The Lesser Knowns Volume 3 - FINISHED

[Doctor Wurzel]

Nice.

[vladnuke]

Why is the album $7?

Shouldn't it be $2 like all the others?

Anyway, this is a wonderful piece, good job all around, official review coming soon.

[vladnuke]

TLK #3 SPEED REVIEW

Yo, as always, I gotta do my critical critic thing right as you're all feeling good. It might be a bit harsh this time around, but it's for the good of Equestria, so lets do this:


The Runaway- Bartekko: AWW SHYET, TOMBSNARES AND KEWL SYNTH LEADS. Really reminds me of homestuck stuff more than anything, actually on par with some of the people who work on the music for it, but not really, for a lot of reasons. You got way too much repitition, could've benifited from less loops, more parts, more structure oriented changes. 7/10

The solar empire- yo we got some clippin issues here. Like, dat sound is too rowdy, fix it up. It's a backing track, begging for a melody, man. Normally that'd be filled by a singer, but, seeing as we're missing that, that could've been a guitar or smth. Recording sounds like canned compression, composition is pretty boring, and where is the bass guitar, man? You need something to drive the song, man. 6/10

Something to be remembered- Blunosreindeer(feat. Memj and DanielPony)- Everything's so clear and nice, Memj sounds SPECTACULAR, shit is OFF THE HOOK. Like that shit didn't even want to be on that hook. Phenomenal job. Just absolutly wonderful. Everything flows well, everything is mixed perfectly, she's on tune for the most part, I'm stunned by this. I could listen to this for the rest of my life. Get it up on youtube man, you've got something worth showing to the world, man. Everything sounds like warm buttery dreams caressing my earholes. I need to know everything about this song, man. I need more of you, man.
PLEASE ADD ME ON SKYPE YOU WONDERFUL PERSON(vlad_is_kewl)/10

Racing-Breadfan: Why did you pan the strings to the side. Why did you pan the brass to the side. Composition wise, it's pretty cool, but it feels like you panned too much shit to the left. My right ear is getting lonely. 6/10 (only because it's an easy fix)
V-club nights- cheztheguy: Hmm, Rina-chan? Ok. EURODANCE 2003 PONI VERSION. DISCO WORLDWIDE YAH. everysingleeurotrancemotifmixedhapshazardlyintoonesong.mp3. UNC UNC UNC UNC. Yeah, club trance with poni samples, alright, ok, yeah. I'm kinda falling asleep here, man. 5/10

King Sombra's return- Decmaster: Weird, starting with EUROTRANCE 2003 patches, since it's clearly dubstep, but ok, lets see where this goes. Alright, that was a pretty lame drop. Nice Make it Bun Dem samples and yois tho. And then it just repeats it pretty much. and then again the same lame ass drop. Bass is lame. Pads are lame. Structure is lame. Composition is lame. Samples are lame. Overall lame. 4/10

The Dubious Dustbunny Dance- Djeinus: Mixing is bad. Like, what's up with the cello or whatevs? Can barely hear it, while the drums just overpower the track. Lots of empty space, everything is too syncopated for this kinda song, needs more swing. It's just boring. 5/10
Insomnia- Doctor Wurzel: Structure wise, it's uninspired. That bass either needs to be harder, or it needs to be less noisy. One way or the other, you can't have both. Also nice tombsnare. mixing is good for the most part. yeh no thnks 6/10

Waltz for the Sleepless- Ducks Unlimited: Alright, you get points right out of the gate for dat nice intro. Now just bring it to a cruising altitude man, come on. And then you do, and it's actually pretty nice, lots of pretty pads, the synth is varied enough so that I won't complain, gj on that. And then everything fades out , and bring in a different, more repetitive loop which kindly gets the fuck out of the way to bring the whole thing to a close. Chill shit yo 8/10

