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Doublechindoge7

102 Audio Reviews

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GUESS WHO'S BEEEEEEEEEEAAAACK?

So first of all, I can already hear you've taken my previous criticisms on board, the beginning feels like it progresses more and is simply more full. It's a little slow, but all to be effective. And then there's the fade-out, which is also great, but I feel it spends too much time with low volume and frequencies... I think there should be some more upwards tension so it's almost unnoticeable, but then suddenly speeds up.

This fade out REALLY made the drop hit harder, although I think the volume should've instantly jumped back for more of an impact instead of quickly transitioning... The drop is still alright, but the one piece of advice you didn't follow shows here, no backing to fill in the gaps. Still a nice drop...

Most of the problems with the first drop are fixed in the second drop, which is much faster and "full", although it could use some more unique sounds... Still you did better than most lazy dubstep makers who just make their second drop the same with a different drum loop, so good on you for that.

Going into this I had a bad feeling, I don't know why, I just wasn't expecting much... By god I was wrong...

The drums hit hard, just about everything really has an impact, and it gives this track some real momentum! My first criticism is that it's a little too harsh on the ears at times, but that's really just a nitpick...

Then after the first segment, the mini-drop is pretty effective, but I have a few problems with it... I think there's a bit too much noise there, and as epic as all those powerful synths are, by combining them you've given yourself something tough to master and it sounds like everything's fighting for attention!

Then the drop, it's great! It sounds like Xtrullor's work, I love the chaotic sounds and all the variety! Still this drop is not without its flaws... I feel that it's a little too wet and a little too atonal, I do understand though that that's a tough balance, so It's not so bad. As well as that as cool as being chaotic is, it's not much use if it can't be understood; it's not incomprehendable, but it is a little annoyingly difficult to keep track of...

My last complaint: Sometimes the sidechaining is too strong and annoying
My last positive point: I love how you've used bitcrushing here!

Overall pretty solid.

punkerrr responds:

hey! thanks for the feedback! this track is 6 months old, i only just got around to upload it here haha, thanks for the feedback tho!

This started out promising, but didn't really build much. The synths are nice, but they barely change and last the whole song. As well as that, as much as I don't mind this so much, other people will hate how your percussion is absolutely swallowed by the synths! You need to either adjust the volume of the drums and/or synths, or put sidechaining on your kicks and snares (Meaning making the volume of all other instruments is decreased whenever the thing in question is played and then re-increased afterward, making the percussion seem louder than it is from comparison)

This is pretty good, but a little slow. I like the drop but it's pretty repetitive, which I don't think it should it should be since it uses pretty generic dubstep sounds. There's nothing wrong with using generic dubstep sounds, they're amazing, but used so often that now you need a good amount of variety or a unique twist to make what you're bringing to the table is new.

Also where did you get that singing from? I have definitely heard that before...

Nice! Very basic, but way better than my first dubstep song! I'm guessing this is done by modulating a sine wave, which while basic by dubstep standards, took a lot of time for me to understand... Good job!

Well... Dubstep's hard man... Probably the hardest genre to learn of them all... I know first-hand, dubstep was the first thing I wanted to make and I knew it'd be hard, but I had no idea how much attention to detail, thought, time and experience... it would take.

I'm gonna have to be blunt, that was atonal and simple. I will say that as simple as the beginning was, I actually enjoying the power of that synth, but then that drop came and ruined it! You got the syncopation down pretty well for someone new to this, but that's too much detune!

I must say though, you're kinda on the right track with the frequency sliding, that's a simple but effective way to make dubstep music. If the frequency sliding was the focus and it had some distortion to make it more exciting it coulda worked...

Lastly I'd say you need to add some more powerful drums, you got nice kicks, but you need snares.

Don't worry, my first dubstep drop was embarrassing too, if I find some way to send it to you I will...

P.S. You said Soundation makes you pay for stuff like sidechaining and compression, so I think you should get the demo of Fruity Loops Studio. It basically gives you the full version only you can't make presets and you can't save, but if you get all your work done in one session or keep your computer/laptop on that isn't a problem. FLS is what I use, and while I'm no Rukkus, I can make some decent dubstep with that. I understand if you're not interested though, downloading and learning a new DAW can be a pain, but I do highly recommend it. It's what Xtrullor uses!

P.P.S. I read your latest post on your profile... Sickner =(... Guess I won't get to scout you...

This looks promising... This is very unique and interesting, yet sadly a bit too repetitive for my tastes. Repetitiveness is fine in music when there's a climax or drop of some sort, or if there's a lot of variation, but otherwise; unless it's for a soundtrack, it tends to be just boring.

