Sonofkirk's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[To Smoke is To Ascend]

First time I check newgrounds in a longass while and boom a Jonus track on the main page. So glad to hear you play again.
I see you've changed style a bit. Do you listen to some "Djent" bands? Periphery much? I swear there are some influences here! Love it!

Metaljonus responds:

SOK! Long time man! Yeah I am a BIG fan of Periphery. But not much other "Djent" bands lol. Glad you dig it!

[Dreams of Outrage]

Man your organ and keyboards playing is wonderful. Love it.

[Logan's Song]

Your family is awesome, I hope my children will be musicians when I have children haha, must be great jamming with the boys!

Props to Logan, great sense of melody!

Bad-Man-Incorporated responds:

Well you are still young yet...so ...haha. Thanks very much, man. :)\m/

[We Wait (SonofKirk)&Bad Man]

Love it !

You took my song to another level thanks for that! Really pro sound you got there, the lyrics are great too. I listen to it about 5 times a day, I just can't get tired of it :D. I'm looking forward to working again with you. Thanks for all <3

Bad-Man-Incorporated responds:

<3. It is always awesome to work with you. I'm sorry I'm slow. Like...shortbus slow...but I really look forward to any projects we do. Thanks dude!

[Come Red Tide]

This is beautiful

Whoah... what an intro! This was wonderful, reminds me of metallica's S&M and of Anathema. When the acoustic guitar starts, I immediately though of Porcupine Tree. This plus the vibrato flanger on the electric guitar sounds very much like PT, it's awesome!

The drums sounds good, I like the natural sound it has. Though, it would seems it goes slightly out of beat, sometimes (2:24), especially during the breaks and fills. I assume you were playing the drums on an electronic drum kit? This is not a big problem since you have to listen really carefully to notice this little thing. I have started taking drums lessons this year so I know how hard to play well drums are :). I must say you are a very good drummer.

When the electric guitars kick in with all the layers, it's pure epicness. It's impressive how you managed to arrange a 6 minutes song with a single chord progression without getting boring.

I love it :)

Rottenbeard responds:

Hey Sonofkirk, thanks for the lengthy review! Yeah this song definitely has PT and Anathema written all over it in terms of layering. Have you checked out Anathema's new album that was produced by Steven Wilson? It's friggin' brilliant, i'm in love with it.

For the drums, I always try to aim for fairly neutral sounding drums in my mix, I don't like to over-process them to much. I just like a natural kit with some nice room ambiance and enough compression to make sure the transients on the snare and kick pop during mixdown. The drums were performed live through a midi kit, though time adjusted later. There was also some additions programmed manually, such as one or two really fast fills that I just can't perform smoothly my self (yet! i'm getting better ;)) I love to drum, i'm just not good enough to do it without major editing afterwards in my music hahaha. This song was fun as hell to drum though with all the cymbal/kick work.

The progression is quite repetitive, it's actually a bad compositional habit I have, which I sometimes try to hide with layering guitar over the backing harmony to create a sort of new melody which becomes quite obvious near the end. It worked for this song, but I am trying to break away from this style of writing because it can get boring for the listener!

Anyways, this is getting long, seems my replies to you always are haha, cheers for the review man!
Daniel

[~|| Video Games [new]]

Nice one!

I'm not much of a "techno" guy, I usually listen to rock or metal music but I was really surprised in a good type of way when I listened to it.

I enjoyed the fusion of the 8-bits sounds and the techno sounds. I must say that anything with 8-bit instrument sounds cool, it reminds me of the old video games, this is priceless :). Though I assume it must have been challenging to mix up those two genre; so kudos you provide us with something very interesting.

I liked the chords progression, especially when the strings play it around 0:45 for example, that's beautiful. The transitions are really smooth, enjoyed how the "transe" synth comes in around 1:05. Nice bass line too! Though I have a complaint about the drums, especially the snare drum. I would have enjoyed something very 8-bit-ish or some something really techno-ish but the snare you used here was kinda in the middle of those two sounds... It sounded too natural to me, I would have expected some highly processed snare here.

As BUCHANKO previously said, the song lacked of energy, you could use some post production plug ins such as Waves MultiMaximizer which is an awesome limiter. You could also work on the bass drum sound and add some distortion and fatness to it :).

Other than that, I enjoyed this song, which is not always the case when it comes to electronic music! :) I fived it.

T-Free responds:

Hey, thank you so much for the constructive suggestions, Sonofkirk! It'll be a favor to work on all the things you've mentioned. I'm always glad to get helpful reviews like this! :)

[Coalescence]

What an ambiance!

Dude this is priceless!! It's like I'm listening to some early Porcupine Tree on Newgrounds, when they were really into ambient stuff. I'm digging this song so much.

The first part was beautifully arranged, you have some skills in using synths. That's something I'd like to be able to do and my lack of ability in this field shows on my own songs :P. What plug-ins are you using? those synths sound beautiful. I liked how the bass is playing an ostinato and how the chords over it change, give a enjoyable dark mood to the song.

And wow! I had an eargasm when the drums and guitars kicked in around 3:35! This is just epic. That's a nice guitar tone you got ear, I think I'll try Amplitube someday and do the comparison with guitar rig. Anyway, brilliant tone. Ah I recognize Addictive drums here, I assume you are using a Tama kit? At least the snare is? Anyway, it sounds great I liked how you kept a natural sound to it. Though I would advise you to polish some licks, especially the hi hat hits. For example at 1:49, those 32th notes were too "straight", you should lower the volume of the two first hits to make it sound more realistic. See what I mean? Also nice use of the 3/4!

What can I say? This song is brilliant, nice arrangement and composition. And over all, incredible taste in music, I mean Porcupine Tree was sent by god! ;).

