Dj-Brand0's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Neverland [Syphonmax Remix]]

Good work!

Nice vocals, drums need more variability. Also the hat's need some more added. (Crashes, Closed Hats, Open hats etc.) Apart from that, the synths were pretty cool. And i liked the sub tune at 1:52. Although at the beginning where you slowly upped the volume over about 1 1/2 minutes. It is a good technique but I didn't find it the best. Had to turn up the volume because I just couldn't hear the vocals. And at 0:55 when the vocal reverbs out the the space in between the next normal volume was too much. Start the piano at a higher volume if you're going to reup it.
Although there was a few things that could be fixed it was still a good song and deserves a 9/10 :D Work on the things I mentioned and it should make this song much better. 9/10 5/5
Check out my work. :D Maybe you can learn something from it.

-Cheers Brando

syphonmax responds:

I think I will check out your work =]

Thanks man

[Flight in Freedom__RR (MAC 8)]

Cant think of what to say.

Fantastic! Good work! Incredibly relaxing. I can definitely picture your inspiration as the plane flew in the sky. Loved the piano and the effects running around it. Great length of song. Can't see any repetitiveness and it's worth the score it's got and congrats on the instant hit.
5/5 10/10 Keep it up. Definet Potential :D

-Cheers Brando

RenoakRhythm responds:

lol.. thanks brando. Ya this song didn't even place in the top 10 for the competition. You can go look up the winners in the forum somewhere... under Mac8 or something. The competition was called Flight in Freedom. There were some very good submissions to this contest.

Thanks for the review Dude.
\Cheers.

[Set Me Free _ RR]

Damn...

You remind me of listening to this song, one of the first times I got FL. Looks like I'm going to have to make a remix :D ^_^ I'll give it my own touch, to make sure it doesn't sound too much like yours.
Good work, keep it up! 5/5 10/10

-Cheers Brando

RenoakRhythm responds:

ya, that'd be awesome... this song is such a classic... about 50 bazillion remix's already, and I do not tire of it...lol. I'll be looking forward to hearing yours.

Thanks for the review Brando... i'm working on a PM to you.

[Competent Mood _ RR]

Hmm well..

Song seems to have everything the other does. As you said it's just the melody that's different. Forgot to mention in my review on Assertive which person I would be. I would probably be the Assertive person :D

I've all what I need to say in my Assertive review.
Keep it up.
4/5 8/10

-Cheers Brando

RenoakRhythm responds:

thanks for the long review on assertive... and i'll chalk another point up for assertive... which is winning by a mile right now...lol.

[Assertive Mood _ RR]

Hey Renoak! nice work. Lots of things to be fixed.

Hey, Gratz on the weekly top 5. Here's my big review.

There's heaps of things that could have been fixed on this song. Such as the percussion, I mean I can hear a hi hat, a clap and a kick for most of the song.
That is all. For example in my songs I have atleast 10-20 percussion channels, and that is below average. To make a professional song you need to put professional detail into it. I'm no pro, but you can always try to sound like a pro.
(I listened some more and found some other things you used such as crashes and snares, and an occasional reverb sample effect.)

In your future songs try to put more detail into your songs, practice making random drum beats. Learn what works and what doesn't. If you don't have the sounds to do so pm me and I can hook you up with some free downloads of VEC 1 and 2. They're great sample packs.

The intro you made wasn't actually too bad. Came in quick, was straight to the point.

The breakbeat at 0:40 and so on, sounds very plain. You could have added a crash or something at the beginning of the breakbeats to kind of show some transition between the sections. Also breaking down 5 or 6 leads/arps to a single lead is a pretty large jump. If you're going to do breakbeats try to have a sufficient transition to match the change you want.

I noticed you used lots of arps here. ARPS everywhere. Arps are good but I don't like them as the main focus in a melody. I mean you did have a saws going, that was good but about half of the time they were masked by arps.

The bass was good, but the melody was fairly repetitive. (I think I already mentioned that :S lol) Hope this helps. And hope you understand all the stuff I wrote. Probably the biggest review I've written so far. You should be pretty happy about that. Personally I think you could have done better. Lucky shot at Weekly Top 5, but hey if I didn't get top 5 for my popular nu style song, I probably wouldn't be reviewing you right now. I'd be off doing something else lol.

Pitty you can't re-upload this since it's featured in people flash vids. Same thing happened to me. Gratz, but also bad luck.
Good luck with your future songs, this should be a great kick-start!
I think I covered everything. If you need any help add my msn. Hardstyle_brandon@hotmail, or send me a pm.

An honest 4/5 8/10, Keep up the good work.
Be sure to check out my stuff.

