blizzard responds:

Thank you so much.I worked very hard on it. The irony is, I wrote this song when I was pretty happy, and in a relationship with a wonderful person, and only recently after this song was released, did they pull the plug on the relationship, leaving me a bit crushed. Maybe I can tell the future?
Thanks for liking it : )

[Warfare With No Gunfire]

Warfare With Snare Drums

Is there ever anything better than rapid military snare rolls to simulate the act of people mindlessly killing each other with machine guns?

This, to me, sounds like it belongs in a Tim Burton film. Admittedly, a Tim Burton film where everyone's decked out like Rambo, but Tim Burton nonetheless. You've captured the fantastical, pure Danny Elfman sound, put it through bootcamp, and sent it off to fight.

In slightly simpler terms, it sounds like Terminator 4 if it were held inside Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory, if John Connor was replaced with Edward Scissorhands, and Johnny Depp played the Terminator.

It's a really nice length, not too long but long enough to have some very nice thematic development.

Well done!

[[EE] Press Play on Tape]

dotdotdot

I think this is the first time that I've ever been at a loss of words to write a fairly thoughtful and at least hopefully somewhat helpful review.

But from the bass wobble at the beginning of the track, I just knew this was going to be good. And the rest of the track delivers. It's like classical music got in a clusterfuck with Super Mario Galaxy, and TimeSplitters.

And that last comment, yeah, that's meant to be a complement.

I wish I could offer constructive criticism, but I can't. There is honestly nothing I could suggest to make this track better.

Since I can't really give much feedback beyond "my mind just exploded," I feel like somewhat of an asshole for doing this, but:
-- I got here through the Audio Advertisements thread, so it would be awesome if you could return the favor by reviewing (or at least voting on) a song that's posted been in that thread. --

[Owl Study [Ambient DnB]]

Sweeeeeet

I'm not usually a big fan of D'n'B, but this was pretty good. It sounds like a sweet underground club, but for people who are way cooler than me.

Just a couple of suggestions:
- don't be afraid of panning! (Everything sounds like it's centered -- it doesn't sound too bad here.) For example: the lead synth at the beginning of the piece could be doubled -- one track could be panned hard left, the other hard right; it will make the instrument (and the whole track) sound fuller.
- volume automation! (There are some odd fader controls on the drums -- they come up to volume a little quickly at the beginning of the track and then, at the end, the volume on the drums seems to jump up a little in the middle of a measure.)
- You're missing the reverb tail at the end of the track... and that saddens me :( (lol I'm not *that* much of an audio nerd.)
- The bass feels a little too clean. (Compared to the rest of the track, and especially the drums, I think the bass should be grittier and more aggressive.)

Oh, and it needs more cowbell. (Or not.)

That's just my feedback, though. You can take as much or as little as you want from it.

- James

Shigimatsu responds:

Detailed feedback <3. You're one of the good ones :)

Thanks a ton! I will take all of those into consideration.

[Waltz]

...

A channelling of early Beethoven, with the some of the power of the Russian master composers (namely Rimsky-Korsakov and Rachmaninov).

But as I've said before, it's too short :P But it's a brilliant piece of music nonetheless.

[-Lost But Not Forgotten-]

Epic. But bland.

Not to say it's a bad piece of music, because it isn't, but it's just so... Hollywood.

I could go on and on and give you praise about how epic it sounds, or how cool it is, or how it would fit in a film trailer behind exploding cars and stuff, but again, it's just so... blah.

Sure, I could just say "epic lolzors ur awesome" like many of the other reviews, but I think that there's just so much more you could do with this track. Other than "film trailer."

Besides that, it's a good enough track. I just wish there was some more variation, different instrumentation (big horns, more trombone & tuba? That would make it feel more epic in the beginning).

Other than that, I'll just say that the end bit -- the solo piano -- was my favourite part. It sounded like Martin O'Donnell and Michael Salvatori's work on Halo -- perhaps a bit *too* similar to some of the Halo piano music...?

So to summarize:
- More fracking giant ass brass sections
- More solo piano
- Less standard Hollywood trailer music

That's my two cents, at least. Take from it whatever you want. (Pepole will think this review is worthles beacuause I offered criticism.)