FatKidWitAJetPak's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Out To Lunch]

Album Review of "Brainfunk"

1 - Brainfunk

The very beginning made me jump a bit, although I think it should be kept there simply for poetic justice. Sadly, starting out a song with such a high edge will inevitably throw off people from the track. Perhaps it would be better to start it with a quick fade in. Everything else was fantastic. I think this song can be described as an orgasm of Psychedelic Industrial Funk, brainfunk if you will. I loved the sounds you used in this. Do you use kits, or do you record your own from scratch? I also would love to see a simple tutorial on what VSTs you use and how you create such awesome, clean percussion in such a harmoized atmosphere. Properly mastered and put together in an array of color and electronica brain mashing. Nice job.

2 - I Caught The Sun

Transitions nicely from the first song, Brainfunk. Your use of glitch techniques really catches my ear here. I love your 8-bit, industrial, glitch, electronica funk blasting from my headphones right now. Around 2:25, I was pretty sure my brain came and it came out my mouth. I drooled a bit, metaphorically speaking. I am starting to DJ at local clubs and I would love to see the crowds reaction to glitch Industrial shit. This is a sick combination of sound effects, of children even, to an awesome psychedelically influenced sex. Sex and children in the same sentence? You bet.

3 - KingBee's Waggle Dance

I am assuming that you wanted to try mixing the sound of a bee to a seemingly 80s influenced / neo-electronica glitch pop. I always laugh at your voice samples. Was that from that movie where the Doctor can speak to animals? It sure sounds like it. I like the feel of this song. Your use of live instruments combined with electronically created sounds is awesome. You always seem to find an ingenious way of plugging in sound effects anywhere and give it a Bastardizing feel. I want to play this in my car while cruising down the road on a long trip or something. Sounds so chill yet so chaotic. I love it.

4 - Out to Lunch

Continuing the psychedelic feel from track three, but at a slower tempo, I begin to feel a bit more relaxed and start to bob my head and smile. Oh man, that beat is smooth and creamy. Nice bitcrushing! What the fuck. You used a guitar, solely for sound effects from the sound it makes when you switch choords? Dude. High five. Way to use an instrument originally. I feel a progression of glitch funk electronica to glitch funk psychedelic smooth and creamy 80esque filth... good filth.

5 - The Sunshine Skank

Yes. That bass man. Those edgy sounds. That white noise. This surfer beach sounding guitar straight out of rock lobster. The sunshine skank? What a fucking ingenious title name hahaha. I can picture some chick running around the beach naked around a camp fire, flirting with all the guys just so she can see them surf on the waves. She must get a lot of free hot dogs and ice cream cones. This reminds me of the 80s again. Im 19, why does this remind me of a time period I've never been to? I guess your music just brings me there, while keeping me in the undergound glitchcore of the present.

6 - You Float My Boat

This one has the funkiest tune out of any of them. I want to start listening to oldschool funk now. That melody of yours is so creamy and sexy. Did you sample it or make it up yourself? Holy shit, those vocals go very well with this mix. You transition nicely from sound to sound while maintaining a well balanced structure. Nice voice you got there. In fact, I was wondering if I could use it in my next composition "Life is Just a Dream" for my upcoming ambient / drone atmospherical emotional BS album haha. Your voice would be perfect for it. Man, your really fucking good at sampling your voice and mixing the hell out of it. I love how you take little clips of sounds and mix them into percussiuon noises for back beats of back beats with more back beats that turn into lead beat and yeaaaaahhhh.

All in all this album was an orgasmic mixture of Glitch, Funk, Pop, and Radioactive Decay from the classic kingbastard mixed with oldschool beach rock.

Kingbastard responds:

Nice1 man, that's a healthy-sized critique;)

I agree with you on the intro for Brainstorm, it probably will turn people off, but I see it as a 'wake up';) No vsts used on this EP, it was all from my hardware, guitars or synth, & the percussion is all 'real', egg shakers, tamborines, guiro, feather duster [lol], woodblocks etc...