-Cheers Brando

RenoakRhythm responds:

Thanks for the detailed honest review. These are the reviews we all crave for on NG. The very reason we all post on here right? lol. I completely agree with everything you've said. This is a very barebones repetative catchy melody song. Some good mixing, some nice sounds, some nice bass, some nice effects... but thats about it. And its basically where my skill level is right now. So I'm totally up for some lessons, because there is only so much you can learn from tutorials. So let me respond to some of your comments.

Percussion: OMG, this is definitely my weak point... I listen to Nubbinownz and i freaking want his drum and beat skills. Um, cornandbeans also, not to mention PX9 as well of course. I have VEC 1 and 2, I have watched tutorials on drum beats, i have gone to lessons on Reason with Nubbinownz owns which he basically all he does is drums. But what i really need is someone to freaking be here or collab with me so i can really see it applied and how it works into a song. Its like my brain just doesn't work that way. I can write a bazillion melodies and harmonies, and bass etc... but percussion... i'm a lame duck...lol. So i'd be up for a collab sometime and see how to implement different drum techniques.

Arps arps arps... lol. I guess i have no comment on that. Really, i do use an arp in eery song i think and this one its just the sounds that i felt went good together... um, bass was suppossed to break that up for me, and bit of saw.

Repetative, yes.... i made this song literally 10 minutes. The song i made this from i made in 3 hours. So to your lucky comment. Yes, it was very lucky to get best of the week.

I would absolutely love to re upload this, i actually can't to listen to the song...lol. BUT I do already have another in the works, that I'm trying desperately to get the percussion and DIF instruments going.

Thanks for the honest 4... and I'll go check out your stuff.

[+ Output #3,5 +]

Yep

I agree with IndieDance all the way, the intro is too long. There wasn't really any need to start the synth pad off that soft. If you started it quicker the atmosphere of the song would have been fitting.Also the kick isn't strong enough try increase the volume and velocity of it. When all the sounds come together it is fairly good, although slightly repetitive. The outro was slightly abrupt but still good enough.
Check out my stuff, maybe can give you some inspiration and advice.
8/10 4/5

-Cheers Brando

baube23 responds:

Thanks a lot for the advice :):)

[.HLS. My World (NG Quality)]

Epic!

Great work! My first song I've listened from you and it's great. Such talent. I'll check out Submissive, considering you say it's alike this one. I really can't think of much that can be improved. It's great trance, you really know exactly what you're doing. Quality is fine, can't see any downsides in it and the whole song. Perfection.
Good luck with your album, no doubt it will be called for.
Added fav song/artist :D
10/10 5/5. Great work - keep it up!

-Cheers Brando

heartless1298 responds:

Thanks alot dude!

[Runescape {^}-{Alix1}-{^}]

lol hehe.

Hehe good old times. Playing runescape ^_^. met some good ppl on there, but looking back on it, it was good. But to people who still play it now.. you gotta move on. NOW! Runescape was good um.. what 6 years ago? Bit too old to be playing now.

-Cheers Brando

alix1 responds:

lol
im just a geek

[-={dj-phx}=- Rebirth Placedemo]

Good work!

Nice Demo you have there, sure has potential to become a good song. Chuck in some nice kicks/bases and you'd sure get people dancing. Pads and synths with the piano intro/solo would be sound pretty nice. But since it's still a demo, its a demo... Good work! Would like to hear the finished version. :D
5/5 10/10

-Cheers Brando

unrealdark responds:

I wish it was that easy for me... I am still an noob in producing music, I've learned most of the things myself, and I still got to learn MUCH more. It's hard but fun. :)
Thanks for the review, and deff the fat ass 10!! :D
I will see what I can do. ;)

[Lucid Dreaming (WiP 2)]

Great work!

I like this 100x more than the previous one I looked at, Echoes. You did very well making this. Loved the piano intro and the trance intro. Nice melody, slightly repetitive but the background arps slightly make up for the repetitiveness.
Love the percussion and the effects. Has a great atmosphere. Once finished this should surely get you known in newgrounds. Good luck! 10/10 5/5

One thing to fix is yes the repetitiveness. Make some variation in the second sequence of the melody, eg. the melody has 4 bars then the same 4 bars get repeated. I recommend make a change in the 7th and 8th bar, instead of a high note outro to the 4 bars have a low note outro. You'll understand.
Again good luck.

-Cheers Brando

Krussi responds:

Wow, thats a pretty neat review :D Umh, yeah, this song and "Transcendence" are the songs that I've spent most time on. Echoes an the other songs was something I just whipped up rather fast and uploaded it here to get some feedback. But these two songs are the ones that I've put some effort in :P

I know what you mean about the repetitiveness, and I've made some progress in the song, but I guess i'll upload it when its completetly finished :P

Thanks for an awesome review, pointers, the "10" and for taking your time to listen to some of my songs ^^

cheers