This new server is so beautiful! THE REVIEW THREAD

fluffy · Post by **fluffy** » Fri Oct 06, 2006 3:05 pm

Thankfully, migrating the forum wasn't too much of a burden.

Post your reviews here.

A HELPFUL NOTE FROM POWERS THAT BE: ONLY HERETICS TITLE THEIR POSTS IN NOT A HELPFUL WAY. HERETICS SUCH AS FLUFFY ARE TO BE ELIMINATED.

Sick and Wrong · Post by **Sick and Wrong** » Fri Oct 06, 2006 10:01 pm

Hey -- what a difference! Very nice. Oh, is that a dual-core 3.2 Ghz Xeon? Intel 5000 chipset? And a 1TB SAS drive? Wow -- you guys went all out! Awesome!
Can I bring my ProTools console down and see if we can crash that sucker with 32 multi-band compressor plug-ins running simultaneously?

shadowy puppetmaster · Fri Oct 06, 2006 10:09 pm

IT IS ACTUALLY A DUAL CORE OPTERON WITH FOUR GIGABYTES OF MEMORY. HOWEVER IT IS SHARED BY MANY HERETICS. THEY WILL ALL BE ELIMINATED AND WE WILL HAVE IT TO OURSELVES.

THE SERVER'S NAME IS LISA.

Sick and Wrong · Post by **Sick and Wrong** » Fri Oct 06, 2006 10:19 pm

I LOVE YOU, LISA!
I'M SORRY I SAID "INTEL"!
I LOVE YOU!
(God, I hope you're not an HP. I hate those fuckers.)

edit: have another beer, fluffy. just step away from the server... /edit

Sick and Wrong · Post by **Sick and Wrong** » Fri Oct 06, 2006 10:39 pm

I just listened to the new Rone song, and I gotta say, Rone -- I'm glad you followed my suggestions! Much better! I haven't listened to the others yet, but I'm sure you'll be in the running!
Nice job on the meter, by the way.

Erwin Cloibhofer · Post by **Erwin Cloibhofer** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 11:50 am

----------

furrypedro · Post by **furrypedro** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 1:02 pm

why thankyou

but don't forget melvin, without whom it would have been just another nondescript instrumental track.

Thanks For The Frisbee · Sat Oct 07, 2006 5:09 pm

Adnosium- don’t really know how to take this one. I don’t like it though.

Bal/lost/bal/regained-holy crap! I cant say anything except that this song is awesome. I envy the musical qualities displayed here. The breakdown is genius around 2:20. Great job guys with your super-group submission.

Darkest daves-ya know when you talk while you burp? that’s what this sounds like vocally. Maybe its just my speakers or headphones, but your vox don’t seem loud enough to pull off the effect you probly wanted.
Well constructed for what it is, but you need to turn those vox up!!

Finding nemoy-wow! Simple, to the point…upbeat, really really short. Im not going to vote for you but I still liked it.

The hell yeahs-you had me until the chorus. Just preference. The sound of the song is fine.

Jeff Robertson-when I first started listening I didn’t think I would like it at all..sounds a little too country for my taste. But I do think you have great lyrics in places. “ help you bear the load” was a pretty good line.
When the song builds up you voice gets a little lost. I would have liked to hear a backing vocal track at least at the climax portion.

Jordan cooper-I didn’t get a chance to review last week, but I liked your “ wiser “ much better than this.
I think you have a good foundation.

Klownhole- this song doesn’t satisfy me musically or lyrically.

Kristin- song has a nice flow. Funny in places. Probly wrote and recorded in less than an hour right?
Sounds lighthearted and simple. Handclaps are a great addition….kazoo…is…different.
Fade outs probly arent the best choice…ever. I only know this because ive done it and everyone and their sister hated it.

Older brothers- I don’t know whats wrong with these vocals, but they are really muffled. And the backups are out of tune. However I do like the cries in the distance. Maybe you are trying to be too punk in the lead vox. Sounds a little forced.

