trixelbit's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[The School Yard]

This song meets the criteria of what was outlined in the challenge.
You charge the song with tones that connect to retro music aesthetic.
Sharp simple synths for you melody, chords, and bass line.
Low sample rate drums.
All things that present themselves super retro.

The pacing is moderately upbeat which the idea of an intro level.
Stimulating enough while not being overwhelming, priming the listener to the stage.

Though this is not the most dynamic song, in the context of games,
that can be a boon when there a many elements vying for player attention.

From what I digest, your song has the following structure:
A - B - A - C - A Modified

1 thing I do notice, you seem confident in your melody for A and B but shaky in C.
It feels like you're unsure of how to go get to 1:42.

There are a number of options on how to enter 1:42.
The first thing I'd advise is play at C, the stop at 1:34, and try singing or humming a melody that would get you to 1:42.

Something as simple as a singable melody will go a long way in making it feel far more intentional and confident.

You could always go a more theoretical approach too. Think about what chord you're trying to resolve to, and think of what transitions you have at your disposal.
Sometimes, the solution can be as simple as a 2-5-1. If you haven't already, familiarize yourself with the chord number system. It can be very helpful in these circumstances.

This section is also an opportunity to break away from the antecedent/consequent structure
you've been using for the other sections and add something structurally different.

I would also encourage have some build or clue in to the listener that a change is coming before going to C. A change the largely static drum line, and change in the placement of your chords, there is a number of ways to go about it. The idea is to make this feel designed and not just a happen stance.

Structure aside, your instrumentation gets the job done, but leaves possibilities on the table. I've mentioned this whether another review, try experimenting with your sound design!

The instrumentation sound like the starting node in a skill tree.
Within retro music, there is a rich landscape of chiptune sounds to explore and draw upon. You can go for hardware authenticity and try VSTs or Trackers the replicate the NES/Game Boy/Sega sound faithfully (think hertz devil, chibi-tech, rrthiel, megabaz). You can try making fusing classic chip sound with live instruments (anamanaguchi, shnabubula), use sample instruments and sample with little processing (Red&Green - Night Chase), or take the simple oscillators and experiment with effects chains to make something distinct (savant - ISM comes to mind).

All this is more so to encourage going beyond where you're at here and tread into something new.

Thanks for participating and I hope this is helpful in some way!
Feel free to reach out if any questions come up.

YuukanVulture responds:

Hello trixelbit,
Thank you for your feedback. I'll take this into consideration when composing future soundtracks.
Thank you,
YuukanVulture

[G/C/S/B//OST-02//16-Bit Showdown [VGMC]]

Observations:
- Synths emulate the retro aesthetic of the game.
- I would have the drums be more prominent in the mix. The song is missing quite a lot of energy from their week presence.
- The guitar sounds a bit thin and sticks out of the mix.

Recommendations:
- Listen to a song in the same genre closest to what you aim to achieve and think about how they mix there stems. Ask your self, how loud is the guitar compared to the drums, synths, etc.

- The guitar sticks out partially because it's the only non artificial voice. To make it more at home, add other elements like it (i.e. real drums instead of electronic ones) or nix the regular guitar and use an artificial (samplers/soundfonts) or generate a voice to fill the role. (synths, vsts, etc). Hard committing to either will help the elements feel more cohesive.

- Another observation is that this feels like you're just riffing on this back track. Nothing wrong with it, but if you want it to feel organized and intentional, I would start making discrete sections that represent a specific melodic idea.

A melodic idea can be something as simple as an "antecedent consequent" phrase.

These ideas can become the building blocks of your song that provided hooks for people to attach too.

And when you repeat a section, that communicates intentionality.

As Adam Neeley says, repetition legitimizes. repetition legitimizes. repetition legitimizes.

Hope you find this helpful!

[A Bad Swing (UPDATE)]

Observations:

Positives:
+ Slower pace and bassline helps sells this is a gameover.

Recommendations:
Again, mix is super drum heavy. Some volume increase and compression could go along way.
The drums themselves also have significant bass content I would cut from.
I would also bring up that synth too.

As a game over track, this gets the job done very well!

[Arcade Uncontrol]

Mix:

The loudest things in mix are the drums.
Even the bass really doesn't feel very present.

This makes this track feel empty.

Positives:
+ Interesting percussion line that establishes an up beat, combative energy.

+ Even though there is a lot of empty space in the mix, some games can find that to be a benefit.
Especially in circumstances where their game may have a ton of SFX playing in the foreground,
having a light mix like this helps offset that auditory load.

Recommendations:

General:
+ When it comes to mix, I recommend picking a song from a professional who's done the style/genre you want to produce well,
and listen for how they mix it. Notice the volume ratio between drums, bass, leads.
+ Then mix your song to match that same ratio. This will give you a frame of reference for whatever song you're mixing.
This will eventually train your ear to have some general intuition on mixing levels (I always like comparing just for reference.)

Improving the current song:
+ Increase the volume of bass and other ornamentation.
This song is missing a lot of mid to high frequency content.
So increasing the volume of what you already have present would aid in this.
Beyond increasing those instruments, some compression on the master track could go a
long way to bring in the higher frequency content you already have in your drums and bass.

