Rucklo's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[~EnV~ Ghosts In the Machine]

The intro sounds...

...really nice. It does give a "far east" feeling.
This is a really well made technotune right here. Perhaps a few instruments should be mixed a little different tho, the pad that came in later on stole alot of room, and there was a synth that probably would feel alot better being evened out with a compressor, for example.

The "Frrrr" hi-hat thingy was pretty nice, perhaps it's an effect that's used better more sparsley tho.

Overall I'm really impressed, the song have a nice thump to it, is well produced and mixed overall. Good job, straight nine! Keep it up!

Envy responds:

woohoo a 9 in clarity from rucklo! I'm surprised, I didn't think it was mixed too well at all. I'm real glad you gave me such a good review. (I love the hi hat thing ^.^ maybe one of my favorite things about this song.)

[~Call of Duty~]

Nice...

...pad in the intro. It has good meat to it, with nice reverberation and is a well built synth overall. Unfortunaltey the rest that follows isn't up to standard to that sound. When talking about this kind of music (dance/trance whatever), technical issues ARE an important factor, since if you don't have the punsh that the music in these genres have, you loose quickly. You should try to EQ your samples/loops/instrument better, and make them co-operate (if you boost bassdrum at one specific frequency, cut the same one in other low-end material that is loud there). It's an OK song, with an OK melody, but it's not very original, in any way really.
When the song nkicks in, after the first "call of duty" sample, it sounds very muddy, and not at all as clear as the intro sample.
Do check your levels too, never make it go above 0dB, or it will distort (it does very clearly in the end when the drums hammer up).

But it's definitley not the worst I've heard, I do find it rather smooth still! Keep cutting mate!

DjEagle responds:

I have Rucklo reviewing my shit thats an honor lol. I shouldve fixed it some more before I finished it but I wanted to submit so bad lol. But thanks for the review man.

[Feel his power (end)]

I was...

..defenitley expecting something very low-quality when it started out with that crappy guitarsample in the intro. I like the synth you swithc to playing though.

It's a OK song, you have good managing skills, but definitley need to work up your ears a little when it comes to spotting weaknesses in the song.
A few cool samples have been mixed in, and the big pro with this song is the managing, like mentioned.

You should chekc the balance though, the song have very little low-end. The kick is very weak. And even though the stab-bass is doing an OK job, you still need some sub-bass to back it up with, and give it more substance. Now don't go haywire with the bass though, a very commmon mistake is to mix at a too low volume, and end up with turning up the bass to be able to hear it (low frequencies at low volumes are less audible to the human ear). To mix it properly you will need to have decently high volume (don't pop your eardrums!:).

Check out this thread if you are interested in learning a bit more about the low-end,, and feel free to help out in there/ask questions etc.

http://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic.php?id=587995

Good luck!

Kasualty responds:

YOU are a crappy guitar sample.

[Para-Noid Thresh Hold (Re]

It's a...

...decent melody you got going with that phased synth, sounds inspired by DMX...

Anyway, the track feels quite empty, it seem to be only the phased synth and a loop playing. How you've managed the loop/samples I don't know, but I think you should have experimented both with adding subtle effects like reverb, and process it with EQ and compression to make it sound more meaty.

Compared with thr original song you made, it's alot clearer though, and the beat ain't distorting as much as it does in the original.
Make sure to check your levels when mixing. If the stereo bus out hits red (more than 0dB), you're distorting.

As for the song itself, I would definitley like to hear more variety.

Para-Noid responds:

Yeah, see this is something I whipped up in 10 minutes maybe? I was just going through all my old stuff and thought "Hey, I should remix it". I am working on a DNB right now so that's why I didn't have the patients to work hard on this. See, if this was on a CD or something this would be on an EP, or a mixtape.

Para-Noid

[Mega Man 5 - Title Screen]

You get...

... a high overall score only because of the guitarplaying. Good skills in playing it, really neat sound and as far as I can tell the lead + back guit are well mixed and have a good sound to them. Maybe some reverb on the backguitar to smooth it out a lil, but hey, u know more about processing guits than i do.

The drum tho, nah they're really weak. I just bashed u on MSn, so I'll spare you the public humiliation with it >:D

hate u so muchlolzjfksjdhgijdkn

DarKsidE555 responds:

Yeah, guitars are my resort so STFU n0ob!!OMFG1!

Drums are shitty, I know...can't wait to change my drum program. >: /

COCKBOMB! >:(

[Mega G]

Sweet stuff...

