MaartenC's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[[NLC] The Liberaten]

:D I got credited! I feel absolutely fabulous right now, one of the few moments in my life that I have that.

Anyway, I'll be splitting this review in two parts, the first half of the song and (of course) the second half.

-The first half- (I'll get straight to the point, seeing you can handle a bit of criticism)

The effect used in the first seconds is a good add, but 10 seconds for that...? Seems a bit too long. 4 or 5 seconds should be enough. Also, you should let the instruments kick in while that effect is still active, like you did at 0:25.

Anyway, the intro with the bells and the (god I need to learn those instruments) epic-sounding instrument sounded good. It fits well with an intro. The only thing (minor) about that is when the effect, mentioned in the previous paragraph, kicks in, those instruments stop too suddenly.

This was actually the only thing that bothered me in the first half, apart from the effect spamming, which isn't THAT bad, but well... Some people can't stand such things :(

The good things were the other instruments used and the changes in 'swing'. The instruments used were good, very good. The sounded quite eastern and the swing put into that they mostly have. They made the song less (or even almost not) repetitive. Great job.

-The second half-

I see the song from 2:11 on as the second half, where the song did get slightly repetitive. All the transitions were good, but it did seem as if the song was slowly shifting from 'Hm! Impressive!' to 'Mwahh... Meh'.

The instruments were still great and the swing too, but then another effect, and the song started over again.

The end: at 3:41 the song started to end, from which the transition was done well and the ending was good. It's not something I hear often, so I was surprised. The song didn't 'die' out, but calmly ended. Those two are close to each other, but (meh I'll stop here, I'm rambling).

Anyway, You get 3 stars from me, 2,5 for the song itself (I'm stricter than usual with this one) and ,5 for potential. I hope you can use this information and someday make a fixed version!

Keep it up, voted 4/5 by the way.

KrisKrosNL responds:

Dude, I freaking FIND THIS REVIEW SUPER!

On the 1st half, I never though about what you said. I'll be sure to give it a try.

Fuck, the transitions are being assholes in this song. I'll be sure to fix that.

Well, in the 2nd part I have to admit I was too lazy to add shit. :P I'll wake up next time to make it less repetitive.

You've just turned gold, man. This review is epic. You're not just an inspirerer, but also a great critic!

Thanks for the review.

--NL-Courage

[FS: Hard sun (acoustic)]

Damn, that song is hard to sing. You did quite all right though. Not to sound queer, but your voice is really calming and nice to listen to.

Anyway, in the beginning a couple of tones seemed off, but after the first 'BIIIIIG, BIG HARD SUN' you recovered, and good too.

From he second B,BHS on, all the tones were practically perfect and I started to enjoy the song. Made think about how the original was, and I must say that I enjoyed this cover more than the original, what is very rare for covers/remixes.

The guitar play was also very good. Good ol' acoustic guitar play, which was just perfect.

Overall, I believe you're improving very much and please keep sending me PMs with the next song/cover, although I'll be raising my standards for the next song.

Oh yeah, the chorus... Big, hard sun? Wrooonnnnng. It's probably my perverted mind, but...

FairSquare responds:

Haha, the first couple of times i couldn't sing 'Big hard sun' without a giggle or two :3
And about a couple of notes being off in the beginning.. it seems that, when i try to sing a song, i just can't start as good as i want to. I have to sing a verse or two before i get really into it and basically stop thinking about how it sounds, starting to enjoy the actual singing more and stop worrying about how my voice sounds.
That you like my cover better than the original (which i love) is a pretty big compliment :)

Thanks for the review! :D I hope to keep improving :)
And of course, i will send you a PM when i upload my next audio creation ^__^

[Florescence (Syphonmax Remix)]

You're fucking good, you know that?

It's (just) 8:20 am here in the weekend and I forced myself to wake up just now and with a 'fluffy' head, I checked my PMs, clicked your link and got here. This song calmed my down and yet at the same time gave me a lot of energy. Damn you're good.

The beginning and at the end are for DJing purpose and I don't think those will ever be removed, so I won't be whining about that anymore, so here's the review:

I'll suppose that the song starts at 1:35, with a nice transition and then switches to just a very calming melody. Even though it was a very simple instrument used, without echos or whatever, it never bored me or such, well done with that.

At 3:17 a new part of the song started -and so the build up, IMO- and the trance-ish music rolled in, which was done also very smoothly. The song gradually became more energetic and became much more pleasant to listen to,

though at 5:15 a higher instrument was added, which made the song sound a little chaotic, but luckily after a second or 15 that wasn't noticeable anymore.

Anyway, I enjoyed this song very much, because THIS is how trance is supposed to be, in it's pure form, that is. I congratulate you with yet another awesome upload and now excuse me, I'm going to soundcloud.com for a high-quality download.