+ Add more unique characteristics to the bass. If it's going to be the main focus of the song,
then add depth to it so can be interesting. So can be a done in a bunch of ways but is largely
a question of sound design and experimentation on your end (effects chain, eq modulation, etc).

Changing the direction/character of this song:

+ As it stands, this establishes a vibe relatively well.
However, there's so much room here to do cool stuff. Adding melodies,
additional instruments/samples/sounds that define your harmonies.

+ These kind of things helps make a song far more memorable.

Good work, I can definitely hear this in game!

[You Got Schooled :(]

I actually really like the DJ scratch start.

You riff on the original theme you posted but modified it to be more dejected.
As a game over theme, this really does do its job, and does it well.

Also the sample quality at the end really does nail that retro feel.

Good stuff!

[Get Schooled!]

Recommendations:

The elements in your song feel really disconnected.
Nothing seems to support each other.

On the one hand, you have the chord progress which is kinda gnarly with some abrupt changes.

There's a kinda quiet synth that is dissonant with the chords of the main synth you got going on.

And the drums feel like they're trucking along independent of these elements.

The chord changes aren't inherently a bad thing, but you want to the drums to reinforce them so it feels intentional,
and have them clue the listener in that an abrupt change is coming.

Math rock, for example, can have very odd time signatures and chord changes,
but it doesn't feel jarring due to how chord changes are supported by the drums.

I recommend watching how Lernell Lewis composes a drum line for a track.
You'll hear the song without drums, then you'll hear him compose and perform them from scratch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIW72VXMPHo

Although this is jazz, these ideas and principles translate across genres and have informed how I go about drum composition.

After that, I would research functional harmony.
This will help inform decisions on chord progressions, and how every element you add can fit with them.

Learning this was a big game changer for me and I hope you find to be as equally, if not more, beneficial!

[Arcade Blitz]

Observations:
+ Hits the Arcade Theme very well, with all the instruments being very chiptune inspired,
from square leads, arpeggiated harmonies, and noise based percussion.
+ The whole feels very cohesive and intentionally put together.
+ Very distinctive melody and repeating arps that establish and maintain a constant energy across the entirety of the song. Especially beneficial in a game context.

Recommendations:
+ Add more variety to this song's structure.
At 53 seconds in, you introduce a new idea that is pretty unique and distinct from the rest of the song.
You could theoretically make a more developed version of this idea.
Or you could even make an entirely different section and integrate that into your structure.

How the song currently is though, there's only this 1 main section that plays through the majority of the song.
Sure there are variants introduce by the melody that play over it, but it would be nice to have a section that breaks from it.

That extra spice would help elevate this already well put together song.

+ The current instruments serve their purpose of evoking "Retro Arcade". However, if you'd want to go beyond that,
I recommend either getting some VSTs that more accurately models specific retro hardware or using trackers.
I personally enjoy the sound quality you get from that route, and it gives you more control over the character of your sound.
Especially through the tracker option, you get a lot of controls in tone, pitch bends, and vibrato. You can really make it sing!

[Target Practice]

Observations:
+ Catchy theme. Very NES era beat em up vibes.
+ Like the idea of having unique layers for each playable characters.
As a developer, it wouldn't be hard to use middleware (FMOD, WWISE) to dynamically
layer to the appropriate track for the appropriate character. Very creative idea!

Recommendations:

- If play the game as just 1 character, then the song duration shrinks from 5 minutes to 1:22.
For this kind of stage we'd aim for atleast 2 minutes of music.
To achieve that would require beefying up your song structure.
Introduce new sections, or make big variations of your existing section with different intensity.
The biggest tool at your disposal is the push and pull of tension and release.

- Wished the trombone theme was better integrated into the melody of the section.
Honestly, I would have swapped out the main melody for the trombone instead.
Or if you wanted to have both, switch the melody to be a call and response structure.
There's a couple of ways to go about it. But that would give it a concrete role in the track
As opposed to feeling a bit arbitrary.

Final thoughts:
Great stuff! Really nails a very retro beatem up vibe!
Very creative idea for the variety of layers and having dynamic adaptive music!
Could totally see this in GCSB.

[NGADM 2024 - Grand Finals Podcast]

Congrats everyone! Thank you everyone who ran this event and all the fellow competitors for such awesome tracks! It's kind of wild thinking of how long this competition has ran for. Congrats especially to @Solacitude @icantpronouncethis and @CloakedSoup ! It's impressive to have made it this far! It's an honor be numbered among yall.

If anybody wants that copy of FL studio, DM me on newgrounds and lmk what country you're based in!

Time to return to my basement and get mad at texts on a screen.
That's how game dev works right?

[[NGADM Round3] I'm 90% sure this Club is Haunted]

This was an absolute joy to listen too!!
The vocals, vibes, and super distinct sound design.

I had a stupid grin plastered on my face the whole time.

Super fun ride, thanks for the awesome track!

GameBoyFireworks responds:

Thank you so much for that very kind review. Good luck this round my friend!