mr-jazzman's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Intercourse]

An interesting listen

I'll start with my complaint, which is minimal. It's definitely not the bass. If anything, I hate that over-chorused ambient pad you used in the beginning lol; it was just so...ugly. Now, this may have been what you wanted, but it's not something that I would have added, because it just didn't seem to compliment the rest of the song. Just my opinion here; I'm not telling to fix your song at all.

Now, for the good stuff. I really don't see why people have sticks shoved up their asses about your bass. In my opinion, your bass was fantastic. It was different, for sure, but that's not a bad thing. If I would've done anything to it, I would've taken a little bit of the reverb off in the beginning (or done the opposite and blurred it to mix better with the entrance feel). There was certainly enough distortion to it, and mixed pretty well with your sub layer as well. The genius part of it was just how complex you got the chords in it; typically when I'm working with a wobble, the complexity of chords just gets it to sound like mud, but somehow you got it to work, so good job on that! =D

Overall, this is a brilliant song. Come to think of it, I'm having a second opinion on that over-chorused pad, as I've listened to the song 3 times now while writing this review. It does work with the rest of the song...it's just...ugh...I can't place it...maybe it's just not my preference, or it just felt weird to me...and the main reason that bugs me is because I'm usually extremely open-minded when it comes to sounds, so I dunno why the hell that gets to me this time...maybe it could use a faster chorus rate or somethin? Not entirely sure...it just felt "whiny," but it fit with the rest of the feel of the song. So whatever lol.

Good job though woman, keep it up! (If you are indeed a woman and not lying about as so many people do on NG =P)

9/10
5/5

Your friendly neighborhood dubstep producer,
-Jazzman

Quarl responds:

lol. im 100% grade a female. thanks for the honest feedback sir. ill agree that the pad does sound a little meh but i've listened to the song so many times at this point that i can't imagine taking it out. thanks for the honest feedback sir!

[[dj-Jo] Endless Space(Ion Mix)]

A change for you, sir!

While the mix is a little unbalanced, I'm really enjoying the soundscape you've painted. Great stuff man! If you wanna get it to sound prime, lay off so many of the effects on the percussion, and let the beats carry the weight! Also, I'm diggin that piano dude. Keep it up man, your fantastic composition skills are becoming all the more awesome with your improved technique!

9/10
5/5

Your friendly neighborhood dubcore producer,
-Jazzman

dj-Jo responds:

:D, Thanks Jazzman!
I'm gonna try to do more things like this for my upcoming EP :)
I can't wait to finish some more songs!

And about effects, this song was truly experimental in a whole
Just a whole bunch of new things I wanted to try.

Thanks for the review once again.

[Tom Fulp, Share Your Chicks!]

Hell yes!

This song is definitely the best song on NG, without a doubt. This is pure genius! X~D

-Jazzman

CountBoogie responds:

WOW! Thanks dude!!

[Grinachi Contest]

It's taken me a while...

...taken me a while to finally review one of your songs. And here's my opinion: Your chord progressions are so f@#$ing rich, and I love it. Your stuff is not exactly my style, but there is a certain amount of jazz influence that I can't help but love the style you've got goin on. I think the main things that bug me are: A.) The mastering (it feels like stuff could be brighter, and that the bass could be put in the background just a little bit, through some good ol' compression and EQing); B.) It reminds me of Sonic the Hedgehog games, which for some reason bugged the hell out of me when I played them...probably because they didn't feel like games at all. =P; and C.) The fact that a lot of these sounds are, from what I understand, presets of generic FL VSTs (I bet you could come up with a super-awesome set of sounds if you screwed around more with the FM modulation and some delay effects). I'd really love to see what you could do in the realm of dubstep, because it would be awesome. Keep it up man...oh yeah, and I hope you don't mind if I start to borrow some of your chords here and there in my own songs. ;)

Your friendly neighborhood dubstep producer,
-Jazzman

SHADOWFOX2 responds:

Whoa second huge review in a row
Glad you like the jazz chords and whatnot

I know a lot of it needed fixing back then too
I can agree with brighter overall sound, but I think the bass is already far back enough
I'm sure it's because it phases in an out; I used it mainly because of the bass drops you hear later in
...how do you not like the music from Sonic the Hedgehog...
You are correct once again; back two years ago, I was just beginning to branch out of stock FL sounds and utilizing filters, a lot of which I still haven't touched.

As far as dubstep is concernec, I'll get there eventually!
It has crossed my mind a considerable amount of times now so ye
Thanks for the encouragement!
PS: I do not own any of these chords

[BAZ - Hell Yes! (DNB)]

Pretty damn good...I PM'ed you about it

Check the PM I sent you, it outlines everything that I think about this song. In a nutshell: Exceptional as a stand-alone, except for the tone of some of the synths. Not as exceptional as a complimentary song to Sakupen's music video. But still, gotta love that breakbeat stuff. And great work on your polyphony. ;)

-Jazzman

P.S. Seriously, congratulations on winning the contest. I mean it. =)

BAZmotherfucker responds:

Why thank you :] helpful stuff!