The synth at the beginning is a very simple, generic techno synth, but it seems to be quite well made. I like how you played around with the cutoff and resonance, but I think you should be more careful with how you use them. There are some very jarring, atonal high frequencies especially at the beginning, I know this is a side-effect; not intentional, but you can easily fix it! To fix it all you have to do is reduce the volume on the higher frequencies of that synth, I don't know what DAW you use (Digital Audio Workstation or to put it simply, what you use to make music) but with mine; Fruity Loops Studio, All you have to do is open maximus or the parametric EQ and turn down the high frequency volume. (Sorry if you didn't know that, I don't yet know how experienced you are, I'll assume you did though because for most people that's one of the first things they learn in terms of mastering)

Anyway, then those weird tropical sounding plucks come in. I've heard 'em before, but I don't know how they work. They sound like a combination of a normal square pluck and a megadrive-like bass pluck, it's a nice, atmospheric, but hard hitting sound and I'd like it if you could tell me how you did it! It sounds kinda like it may have been done with unison phase retriggering, but it doesn't have that weird space-like buzz afterwards like most synths with unison phase retriggering do... The flute-like synths with the high AR (Attack and Release) aren't particularly interesting, but they do a good job at creating the atmosphere.

Now my favourite part! 0:43. that part has a nice atmosphere with unique sounds and unique interesting tempos and gates in the sound, the detuned square synth sounds quite well made, while simple. It sounds like you might have actually bitcrushed it to make it sound distorted and a bit more authentic, which if you did, nice touch! Some might find it unpleasantly atonal, and I wouldn't blame them, however I feel it's surprisingly well made!

Here's where we get to the second main problem with this, the percussion... It's dull and simple. The percussion is what brings the energy, rhythm and movement to a track, but this is a simple beat with weak snares and barely audible kicks. One thing to note about drums is if they're weak, they need to have an interesting rhythm, or if they have a basic rhythm they must be hard-hitting and powerful! Of course no rule in music is always true, but it's true more often than not. I genuinely didn't even hear the kicks until the part at 0:43 the 6th time it looped, (I'm listening to this on loop while writing this) If they're too quiet to be heard you need to either make them louder, boost the low frequencies to give it more of a "presence", or get rid of them. (Sorry again if these were the only drums you had access to, again, I don't know what you use...)

Then the rest of the song is basically repeating the same loops with a little variation in the cutoff and resonance and different combinations of loops. Here's another rule that's helped me with this problem: listen to the part that will be repeated on loop until it gets annoying or boring to you and try to use it no more than half the time it took to get boring for you. If you don't wanna use that then also repeating something similar more than 3 times depending on the complexity is usually a bad thing.

Anyway, this is 4-star standard as far as I'm concerned, I just took it down half a star for the repetitiveness. You must remember that your listeners are likely to hear it more than once, so repetitiveness must be used wisely. I wouldn't usually take half a star off for repetitiveness, but this is only 2 minutes long; so while what's there's good, it shows you really could've done more than what is here. Anyway, got my eye on you now, you look like you wanna get scouted so you can get your music on GD just like I did; and it looks like you might be good enough to deserve it... ;)

DJKU responds:

Do you wanna know the weird thing? This was made in FLS: Mobile :p

Dramatic and atmospheric, nice bassline, could do with some more variation. One sound I did like in particular was the bitcrushed "yaiy" kinda sound, I've heard it before, but here it seems especially loose, interesting and clean...

AliceMako responds:

It could but then it wouldn't be background music for an intro/intermission anymore i think :3

And funny you should mention, i've had this downsampler for years like it was one of the first couple of things i got after scoring a better "go to" compressor and limiter for my mastering chain and incidentally the first time in years i've used it modulated this blatantly.

Like normally speaking i'll just leave it passive on something set to very subtle in order to warm a sound up a bit or make it less obviously digital sounding etc.

Just when I thought I was getting good at making 8-Bit music... =/ Well anyway, this pretty much serves its purpose for a soundtrack perfectly... A little too slow of a beginning, but it got its atmosphere down. A problem I see a lot with 8-bit music is that people don't often make their drops hard-hitting with powerful chords and snares, I think this is why Sky Summit is my best 8-bit themed song yet (In the opinion of me and my friends) They often fit the mood and sound nice, but don't really feel all too epic. Here I was expecting the same since it was slow, but got the mood down great, which most people who make that mistake do; but then the heavenly battle theme came blasting out powerfully and I was sold! You've done by having high release times and loud volume with the leading instrument while the background instruments sporadically try to fill the gaps!

JBeat2k9 responds:

Holy crap dude thank you so, so much!

I just went to check out your channel, and if anybody else here loves 8-bit, SERIOUSLY loyally retro sounding music, get your ass over there immediately!

Sky summit is awesome, but I LOVE the second battle theme for Card Battles of Carded Cardiness. Please keep up the awesome work, an d don't worry about not being trained in music theory! I'm self taught, too, and trust me, if I can bloody do it, so can you!

Thanks for the 4.5/5! :D

This sounds real nice, Nice flow to it, nice percussion. Amazing atmosphere at the beginning and during the drop to distinguish it from the breaks. I only have 3 problems with this...

1. Sometimes the notes sound a bit... Off. It mostly works well, but sometimes the notes just don't sound right... Not a big issue.

2. There's a little too much detune on the bell, it's not jarring, but it's uncomfortable. Just a small thing again

3. This doesn't sound finished, don't get me wrong, what's there is great. Problem is, there just simply isn't a whole lot going on. There's only 3 tracks playing if I'm hearing right, although that doesn't mean it's bad, it does make it feel... Lacking...

Anyway, good luck with your FLS.

IyuriI responds:

Ok :D thanks)

I make Dubstep.

Male

Sheffield

Joined on 6/28/15

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