Rottenbeard responds:

Hey man, thanks for the awesome and lengthy review.

I don't remember 100% but I was either using Atmosphere or Sampletank (might've even been a combination of both). They're really the only two synth vst's I ever use anymore since they seem to cover what I want to do most of the time. But yeah theres nothing fancy with the synth going on in this song, just 2 (or 3) different pads playing single notes with some filter automation, thats it.

I'd highly suggest amplitube. I was a GR user for a long time too but even GR never sounded real to me as good as it was. If you were to blind test me with amplitube and real amps i'd be hard pressed to tell you which was the real thing! Amp sim tech has come so far..

About the hihats, yeah, I hate those 32nd quick fills too, when I was all in depth mixing and mastering this I had never noticed it, and then a week later when I listened to the song I was like, wtf was I thinking.. Another thing that bugs me is some balance issues between the drums and the bass. But really it doesn't bother me enough to go through the process of editing and re-mastering the whole thing, i'm awesome lazy like that ;).

The drums are indeed Addictive Drums using a custom preset I made which utilizes kit pieces from both the Retro and Jazz adpaks (I think i'm XLN audios best customer, lol). I think the only original piece of kit from stock AD i'm using is the kick drum (tama) otherwise everything else is from an adpak. I hate the stock sound of most of AD's drums if only because they're just so overused these days, ESPECIALLY the presets.. (if I hear that 'startup' preset in one more commercially made song, I might stab somebody).

Anyways, thanks for review man, I appreciate it, hope some of my comments on the vsts has been helpful.
And hell yeah, Porcupine Tree is ear sex.

Cheers,
Daniel

[Instrumental Piece 1]

Nice!

It was very interesting to listen to this piece, I enjoyed the different parts of it and the way the song was in a constant evolution.

The first part with the acoustic guitar reminded me of the music from those games I used to play when I was younger in which you have to build a city during the Antiquity and stuff, like Civilization as Tadashiini said. I really like it, it would really sound perfect for one of those game. By the way, I assume you didn't play the guitar and you programmed it? If it's the case, it sounds absolutely beautiful and realistic, and I must say the other instruments you used sounded brilliant.

Then comes another part at 1:43. This one sounded epic! The chord progression was pretty simple but the way you arranged it with the low octave played by the piano, the strings and the piano melody made it sound just epic. Though I would have enjoyed a bit more rhythm on it, you know to make it sound more lively.

Another part at 2:17 starts, I think it was my favourite. Loved that bluesy lick played by the flute, I think. I must say I didn't expect that coming but it created a nice element of surprise. And the guitar behind it was rocking, acoustic guitar + rock-ish riff = win. The repeat myself, this part deserved more percussion too but maybe that's my metal guy influences that want that :).

Overall I enjoyed this one very much. Though there were a few thing that I would have expected such as more present drums (percussion) but that's a matter of taste so I won't penalize you for that. Great job on this, keep going :). And check my songs if you have some time ;)

Gave it a 5.

Gravey responds:

First off, thanks for the awesome review. These are few and far between nowadays it seems. So it is always appreciated when someone gives a lengthy and well thought out reaction to something I've written.

As for the song itself, I'm glad you enjoyed it so much. As you mentioned the piece really begins to gain energy at the 1:43 mark, and doesn't really look back after the 2:17 mark. I really REALLY liked that final section with the flute so I decided it would be perfect to just add one last bridge and then let it repeat itself with a fadeout. It just seemed the most appropriate way to end the song.

Once again I'm glad you enjoyed the tune, and thanks for the wonderful review. :-)

-Gravey-

[Dr. Claw]

Enjoyable

The funny thing is that I used to watch Inspector Gadget when I was a kid... in French obviously, so once again it's cool to see how it does sound in another language.

Nice voice performance, you managed to literally change your voice tone to a dark and deep scary voice, the illusion is perfect - unless it's your regular voice ;P. It was good for a 6 seconds clip, though I expect to hear a bit more material from you next time.

And I won't comment on the equalisation, you know it all.

*Review Request Club*

Coop responds:

Yeah, the six second part was a little banter between myself and Bahamut in the Levelup! Lounge. Basically, it culminated with me recording this first thing on a week day morning, so I recorded it and published it straight away. Not the best thing, I'll admit, but this will change when the new Mic arrives :)

[Falling to pieces/What's Done]

Heavy shit

Man I dig this shit! I was impressed by the guitar tone from the very first second, it was very precise sharp. And the bass tone is sexy as fuck, one of the best tone I have ever heard, honestly. Overall, it seems you worked more on the tones than in your previous songs, even though it's a rough mix.

The vocals were fucking great, the first verse reminded me of Dream Theater, something from the previous album, when the drummer and Labrie sing together, it's great! The chorus was catchy as hell, I think it's stuck in my head for this day :P. I love the melody of it and your prog-ish type of voice on it.

The solo was enjoyable as well, the tapping part was killer. Then you don't play too many notes but you just play the right ones so it sounds better than any other speed guitar solo. You should have the copyrights on that lick at 3:18, I think you use it in all your solos haha.

I can't really help for the vocals but I promise I'll send you a melody played on the guitar ifI come up with something interresting. That's one of your best song, no doubt.

Current Score
4.23 / 5.00 (+ 0.014)

Bad-Man-Incorporated responds:

You are right about the solos. haha. I always play that...jump up that bit of that scale sounds 80'ish, but it can lead up to a crescendo or bring down from one. Diverse, yet simple. haha.

Glad you dig it. I'm working pretty hard on all the aspects. :D

ANyways dude, always pleases me to have you stop by and leave your review and <3. You are a kick ass artist, and your support is appreciated. :D