Burn7's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Game Boy Space Waltz]

Not bad. But not good forever.

Interesting, I liked the melody but I think if I had to sit there and listen to it loop like this forever in a game I think I would kill myself. It had better be intended to be like Town music in an RPG or something because if this was constantly playing as I was playing the game I'd shoot myself.

Do you want real, real 8-bit synth? Use Tweakbench Peach, Triforce, or Toad. They're all emulators of that certain sound chip that give the Game Boy/ Nintendo/ Famicom it's signature sound.

Also, it's just an issue with .mp3's in general. They are all given this small (but very noticeable when trying to loop) silence gap at the beginning and end of the song. There is no way to remove it, so having a "perfect loop" with mp3s is impossible.

WerewNC responds:

Don't kill yourself, please! Yeah, it's a bit on the short side. Even I find it to start getting on my nerves after awhile.

I'll be checking out the synths you listed for my next early video game song. The hardest part of this piece for me was findings good sounds.

Thanks for your insight on MP3s. That's sort of the conclusion I came to after hours of struggling. It was driving me CRAZY. I wish we could upload WAVs or FLAC files, but then, they take up much more space, I guess.

[xKore - Magnum (FULL)]

I don't like Dubstep.

But I love glitch and harder-styled techno, so this was still really good in my opinion.

I'm one of those people that just doesn't get dubstep. It really does sound like a bunch of synths just going apeshit with the FX during a slow ass beat. The climb before the chorus seems to just leave it's crescendo power behind the moment the chorus actually begins because of the speed of the build vs. the slower chug of the breakdown. Maybe that's because they synths sound like they overpower the beat, and if the choral beat was heavier/louder (Maybe to the point where it cuts into the dub synths) then it wouldn't sound almost like a letdown for me.

The synths during the chorus are indeed badass, but I feel that it holds too much of it's power in the lower end of the spectrum. Maybe that's because I'm wishing there was a higher pitched, harder, heavy lead that actually has melody to it. Here's why I say that:
Because as far as I can tell your melodic content is limited to the same 4 notes. Maybe if you gave it something else I would have been satisfied because I'm absolutely a melody man and a I know a lot of classically trained ears out there search for melody as well.

That being said, I really enjoyed the glitch you occasionally pulled with the center heavy dub synth during the chorus. It kept me interested since it was pretty damn cool.

I can also respect the mixing in this, even if it was done in Fruity Loops which makes mixing/mastering much easier with the amount of plug-ins they have for Techno stuff.

Finally, I do recognize goddamn good techno when I hear it, even if it's not really a genre I listen to. And this is pretty good goddamn techno. So props to you and all that.

Overall I enjoyed it, I listened to it around 6 or 7 times looping until I decided "I need coffee". Your song is good, but it's just not enough to wake me up in the morning. I need my substances.

[Brotherhood of Death]

Damn you people and your interesting metal.

Now I'm gonna have to start trying harder to write awesome metal like this. I mean, sure, I could... but then again why try when I can just keep covering Pokemon songs? I don't need originality! There's plenty of people out there who can do that.

Like you! By the way, your distortion is really sexy. How to you achieve this? What's your amp/FX/EQ setup?

[Anxiety Attack (piano) WIP]

Although I've never had one....

Now I know what it feels like.

Nice kind of chromatic, unscaled piece. I love pieces like this that have a kind of tortured, mad feel to them.

Listening to the whole thing I really enjoyed it, I would however recommend varying the Velocity on your notes (I'm assuming this is midi). Changing the velocity (or perhaps even the volume) to match the intensity or message of your piece gives it a little more life, and in a song like this I think having quick crescendos and decrescendos would be really cool. Perhaps it would add in another level of anxiousness to this already very sporadic piece.

I know that this is a WiP, but the ending to me was really interesting how it just stopped and the verb trailed off. If this is how you're planning on ending the piece, I think it's a pretty badass idea.

Nice work!

Slaytesics responds:

Means a lot coming from you dude! I am gonna start working on it again, I have to many WIPs, so I need to knock down that list.

[SSJ3 - Tetris Redux]

Nice composition.

I enjoyed all of the different instrumental renditions of the song individually quite well. I would say you should use more lead-ins and transitions though because a lot of the tempo changes were rather abrupt.

Unfortunately, your song suffers from the same thing that most otherwise good videogame remixes suffer from: Repetitiveness Try writing a counter-melody, or a different harder lead. Just SOMETHING to break the repetition that bleeds a lot of good videogame remixes like this dry and makes them forgetful in the long run.