Endless-DXsmiley: I know it's EUROTRANCE, but you earn points for pulling some rave shit instead of trance. Yeah, enough variation to keep it going, but not enough side chaining and not enough punch on the bass line, and the drums have no/the wrong kind of presence, the snare and crash sound like they're being played over a cellphone speaker, other than that, it's pretty kewl 7/10

Flitter Step-Exis- Oi, fukken hard ass bass, hard ass kick, shit, kewl sample,weird dip in volume tho, idk why you'd do that. The sample still has clashing BGM, so points lost, the yois sound lulzy, and the whole thing is like waving your dick at the notion that dubstep has to be scary and shit, and I like that. The hook is pretty hard as fuck, so yeah, gj. 9 skrillexes out of 10.

Vinyl's vacation- KillianDunne: Ok, some cool 16-bit synths are always nice. The pads needed more presence, the drums were lacking, the song gets repetitive as hell, and loses whatever momentum it might've had. 7/10

The Idol-LoreRD- Aww shyet, time for some classy shit up in dis bitch yo. This is some hardcore wine music, the piano could've used a little more compression. Shit's so progressive it carries three trigger warnings. 9/10

Break Scratching-Macarou: Now transitioning into bourbon music, some classy as fuck old skool dnb. Yeah, nice cutting, but the pad changes for some reason don't match the break, so that's pretty uncool. 7/10

Library of Madness-Mr.Bigglesworth No. No. I'm done here. Dis shit is just, I mean, did you even try? The drums are so tiring, the bass is so flat. The structure is so boring. There's so much empty space. Vengence sample pack extreme edition. And then you drop pretty much the same drop, but worse. /10

Frentica-Neganote: The whole song is off tune. Until you cut the shitty pads. Then it's listenable.Then the pads are back. Then it's back to sounding awful. Get rid of that pad. It's so bad. Even by itself. Especially by itself.

/10

CMC Erratic-Neu Katalyst: Aah, Neu, what are you doing here, you're well known, come on, man, get on the ball. No, but srsly, this is a wonderful song, piano sounds great, the bass is weird, but fits, woulda prefered it a little dirtier. And then the drop. And it's just all over the place, and has no reins, and no funk, and kinda losing the point of the whole idea of a drop. 8/10 come on man

Extra Lucidity- Nine Volt: oh boy more tombsnare. Nice lead tho. Lots of really cool synths. structure is lacking tho, 7/10

Broken Mirror pond- Tuner Symphon- Always nice to have mostly good vocals, always nice to have a cool melody, now if only the drums were a bit better. 8/10
Broken Mirror Pond (NytMayr rmx)- Eh, it's alright. I mean, you got everything down right. Execept for the mixing. The lead needs to be mixed down. The snare needs to be mixed down. All dat shit needs to be mixed down. Srsly. 7/10

And then she froze(feat.BMO13)- Search- You've improved, search, good job. I remember when you couldn't even do anything. And you still haven't learned how to tell if something is out of the tune . In all this time. Because shit's out of tune past the first minute and a quarter. Most of it. There are flaps on the side of your head called ears. Use them. 6/10, if shit wasn't out of tune, 9/10

I will wait- Spectral Pwni +cheztheguy: Lol square kicks and muffled tombsnare. And then extreme yoloswag spaghetti drop. What's with all the yois? Eh, at least it was mixed ok, could've been a lot clearer if you sidechained the bass to the pads. 7/10
Another try- Torrent Sky: Started me off thinking it was 80's, then the guitar came, and I was all yoooo, and then shit started moving and it was kewl. So yeah, it was good. You're lucky I actually like classic 80's stuff. 8/10

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

Meh, I can understand the disliking. Honestly, I think it's one of my worst works. I've improved since I finished that track. It's kind of a given that I'll make something crappy every so often.

Here's to another track I'll never speak of again XD

[Belgerum]

Why is the album $7?

Shouldn't it be $2 like all the others?

Anyway, this is a wonderful piece, good job all around, official review coming soon.

Actually, the album should be free, as they've always been. the only reason the album is charging you any money is because The account ran out of the 200-ish free downloads per month.