Raised by wolves- I am sooooo happy that the entire song wasn’t like the intro. Once it breaks out the song sounds really good. The second verse sounds better than the first. The lyrics are good all the way through.
Great song. I love the outro as well.

Roccalites- your vocals here should have been the backing track. I know this is low fi, but that shouldn’t matter, but if you have the ability to make those vocals louder then I suggest doing it. Having them quiet doesn’t make it sound better , if you are afraid that they wont sound good louder. The guitars get really good later on at about 3:50!! Holy crap this song is long…

Rone- good to see you are trying to refine your style. Still not my taste, but of course that doesn’t matter.

Steve Durand- funky clavi- I always envy your abilities. I love the horns. I would really like to put some of those horns in one of my songs, but I don’t know if I can write a song that could carry them. You do it wonderfully though.

Swilington- I don’t like the fist 2 minutes. Gets a little more interesting after that.

TFTFrisbee feat Blake walker- the strings that blake walker added totally made this song worth submitting.
Thanks man for helping me out! I really need to be adding more interesting elements to my songs and you did that .

Wages- your levels are much much better! Still trying to play to a click track? Sounds like you are improving. Drums are a little quiet, but you may not have a choice about that. I like the story telling aspect.
The second half gets a little more sloppy, but you have made good progress in the skillz.

Favorites are Bal/lost/bal/regained super-group( vote ) , steve Durand, finding nemoy and wages.

jeff robertson · Post by **jeff robertson** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 6:16 pm

Thanks For The Frisbee wrote: I would have liked to hear a backing vocal track at least at the climax portion.

Believe me, I tried. But I was never satisfied with the background vocals; I kept deleting them from the mix.

I rarely like self-harmony when I hear other people do it, either (you yourself are just about one of the ONLY people on here who do it well IMO); normally if I hear more than one voice I want it to sound like two different people.

Erwin Cloibhofer · Post by **Erwin Cloibhofer** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 6:21 pm

----------

hillbilly · Post by **hillbilly** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 8:11 pm

WoW--those older brother dudes are a lil off key.

glennny · Post by **glennny** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 8:27 pm

WoW--those older brother dudes are a lil off key.

It's true, my deepest apologies to everyone, in retrospect i wish i hadn't submitted this song. The main problem was we wrote vocal lines that we couldn't pull off. It's a dissonant line to begin with, keys change back and forth between Emajor, Eminor and Eb Major, so add 2 awful singers and you have this awfulness. Anyway, i'll try not to suck so bad next week. Sorry everyone.

I'm mostly through the reviews, I'll submit them soon. Feel free to Older Brother bash, our feelings won't be hurt, and we deserve it.

hillbilly · Post by **hillbilly** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 10:00 pm

Older Brothers---I didnt mean to single you out, sorry. some one is playing the hell out of that base.

Clownhoe---I hate music like this but damn you did a good job of it. the guitar and drummer are as tight as it gets.

Raised by wolves---parts of this are real good, IMO your voice sounds better the faster it gets.

Steve--- do I have to say killer horns.

Wages-- That was better.

I'll get the rest of you guys tomorrow

Jordo · Post by **Jordo** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 10:19 pm

<<Jordan cooper-I didn’t get a chance to review last week, but I liked your “ wiser “ much better than this.
I think you have a good foundation. <<

Thanks! I wanted to do something very different from last week, since I'm new. I feel like my "Beauty" song grows on you though...as i was working on it and building it i got like obsessed and very happy. "Wiser" was kind of catchy pop without much production fuss, and this one is a lot of production fuss where the catchy melody is more subtle but still there!!!

I've rarely done songs like this, but I made all the music first and then created the vocals on top. It was fun.