... what programs u using for editing? Here's a few tip on how to improve the quality of the vocal;

# Always check your record-volume, you don't want it to distort on the way in!

1. If you have a de-esser, set it first in the chain.

2. EQ it slightly, vox are difficult, but generally highpass 100-200 Hz, boost around 3k-4kHz (speech area, ears are more sensitive here). Cut somewhere around 500Hz. 1-3 dB boost around 10kHz-18kHz for "sparkling".

3. Compress it. Settings depend, but for a more "breathy" setting, use a fast attack and fast release. Set an extreme setting to begin with (high ratio and low threshold) then tweak to liking. Set the attack and release primarily when you've the extreme setting.

Never heard a rap about MegaMan before... :D
What map is it? It's from MM4 if I'm not mistaken? Sweet shit!

StealthSteve responds:

LOL Sorry I'm responding a whole year-plus late Viktor...

Yeah I definately need to work on the vocal processing aspect, I'm not that experienced with the whole "mastering your audio" thing. The music is from the Blizzard Man stage in Mega Man 6, I just replaced the VG percussion with a little hip-hop drum sample. I prolly lowered the BPM too, I don't remember.

[Warrior (Beatz)]

L ike the sound...

...of this song, but it's very simple made. Standard "ah-yeah" sample skratched+edited (u skratched it yourself or found a skratched sample?) wasn't really that interesting.

Alot of looping and not so very much messing with them made it less interesting as well.

I like how the loops are sounding though, but did you even make them yourself?

The sound is dirty and kindof nice, but you can easily filter up and EQ the loops it and still keep the "dirtyness".

I say work a little harder on it, make more out of it. It's a nice foundation, just very grey and boring atm, like unpainted concrete ;)

Sirhc7000 responds:

Thanks for the honest advice. Yeah I kno it could be a LOT better. oh and BTW these are samples but I just mixed them to create this song. I just arranged them, changed their pitch, and made the "stumbling" effect to give it a sort of "mix" effect. Right now I have Sony ACID but I desperately wish I had and Mac and GarageBand so i dont have to mix samples all of time. Dont get me wrong, its really easy but I just want something that is actually mine and original without depending on samples.

Anyway, thanks 4 da honesty and I keep wurkin on it!

[White Rose]

This is...

... some pretty OK sound you got here. I really don't think it stands out that much from the rest of the Trance-scene around the world, but you've given it some thought, that's very clear.

I'm sitting at home right now, so hearing isn't 100%, but I think it sounds like there's some phasing problem going on. Club music such as this is mono, or at least mono-compatible in clubs, wich this probably is too. But if youre gonna release a version on mp3, that ppl might want to listen to in normal sound system + head/earphones, you might want to concider using the stereo-field a little more.

And about the pahisng-issue, I'm not sure here, but it does sound like youäve ran the song through a stereo-imager of some sort, and messed up the settings a bit...

Good song though, I'm sure itll go perfet on those trance nights. When the bassline kicks in, it's very energetic. Nice one.

4AM responds:

The phasing might be caused by my converting the 128kbps MP3 of this into a 96kbps instead of from the original uncompressed audio, I don't really notice, but I did post it in the middle of the night and so I couldn't listen very loudly to the conversion, either.

As for lack of direction, the track was going for simpicity, but I do see what you're saying. It needs more variety in timing of the leads after the breakdown. This was also written back in 2003, so hopefully my production skills have improved a bit since then. (I'd point you at my MySpace music page for more recent stuff I'm not ready to release to the pseudo-public domain, but website promotion is against the rules ;-)

Either way, you'll see more from me.

If anyone wants to use this for a submission I'd be willing to clean it up a bit and send you a 44.1kHz AIFF, if you'd prefer.

[Rucklo: a Personal ode]

This song...

...brings a tear to my eye.

"Hold on I gotta answer this... hello? Hold on, hold on a minute, Im finnishing a sooong!"

Fucking classic!

http://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic.php?id=665315

Ho yeah!

sonicmega responds:

I'm glad you enjoyed it so much. The best part for me was how I responded to that phone call.

It was my best friend too ;3

[Tease me (1:04)]

That was...

...very interesting indeed.
I personally think you should have messed around more with clipping n glitching, it felt like that would have lifted the song alot.

As for the quality, it wasn´t as clear as it could have been. The "first blipp" lead thingy would definitely have been stronger, and lifted the whole mix if it was a little brighter.

Still, a very interesting and weird mix. It felt chaotic, yet well balanced. I guess the instruments/samples brought that.

Nice job, more weirdness to the ppl!

WinTang responds:

Thanks, good helpful stuff. This is work in progress, I'll definitely follow your advice when I continue working on it!