On KingBee's Waggle Dance the vocal sample is taken from a nature documentary all about bees, for children, I can't recall the name of it right now;)

You got tracks 4-5 the wrong way round here ahah.;)

Tbh I'm surprised you're reminded of the 80's so much ahaha, I was aiming more for 70's mixed with contemporary ahha, but I suppose there is a hint of 80's synths in there too;)

Ah, You Float My Boat, & the ultimate question, is it sampled? "Most definitely not sampled!" All my own work. The people who have reviewed this EP on their sites have all mistakenly commented on my 'good use of samples, or plunder-phonics' whereas if they'd taken the time to read the Press Release they could see that the only sample on this record is the voice/narration on KingBee's Waggle Dance. I'm not having a dig at you btw, you had the decency to ask, not just assume. It's frustrating that people think it's samples, especially when I'm so obviously a guitar player if you listen back through my previous work, but c'est la vie, in many ways it's flattering as I fooled them all ahaha;)

Many thanks for the detailed breakdown, always appreciate your input, all the best;)

ps: let me know about doing any vocal stuff for you, I'll give it a shot, but I've had a bad throat infection for a number of months now, that I can't shake off, so hopefully you won't be needing anything in the immediate future;)

[(F) _Pelagus_]

A City of Sounds

Starts out oddly, making me wonder how the piece will continue on with such a strange sound. The sound tingled my ears a little bit, in a bad way to be honest, and I hoped it would get better after the first minute. It might just be my headphones... although I do have BOSE and they never tend to let me down or anything.

I started to grow use to the strange sound, however, and one minute and 35 seconds seemed to pass as if it were nothing. I listened to this while sitting on the 10th floor of a condo building in my city that overlooks a large landscape that slowly turns from conrete into a hilly plain full of trees and fog. If I close my eyes, I can almost feel myself floating past it all. I can see all of the lights twinkle back and forth below me, all mixing together in a beautiful stroke of light, as if the land below me was a painting.

I can feel the emotions from everything around me from this. It is almost as if the people and buildings that tower above me speak to me in this chaotic, yet tranquil set of tones that puts my mind to ease. It reminds me that life is all about perspective, and that people can find piece from the strangest things... one just has to look at it in a different way.

From this, you made it possible for me to see the city as a tranquil dot in the middle of my mind in insanity. Very nice work here. I hope to hear some more pieces from you, hopefully developing into a sort of progressive ambient track that allows me to feel more than just one set of feelings from the song.

Fantastic Drone.

Fubaka responds:

I appreciate your opinion on my track. Often, it does help when you listen to something for an extended period of time. In my opinion, a great song, especially an ambient one, gets better and better every time you listen to it.

I know that my sound quality is not the best, as FL Studio is not the best program for making ambient music, as is becoming more painfully obvious to me. That is one of the reasons why I haven't made anything of value recently. My music making days are far from over, though, so if you like my other stuff, then please keep at least a bit of an eye on me.

Once again, thanks for listening!

[Kpheeyat's Voice Acting Demo]

Remember the "acting" in "voice acting"

Your voices seemed forced, for the most part. It is almost like you just randomly came out with different ideas for characters and half-assed your way through them one by one. That's good and all, and it will get you some good practice and knowledge on what voices you are best at, but remember to FOCUS ON GETTING INTO CHARACTER. By getting into character, I mean understanding it, studying it, being it, and voicing it. Sure, I can kind of sound like a victorian tea party woman... but if I truly wanted to sound like one I would practice on the voice for a bit, and truly think I was some fancy pantsy victorian british woman.

You certainly have a wide range of voices, but this demo didn't truly show your BEST voices. Most of them werent all that bat, but most of them were only decent. You should choose the voices you are GREAT with not just good with. Some of the voices didn't sound very good at all, such as the "make you wet... in your armpits" voice.

You also seem to have a lot of passion in wanting to become a known voice actor here. The best thing to do for you would be PRACTICE and figure out your BEST voices. After you figure out the voices you are most comfortable with, you can naturally act with them. My evil "death" voice that I used in my demo reel is easy to do because I have practiced so much with it and know how to improv with it.

Kpheeyat responds:

That's possible I didn't focus much on the acting part... =p It was due to the fact I was focused on proper enunciation and voice range rather than actual voice acting(since that one just requires practice :p) - I'll see to it that it's improved with the next year's demo =) Thanks for the review! =D

[MC10]

Wow

The score is there (4.85) mainly because people immediatly vote 5 for popular animations with music used in them, but this song is one of the best songs I have heard here. It is so fast paced and full of xcellent layering that I had such a mindgasm when listening to it. It is extremley well mastered with amazing sounds and crafted synths. How long did it take you to make this?

This is very professional and quite impressive. I am amazed that you were able to put forth the effort for 9 minutes straight. I am going to recommend this for the next rave I go to. I would totally dance SO hardcore to this bitch... I mean holy fuck batman this is so dope.

That main synthline was completley awesome. Although seemingly repetitive at time when you really focus on it, which is kind of hard to do since there is so much other stuff going on at once, it presented a really awesome buildup for this track. I love how you switched it up a bit at 4 minutes in, with more mad beats and tricky structures that reminded me of the clown.

