Zazzy's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Amogus]

hambungus

darknetlab responds:

its on spotify and other streamming platforms now https://open.spotify.com/track/6jkGMcYgBJZKKy1ZZFaQMr

[Card Court]

Decent song. You'll likely be able to release the music and the artwork here, but as far as reposting the entire game or part of the game with your mod on it, that's a no go. You'll probably have to put it up on GameBanana like everyone else.

CreeperX3sssBOOM responds:

Well, we wouldn't be re-releacing the entire flipping game but with more added onto it. That's the job of the FNF crew. We're just using code and some assets from the original game as a base for our fangame.

And that's why I'm questioning it

[Composite]

Very nice. Reminds me of MapleStory's music! The percussion and drums all around could be turned down, and the earlier half of the track could use some filling out with additional instruments, but it's a very good start!

TheSMMusic responds:

Thank you for your review :) I will take those suggestions to improve.

[A Gunslinger's Lament :( (SAD)]

*Somberly tips cowboy hat*

ConnorGrail responds:

*yee-haws tear back into own eye*

[Zepheriyah - All Alright]

Very, very good. Very.

Honestly, I had to go evaluate the rest of your music and do research to make sure it hadn't been stolen from a producer and uploaded here.

If you get your mixing down, I sincerely believe you can hit the big time. Other high quality producers have come from Newgrounds, so it's not impossible! Space Laces is one I'd consider "Newgrounds Alumni."

As for mixing tips, make sure nothing it clipping! The only real problem I see is that in certain parts, especially during the build ups and drops, there's unintentional distortion from things just being too loud and peaking. There's a crackling in the high end at 0:52 that's the result of this. Try just turning the master down slightly and see how it sounds then, but if you're putting everything through a limiter try toning it back.

Zepheriyah responds:

WOW! Thanks for the very detailed review! I greatly appreciate your help. I still am pretty bad at mixing currently lol. I just slap a limiter on it and hope for the best, I will have to study it a bit more.

[DeweyDewster09 - Victory]

It was perfectly fine up until your drop, which is full of out of tune notes and just destroyed the whole vibe! I think the problem is that you used a preset that makes chords automatically. Please look into that! I'd encourage you to reupload this if you fix it.

DeweyDewster09 responds:

I finally remixed it! Thank you for the feedback.

[forbidding jungle]

Pretty good stuff! Just try toning back the reverb a bit eh?

Troisnyx responds:

I don't like it too dry, I guess. Might play around with it when the time comes for me to extrapolate this tune.

[Poppa Wheelie]

Off to a good start here, I think! Kept real simple, which benefits for something like this. Good music for a game, where it's interesting but not too distracting. The main downside though is that it sounds very flat and has no fullness. It sounds as if it's leading up to a spot where it becomes full and the song fully comes in, but instead of that it goes back to the beginning. Essentially, audio blueballs.

ScottJacob responds:

Hey, thanks for the constructive feedback. I've never thought of the term audio bluebalss before lol but i can see how it applies, i might try to make it loop to keep the momentum or just add on to it and flesh it out(pun intended?) Anyway, i appreciate the tip

[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