If you look down in the description, though, I put a download linkon another site there, which you can download as much as you want.

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

And I appreciate the honesty, Vladnuke.

[BluNoseReindeer]

TLK #3 SPEED REVIEW
Something to be remembered- Blunosreindeer(feat. Memj and DanielPony)- Everything's so clear and nice, Memj sounds SPECTACULAR, shit is OFF THE HOOK. Like that shit didn't even want to be on that hook. Phenomenal job. Just absolutly wonderful. Everything flows well, everything is mixed perfectly, she's on tune for the most part, I'm stunned by this. I could listen to this for the rest of my life. Get it up on youtube man, you've got something worth showing to the world, man. Everything sounds like warm buttery dreams caressing my earholes. I need to know everything about this song, man. I need more of you, man.
PLEASE ADD ME ON SKYPE YOU WONDERFUL PERSON(vlad_is_kewl)/10


Broken Mirror pond- Tuner Symphon- Always nice to have mostly good vocals, always nice to have a cool melody, now if only the drums were a bit better. 8/10

These are the two songs I helped with. I'm flattered by your response to Something to be Remembered by. It is going up onto my youtube very soon actually. Thanks for the review.

[LoreRD]

The Idol-LoreRD- Aww shyet, time for some classy shit up in dis bitch yo. This is some hardcore wine music, the piano could've used a little more compression. Shit's so progressive it carries three trigger warnings. 9/10

Thank you!
*hugs vladnuke*

[Decmaster IX]

Vladnuke, I'm not really sure I want to take you seriously on that review.

Usually, I'm not one to mess with things like this. Criticism is criticism, and I can take it pretty well. I'm not one to get defensive. However, I'm questioning if you tried to give an honest review, or you just exude mindless hate on everyone you come across that you don't particularly like.

For instance, I'll start with my track, since that's where I saw the most silliness. I'm not denying that it isn't the most compositionally diverse song in the world. I'm also not denying that I'm not Skrillex, and don't have a long way to go in terms of production. I'm nowhere near great. That's why I'm on this album. But were you even trying to give honest feedback?

Bass is lame. Pads are lame. Structure is lame. Composition is lame. Samples are lame. Overall lame.

How the hell am I supposed to get better when this is all I get? What does, "Pads are lame" mean? Are they mixed badly? Is the sound boring? Do they stick out too much? God damn, the point of a review is to point out what people could improve on so that they can get better; it's not to shit on their hopes and dreams and turn them away from producing ever again.

Also, Frentica by Neganote. Sure, it wasn't great, but did you point out anything that could help him improve? No. Instead, you asked him if he even tried. What the hell. Here, I'll help you out on that. Neganote, your lead got a lot too repetitive. Changing the sound would help a little bit, it sounded like you took the default patch from Massive. Try experimenting around a little bit, layer the sound and use things like reverb and delay. The bass you had in the background was great, but a little quiet. The drums are spectacular. Maybe a little dry, though. Try a teensy-weensy bit of reverb. I think the main problem with this was how repetitive the song got. It sounds like you got stuck in the "8 bar loop." Here's a great article on how to break out of those 8 bars and change it up.

Also, I disagree with most of your ratings. You'll tell them that the mixing was subpar and the drop was extremely "yoloswag spaghetti" and basically rip their track and then give it a 7/10? And I'm not going to go into detail (that's not the point of this) but I feel like most of your ratings are very far off of what they should actually be. I can't really go farther into that thought without doing a full album review, which I'm not going to do. So I won't.

So basically, while criticism is good and stuff, I'd kinda take your review with a grain of salt. Because you just worship the (few) good tracks (in your opinion) and rip apart everything else. :/

[LoreRD]

It's on EQD!

http://www.equestriadaily.com/2013/01/a ... .html#more

[Nine Volt]

Extra Lucidity- Nine Volt: oh boy more tombsnare. Nice lead tho. Lots of really cool synths. structure is lacking tho, 7/10

I like how I got the shortest review :3

Also that is not tombsnare! Tombsnare is from Pendulum Kit! :3

[vladnuke]

For the record, my reviews of these albums are traditionally only part serious. Everyone got an equal part of serious. So as much as I would've like to just post " Deal with it ", I would've been doing everyone a disservice.