I would love to have a high quality FLAC version of this. I would play it in my car all the time ;)

Good job man!

cheshyre responds:

Thank you! It took me around 4-7 days (4-8 hours a day) to make this one. It was like having a baby!! If any of my songs were ever played at a rave, I'd shit my pants. If you can make that happen, i would love to see it! The best quality I can do right now is on bandcamp. The site claims that it can turn it into whatever file type you want... I haven't tried yet. Anywho, THANK YOU!!!!!

["The Last Ship"]

Needs Proper Mastering

You've got the whole playing thing down, perfect and amazing. You can play the tune wonderfully and design it well. However, you should learn a bit of simple mastering techniques such as volume and panning. These techniques can make this song a hell of a lot better.

I am assuming you are using either one or two layers of strings, but of the same string type. Try to create three different layers of different string instruments, each at a different location on the panning bar. One string could be at %25 on the left, another %15 on the right, and another %50 on the right. These are just random example %'s, so don't actually use those specefic ones. What im trying to say is that you need to use multiple layers with different volume and panning levels so that the track doesn't seem as flat.

Simply experiment with panning and volume. See where it gets you :)

BrokenDeck responds:

Kewl.

["Gearing Up"]

Very Smooth But Needs Depth

I notice your work is very inspired from movie themed and live orchestral music theory and studies. You seem to have had a large history of studying all the technical sides of ochestral composition including instrument placement and proper mixing. It's very epic.

One thing I noticed is that there appears to not be as much DEPTH in this composition. It seems very flat. In order to improve on this, try making each layer in different panning positions. For example, experiment with your strings setup and set them at %25 in the left speaker. Then get your percussion and set them at %10 on the right one. See which setups work best together.

Once you got that down, you can truly make your own original compositions! You have really good skills at this sort of thing. Im sure people would love to have you on the NG album!

BrokenDeck responds:

Thanx man! :D

[IC&RS Holiday Special]

6th Voice Acting Contest Final Results!

IC&RS Holiday Special Final Score: 81

FatKidWitAJetPak's Final Judgment:

Acting: 33/35
Fit: 25/25
Originality: 15/15
Range: 15/15
Mixing: 8/10
Final: 96/100

Improbably comics and radio shows? Lmao, love it. Your mixing was fantastic in this. You acted extremely well with them and added wonderful spice to your characters with great fit and range! Your evil directors voice was very well done, and I enjoyed your British accent. I am not sure if the British accent was purposely done or not. I can't remember if you actually are British.

My favorite part of this skit was the originality. The big chin, the winter zombie love story, the freeze frame, and the whole concept was just great. Dr. Movie is a great character. This is one of my favorite skits ever made, especially since you added a wide range of depth with your amazingly done mixing, acting, and range. Every character sounded different. It is almost like your in a heavy metal band, because you can bend your voice in many ways. I also enjoyed the side plot, which was actually a love story all in its own. Where did you get these ideas? I would love to see this made into a flash!

This was a perfect example of how you can grab SFX from free sound websites such as Flash Kit in order to add LOTS of spice and jingles to your demo reel. I think you would make a great role model for beginning voice actors. You develop your characters individually and work on them with much strength and range. Because of this, you can almost instantly produce a well acted line. I could tell you were having a lot of fun with your characters. Great job!

The only errors that I can think of is that the skit was loud many times. I can understand how loudness is a good thing, but you should turn it down a tad! The entire skit was relatively loud. Also, I notched that you held back yourself at times, as if you were to nervous to put all your heart into a few of the lines. Other than that, no errors! Great submission.

JaShinYa's Final Judgment:

Acting: 30/35
Fit: 23/25
Originality: 15/15
Range: 11/15
Mixing: 5/10
Final: 84/100

Not sure if it was your mic or if you were just too close, but throughout most of the recording, the audio was kind of "vibrating" a bit. Main mixing conceern is that you need to lower the background music and SFX. The music especially, was on the verge of overtaking your vocals. Cutting from one music bed to another was a bit off as well. The range wasn't that great. While most of your voices were discernable, they weren't far apart in spectrum. One complaint about the acting is when crap is going down in the skit, the characters should be yelling, not doing that "quiet yell". Also, Crimson Chin much? lol. Overall I enjoyed the skit. Good idea. With better mixing, this could be very very good.

SimCorder's Judgment:

Acting - 24/35
Fit - 18/25
Originality - 8/15 points
Range - 05/15 points
Mixing - 10/10
Total: 65

I can tell a lot of effort was into this, but the short range of unique voices as well as a possible lack of rehearsing keeps this submission from being perfect. Epic Mixing though.