[White TIger Shark]

Very Metallica! |m| |m|

Good stuff my friend. Just a couple things though, if you really want stuff to come out in your future works:

1.) Add a little bit of room send reverb to your drums to get them to pop out more. Give them a 2-3 dB raise in the mids and highs, and your drums will be beautiful.
2.) I'm not entirely sure if how you're getting your guitar on the track; if you have your own software, that's cool, but have you ever heard of impulses? Essenitally, they emulate a cab setup, and they can give your guitar a beautiful live tone if you download the correct waveform. This will give your guitar a beautiful tone (just check out my song "Broaden Your Sound"/"Image >Unmastered<", not entirely sure which one you'll 'ppreciate more; they're the same song, but one version I tried to master and failed =P).
3.) Try setting your guitar on a different master than with the main master through side-chaining. This will take your guitar from the back of the mix to the front of the mix, at par with the drums, and we'll be able to hear the beauty of that guitar!
4.) Lol I'm sorry but that solo is whack! I know what you're aiming for, but it's sloppy. Solos are extremely difficult to pull off under most circumstances, so you gotta spend time with them, period. Practice the solo until you're sick of it...and don't attempt anything too extraordinary (tempting as it is), because all that will happen is that you'll muddy up the solo more than you want. The solo must be do-able and beautiful. (I understand you didn't have a whole lot of time to work on this track...and I didn't have much time on my own...but I'm mentioning this for your future songs).
5.) Give that bass some presence by giving it some bass boost - but not too much. A slight amount of treble boost might not be a bad idea either, to give it a nice, slappy rich tone. It just depends on what you're aiming for.

Good stuff man, good luck in round 3! ;)

-Jazzman

HighBallers responds:

i wasn't really aiming my solo towards anything, i was just whipping out a couple of guitar licks in a sequences. I will admit, i did make it up right on the spot when i recorded the track. I wasn't used to soloin' to the key of E, i'm still learning ya know. I'm getting a new drum program, for sure. I'm only using Fl-studios, i need to step it up. For the guitar tone, i'm saving up for a better guitar, and that should give me the best improvement for my line-6 interface.

[{dj-N} Possessed LFO]

People have been voting lame lately! >=(

Iron God's currently a 4.34/5.00, dropping a whole 0.10 with a single vote (and it was frontpaged and had nearly 300 votes behind it...wtf, I dunno...=\ Jealous people with high voting status = me angry, but just another reason to start producing professional music!) On the other note, this song is very interesting, blending very many different things together to produce something insane...I dunno exactly what to think of it lol. That LFO can get annoying over time, and I think that's why people vote it so low, because that's the first thing they hear when the song boots up lol...oh well, their loss, because the rest of the song was brilliant! I really liked the combo with the guitars, it's brutal! It really makes wanna start recording my guitar again and add some metal influence to my stuff (which has long been a dream of mine...I'm sure you've heard me ranting on about metalstep lol). Dubstep + House + Metal = Epic Baby! >=D Great stuff Nate, keep it up!

9/10 (only because I think that there coulda been a little bit more melodic expansion; I woulda added some cool melodic stuff in between the phases with the LFO synth, but that's just me lol)
5/5
Fav'd.
DL'ed

P.S. I did NOT use Z3ta+ in my last submission! I made that sound from scratch!
P.P.S. If I'm ever up against you in the NGADM, I think I'm gonna try your preferred genre of House. I'll only compete against you though if you do a Dubstep song lol! ;)

dj-Nate responds:

Haha, thanks jazzman. Sorry about jumping the gun on the Zeta preset. I used to use them all the time, which is the only reason I say so! Haha.

By the way, if I end up against you, I want to do a dubstep face-off for sure.

[Digga digga (dubstep)]

Metalstep FTW!

This is a pretty awesome track overall. Your wobbles are pretty fantastic; it reminds me of metalstep, the type of dubstep that I really want to start producing. The mastering and sound was pretty good overall, and the edition at the end was nice. The one thing that bugged me a little were some of the synths that you used in the chill portions of the song; their tone just didn't seem to fit to the overall feel of the song. However, the sheer ingenuity of this track is what gives it its edge. Keep it up man, you've got some talent! =)

9/10
5/5

Your friendly neighborhood dubstep producer,
-Jazzman

Genjo responds:

thanks man i appreciate the review! so is that what its called then? Metal step? i must youtube it.... and yeah i can relate with the synths - i need better VST's; this is my problem!

[old -Rudolf The Robot Reindeer]

Discrepancy

This song's goofy as hell, basically just ridiculous. Something I could produce in like 5 seconds, using generic FL samples and the acid synth off of Sytrus lol. And yet it holds this gigantic popularity rank...then I go to see, voted on 32 times and listened to 220 some odd times in 5 years (at least since writing this review)...but holy shit...15,902 DLs? What's that, like an average of 8 DLs per day by yourself for the past year? Wonderful! =D

cheesemonkeybill responds:

some of my most terrible work >:]
it is pretty titty lickin rediculous, wouldnt you say?

[{dj-N} [MD2010] Indoctrinated]

I might have to compete now lol

Pretty badass, not gonna lie. What I absolutely adore about your songs is how you throw off the listener by giving a rhythm change from the intro section to the rest of your section. I don't even know how to classify this song; I remember you wanted to classify it as dubstep-inspired, but it's more just like epic dance music with a phenomenal measure of ambience to go along with it. What I really REALLY wish is that you had continued and expanded on that theme in the final half of the song; there's a lot I felt you coulda done there that you didn't, and all at once...it ended. It's without a doubt a great theme, but I felt you were just a little conservative in this one towards the end. Still though, your mix is fantastic! And the themes that you have developed are huge. Great work Nate, keep it up! =D

9/10
5/5
Fav'd.
DL'ed (I'll set it with to my purchase of the "This Is Dubstep Volume 3" album that I just bought and can't wait to hammer in my car >=D)

Your friendly neighborhood dubstep producer,
-Jazzman

dj-Nate responds:

Ah, thanks for the review jazzman! Yeah, I think I may have rushed the ending a little. I really appreciate the tips and criticisms, I hope you come out with more tracks soon!