As usual, the songs I've heard so far are GREAT. One of them almost made me cry (forget the name, i have to scroll back in my browser)

Anyway, err, yeah

-Jordan

Reist · Post by **Reist** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 10:44 pm

I don't have much time, so I'll post full reviews later if I can. If not, this is all you get from me. This is what I've heard so far with basic points -

Adnosium - Not bad, but repetitive.
Bal/lost/bal/regained - Great. Probably my vote, if nothing better comes up.
Darkest daves - Didn't like guitar tone, and vocals didn't do it for me.
The hell yeahs - Didn't like. Obscene rants are for cool punk songs. I like your other stuff more, especially your King Arthur cover.
Jeff Robertson - Like this better more than Flvxxm Flvorm or however you spell that. It seemed to have a better tone to it and better singing. Do more like this.
Klownhole - Love it. Your guitar and drums are really tight.
Kristin - You don't even deserve my time. Especially since you are me and Jeff and you know what I think because you made it and I am you.
Raised by wolves - Cool. I really like your music, and it's good to see you making some instead of just hanging out in the movie forum. Keep it up.
Rone - So you're making your songs more complicated. Good to hear. Now just got to work on the vocals. Keep improving!

More coming if I don't have a job too soon.

furrypedro · Post by **furrypedro** » Sun Oct 08, 2006 4:20 am

Hell Yeahs: This sounds good, I like a lot of the lyrics and the groove is natural and good but it sounds like you were a bit rushed recording it. I like the singing but it feels like you settled for the first take. Overall it all gels pretty well in retrospect, especially by the time it reaches the end it built up quite a good atmosphere, garagey and real but not scrappy.

Rone: jesus fucking christ. I like the kick sound, and the bit where you say never mind at the end. but, ouch.

Raised by Wolves: This was reminding me a lot of @eclectic sp00ns until it kicked in. I quite like it actually; the piano is a bit midi (except at the end, it seems to be a lot stronger) but I like the verses and the drums. The direction it takes is cool with the breakdowns and stuff. I think this would nearly be a keeper but I think it's missing something, like another strong vocal section (I hesitate to say chorus

). Nice ideas, maybe it feels like it's holding back a bit too much.

Swilington: This is weird, it feels like each phrase is holding the chord just a beat too long, which in a way is cool, but it'd be cooler if you'd done it every other repetition instead of every time. The beat adds a lot for me, I like the way it sounds like it's echoing but it's more like just double hits. The chorus bit sounds quite disjointed and I'm not as keen on those drums, they're a bit too random. Cool Nintendo sounds. overall I think this has good ideas and is really close to being cool, but almost every element and section feels like it could have been implemented in a more effective way, which bodes well for next week, if you're in?

Jordo Cooper: Sounds well recorded, cool chords and I like the grainy bass synth sound. The vox sound slightly too apathetic for me here, I'm down with sing-speaking but there's just a couple of lines here and there, especially around the 'in my limousine' section and the 'people who are prettier than me' line where you sound like you've totally lost interest in the song/melody and you sound like Rone (which is baaaaaad, as if I need to tell you, you heard his track this week right?).

Adnosium: Some people wrote pretty cool tracks this week, you're not one of them. I'm off to review something that somebody actually put effort into.

Finding Nemoy: The chords are pretty simple but they work. The lyrics sound like you made them up on the spot but they also work pretty well, I think that once I've learnt all the words this will mean a lot more to me but I like what I hear so far. I like the cynical undertone.

How Dark can a Dave really be? Lets find out. The drums are too quiet, vocals are funny they sound like goth-lounge singing. The more I listen to the guitars the more they sound like distorted pick noise rather than an actual chord or chug. The drums aren't just too quiet, they sound so muffled, like they're on another floor to the room you are in, you need to get some serious EQ on them, try and bring the snare out. That synth sound that comes in at the end is pretty cool.

TFTF feat. Blake Walker: Hurrah for inter-genre collaboration! This track makes me jealous cos I've been wanting to jump on the Frisbee bandwagon for a month or two now and Mr Walker has beaten me to it. Anyway, I love this track, it's classic TFTF and the synthy atmospherisizing (it's a perfectly cromulent word) is lovely and not overbearing, which is what my synthy atmospherics tend to be. Vote so far.