10/10 (rounded up) is well deserved, keep it up!

[Death of a pixel]

Hm... Strangely that reminded me of...

...lavender town. Damn you're good.

The instruments were indeed pretty disturbing, in a good way and held my attention throughout the whole song. Anyway the review:

The intro started out well, with just the one instrument and shortly after the others started to kick in and the song still managed to stay calm, yet impressive.

At the end, when all of the instruments/melodies were playing at the same time, it seemed wrong and right at the same time and I loved it. Too bad it ended WAAAY too abruptly. Really -2 for that, because otherwise it was perfect. I really hope this will be remade/revised by you, because this has great potential.

Keep it up and sorry for the late review.

8/10, 4/5, faved.

ErlendHL responds:

Hey thank you very much :)

[[NLC] Waluigi Pinball]

Hot damn :3

As I told you before, this is my favorite (MARIO KART DS!) audio and my favorite track. I must say that I expected something differently, and at the same time you fail to disappoint!

When the track started, I did think it was too slow, but keeping in mind that the speed would change, I kept listening with enthusiasm.
The fade-in was a good add. With a song like this, it's better not to fall straight into it.
Also, I must applaud you with the instruments used. How long have you searched for them? They fitted perfectly with the style of the song.

I know you've had a bit of trouble with drums before, but it seems that you've found a good solution for it, the drums are good, but also in the background.

The pitch and speed change was also a great add, but I do think that when the transition came, you could've made the the transition last a bit longer, just a second or two. That would have made this perfect.

Also, while the fade-in was a good add, the fade-out was less, in my opinion. The speedy part could have lasted longer and suddenly ended. This is just on basis of my opinion, a lot of people will see the fade-out as good, but (blah blah blah)...
Me gusta.

Anyway, this is one of your best works yet, and the 9/10 is very, very well deserved. Now let's hope SOPA doesn't pass, so Rainbow road and Airship fortress will be uploaded too.

KrisKrosNL responds:

I'm very glad that you actually find this a good one. :)

For the instruments, it took me FOREVER to find them. I wanted techno style. :P On FL 10, I used both Harmless and Harmor (I abandoned Sytrus this time since it uses less power) and that's the good part.

Yes, the drums are my nightmare, but it seems better than before. :\ At least, I don't really know which drum I shoud have used.

The transition? Maybe it was too short. I'm bound to make it longer in the next songs! I wanted the transition by myself, so yeah; my taste. But you're totally right; needs to be a bit longer.

And today, this review has given some usefull advice. ;)

[[NLC] Master Hand Battle]

Ahhh Melee...

...I've had a lot of fun playing that game. I really enjoyed some of the songs in that game, like Gourmet Race, Meta Knight's Revenge, King Dedede's song and, indeed the Master Hand's tune. And this tune did work out quite all right, especially seeing how hard this must've been.

The seems to start off a little... murmurous, but I got used to that pretty quickly and after about half a minute it didn't bother me anymore. I do want to know how it comes that around 2:04 the song suddenly seems a lot 'brighter'.

I really liked the instruments you've chosen here. There's a lot of variation and you made the instruments come back when it was necesary. The drums came faded and came back at excactly the right moment and even as I'm writing this review I'm still impressed. You should be damn happy with this kind of result.
For me the best part, by the way was at 2:26 where the song does seem to 'darken' a little bit, just want to say extra; well done.

The only letdown for me is that at 3:09 you should have let the song end. It felt for me that this was a good moment to stop, but then you 'sewed' another part to it. The quality of that part is good, really, but it's not needed.

Anyway, I do believe that this is waaay better than the original and as soon as I find my old disk I'm gonna stuff that into my wii (I sold my gamecube, I'm ashamed) and I'm gonna play this instead of the normal tune.

As I could only find one flaw (I tried my best) you're going to get a 9/10 from me and so a 5/5. I hope this review satisfies you, I'm gonna review 'Molgera Battle' another time. :|

KrisKrosNL responds:

lol, you confused Brawl with Melee.

[[NLC] Basshunter (WIP Remix)]

I hear a good song, but it's still very much WIP.

The song started out good, I love a bassline intro and then the piano kicked it, which is a thing that I liked too, but at 0:28 the sudden low tone in the piano made the whole song get into a pause... That's maybe something you want to avoid using... Instead you could just let the drums start. You fixed it quite good by making the piano play a few more tones, but I'd still make the drums roll into the song more smoothly.

Anyway, at 1:10 the song started to get really interesting and the orchestra-like sounds are very enjoyable, if you decide to redo this song, I insist you keep those.

