JoshuaHughes's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Gemini Antithesis]

Enjoying the portamento, hmm? 2:26 was a nice touch to the melody, but other than that, nothing really stood out to me. Guess it's okay to play it safe, though, given that it's a quick new year release. Speaking of which, here's to another year of kickass EDM. Cheers!

OcularNebula responds:

yep, sounds like you've already got most of my general conventions figured out

"playing it safe" is a really good way to describe this one; there's nothing particularly innovative here, but I hope people can still have some fun with it

[Windows]

Great bit, man. It has a very dark, sort of retrospective tone to it. The second half kind of reminded me of Philipp Glass, since he always does those two or three note ostinatos on the keys. Wonderful work.

Step responds:

Thanks a lot! I do those piano ostinatos quite a lot too. They sound really nice as background accompaniment.

[Monomate Camelon]

Okay, my one problem with this piece is that highpass filter fill can get pretty annoying after a while. But damn, dude, this is tight as hell. What can I say? Everything's good. I'm a sucker for arps. And saw basses are even starting to grow on me now.

This didn't even show up in my notifications. Good thing you're number 1 on the most popular this week, right?

OcularNebula responds:

arps and saw bases are basically my specialty by this point!

idk if the ng system is messed up, but it seems like at least one of my pieces usually ends up on the "most popular" list most of the time, unless I stop posting for a couple of weeks

there are so many good artists on newgrounds who remain unnoticed just because their initial view counts are low

[Last Saturday (WiP)]

You nailed the 80's theme. Cheesy bass, tons of reverb. it's all there. And is that gated breathing lol? But seriously, this is every action movie before 1990.

D-Chain responds:

i put some random breathing sound in there with on top the sidechain, im just not sure if thats what you mean with the breathing thing ;)
it might also be the pad/string with a step velo and midium phaser effect lol?
anyway, THANK YOU!

[Crush (Doovie cover)]

Awesome cover! Yes, Pendulum makes some great tunes. I actually found out the other day that two of the guys in that band make up Knife Party.

Anyways, I'm glad you threw in your vocals. The audio portal has way too many instrumentals for its own good. They were more laid back compared to the original, and I think at the 1:30 mark, the instruments kind of started to overpower them. And I'm usually not a fan of stuttering, but you kept it from getting too cliche for the most part. Here's to a great cover of a great song.

cartoonistmusician responds:

Ha, yea! The singer, Rob Swire, and Gareth... I think that's his name. :P I'm not 100% familiar with Pendulum, but I'm even less familiar with Knife Party, but I do like what I've heard from them! :D

Anyway, thanks for the review! I was hoping I didn't add too many instruments at once in this cover. I'm pretty bad about adding too much stuff and creating sort of a "wall of sound." :P But glad you liked the cover. :)

-Ben

[Sol Soberstein]

Any meaning behind the title? All I know is is that Sol is Latin for Sun. By the way, neat solo. I'm thinking of early Gran Turismo on this one, and dat snare is so full of ghost notes, I could call it Paul Walker. BOOOOMM!!!

OcularNebula responds:

the title is relatively meaningless, I was just going for an alliterated fictional name

for the percussion pattern, I just spliced a couple of sample loops together, got some cool snare hits in there, I guess

most of your other references are sorta lost on me, like ghost notes and Paul Walker? cuz... cuz he's dead? ...like a ghost? topical, lol

[Magazines]

This is definitely a quality mix. Very reminiscent of the old synthpop. My only gripe isn't that it's so barebones regarding the instruments, but that all these instruments adding on throughout the choruses seem to make it sound like there's no relief. But that's just me. I have no idea why this is scored a 2 right now. Did you piss somebody off?

headphoamz responds:

Thanks so much! And yeah, I dunno. Maybe. I'm just proud of the mix on this one!

[Blind Eyes & Muted Minds]

A word of advice from someone who hardly knows anything about vocal work: don't hold back, man. That's all I got.

Spoonerang responds:

Fair enough.

[Funky Funk Funk]

This honestly sounds more like classic rock than funk. When i think of funk, I think of electric pianos, twangy basses, electric guitars that use 7th, 9th, and 11th chords and sometimes are accompanied with wah. They may have a little distortion, but not nearly as much as this piece does.

The only thing I can say you kind of got right were the drums, but they are a little too loose to be instantly picked up as a funk beat. Hats and snares are normally a lot shorter than what you've got going on here.

Keep trying, man. I can't say this is that bad of a piece, because it's not, but if you really want to label your work as "funk," you should seriously reconsider your sound.

SonicWombat responds:

Thanks dude. Good thoughts, and I pretty decently agree with you.

[Penumbra's Fate]

Good loop! This may be personal taste, but I would have cut the mid-range down a tad in production to make it sound less muddy. Yeah, I can hear the click in the beginning, but it wasn't intended to be a loop in the first place, so whatevs. What kind of piano do you use?

AshleyAlyse responds:

Thanks! :) I can't remember, since I made it a couple years ago, but I do remember I used one of the pianos from "Reason Pianos" in Reason 5.0. :) I think it was a producer style Yamaha with jazz mics and a bunch of reverb, but can't be sure. You're right on that note, I wish I had done a few things differently and you can definitely hear a click in the beginning... which is odd because when the file is played on iTunes on repeat, you cannot hear any click. Try downloading it and listening to it on iTunes to listen to it without the click. :o