Shiverwar responds:

Another good review with some nice constructive criticism! I like those kinds of reviews!

Yeah, next time I redo Tetris, I might mix in the other themes, to kinda break the repetition. Thanks for the advice, and your review! It's been a while since I've heard from you.

[One Must Rise 2011]

Oh God Dammit.

See, here I am trying to stop enjoying techno music as much and then you go remix one of my favorite video game themes (As well as the first arena battle theme later on in the song, I hadn't read the 'author comment' that said it was in there so it was a surprise).

And as if YOU actually have to worry about not getting on OCR.

Although I think I would have enjoyed a more heavy bassline, (especially around the part where it breaks down around 0:30 in the original) I still really liked this. I enjoy your stuff because it has less emphasis on beat and more on chord progression and the more musical elements of the piece, something that I think modern techno is really lacking.

Nice image for the song as well, I can say that I did recognize it immediately. Also, is it any surprise that the company that made OMF2097 ended up creating the Unreal Engine that powers TONS of current-gen games? Epic Games. Started with Jazz Jackrabbit and ended up creating a legacy.

If you ever want internet guitar lessons you can hit me up anytime :)

Oh, and I'm listener number 666. Just thought that was funny.

NemesisTheory responds:

haha! you're awesome for even knowing OMF's music! bonus points for it being one of your favorites too! so many people dont know about omf, easily the best thing about the game is it's music.. kenny chou (or C.C Catch) is so awesome :D

and we'll see haha, they have REALLY high standards and there's soooo many talented musicians on that site that I dont even compare lol

i'm happy you enjoyed the remix that much, especially because you're a OMF fan, and yes haha, Epic Games makes the most epic games. XD

PS: I just might!

[Fresh Break <Seth>]

Have a 5

And a 10.

Good work. It's been a while, and you seem to have improved a lot.

I don't really have much advice to give you other than watch the clipping on your filters around 3:12. Whenever I use a resonance filter like that, I always put a "Hard limiter" compressor on whatever track I have that on so when it goes up and down the spectrum it doesn't clip.

Keep writing and rocking man!

SethKorn responds:

haha i tried the limiter and it sounded perfect :D haha thanks for the advice.

also glad you liked the song, i put alot of work into it :P

[Raw Testes]

Awesome!

That tone is sexytastic. What Line 6 product has these tones to them? I'm using a Line 6 Spider III amp, and I couldn't get that tone out of it if I tried for hours.

Also, how do you record yourself? Just kind of wondering how different artists on NG do it.

Bad-Man-Incorporated responds:

This is the podx3, with downloaded tone from line 6's tone library. You can browse by artist, genre, guitarist, band....and when you find a tone you click "get tone" depending on your set up, humbuckers or single coils... and it loads the tone into the podx3 empty channel. If you like it, you can save it there forever.

I use cool edit pro for recording. (Now adobe audition or something)
It's old, but it still outdoes all the new ones in my opinion. Also, uses hardly any memory. SO a mixdown of 20 channels of a 4 minute song takes like...5 seconds.

Thanks man, glad you dig it.\m/

[Burn (Instrumental)]

Heavy and awesome BUT

I hate your kick. I really do, it just sounds like someone hitting the top of a tupperware container. It's almost watery, like the sound of a drip of water mixed on top of the original kick or something.

Sweet stabbing quick riffs, I also like how liberally you use squealies.

Everything other than the kick is badass, so I'm not gonna be one of those douches that gives you a 6 because something sounds weird to me personally.

On an unrelated note, I saw your forum post a while back about the 0 bombing in Heavy Metal, and I completely agree that it's fucked. There is definitely something going on. I had a song at 4.24 that was fucking #3 for a little while until it goes 0'd as well. Ah well I guess, there really isn't anything we can do about it. I suppose we could get a whole shitload of people to go on strike or something but that wouldn't solve shit.

[Castle of Tears: Bloodlines]

Hah.

I downloaded the "DigiE - Castle of Tears OCRemix" like... forever ago. I enjoyed it, even though I had never even played Castlevania 2 before. I had no idea that I'd eventually be uploading music on the same site as the remixer of this damn good tune.

Great work, I'm sure you already know that though. I honestly hope you're getting some sort of money for your works. Because there are few audio artists who deserve it on this site, and you're one of them. Good luck doing whatever it is you're doing!