Abstrack's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[God's Warrior & EthoShark & QWAZDYN - Forever]

Woah, I enjoyed this. The vocals are not varying enough in my opinion, and I feel like they have a bit too much gain. But hey, the melody, structure, sound effects and ideas presented here are very impressive. I almost feel bad not giving this 5 stars.

By the way, I really like the weird noises in the intro.

EthoShark responds:

thanks :)

[Fuck it]

Damn I don't understand how you can make so much great content in such a short period of time. It always impresses me how you always create something new, every single time. I hope you'll be able to continue doing music like this for a while 0_0

zybor responds:

Music is my drug, at least one of them. Everyday I get home from work, I have the choices of drowning myself with alcohol/weed/shroom/ketamine/DXM, or I can choose to stay sober and make music. Like other drugs, music drowns out my pain, both mentally and physically. It helps me forget about all the shit in this world, even for a moment. Every day it has become a ritual, I spend few hours before bedtime making music. Over the decades, I become so efficient with it I could make music under any condition or pressure. With other people they take times to formulate thoughts and ideas. For me I could just sit down and make shit without limitation for creativity and imagination.

Music liberates me because it's the only reason I haven't ended myself yet.

Thank you for your kind words. :)

[Painstalking]

Very glitchy sounds there, I like it. Never heard about the SNES contest, but you really are into these things I see huh. Good luck in there :)

And yeah, that "fuck windows" was lit. You should say that more often.

By the way, when do we start the collab? Are you still in?

zybor responds:

Sorry I'm still in, got caught up with lot of stuff. Thanks for reminding :P

[Shanlix - Joyful [Glitch Hop]]

I like the ringing bell synth in the beginning, it gives me christmas vibes. The melody is also very catchy, and I think the bass that comes in at 00:08 has the right shape (in terms of LFO and wave sample). The changes in instruments through the whole song keeps me engaged, and contributes to the story.

Here's the meat (I'm sure you know what I mean haha): despite the different sections with new melodies, the same instruments are used indifferently in almost every atmosphere (specific mood or vibe) of the song. Because of this, I find it harder to separate (and also, because of that, to understand, and then enjoy) the different atmospheres you wanted to express through your song. Also, despite the main melody to be quite catchy, the chord progression is a little cliche and it makes the whole thing less authentic, in my opinion (stealing this last idea from TaintedLogic's reviews: if you ever see this, please don't bite me with your copyright claims dude).

As for the sound design aspect, you seem to know at least a bit about how to make your sounds seem loud, and I like the white noise you used as a means of transition between sections. On another hand, I *think* you could try to use a bit more of stereo separation on your basses. In FL Studio 20, there's a stock plugin called "Fruity Stereo Enhancer". You should definitely try to play with that if you never did. My synths went from "brrrrr" to "BRWRWR" in like two or three clicks, and I think your basses could benefit from this effect as well.

In the end, I like the atmosphere of this song and the structure of its different parts. I think you could try to put a little bit more new details in the chorus as the song goes, but otherwise this is very well made. Keep it up!

Shanlix responds:

Okay thanks XD

[Anemoia]

Dude that's really well made. Keep it up!

DrayxMusic responds:

Thanks! :3

[Alone]

Damn this is good.

Dursope responds:

Thank you ^_^ mind sharing it <3

[MM8 Bonus: The Joyous Flogging of Forum Spammers]

Now I realise my mistake.

I should definitely have followed the way of the Joyous Flogging of Forum Spammers. It's too late, now that doing so would come at the cost of my sole life.

Anchorwind responds:

It isn't too late to become Embraced.

[Captain's Hat]

Very funky, as always :D
0:37 to 1:11 definitely gave me Mii Channel vibes.
Keep it up body!

Michael-Flaherty responds:

I sincerely love the music on the Wii so I consider that to be a very high compliment. Thank you!

[Recalibrate]

I really like the vibe of this piece. It reminds me of some epic music I've been listening to recently.

The beginning was really impressive, and the way you progressively introduce the first chorus kept me hooked until about 2:33, where a new bass comes in with a bit too much power to my taste. I actually have a hard time understanding its tone. I feel like too many things are happening at 2:41, maybe that's the reason. In the next section, the drum takes too much space, or some parts of it. My biggest problem with it is the pad with the highest pitch. Also, I don't quite hear well the bass line and the main instrument. If reducing the presence of the drum doesn't make these two present enough, then I'd higher a bit their volume or something. The next section feels definitely emotionally deep to me. In particular, I found the electric/bit-like noise in the background to be very interesting. I can definitely hear a programmer/hacker mood in there. In the next section, the drum seems to take too much space from 4:38, and I can't quite hear the melody or some of the instruments.

Overall, you have some solid drum patterns in there and a very great melodic sense. From my personal experience of this song, I think you should work on gluing both together with a more careful mixing.

Otherwise, I think the structure and the mood is very well made. Thanks for the journey! :D

zybor responds:

Thank you so much for this comprehensive review. I have no idea why your review didn't show up on my notification list, I almost missed this one. Sorry in advance.

[Lone Space Invader - FORCE]

You definitely made me question how I perceive music in the first place (in a good way!).

However, there's some aspect of sound design that I think would require more attention:
I think that the volume of the reverb on the main melodic synth is too loud, or that some notes last too long, because at 0:33, 0:46, 5:15, 5:28, 5:40 and 5:54 the reverb tail or the notes accumulate too much. Furthermore, I was expecting some kind of variation at the end of the song, but the melody of this synth doesn't really progress ever. Also, I found the drops to be quite quiet. This kind of chorus has its own charm, but on another hand I enjoyed it less because of that (although that might be only me).

That said, I found the transitions to be actually geniune. Like, hell, from 0:51 to 1:16 was amazing. I had this feeling when, in some offline RPG, they suddenly throw you out of the routine they established from the beginning by letting you know that you're in the matrix or some other kind of surprising journey.

In my opinion, the sound design of the transitions was like 5x better than the sound design of the tail-overriding parts, and I wonder what caused such a discrepancy in (what I perceive as) quality.

Overall, pure dubstep is by far not my preferred genre, however I found this work very interesting and inspiring. Keep it up! <3

LoneSpaceInvader responds:

thanks for the feedback! i'll keep those in mind for the future and i'm glad you liked it!