As previously mentioned in the review from Mr-Ultimate, the sudden change in the song at 2:22 is really something you gotta watch out for, it's often for a lot of people a letdown.

What I don't agree with him is that the song is too repetitive. The main melody is used a lot, but it didn't bore me one second. The changes in intruments made the song interesting to listen to and the song ended in time.

What I think you should do with this song is:

- Make the bass a little louder
- More elobrate drums
- Make the drums at the part where the song goes 'loose' at 1:10 more smooth
- Remove the pitch change at 2:22
- Keep the orchestra instruments

Overall I can't give any higher than a 6/10, but I hope that the finished version will blow me out of my chair, I know you can do that.

P.s. I think melody-like this is definately better than M-U's version.

KrisKrosNL responds:

Finally, a MaartenC review that isn't useless.

First, orchetra stuff is my favorite. Of course I'll keep those.

Drums...I'm having a shitload of trouble with that.

You hate pitches? You see, what I usually intended to do with the pitch was add an unusual short rythem before the 3rd part of the song.

Some people like repetitive, some don't. I might consider changing some notes, but never the entire rythem itself.

P.S: at least, not yet.

[[NLC] Hyrule Field Fixed]

Calming...

The full version is out now and you've indeed made some good decisions concerning pitch etc.

The pitch is this time perfect, usually I don't like pitch changes, especially when it's higher, but this is indeed a change for the better.

I haven't played any zelda game in my life, to be honest and so I haven't heard the original hyrule field before, so I check youtube before finishing this review and I must say... I like this one better. As mentioned by CliffRacer below me, this could fin into some videogame, perhaps even replacing the original.

Anyway, the instruments were perfectly in harmony and the loose instrument that played small pieces were done fantasticly, this made the song enjoyable for a much longer time.

Personally, I think this a good song to play a game to, but not something you just sit down for and listen. If I were you, I'd still keep on remixing, but also focus more on making different kinds of genres...

Anyway, great job, the 9/10 is well deserved. Keep it up!

KrisKrosNL responds:

Next time express exactly what went wrong in the song.
If the situation was boringness, don't bother reviewing.

[FS: Look I'm Running]

Now that's a swining song you put up there...

Let me say first, sorry for the (kinda) late review, new year's business etc. Speaking of new year, I listened to the English new year's celebration show and there was some real quality work there. To be honest, this could belong there.

I have forgotten the name of that program (I'm quite ashamed of that), but I've heard that getting a feature on that show is more of an honor than to score a #1 hit in the USA, you see what I'm getting at?

This is one of those songs that is calming, yet energetic. I think you should have hired a female singer to sing in this kind of song, if that would be possible :P

The song started good, apart from the fade-in effect, what wasn't that much of a letdown, but just starting off as a regular jazz-like song would have been better, I believe.

After that, all the instruments, which were playing different melodies (piano and others) were all blending in perfectly and kept the listeners attention; the song wasn't boring for one moment.

Later on, when the wind instruments started, this song really got deep, I loved that, but to be honest, the song could have lasted a LOT longer.
You have done something great here and if you decide to make this, or another upload much longer, I'll be sure to add it to my list of best songs (currently 209 songs with over 38 hours of length) and I'm serious here. Almost no NG audio portal upload ever made it there. Not even all of my favorites on my userpage have.

Anyway, I believe the song ended too abrubtly and because it's not a perfect song, I'll give this a 9/10 and so a 5/5, but this has limitless potential. Keep it up and SEND ME YOUR NEXT SONG!

FairSquare responds:

Haha, i think it would be possible to 'hire' a female singer if i really wanted to :p
And yeah, maybe i could've made it longer, but i just ran out of patience with this song for some reason. Don't know why exactly.
Thanks for this review and all the compliments and stuff :D
Oh, and don't worry, i'll send you my next song ;)

[FS: This Time (acoustic)]

Well done...

Good intro, good singing, lame text (sorry :P) and a good ending.

The intro was was really good, but after I heard the intro, I heard the whole song. That's pretty much a shame with acoustic music.

Assuming it's you singing here (you are, I know) you sing like a pro. You should do something with that. I mean it. Not many people can sing well these days.
With songs I think you should broaden your horizon with music. You can find lots of non-pop songs that are great too.
This is coming from a pop (and rap and hip-hop)-hater, though.

Anyway, I don't think at all that you fucked up at the end, it was well done, don't be harsh on yourself.

I'll just give this a 8/10 and so a 4/5 and hope you'll let me review your next audio too!

FairSquare responds:

Not all acoustic music is repetitive like this :p
And thanks for the compliments on my singing, although i don't agree with you on the greatness of it.
Oh and on 02:12 i play a wrong chord, that's what i meant with fucking up :p
Anyway, thanks for the review! :)