The Roccalites: This isn't really my kind of thing. It reminds me of the first time I heard Soundgardens 'Black hole sun' and wondered how a band that sounded so bored and plodding could be so popular. I think the tempo's too slow to have just a standard strumming pattern, I would have tried to think of a slightly off-beat or catchier rhythm, or jangly Stone Roses style guitar line to make the verses sound more substantial. One interesting thing about it is the effect on the first vocal which makes this sound more Pink Floyd than anything which helps.

Wages: Some of this is really good, the bits where you quieten down the guitar and make it more picky, the percussion was throwing me off a bit but it manages to add a bit of space to the mix and has this weird syncopated quality (I'm not talking about the metronome here, you can lose that). I think this is one of the strongest melodies you've written, and another great vocal performance (if slightly imprecise).

Older brothers: I always know I can expect some sweet instrumentality from your projects and this sounds like it's not going to disappoint. I've already read some comments abut the vox, so I won't go into them. The percussion here is really cool, my only main criticism with this is the mix which seems to let the dodgy bits (that'll be the vocals then) drown out the cool bits (guitars, drums) and it's all a bit muddy, there are bits when the bass, which is very cool in places, just gets too overpowering. I think this track definitely deserves further mixing, possibly as an instrumental, and I would be very interested in dowloading it if you did, so please do, and then post it here.

Jeffertson: This is probably the best song I've heard from you, the melody sounds instantly familiar and all the parts feel like they fit together naturally which helps to make this a nice easy listen. It's not perfect but it sounds 'badly recorded' rather than 'badly played' which is definitely the way to be, lo-fi can be cool whereas shit is just shit. I like the way the drums aren't just played straight, they skip a little, and the dynamic of the intro, how it builds up. It probably doesn't have the impact you were going for when it kicks in but I get the idea. good stuff.

Kristin: I was like, "what the hell does Jolly Roger's review mean? ooooh, this is him!....and somebody else I can't really hear" I am quick. and this is good, it tries to get your attention right from the start to combat the "oh, another gng song" feeling with the do-doos and the first line 'I want folks to focus' flows really nicely. Also, you reward me for paying attention all the way through in the best way possible, with a kazoo solo! and a really emotive one too. I feel the pain in that kazoo.

Klownhole: Hey yeah, this IS tight. was that 'I will let you clean my socks'? I think a lot of folks are stepping up their game in this fight and you lot are among them. This has a good impact the way all the instruments feel like they are more aware of what each other is doing. I'm not loving the singing but it does fit in the mix and sounds right so I can't fault it. well done.

Steve: Durand does porn music. This is fine, in an unusually sleazy way, apart from the middle 8 where it seems to go all, i dunno, almost ceremonial sounding. Unfortunately the bits where you're stretching your voice more let Kermit creep in in the most noticeable way I've heard since 'the Stink'. Of course, I say 'unfortunately', what I mean is 'magically'; if anybody has the x factor it's him.

BL/BR: I'm really glad we got this one in, this week was a rush. I'm also pleased because I had much more creative input than the last track we did, although that chorus is where the magic comes from for me, so good job mel, and nice mix. I wish I could have done more with the solo after chorus 1, it starts cool but I'm not sure it all gels by the end.

faves: TFTF feat BW, Older Bros (providing they clean up their mix)
good: Kristin, Nemoy, Hell Yeah, RxW, Jordo

jeff robertson · Post by **jeff robertson** » Sun Oct 08, 2006 6:37 am

Furrypedro wrote:I like the way the drums aren't just played straight, they skip a little

For those who missed the pre-fight thread, Wormsweater provided those drums.

Meatwad · Post by **Meatwad** » Sun Oct 08, 2006 11:02 am

Furrypedro wrote: Klownhole: Hey yeah, this IS tight. was that 'I will let you clean my socks'? I think a lot of folks are stepping up their game in this fight and you lot are among them. This has a good impact the way all the instruments feel like they are more aware of what each other is doing. I'm not loving the singing but it does fit in the mix and sounds right so I can't fault it. well done.