ArtellTheWanderer responds:

FatKid: Thanks for the review! I stewed for a good long while trying to decide on voices for each character, and while I think they fit well, I'm getting mixed thoughts about my range and mixing. I'm not sure if I'm working to my potential--people are telling me very different things for these categories, so I'm not sure what to believe. I'm glad you liked my British accent, though--I think I pulled it off fairly well. I know everyone has room to improve, and I will continue to work on every aspect of my craft in the future. I'm honored you think that I could inspire others to try their hand at voice acting.
As for the source of my ideas, a lot of it comes from inside jokes and turning ideas on their heads. I noticed that a lot of typical superheroes have huge chins, so I decided to make my superhero have his chin as the source of his power. Dr. Movie comes from misreading the credits in an anime movie I watched. For the radio show idea, I thought about how best to adapt for audio what would normally be a televised show, and the radio show idea came to mind.
Thanks for the review and this opportunity, and I look forward to the next competition!

JaShinYa: I appreciate the review. Concise, fair, and honest. I realize now after the fact that the Crimson Chin from the Fairly Oddparents probably did factor into the design for Chisel-Jaw; originally I just wanted to create a superhero whose massive chin gave him his crime-fighting strength. Either that show'd producers and I both think alike, or I just forgot where the idea came from.
I'm having trouble developing a good and distinguishable range. I think I need more voice acting practice, trying to change up my pitch and add more to my repertoire. I'm curious, however, as to why a few points were removed for the Acting and Fit categories.
I also realize that my mixing wasn't that good--I'm still new to Audacity and half of the time I don't know what I'm doing. The reason for the "quiet yell" is probably because whenever I DID yell into the microphone, the audio spiked and gave some crackles. I guess I need some practice or tutoring in regards to proper audio mixing as well.
Again, thanks for the review, and I wish you luck in your bid for audiobook reading!

SimCorder: I'm glad you can see that I busted my ass on this submission. I appreciate the review, and I can accept that my range wasn't as good as it should've been because I'm new to this, but your claim that I didn't rehearse much just doesn't fly with me. I worked for a month and a half on this and recorded each take several times, using what I thought worked well. Though you give me a perfect score for mixing, I believe that my lack of experience with mixing is probably factoring into what you perceive as half-assery. I also wish you would go into more depth as to why you took off points in the other categories.

[Dear Santa]

6th Voice Acting Contest Final Results!

A Winter Voice Ensamble Final Score: 77

FatKidWitAJetPak's Final Judgment:

Acting: 29/35
Fit: 20/25
Originality: 8/15
Range: 14/15
Mixing: 4/10
Final: 75/100

Remember to properly mix each layer of voices at specific volume levels. The background singing, for example, should have been turned down just a little itsy bitsy bit, and the lead voices of the letters to Santa should have been turned up at least 20% more. It was hard to make out everything said because all the volume levels were flat. Mixing is an extremely important aspect of voice acting, since it gives flavor, depth, and excitement to the skit. That was your main fault in this skit. Everything was really quiet. You did mix the layers pretty well together... but didn't adjust them properly.

The acting was pretty good! In fact, I thought it was one of your strong points. I was amazed at your oval range and think you should certainly make a voice acting demo reel thats properly mixed using all your voices to the best of your abilities. I hope to hear more from you soon. The skit was kind of dull at times, in my opinion, but your voices still brought life to it. IT was kind of hard to understand your words at times, even though I knew that was the style of your characters. Never make a character that is impossible to understand, unless of course it is a minor character and not a main character. Every kid here was considered a "main" character since they all were the main focus on the skit. Most of them were hard to understand, and therefore made this skit less enjoyable. Pronounce, pronounce, pronounce your voices!

Also, I can't tell if your a girl or not. LMAO. I can't even tell your age. xD

JaShinYa's Final Judgment:

Acting: 29/35
Fit: 21/25
Originality: 13/15
Range: 10/15
Mixing: 6/10
Final: 79/100

First off, I'm very happy to hear a female joining in for once! With that said, on to business. First thing I noticed was the volume. When you edit, crank up the volume. If it's not hurting your ears, you need to adjust the gain. The other thing with your mixing was the puffs and pops. Either make a pop screen or back up. While I could tell the difference between the kids, it didn't show off your range. I'd like to see a wider variety. Your acting was a bit robotic at times... add some spice! Enthusiasm and letting go are key. However, you should also wtch your diction. Take your time while acting your lines. Overall this was pretty good. I hope to see what you have in store for the future. Keep improving! (I Hope you get a pox? lol)

SimCorder's Judgment:

Acting - 29/35
Fit - 19/25
Originality- 13/15
Range - 12/15
Mixing - 05/10
Final: 78/100

Nice concept, good variation of voices, my only major compliant is that the submission was hard to hear unless you maximized your volume.