Decmaster, it's not improvement hour around here. Improvement hour was a week ago, when you guys were making your tracks. It's promotion hour. This is the last day of American Idol, and I'm both Simon Goddamn Cowell, Paula Abdul, and the people at home phoning in. So yeah, we've got a few tracks here that need some serious work. And yeah, the reviews are a little surfacy and dismissive. But that's only modeling how people are going to see this. No one judges a track based on how much it can improve. That's how you judge a person, not a track. And if you think of your tracks as your babies, then I'm the guy in "300" who kicks the ones with defects off the cliff. I'm not asking that your tracks be merely good, I also need them to be interesting.

Because this is The Lesser Knowns, not The Lesser Abled. Most of the problems I get pissed at are easily fixable. They're still problems that didn't get fixed before the deadline, and therefore are inexcusable.

But your offence at me got me thinking, and just for you, I'll give more in-depth reviews to the one's you listed.

Neganote-Frentica: One of the pads is so off tune and grating that it makes it hard to enjoy literally any other part of the track. Yeah, the drums are cool, and you know, the song was even pretty good when you cut the pad in the middle. The bass is pretty hard and shit, but none of that matters, because the song now sounds bad due to this crap pad. This should have been fixed before the deadline. I can't give you a real rating, and didn't.

I will Wait-Spectral Pwni & cheztheguy: Guys, I wasn't really ripping on your track when I said that your drop was pretty yoloswag. I was merely commenting on it being extremely generic, and a interesting stylistic choice, kind of like comic sans is an interesting stylistic choice for a graphic designer. Other than that, you actually made a really nice song, and even have a few really nice, original ideas, like putting the square kicks in where you did. The mixing was nice, I never said the mixing was subpar, and it really didn't feel like 4 minutes because of the rapid change in composition and well made transitions. 7/10

Decmaster- King Sombra's return:
The drop was so sudden and non-resolving that I thought my player had skipped or something. The bass patches were ploddingly boring, no movement at all. The composition never crescendos or has any meaningful change. When the shit after the drop has the same level of energy and movement as the shit before the drop, you've got a problem. The song is muffled, with nothing truly pulling the song along. I mean, this is supposed to be Sombra, it's supposed to have flash, and there's almost none of that. No high end except for a looping pad and a lead that goes on for 30 sec then promptly goes away. The two bass patches you have are actually really nice. I would like for there to be more variation in timbre, however. It just sounds rushed, with the song going anywhere but forward. And you kinda just have the same kick snare drum pattern thoughout the whole drop. And the kicks you have on the bun dem samples sound more like recorder clicks than kicks. It's got two hooks that it repeats for 5 minutes. And they're not even particularly good ones. 4/10 only because it wasn't grating, merely boring. If I could describe the song in one word, it would be that, boring. Uninspired.

The point of a review is to tell the consumer what I, a person with similar interests, thought of a product. Not to tell the artist to fix it. Its up to you if you want to fix it.

Also, come on, are you really gonna stop producing just cause some guy on the internet said one of your songs is bad? I could be a dog. A dog with rabies who knows how to type. Or a griffin. A griffin named Gilda, for all you know.

[Macarou]

Yeah, I can see what you mean by the pad change not really matching the break on my track. In any case, I appreciate your honest review of my track; especially with this genre being relatively out of my comfort zone (I predominately make Ambient, but wanted to try something different).

