RyeGuyHead's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Solus- Morning Genesis]

Ethereal

It's like waking up and looking out over a vast, foreign landscape.

Good use of traditional orchestra instrumentation. I like how you start out with the flutes playing the melody, and then switch it up to different sections like the strings and vibes and such. Having played sax in the school band, I know that's how these compositions usually go.

Now you just have to throw in some different movements ;)

In the middle, around the one minute mark, the strings playing lead should probably have a bit of a faster attack. Other than that, great job.

SolusLunes responds:

I suppose I could throw in a couple of different movements, but that would require extending this.

Maybe for later.

[Undine's Magic (SOM Remix)]

ch ch ch ah ah ah

One of those effects has the slasher movie feel to it.

My roommates were playing this game last year, what a great soundtrack. I am not too familiar with this song, however. Really good thematic development on the synths. I think a snare drum would give this song a lot more power towards the end (before 3 minutes). The snare roll was a lackluster ending, perhaps you could implement a pad fade out to make the song loop better.

Great quality though :)

Flashburn responds:

<<<333

[He's a pirate (Dubstep) by RBT]

Well

If you can't take criticism, don't expect to ever get any better...

The tune (melody) sounds really familiar, is it Pirates of the Caribbean or something? The beats are alright, I liked how you didn't get too full with it right away. That gives your song more room for expansion in the dynamic department. I think it would be wise to switch over the melody to the saw synth that plays the 1/4 notes on the 1..4 beats, as the theme gets overpowered as is. I like the pluck sound on it, use it for the intro...not the whole track.

The bass is nothing special. The breakdown at 3:30 is a good spot to elaborate on the bassline a bit more. Still that theme is too far back in the mix.

WAMP WAMP...meh

Skullfy responds:

The melody is pirates of the caribbean theme song and it's called "he's a pirate"...
This is remix of the potc theme song...
But thanks 4 the review and i try to work on stuff that u didn't like :)

[RunRoze (July NAC)]

NAC Judge

OMG Yes!

That intro is perfect. The timing on the piano, is incredible eerie. The guffaw and pads with the sensation of falling down...SO great that you used Ring Around the Rosie, because it's about the black plague, which is very zombie-esque. And the voice processing is exceptional throughout, it really is.

The drum chase scene irked me the first time I listened to it, but I start to like it more and more now. It's such a random DnB break, but a great one. It's hard to put in a tempo change without making it really noticeable, there are a lot in this song and they're all seamless. The way it works with the drums is really cool. Not really much of a chase scene, in my mind...but I could really care less the way it flows into the next part.

The poem is pretty good. I don't quite get the "Petalled blood seeps from my eyes" line...having a hard time with the imagery. It's supposed to be like a rose? The chorus effects on your voice at the end were magnificent. I'd rather it'd be on your voice a little bit more earlier on in the first stanza...

This thing is all over the place, and I must say it is one of the most well-rounded songs I have come across in some time. Not to mention how unbelievably well it fit within the Zombie guidelines. Kudos.

My Score: 9.6

MrMusicalLion responds:

Glad you asked about that line,
Lemme explain :D [Glad to, in fact ^_^ ]

'Petalled blood seeps from my eyes.'
It's comparing the Person turning into a zombie, to a rose that is slowly losing its petals.
I describe the blood coming from the eyes as though it were like petals falling from a rose.
If you imagine that the eye itself is the centre of the rose, and the drops of blood are the petals, you should be able to get the imagery pretty well.

Anywho many thanks for the lovely indepth review, I was also wondering whether or not to introduce those effects on my voice earlier or later - the tricky thing was trying to figure out how to strike a balance between maintaining the tension and keeping the listener interested. I made this piece in about 3 or 4 days so I am happy with how it turned out considering I found out about the contest a week before the deadline ^_^

Thanks! :)

[°°Slow & Hungry°°]

NAC Judge

Funky fo sho mans.

The brass is indeed very weird, I means what is its doing there? Instrument wise, it just doesn't fit..but it does! The timbre it adds to the gritty bass and ghost pads is impressive. The climax of this song is like a zombie beating breakdown. Like, I'm dancing maniacally around a bunch of walking corpses. Haha. I never played Resident Evil, but I could see this in a cut scene for any video game really.

The bass does a good job at carrying the song along, I suppose it might be nice to bring it in earlier, in very small amounts, and then drawn out so the chewing/gargling doesn't stand out too much. A chainsaw would be a nice way to dispose of zombies, though that would get very messy, very fast. Have you seen Dexter on Showtime? The drum and bass elements of this came out of nowhere, but were awesome. Having live drums on a song makes it sound soooo much better.

This is a really good song. It has a great video game vibe and (as I said earlier) would fit just about anywhere, which actually takes away from the contest theme a bit. What I'm saying is, besides the lip smacking and chainsaw sounds, the song doesn't scream "BRAAAIIINNSS" out at me. I like it, I like it a lot. Nice job!