FreyasDaughter responds:

FatKid, you did it!

Thanks for the compliments! Can't tell my age or my gender, that's great! (I think.) Anyway, YES I am a girl and I'm 20 (was 19 when I recorded this). That you couldn't tell that was awesome. Anyway, I will definitely be practicing mixing sounds and raising and lowering the volume where necessary. I can only do some much with my equipment, but I will try my hardest to do better. Diction, range, acting, and a better storyline will be what I will concentrate on.

Thanks for the review, the compliments, and the constructive criticism!

[Little Timmy's Christmas Story]

6th Voice Acting Contest Final Results!

Little Rimmy's Christmas Story Final Score: 84

FatKidWitAJetPak's Final Judgment:

Acting: 35/35
Fit: 25/25
Originality: 10/15
Range: 15/15
Mixing: 8/10
Final: 93/100

This is a perfect example of great acting in a comedic environment. You have a great narration voice. you should try out for a commercial, because this is one of the most professional quality skits that I have ever heard. The story wasn't all that original, but still was hilarious and would make a great Newgrounds animation. I'm surprised that it wasn't actually... maybe next year! Remember to get yourself out there, because if I were an animator I would choose you for sure.

I noticed some popping in your mixing, you can get rid of that by decreasing the volume down to 0% at the very end of your recordings. Most editors have a very easy to use interface that allows you to drag a slider, which gradually decreases or increases volume levels for proper mixing. That popping can easily go away with proper volume adjustments. Other than that, I didn't notice any errors in this skit. It was short, clean, to the point, well acted, and all in all showed that you a good voice actor! Send this to animators when trying out for games and animations, it will for sure get you a position.

I could make this review longer by talking about your errors... but there were so little, I have already covered them! You mixed in very well done sounds and music. They matched perfectly.

JaShinYa's Final Judgment:

"Little Timmy's Christmas Story" By: Seymour 89/100
Acting: 32/35
Fit: 23/25
Originality: 14/15
Range: 13/15
Mixing: 7/10
TOTAL: 89/100

A couple of complaints in the recording. One, work on diction a bit. Some of the words drop or are mumbled. Also, there were audible clicks when you stopped recording and started again. The only other major complaint is the news part at the end- The background music wasn't needed, and the anchor's voice wasn't much different from the narrator's. Overall, I liked the skit. I would have liked to hear more. This was less than 3:00. Good acting, clear for the most part, and a pretty original idea. Thumbs up!

SimCorder's Final Judgment:

Acting - 27/35
Fit - 18/25
Originality- 9/15
Range - 07/15
Mixing - 08/10
Final: 69

Comments: None

Comments from FatKid on Sim Corder's Judgment: I am not sure why SimCorder gave you such a low score... and apologize that he didn't provide you with any comments. You can send him a PM if you wish to know why and I am sure he will tell you!

PM-Seymour responds:

Judging on the other scores on entries, I think I fell short from the ranks, but still, nice to know I got some good marks on your end, thanks a bunch :)

[Dat Beeshbawl (Dubstep)]

Needs Depth

The very first vocal is really high pitched and hurts the ears a bit, just turn that down a bit and it would make a great start for this song. This has good bass with a nice solid lead, but losses its depth around the 35 mark when the song gets more complicated. At 1:02, the drop should have been way more dramatic with an awesome filtered up lead mixed with a pause, and then a very heavy atmospherical effect. Having heavy bass with nice depth in dubstep songs is a very important factor. This means attetechnoishmpting to creating a nice layered track, almost as if it was surrounf sound. Treat it as a building with multiple stories. With just one story, it gets kind of cluttered. Dubstep needs many stories in order to achieve brilliance. Reverb, his, lowd, mids, none of that seems to be in there.

This song is, however, pretty cool for what it is. I did enjoy the electronic feeling to it in the beginning. It sounded more than anything.

-RRC User FatKidWitAJetPak-

RetromanOMG responds:

I agree with you on needing to check the volume on those audio clips, and the drop could've been better. I personally have never tried a Dubstep song before, so I literally have no experience with a bass drop.

Of course, there is always room for improvement, and I will definitely take your review to heart when I work on another Dubstep song.