Qshunt's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[LuukMans & BLOKBUSTR - Inversion]

2:15 onwards should be the theme of the entire track imo.
This section is good. Levels are quite nice. Drums could be a bit punchier, but that's just my personal taste.
Nice stabs and chops in this part, too.
Chord progression is on point and there are no odd harmonics
interfering with the flow.
The first half seems very disjointed with lots of bad harmonics/ chords.
The idea is pretty good, but it needs more refinement.
Overall, the mixdown is quite good, but the drums could do with a bit more punch in my opinion. Maybe add a bit of sidechain compression to the sub (use your kick as sidechain source) to allow the drums to cut through the mix a bit more.

If you would like any clarification or details on anything here, please don't hesitate to drop me a message. I like to help where I can.

Please check out some of my stuff, if you have the time.

I'll listen to the rest of your EP now.
Peace.

[Dark Descent Ft Sorteberg]

Pretty decent effort. I'm not sure about the constant velocity on all of the drum parts. The running hi-hat sound is too overbearing. try adding velocity changes in the on and off beats.
The snare sample doesn't suit the overall vibe of the track. something more like a pendulum-ish snare would probably suit far better.
Add some shuffle/swing to the whole track, and the "tick ticky" hihats will sound far less imposing.
The melodies are good, if not a teeny bit generic. That's just my personal taste, so no harsh criticism there.
a touch more sub would be good too.
Otherwise, for a first attempt, that's a noteworthy effort.
4/5
Please check my tunes, you'll see whether I'm qualified to to offer production advice, or not ;)
Again, good effort!

[Within a Century]

Nice track! Clean production! drums are quite good, but I think there is a touch too much low end on the kick. do you use a compressor on your drum buss? It doesn't sound like you do, but I might be mistaken.
Melodies are nice and clean, and interesting. A breakdown with some bandpass filtering on the bassline, and some distortion would be nice. ...add some of that "waaaap waaap" sound.

Generally speaking, with some minor refinements, this could go from being a good track, to being a truly great track!

Keep it up!

Check some of my tunes and leave me some critique!

Cheers,
Matt

[PE - Level Up]

I'm not really a big fan of most dubstep. I'm more of a drum and bass/drumstep fan. That aside, this track is fucking excellent.
Quality production, excellent mixdown. i think a touch more high end on the snares, for a bit more of a snap...but this is just a minor nitpick. awesome work!
Check out some of my stuff if you have the time!

MessanyRecordings responds:

Thanks for the great feedback.
Will check you out :)

[Back To Skool]

Reminds me of doc Scott/old school omni trio. This, of course, is a good thing. You've pulled off "that sound" exactly! Kudos! 5's all round!

AeroMusic responds:

woooooo! just the type of sound I was going for, thanks alot for the 5 mate - means alot from you

[Kaleidoscope]

This has great potential. The drums bother me though. This would sound much better with more of a futurefunk styled drum sequence. Danny byrd styled glitched vox are nicely done. I'll download your track, and show you what i think the drums should sound like! 4/5 I've followed you on soundcloud. check my stuff and review, please. could do some collab. You have some nice tracks!

Morphixx responds:

Its ok not to like the drums :D None of my songs are perfect. I just liked them because they have an old school jungle feel to them. However, I could see it being done differently. I'll check out more of your tracks too later today. Ty for the honest review!

[A New Beginning]

this is quite good, but the label "drum and bass" is not really accurate. this would be breaks, technically. it sounds like a breakdown in a trance track, that has been extended into a full track.
Melodically is nice! nice atmospheres too. drums seem too quiet though, and lack punch!
4/5

[RW - Garden of Seborhin]

This is quite interesting. overall production quality is pretty good. levels are nice, melodies are great. Nice arps too.
Drum and Bass music is my forte, so I might be being overly critical on certain aspects. Please feel free to contact me for a more detailed explanation of any concepts that you may not understand, or any of my descriptions that aren't clear enough.

Anyway, as I mentioned before, the overall production quality is quite good. I'm finding it a bit flat though. It doesn't sound like you use much in the way of compression or limiting? These are STAPLE devices in a drum and bass track. Usually I sidechain the kick track to the percussive elements, in varying degrees....the overall amount that i use compression in a track depends on the style of DnB i'm producing. eg. Liquid, i'd be using a light-ish overall track compression, plus the aforementioned Sidechained compressors.
If i were producing some neurofunk, i'd be using much heavier overall compression, and more "ducking" on the percussion.
Try just lowering the threshold on your master limiter to start with...you should get a noticeably better "sound" overall from that minor adjustment.

next, I was missing a sub. I couldn't hear a nice driving sub-bass holding it all together. again, that should be an easy change for you to make too. A simple sine, with a longish decay/sustain will do.

The eq on the kick (if you are using one) should be adjusted so that the kick has a touch more punch, at slightly lower frequencies (around 75-100hz..this is dependant on the sample you are using too)

Same for the snare. Give it a bit of a peak around 170-210 hz. adjust to taste.

Please check out my stuff, in case you don't feel me to be qualified to pass judgment on your music!
I hope I have been of assistance. Any questions, just inbox me, i'll reply pretty promptly

Keep it up, bro...you have some nice tunes..that with some minor tweaks, could be fucking awesome tunes! Would love to collab some time. Peace!

Indigorain responds:

Haha, of course I feel you to be qualified for this kind of judgement, I was really missing some good criticism like this, it's extremely helpful!
You're absolutely right on the compression, I do use limiters, and some simple forms of compression, but the main reason I don't really compress that much is because I suck at it.
About the sub, I actually did that intentionally, I wanted to make a really light track with not much subbass. Next time I get to a project like this, I'll be sure to give it a firm sub!
And thanks for the EQ tips of course, I'll boost that up next time, now you mention it, the kick could indeed use a bit more punch.
And I'll send you an inbox with some questions, if you wouldn't mind, I'd love to learn more! :D
And thanks a lot, of course, this has been extremely helpful! :D