[Decmaster IX]

Just because it's not "improvement hour" doesn't mean you can't give useful advice to musicians. You're a musician, you should know. Imagine if someone randomly showed up in the comment section of some song you posted and said that everything is lame without any explanation as to why. I'm not saying in any way that this is about feelings, because it isn't. If you feel bad because someone doesn't think you're Skrillex, then sucks to be you. However, have you ever considered that the reason someone may not have fixed something is because they didn't know it was wrong in the first place? While I'm not excusing something as simple as intonation (as you said, that's what ears are for) but mixing is something that is really hard to do, and no one is going to get it right on the first try.

Also, three points that don't really fit in that wall of text, but should still be said:

1) Thanks for the feedback, now I can get something done to make sure this doesn't happen again.
2) I am completely aware that this isn't the "Lesser Abled," but there's still a reason that we're not Skrillex.
3) When I was talking about my disagreement with your ratings, I wasn't directly referencing any particular song. While it was nice you clarified what you meant when you were talking about "I Will Wait," I mas merely picking and choosing pieces of reviews to use as evidence.


(Note: The creator of this post wishes to remind you that all uses of the word "Skrillex" are simply for comedic relief and an exaggerated example. The creator does not actually believe that Skrillex is the pinnacle of music, although he is good at what he does)

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

How ironic that the work I'm least proud of is the first one to have any sort of space on EQD :S

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

But yeah, let it be publicly known that I don't mind a little harsh critique if it's in the name of improvement.

[NegaNote]

Vladnuke, my song on the album has been reuploaded. You were right about it being out of tune, one of the oscillators in my pad synth was a semitone too high. Now that's fixed and the new version is up on bandcamp. Redownload, k?

[Ocular]

If there's another one of these, I'll enter for sure.

[Doctor Wurzel]

Insomnia- Doctor Wurzel: Structure wise, it's uninspired. That bass either needs to be harder, or it needs to be less noisy. One way or the other, you can't have both. Also nice tombsnare. mixing is good for the most part. yeh no thnks 6/10

Eh, I know the structure isn't that original, but I often worry more about the atmosphere and mastering/mixing of everything since I'm still mostly a greenhorn in creating my own presets and samples. Nice to see those are what's decent about it, especially since it's pretty much all I really worried about while I glanced over it again.
Which of the basses are you referring to anyway? I can see what you mean by the second one that comes in about 2/3 of the way in, but not so much as the first one.
Either way, good enough feedback I suppose.

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

I'll try harder next time, I swear . 3 .

[Rainboom]

LETS DO THIS. I'M IN AND GONNA GIVE IT MY ALL.

[Freewave]

Why is the album $7?

Shouldn't it be $2 like all the others?

Anyway, this is a wonderful piece, good job all around, official review coming soon.

Actually, the album should be free, as they've always been. the only reason the album is charging you any money is because The account ran out of the 200-ish free downloads per month.

If you look down in the description, though, I put a download linkon another site there, which you can download as much as you want.

Yeah if you get 3 people downloading it at that $7 rate you can just buy 1000 free downloads for $20 (thats what we did for Second Chances) and avoid a mediaifre or pay download from that point on. Let the people on BMD know you've got this out and we can give it shout (I'm at work this moment).

[Belgerum]

LETS DO THIS. I'M IN AND GONNA GIVE IT MY ALL.

...Sign-ups ended a LONG time ago. The album already got released, even...

Yeah if you get 3 people downloading it at that $7 rate you can just buy 1000 free downloads for $20 (thats what we did for Second Chances) and avoid a mediaifre or pay download from that point on. Let the people on BMD know you've got this out and we can give it shout (I'm at work this moment).

Well, the money people donated for the album is going to charity... I dunno if I want to spend the money on free downloads when we can give them out anyway...

And perhaps I will consider sending it to BMD in the near future.

[Lethaargic]

I would like to apologize to everyone involved in this project, for not being able to finish. I just made a whole lot of bad decisions, and wasn't able to make music (or even have a place to live) for a while. Still I knew it wouldn't make or break the album. Maybe some day soon I'll be in a position where I can commit to my music again. Much love, Lethaargic

[Ocular]

If there's going to be another one of these any time soon, I'll participate.