SourJovis's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Oceans of Gold]

Very beautiful song. To me this means the arrival of spring, and hopefully for better times to come.

SkyeWint responds:

Hey dude, it's been ages!

Glad that you like this, it's one I'm pretty proud of. Was thinking I should try to convert it to sheet music for others to play, but man... that sounds like a pain.

It's actually pretty heavily inspired by Breath of the Wild, composed it shortly after playing the game.

[Washcycle Wormhole]

Great song. I really like the mood on this one. The vocals and the trumpet are really the best. The other instruments form a perfect foundation of the song. I like how they form a mellow blanket, staying in the background, but you can hear a lot of interesting things are going on. That pitched snare effect at 2:26 for example. Those spooky synths and old sounding piano. Very enigmatic. Very good build up. All instruments work well together and support the structure never demanding too much attention to themselves.

MyMonkeyMyCircus responds:

Thanks for the review. My current thinking is that the other instruments might be too far back in the mix. It's rather fuzzy. I am happy I was able to get everything fitting at a nice balance, it was tough.

[Awake]

You have a very unique and interesting style. You sing very good. At the start of the song, when you sing softly, your voice sounds muffled compared to the sharp instruments and it doesn't cut through the mix very well. The snare is too loud and sharp in my opinion. Panning it that far to the left is an unusual choice. Later on when your voice gets louder it gets brighter and it sounds much better. The song develops very well. I really like the solo's at the end. At the start the low frequencies are very droning and muddy. I would clean that up a little. Good instrument choices overall. They fit the song and have a lot of character.

MyMonkeyMyCircus responds:

Thanks for the reply that is what I am looking for. I will look into this for the next version.

[Natural Phenomenon]

Sounds very cool.Doesn't sound very experimental to me, but maybe I'm too open minded. Reminds me of the album Random access memories by Daft Punk, but less dancy, more funky. Not as mainstream, yet very pleasant accessible sounds. I like the free flowing drums. Lots of unexpected things happen in this song, it all works. It's like a free flowing river that just takes you along. I don't hear the errors you mentioned. I won't mind if you keep them in.

ChrisisD responds:

Thanks for your kind words and even more so with the comparison to Random Access Memories. Most of the errors I was referring to, are timing issues. Couple in the guitar and drums.

[Underdog]

Congrats on making it to the final round of NGAUC. Well deserved. Very professionally produced track. Good you put the lirics in, because I wouldn't be able to understand them otherwise. Great structure overall. The bridge at 2:55 is really good. I like the short notes at 3:07. It's the variations like that that keep it interesting.

TSRBand responds:

Thanks so much! I appreciate the review. I'm glad you like the little twists like at 3:07 those are fun to put in :)

[Captain's Hat]

Congrats on making it to the NGAUC final round. Well deserved. This is a very interesting song. Very playful. Hard to predict what direction it's going. Can't believe you didn't do any eqing, but I don't think it's necessary. You just chose the sounds really well so they don't sit in each other's space. That's better than trying to fix clashing frequencies with eqing.

Michael-Flaherty responds:

The EQing thing is interesting to me, I would normally put an EQ plugin on every single track, I was avoiding it this time just to concentrate on the composition and then when it came time to polish thought it sounded good, probably because I'm using VSTs designed to sound good out of the box and the song is suited to more naturalistic tones. Or the song would have benefited from an EQ pass and I was being lazy. Not sure. Thanks for the review!

[YPJ Technical Mecha]

Congrats on making it to the finals of the NGUAC. Great track. Very complex. Nice build up, how it gradually gets more rhythmic and intense. I like when the bas and more melodic instruments enter halfway the song at 1:59.

I thought the ending was quite funny. How it ends the way it began, but it sounds really thin and anticlimactic, when it gradually loses all sense of rhythm. That last note at 3:46 :D Loops very well.

zybor responds:

Thank you for your review SourJovis.

The ending is indeed a joke, I just wanna troll ppl a bit. Partly I also ran out of idea so I just like meh whatever and do it simple.

[Live to Love]

Very bombastic song. Took a lot of time to really get into. Had to hear it for the 3rd time to really appreciate it., because it's a bit overwhelming at first with all of the glitchy sounds and all of the individual parts running through each other. I like how the intense and the quieter parts alternate. Can't believe how good these free instruments sound. I should really check some of them out. If only I'd have the disk space.

zybor responds:

Thank you for your great review! :)

[Tide]

Good song for the beginning of an album. Feels like traveling to another world.

Benji-G responds:

Thanks! :]

[Facing the Foe - Remake]

Very complex. Lots of interesting things going on. Still relatively transparently mixed so you can hear all of the layers in the song. It really fits the drawing it was based on with the epic jrpg style. It has an elegance you see in the character in the drawing. The organ and the harpsichord at the beginning make me think of the scythe as weapon. The highats are an interesting choice in this orchestral piece. It's those details that make the song stand out. Lots of original ideas.

LucidShadowDreamer responds:

Thank you very much! I really tried my best to balance all the elements here, which was a bit of a mixing nightmare :'D
I really like that drawing, and I too feel like it fits the mood quite aptly.

The organ and harpsichord I think are cool at the beginning, but obviously it makes the loop very evident. If I make a battle theme in the future, I think I will make the beginning a lot more subtle, and maybe the ending too, so that the transition can be more smooth :)