Zazzy's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Chapter 7 - Inner Struggles]

Done for the Review for Review thread.
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Some good sludgy doom metal. There are a number of issues, however.

The main issue for me is there being no dynamic whatsoever in the song, on any part. I can skip to any point in the song, and it essentially sounds the same- even the parts that you attempted to make feel fuller don't have this effect. This is because you're missing two key parts of a metal band- a bass, and most of the drum kit. The bass isn't just there as a meme, it's there to help shape the sound of the band overall- at least that's the usual function of a drummer in a non-technical metal band. The drum buildups you try to do at the beginning have no impact if, well, there's no impact, but the sudden appearance of a full sound followed my it's immediate absence creates a feeling of dynamic, even if you aren't able to achieve the sound with your instruments.

Speaking of the instruments, that's the other main issue I see- fake instruments. Now there's nothing wrong with using electronic instruments in place of real ones- if they're appropriate. However, in a setting like this where there is only a small number of instruments, they really stand out as being blatantly fake and ill-used.

I've looked through some of your other submissions as well, and at this point in your musical career you're coming up to a roadblock. In order to advance your music to the next level, the next step is to invest money into some things- a real guitar if you don't have one, an audio interface, higher quality drum samples, looking into external VSTs for mixing purposes. It can seem like a big investment, and really it is- however, if creating music is a worthy past time of yours, it's definitely a good direction to go in if you have the money to save for the equipment. Nowadays, you don't even need a whole lot- you already have a DAW and a microphone, just with those you can do a lot. But to make that leap in quality towards something that's truly good, some investment has to be made.

Deathroad responds:

Thank you for the in-depth review. I do have a guitar and even though I'm kinda bad at playing it I could still play these simple songs. I've been lazy, that's why I don't pick up the guitar. I've been lazy and not very self critical, so your review really helped me get some perspective.

[GearWax- Transient (Heroes Part 2)]

Done for the Review for Review thread.
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I won't speak much about the actual composition because that isn't my strong suit. However, I will talk about what I do know, which is mixing and mastering.

The song as a whole suffers from something I used to do a lot, which was only using the mixer in my DAW to add reverb and delay instead of using it as another musical tool, or not using the mixer at all. From what it sounds like, this is the case here.

Every instrument and percussion piece is kind of just the same volume and in the same general frequency range. While the variety of instruments and sounds you used helps it a little bit in terms of differing between musical parts and sections, it's all very flat sounding. When you hear people talking about audio mixes, you'll often hear them talking about having a sound be in it's place; generally, this means a specific instrument or part in a mix serves a function and is placed somewhere in the mix that helps it achieve that function. For example, if you have a power metal band that has the guitars bass drums and singing, as well as a full orchestra behind them, you as an artist have to decide what is most important in the mix- and this can change throughout the piece. A piece might have a big orchestra beginning, but as the main band begins to play their metal parts the orchestra, despite it's size, might he put into the background in a supporting role.

Think of your musical compositions like a play. There are the main actors, supporting roles, and set pieces. As an artist you need to decide what parts or the main actors, what parts are supporting the actors, and what pieces help set your scene. doing this will help the parts that need to stand out do so, and the other parts will be where they're supposed to be.

Also, in my eyes there's also some questionable choices for instruments, especially the ones that were slightly out of tune, but hey, that's your call.

Iosun responds:

mixing basically isn't my strong point, yeah. i used the mixer pretty minimally, i'm relatively new to doing this so anything i would do felt like it would kind of sound like I was just doing it because it was an option in the program, something which I've been trying to kill.

to answer about the 'slightly out of tune' thing I think I may have messed with the fine on some during the drop and gotten used enough to the sound to have never changed it back.

thanks for the detailed review! i'll try to keep this in mind because i just generally don't use a lot of dynamics

[Coco's no.5]

Fun Djent-y prog-y goodness. If you get your volume under control, then you'll be golden.

[Sitar Demo!]

Fun! I kind of like the recorded sound of the sitar in the beginning, though of course a more clear/less roomy one would be good when everything else kicks in.

[Vänner (Friends)]

Quite a brick wall you have going on there.

[[w.i.p.] Raining Meteor]

Pretty good so far! Get those drums up to par and more full sounding, and you're well on your way.

[J.A.P.]

Pretty sweet, for what sounds like default FL studio plugins! Very impressive for working with limitations.

[Tears Of The Dragon (cover)]

Very nice. Really the only thing holding this back besides the mastering is the fake sounding drums. There are way to make midi drums sound real though, I encourage you to investigate!

[-Alpha-]

Pretty good! Sound pretty thin though. It's something a lot of producers of metal battle with, which is staying safe, thin and clean, or venturing out into something full sounding at the risk of messing it up.

[MRO]

Pretty good. Very thin sounding though.