Lethal-Input's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Discretionary Contention]

Interesting piece for sure. Not sure if the dialogue was produced by you, but it fits for sure. Adds a lot to the abstractness of what was going into the beginning. I love how that synth just beaks through at around 3:12. The part that starts are 4:04 is my favorite part of the song. The wind/noise effects you added were very well done. It's a long song, but it kept evolving into something new, which I liked. Not exactly my genre in general, but this is still a very well put together song. Nice!

[Blood, Steam, and Punk]

I'll be honest, the western music thing didn't really come to my head the first time around. Then I read the description and listened to it again. I can definitely see the influence now, and it's pretty cool. Makes for a unique tone. I have never in my life ever thought of techno and western mixing lol. Anyway, I don't really have any gripes with this piece. You used a bunch of great sounds, and the song had all kinds of variety. Overall a great song! I enjoyed it a lot.

JoshuaHughes responds:

Appreciate it, Lethal.

[Orange Waves]

Love the atmosphere of this. Really gives off a sort of uneasy feeling. I especially love it around 1:13 when those harps sounding things come in. It really adds a lot. I actually listened to this quite a few times. It helped me focus on my homework =P. I've never heard of Miami Vice, but it kind of sounds like something that would be in this game called Hotline Miami. I guess that place is associated with this vibe... I dunno lol. Anyway, I don't have any real gripes with the piece itself, although it's not exactly my type of music. Still, very good song!

SoTJake responds:

Hey thanks, I hope you finished your homework ;)

[Nostalgia]

Unlike a lot of songs that I have personally come across on here, the intro immediately caught my attention. The plucks sound you used is great, and the main on going theme is solid. I can tell that you were trying to keep the variety up. There was never a time where I thought that it was getting truly repetitive; It always felt like it was evolving into something else. Though that could be partly due to the fact that I liked the tunes enough to not get bothered by the amount of repetition that was there.

Even though it mixes the beat up exceptionally for the kind of song it is, I still feel like it could have actually strayed from the main theme you had going there a bit more. I thought around 1:56 or 2:11 would have been a good time to do that. Instead, it almost feels to me as if you were scrambling to find something that kept the main theme/beat stay fresh, even though it was overstaying it's welcome a little. I think the song would have been overall more powerful if you had tried to go for a more proper bridge, rather than trying to run your main melody to tears. That contributed to the feeling of fatigue I got when the outro came along.

Or maybe that's not what you were going for. Maybe you wanted to keep the main theme going throughout the whole song, and that's fine. I still think it could have been done a bit better. I wasn't that big a fan of how you used the synth that popped in around 1:59, and around 2:31 it started to feel grating instead of being the big climax that you were probably going for.

But anyway, still really freakin good considering this is your first song. So keep it up!

ThomasTimms responds:

First of all, thank you for the in depth review. They help the most.

Anyway, thank you for the compliments on the melody and the plucks. It took me a while to see what sounded good in that chord progression.
As for straying away from the synths at around 2:11, That's not technically the drop yet. I was aiming to preview the synths after the buildup, Then the drop comes.
Also as I stated below, I was trying to go for the big house music type feel. Which usually involves an array of synths as the main chorus.

"it almost feels to me as if you were scrambling to find something that kept the main theme stay fresh"
I do see where you would say this, because the song had a change literally every 10 seconds. But i was honestly just trying to lead up to the main chorus at 2:11.

"and around 2:31 it started to feel grating.."
If you could, please elaborate more on what you mean by this. I don't quite understand, but I feel this could be extremely useful criticism.

Thank you for leaving a great review. and i will most definitely give you the flp to see what you could do with this track. I am sure it would be amazing.

[Prepare for Battle]

Definitely good for what it's going for. I can easily see this playing in the background of a preparation screen. Even before I read the description, I thought of a scene similar to that. Everything sounds very clean. The drums you used sounded high quality, and the beats themselves were good. It fits in with the many other professionally made songs that are like that, maybe even a little too much. It felt a little generic; generic to the point were I feel like I've heard it before. That's probably not your fault though. What all can you really do with a track that consists of all percussion like this? Anyway, good song overall! 4/5

DoctorAppetitus responds:

Thanks, I appreciate the positivity! I can see what you mean about its fimilliarness, as it is a pretty generic loop. Incase you wanted to know, I'm using Native Instrument's "Damage" library for my default samples. They sound hella rockin. Anywho, thanks for the time~