Arby's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Victory Dance]

Excellent beginning!

I love the atmosphere you set at the start! You really feel like you're in the middle of some crazy crowd shouting like crazy and having fun.

After 1:00 though, you start decomposing it and I feel this is where the the song starts to get bad =/ You had this great feeling and this great momentum. Then you stop short and it's like urk- what? The crowd clip doesn't really sound good stopped short like that either. It sounds un-natural.

I think one big problem was that it was sprung randomly in the middle. If you had something like one of the DJ's clips to separate it, then it would have been a more tolerable transition.

You've hit something potentially epic here though. You can do even better crowd manipulation songs if you keep at it, i'm sure =)

JohnnyFrizz responds:

Umm Im lost in this review Arby.

Okay you said something about stopping the crowd clip? Umm I didn't stop anything at that point it kept on playing until 2:40 then I lowered the sample's volume for DJ mixing purposes. But there was nothing sprung out in the middle as you mentioned, its just that (naturally) as you mentioned the crowds don't shout the entire gig :P Its not... natural ;D

Thanks for the criticism though!

[Sunscape]

Sunshine!

Yey! The sun is shining! All is bright and glimmery and happy!

You need shades in order to listen to this song ;P

Not too much to complain about this. There were a couple parts where it seemed a bit too much was happening. By far my favorite parts were where there were just the simple melodies.

[-Wake up-]

Summer is here!

Unfortunately it's still sometimes cold around here =/

One of the big ironies is that I think I actually accidentally woke my house mate up by playing this too loud XD

The song itself is good. If I forced myself to get picky I could say that it was really air-y and lacked alot of substance but it fits the mood for the most part so it's okay (although, it means the song can get old fast)

This would be really good as a BGM, tho =D

[Saving Face Machine]

I much prefer the sound and feel of demo

This version feels like you're playing from far away, the sound is subdued without much real presence and your singing lacks the same crackly emotion in it.

So, in short, you've gotten rid of everything I liked about the previous one =/

The song is good by itself, but you took a serious step down from your demo in my eyes.

[Breaking Influence EP (A->N)]

Uhm...

Is this supposed to be a preview of the songs or something? =/

The transitions were all messy and seemed half-assed and the song had a case of ADD. I see no reason to simply cut and paste sections of other songs together in a way that is un-apealing unless you're trying to advertise... =/

ApproachingNirvana responds:

Thanks for taking the time to review! This is actually meant to be a preview for our album, Breaking Influence, which includes the tracks listed above. The reason we posted this preview track was to use it in conjunction with an audio forum post that let everyone know we had an album out.

I understand teh transitions aren't that great, but it was meant to really showcase the parts of each song. The songs fit well together on the album (in full), but not necessarily with 30 second segments as they appear here.

We really appreciate you reviewing tho, since many people just don't take the time to review at all.

Check out our stuff on Myspace and let us know what you think!

[A Walk Beneath the Surface]

Amazing

The intro kept my interest and I thought it alright. A so-so back tune, right?

Then at about a minute it picked up and I realized I listening to quite an awesome song. although, it is a bit repetitive to the end.

I like the creepiness of the intro and the power of the rest, but do they really fit together?

[Segata Sanshiro]

Very well done, reminds me of the early days of NG

This is a very awesome parody of that song. It really reminds me of what NG used to be, taking pieces of popular culture and making something silly and amusing of them.

Under that pretext, I find any complaints about the use of the original song to be quite superficial. Legally, even, he is protected under fair use.

Very good quality on the lyrics too, very clear and I was able to catch every word with no problem. You made me smile with the overly epic, zany quality of the singing. I hope to see more parodies from you in the future =D

[I LIKE YOUR HAT]

Thanks

I quite like my hat as well.

I was sort of wondering what that song was that C&H used XD

[-Ricochet Love-]

Hell yeah =D

You did everything right from since I heard this. The 8-bit synths that I thought were a little crackly sound great now. (or perhaps i'm just using better speakers)

You hit the epic feel right on the head. It simply sounds great, cohesive (which had been a complaint of mine for a few of your more recent ones =O) and overall very powerful. The mastering does add ALOT.

Overall, I simply love when you combine two distinctly different melodies/feels into one solid picture. The high, light melodies and the hard-hitting drums contrast yet work together in a way that makes it simply awesome =D

4.83 at the time of my voting. Most excellent ;P

Waterflame responds:

Woot thank you so much man :D a great review :D glad you think i managed to clean the errors up and fix it! :D ill keep on mastering my songs better from now on. it gives better result, altho it takes about twice as much time. again, thanks! <3

[~ RO - Labyrinth ~]

The intro doesn't fit

Without the intro this would be a FANTASIC remix. I love the line you drew in relation of how close/far you were from the original. You used the main theme very well.

Some instruments were simply too loud though. I'd have also liked to see some better EQ work =D