No, not socks....

There is plenty of fault there. Shame filled fault. Our regular noise faces didn't show up, so the first and drunkest person to step up to the mic and yell words "won" the gig. It's inevitable, you get an old drunk guy in front of a mic for the first time, he ends up sounding like El Duce.

Jordo · Post by **Jordo** » Sun Oct 08, 2006 11:32 am

>>The vox sound slightly too apathetic for me here, I'm down with sing-speaking but there's just a couple of lines here and there, especially around the 'in my limousine' section and the 'people who are prettier than me' line where you sound like you've totally lost interest in the song/melody <<

There is a logical explanation for this, and I admire you're spot on review here:

There were too many other people in my house and I was not comfortable really belting it out, so I had to keep kind of quiet. When I can't sing loud and belt it out my voice get's that apathetic sound to it. Though I don't necessarily think it's that bad. But yeah it could use a bit more emotion. However the character in the song is supposed to be kind of boring and snobby and emotionless, so it sorta fits? That's my lame excuse.

-Jordan

wages · Post by **wages** » Sun Oct 08, 2006 12:38 pm

Jordo wrote:However the character in the song is supposed to be kind of boring and snobby and emotionless, so it sorta fits? That's my lame excuse.

lame indeed. Why bother writing a song that is boring and emotionless?

wages · Post by **wages** » Sun Oct 08, 2006 12:47 pm

-------My Song
On afterthought, the chorus and reverb effects should have been toned down. I don't know what the deal is with the drums. I'm using Acid Pro 5.0. I set note snapping (mostly to quarter notes and eigth note triples) and I was using a click track. The drums matched the click track perfectly, so I can't quite figure out what I'm doing wrong. I recorded the guitar to the drums, so I might be thinking about the drums in the wrong way. I might try more drums for the next entry. Anyways, I worked real hard to get the levels set so there were little or no clips. In the end, this was a lot of work for what I felt was very little improvement. Opinions?

-------The Reviews
Adnosium
This is crazy madness.

balancelostslashbalanceregained
moody and emotional with great drums. I like it. One of the three keep entries. Oh, and you get my vote for easily the best song this week.

Darkest Daves
not my cup o goth

Finding Nemoy
You're great, but it's so much like Modest Mouse with a twist of Barenaked Ladies. One of the three keep entries.

Hell Yeahs
I like the song, but the vocal mix needs more volume. Girls with attitude. Good entry. One of the three keep entries.

Jeff Robertson
No thanks.

Jordan Cooper
Orchestrated madness. If it had less of a midi sound, I would really like this tune.

Klownhole
Metal. Sounds like a looser version of Rammstein

Kristin
Not my style, can't offer any advise

Older Brothers
I'm desperate for the vocals in the beginning to be recorded better.

Raised by Wolves
The intro melody was really too repetative. I'm liking the next part. I'm not hearing enough emotion in the singing, but the song is good.

Roccalites
Dude, this is the 2000s! TWO THOU-SANDS! But seriously, if this were the '80s, this would rock!

Ronerivendale
This is like a rusty cheese grater.

Steve Durand
Steve, buddy, please, give us a straight lounge song. Keys, perhaps some horns, and a whole lotta RIchard Cheese. I'm desperate! As to this tune, it's a good entry. The wah, horns, and overall song is nice.

Swilington
DUde, you have a sickness. ...the only cure.... more....COWBELL!! Once you get to the different part, it's okay. But the midi is killer.

TFT Feat. Blakewalker
Not bad. I like the music, but I think the vocals are too churchy.

Thanks For The Frisbee · Sun Oct 08, 2006 12:59 pm

Wages wrote:-------TFT Feat. Blakewalker
Not bad. I like the music, but I think the vocals are too churchy.

do you mean the lyrics are churchy? if you did mean vocals then how so?