MockOff's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[The Synthetic City of Diz]

Song takes quite a while to build up into anything. But once the drums kick in it gets a tad more interesting. I like the little choir sounds you have going, it helps build an Egyptian type sound. I'm not sure how I feel about the section that starts at 2:30, it builds a dissonance but I don't think it works too well here. It might just be because of the way it was transitioned to, I'm not quite sure. It does help with that eastern type sound though. Its a good start, but I think you should try adding a melody over that to keep it a bit more interesting.

SourJovis responds:

Yeah, I took a long time to build up to make you get used to the melody, since the scale and metre are so unusual. Maybe a counter melody after 2:30 would make it more interesting. I tried that. But it will make it more dissonant though, and you said it was already dissonant enough. I think there is already enough going on in the song as it is to make it sound interesting. Counter melodies might only distract from the main melodies which are already hard enough to grasp. I'll think about how to improve the song.

[Aphelion]

Definitely very space-y. Sounds like if the ocean was in space, hah. But I like it, kind of sounds like it could be used for a soundtrack to a mystery movie that is in space. Not sure how well this would be for sleeping, it feels to ominous for that, but if you meant for like background music, yes. This is very good background music that could be set to something.
It does start to drag on at 8 minutes though. I know its a drone-y ambient track and that's the point but it can get tiresome. I did enjoy it thoroughly though, especially for the genre.

Mich responds:

I don't see how an ocean in space would work, lol.

You're right, it might actually a bit ominous. I don't mind ominous too much for sleeping though, but maybe I just got used to it.

I tried to create a little bit of variation my introducing new sounds along the way. I suppose, though, that I could have done a bit more in the last few minutes. Must've gotten a little bit lazy.

It's my first actually long ambient track, all the others are 5 minutes or less. I felt that this type of music should go on for longer to properly set a theme though, hence I made this one the way it is.

Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks muchly for the kind review.

[[Knox]10,000 Mile Journey]

Starts off with a marching towards war type thing once the percussion and strings come in, a theme I notice occurs a lot on this site. The low ends seem a bit too cluttered at times causing a bit of a mumbling through my headphones. I like once the drums pick up about two minutes into it, but I wish the main part would as well. About 3 minutes in it gave us that much needed change in pace from the main instrumentation. The drums start to rattle a bit in my headphones, but you recognized that the quality isn't the best so I won't go much into that.
I think at six minutes this song just drags on and you could easily condense it down two or three minutes and still get your point across while keeping the listener more engaged. It certainly wasn't bad though. You definitely kept the theme going throughout the whole six minutes and that is a good feat, and it flowed pretty well which is something I notice a lot of people struggle with.

R4R

[Simple Days]

I like the simple panning of the drums you have. The little piano riff and I guess the song kind of reminds me of a title theme of a Nintendo game or something, at least up until 0:42. The song picks up again at about the minute mark. I think if you added some more instrumentation the little thing at 0:42-0:59 would sound better and more fit.

R4R

[MonoWorld]

I'm not too much a fan of the vocals, might just be a personal thing but they're not for me. The guitar tone sounded a bit too cheesy too, thing you have too much of a chorus effect on it? The playing is simple, but it fits the song/theme and you do well with it. I would have liked more instrumentation as well, but I noticed that the challenge for this was to only use 4 instruments. Think it might have worked better if you cut out the solo guitar and provided drums instead. Not a bad piece, but I think it could use some variation

[Temple Distraught (loop)]

Definitely sounds a bit temple-like from the start while sounding like battle music, or leading into a battle rather. I like the drums, simple but effective. The flute that keeps going on throughout playing the same thing gets a bit annoying after a while though. The part around 1:25 was a real odd transition and I'm not sure it fit too well. I understand what you were trying to do there but eh. The song works well as a loop.
R4R

SourJovis responds:

Thanks for the review. I'll see if I can make the part at 1:25 better. It worked better in my head than it did in practice. Maybe I should lead up to it more. I will think about what to do.

[Waterfall City Tower]

Pretty good background music. I get the feeling of going through a town while listening to this, like via a tour. One thing I don't really like is the lack of dynamics and the tempo gets pretty monotonous throughout the thing. I think the its cause the drum beat rarely changes throughout the song. Besides that though its a nice song, and fits the theme quite well. I like the panning featured throughout the song as well. R4R

alternativesolution responds:

Glad the song did its job! ^__^ I'll take your suggestions into consideration - thanks for the review.

[Spiralomorph]

Song kind of reminds me of some Animal Collective type stuff although your particular piece here doesn't really seem to have a melody or much of a direction. I understand trying to be experimental but this sounds more like just noise than anything. Try throwing a drum beat under it and a melody over it and I think it could work a lot better.

Blacklawn responds:

I know it sounds weird and unconventional. That's the entire point.

[Sanctuary]

I like the intro, sounds a bit like a war-themed movie piece but that changes once that harp (?) comes in. I feel like the song changes too much though, like you keep that ambient thing going but switch between instruments and then it gives it a different feel but without really any transition making it feel more like different pieces for a movie than as one coherent song.
I like everything you have, I just wish they were structured more naturally? Seeing as this was for a challenge, you did a good job on fitting the theme. As a soundtrack type piece I think you did very well, but as an active listening type thing it doesn't work so much there but I understand that's probably not the point of the piece so good job.

alternativesolution responds:

I agree, this was not meant to be a "song", but more like a "soundtrack", for the audio contest. I'm glad it did its job, though. I appreciate the comments - thanks a lot for your review :)

[The Outlier (AIM Entry)]

Not sure how I felt about the intro, was a bit disorganized but I realize that was intentional, I think it would have worked better if it wasn't as long. Those vocals definitely wasn't what I was expecting but I think they actually work quite well here. I think the lead synths might work better an octave or two down, it'd match the vibe of the song better imo.
The song kind of drags on being so long without much change in the overall beat, tempo, or dynamics. Maybe add in some quieter parts or like a slow bridge to build back up to a fast paced end?

Lich responds:

Thanks for the review.

My tracks do unfortunately drag on abit, my fault for getting lazy half-way through and keeping the track at around 140BPM. The reason the lead is generally that high octave-wise is because I generally try to follow the Aggrotech style along the lines of C-Lekktor, Xperiment, Detroit Diesel etc. I do like it but if you don't then that's alright with me :)

I am making an album at the moment and the tracks sound more varied so it might be more up your lane. But I am improving :)