My Score: 8.8

Whirlguy responds:

I can understand why this song doesn't scream "BRAAAIIINNSS" at you. It does to me though. Judging the other reviews, it's must be a matter of opinion. There's so many different zombie genres, but I think I've succesfully recreated the sort of thing I was going for. Apart from the soundeffects and maybe the overal mix, there's nothing(much) I would change about it. It wasn't supposed to sound like a videogame though.

The song was actually pretty much built around the wet noises from the start. Once I had the song laid out, all that was missing was an ambience. I considered those noises better than nothing, but I get your point. I think the climax would have lost a lot of its energy if I brought the bass in earlier too, even if it's just small amounts. And the brass just HAD to go in this song, I intended to use them from the very start, anyway :P

The drums were taken from my neffue's improvisation. I couldn't use all of it for my song, so I took about 2 bars from the recording and looped them at the beginning and end. Then I went all Dexter on the beat(slice&dice), so as to create the climactic part. It was also layered with an already existant beat I had created. While that is a minor detail, the crashes and cymbals you hear were also not from the recording(could have used a little more editing imo).

A great review and an excellent score on top of that. Thanks man (:

[News of the Dead (July NAC)]

NAC Judge

Prototype

The broadcaster's sounded excellent, and the words he spoke were familiar, and thus effective. I like how you use the recordings to add to the beat (if you will) in the later half. I must say that I think you put one of the recordings on the wrong DSP channel...the one sound bite at 1:35 sticks out like a sore thumb.

The synths are behind a bandpass filter? That must be why they sound so...cheap. The synths are coming out of the radio too, I get it...yea.

Nothing technically jaw-dropping...The production is good, but somewhat average in lieu of the entries to this contest (not a bad thing). But this song could not have fit the contest guidelines any better. The MOST zombie based song in the competition. Belongs at or near the top. Great work.

My score: 9.4

Bad-Man-Incorporated responds:

Thanks man. Sadly, I really wished I had more time. I got this AWESOME broadcast and very little time. I may play with it some more, just to. I did accomplish what I wanted. That one spot does stick out, and I must have thrown it on a different channel. haha. Thanks for picking that out...I'll have to take care of that when I have some time. :)

Thanks for the review.

[No Brainer]

NAC Judge

This has very good production quality. I like how the screams were used with the beats during the little breaks. Bassline was pretty funky, gritty, and not overpowering...I think the part that is soloing around 2:30 could use some more processing; like a phaser/flanger/chorus type effect. But that is really the only sample I have any gripes about. One of the better electronica/techno songs in the contest, by far.
Yeah, I really like the way the bass sounds, and the use of silence in your breaks/transitions were top of the line. You do a good job of mixing up the parts, but I am left wanting more of them. What's there is good, I'm just a layer nut...think nothing of it. REALLY cool fade out.
While you used some screams, which gave the song an aura of zombie appeal, I felt like overall the sound effects felt forced and unnatural. You're getting minor points for taking a serious stab at the zombie genre, but they would have been major points if the song revolved around the zombie theme and not had hints of it every here and there. An overall solid song that definitely deserves to be in the top 8. Good stuff.

My Score: 8.8

wwwyzzerdd responds:

I was thinking of doing something else around 2:30 when I dropped the "farting" bass synth (as Chronamut put it, haha), but alas I was lazy and said "meh, this works."

I hate to keep playing the "I sat down and shat this out in about 2 hours" line, but on the flipside, maybe if I dedicate more time to things, I'll have a better end product.

Thanks for the review!

[Run On Lava]

Diggin the flow

of the first thirty seconds. has some great potential composition wise. Some of the synth patches you used were less than desirable, namely the one that came in at 0:37, you should have kept it the same as before...

The sound from 0:24-0:30ish should be utilized more. Pretty cool, I'd work on the middle part a bit more to keep it sounding as good as the rest.

BurnedVirus responds:

Thank you very much, I'll work on these points.

[°°Industrial Detour°°]

bitchin

Could use a little more kick compared to the level of the snare. The lead that comes in around 0:30 is really cool...I don't know if you were messing with the filters or pitch bending, but it had a sweet effect. The buzzy lead that comes in after the voice is a little too low in the mix compared to the arpeggios. Fix those two mastering issues and I can't really see any flaws in this.

On second thought, I wasn't sure if the original string was supposed to be orchestral or synthy. either way, it could have stood out more.

Whirlguy responds:

I'm not too proud of the mixing on this one. I had a hard time getting the mix to sound right on several different outputs. The smallest tweaks would either channel certain instruments out to barely hearable, or make them way too loud. Probably a case of bad equalizing, but I was getting impatient with this project. Seeing as the file's been corrupted before, I just wanted to get it over with.

The lead's actually a piece of field recording from years ago. It was created by scratching a plastic ribbed surface, which I looped afterwards. Nothing special about it, really. I'm still pretty fond of it for it's industrial sound. Oh and yeah, pitch bending! Actually it's the piano roll portamento function which I love so damn much <3

Thanks for reviewing man, sorry for the late response.

[Birefringence]

It's pretty complex

lots of variation and cool things going on with the lead synths, but...there's like no bass. And it gets a little repetitive after a while. I liked the hat fills

ErikMcClure responds:

I spent so long maximizing the bass and it is never enough to satisfy people's absurd love of it.