Reviews for TiGeR - Altocumulus

[Dabbur]

It's got motion

The first thought that popped into my head was the videogame Mirror's Edge. The first two minutes or so were very fitting to that game. Later on I got more of a feeling of some sort of arcade game. Maybe something like Sonic, just running on forwards. The song has definately got motion. In the end it returned more to the Mirror's Edge type. However I feel the drums are slightly heavy for giving a feeling of flying among the clouds. I recommend that you check out Mirror's Edge and another game called Cloud, if you haven't done so already.

Needless to say, you did a great job with this one.

TiGeR responds:

Hey, thanks for the great review!

Well, about the drums - after all the song is supposed to be slightly DnBish, hence why I made the drums like this. Haven't played Mirror's Edge nor Cloud, but I'll make sure to check them out.

Thanks again!

~TiGeR

[Pedro244]

10 000km/hour would get harder beats

but i like your song =)

TiGeR responds:

Anything harder would be the speed of light O_O

but still, thank you very much for the review :)!

~TiGeR

[mr-jazzman]

Not too bad

TiGeR, I've liked always had an inclination to like your music. Your drumwork in this song is phenomenal, I gotta give you that, and very much of DnB nature...actually more a combo of DnB and glitch, which is nice. The melody and everything is quite catchy, and this is what I love most about this song. Props on the piano work at the end too. ;) I will say, though, that there are a few things that could use improvement. As I'm making a DnB/Dubstep combo song at the moment, I think I can give you some pointers that could really help you out for the future. First, I want to comment on the synths: While they are good raw, there's a hell of a lot more that you could do with them that you haven't even tapped yet. I'd recommend playing with some reverb and a little bit of delay effects, especially on your main detuned square lead. Second, the snare and the kick didn't come out enough in the mix, and I think this is because of the method you layered them in. With my kit, I usually like to layer the electronica kit with some live/real/organic drum samples (this will give you that heavy, beefy feel that Pendulum has...and even if you don't like Pendulum, you gotta admit they know how to get their drums to stick out in the mix). I'm not entirely sure how much compression you used, and where, but I can tell you one thing that helped me out was sidechaining; once you figure out how to sidechain things so that they stick out better in the mix, your song begins to sound elite...and I'm not talking just a little...like legitly elite. One other thing that I believe needs a little work are your drops. I feel that there isn't enough anticipation with them, even with all of the effects that you added. One way that you can do this is gradually build up your drumwork as opposed to showing us a grand drumpiece that would better be used elsewhere.

But, man, I gotta tell ya, this is a fantastic song. Very moving and powerful. It's akin to any epic song that you'll hear here on NG. I believe it deserves its slot at the top man just based on its pure inspiration, despite the improvements I mentioned above. Beautiful work, and I hope you continue to create more pieces like this! =)

Your friendly neighborhood dubstep/metalstep/drumstep/DnB producer (currently, to say the least =P),
-Jazzman

TiGeR responds:

Thanks for a great review! First of all I've gotta say Reflections is one of my favourite songs in the AP, you did an amazing job with it ;D!

Actually, about the synths: the BG synths are heavily reverbed (at least as I recall...) but about the leadsynth kicking in at 02:34, gotta agree it's a little to simple in that manner. The leadsynth was basically the last thing I added before finally mixing the stuff and submitting it onto Newgrounds, so it's possible that I rushed it at the end for the sake of finishing the song :S.

About the drums... you won't believe how much trouble I have with them (along with the bass). Either the bass kills the drums, or it's the other way around. In this song I think I got a pretty even sound. However, as you say it still might not be powerful enough. I tried to but some EQs and compression onto the drums to make them sound way more powerful, but in the meantime they kinda wobbled up the rest of the sounds. Help me please, I have no idea how to do this correctly >_< I guess I'm more the creative composer than the mixing one lol :D. But if you could email me some more tips on the mixing part, I'd be very grateful!

So yeah, I'd say this is possibly the best review I've ever gotten, so thank you very much!

And... just a fun fact: the piano part at the ending that you mentioned... actually that was the first thing I created in this song. For some reason I felt like "hey, this should be the epic ending of an ambient DnB song", so yeah I started working from the piano part and long story short, this is what it ended up to be ^^.

~TiGeR

[Sonicrjk]

Great!

I'm not one that likes D'n'B but this was really great!

TiGeR responds:

Nothing wrong with DnB :(, still thanks for the review!

~TiGeR

[J3envolio]

Well That Was Trippy

I've got a new way of deciding if a song's good or not. Open my window, turn up the speakers and see what the people of Stockton, England think. They quite liked it. HOWEVER, I do have some issues with it.

The fade out at 1:12 seems too sudden, there was hardly any transition. If you opened this up a bit not only would you increase the length of the song but it'd just sound better.

The glitch at 1:55 was great but, again, if you lengthened it out and made it more rhythmic then I think it'd work better.

I really love the mane leads you have going here (2:30). They complement each other very well, but I think you have some mastering issues. The second lead (sounds like a square) may need to be turned down a bit. Sounds like it's drowning everything else out.

Everything else works great. The outro's brilliant and a good way to end things

Overall, Ima giving this 8/10, it's great but still needs work. 5/5 because all publicity is good publicity. ^^

Have fun;
j3en.

TiGeR responds:

Hey J3envolio!

LOL, you exposed my song like that? Awesome haha xD. Please do so with the other tracks of mine aswell ;)!

And while I see what you mean, most of these things you mention I already looked into and thanks to it I have learned what I should and shouldn't do in future songs (keep in mind this one's uploaded almost a year ago :P. I barely gave this song any mixing or mastering whatsoever, which I since then have learned is very important!). Still, thanks a lot for taking interest and giving critics, they're always welcome!

Thanks!

~TiGeR