Zazzy's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Bar Music (Attempt 2)]

I agree with @ninjamuffin99 on many fronts, it sounds like a bunch of different ideas for songs all crammed into one audio file and performed the same way.

Keep this file around, and pull out pieces of it to use on other projects.

Belthagor responds:

I was thinking of using some parts as samples for other songs. Thanks for your review!

[Barclay's Song]

This should really go in another category! Nothing about t his really screams "hip hop" in any sort: it's a piano piece.

Towards the end of the song there seems to be a lot of either messy playing or messy mapping. I think your intention was to make an effect using between intervals of your scale, but it just sounds super messy. If you're doing something weird with music, it has to sound intentional or else it seems like a mistake. Try emphasizing the weird notes by having nothing else play as the lead up to whatever note you're going to hit.

Belthagor responds:

I should have explained... the song uses mostly white keys on the piano, so I thought if I move the base notes one note forward on matching downward octaves it would transform the entire song. IDK how I did, honestly. I followed the most well known Chord Progression for Hip Hop Songs, so I'm not sure why you'd say it doesn't sound like Hip Hop, at least the first half of the song before the repeat with lower sounding notes. Anyway, I'm not a really great musician and have room to improve, so thanks for your review!

See sixth post here where I discuss more about the song, along with a screenshot of some notes in it: https://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1436735

[QWAZDYN - RADON]

What in the hell even is this...

QWAZDYN responds:

Music/Distortion/Me...

[5ignal WIP]

I would try not brickwalling and widening the synths so much, it makes it sound a bit muddier. Try to find that perfect balance between clarity and loudness. Very crisp and distinguishable synths are a big part of house music (or at least for the artists I listen to :P)

Norato responds:

There is nothing as brickwalling...

[-~DAS~- (Unfinished) Indescribable Insanity]

Oww, my ears... You have the tools, you should try making something a bit more, musical!

DaAlexSeed responds:

I suck with FL Studio ATM... I'm still learning how the mixer works lol

[Yamabushi]

Pretty snazzy. If the beginning with the bell and the strings was slowed down, it would make a great RPG soundtrack piece.

GoToMyNewAccount responds:

Hmm...VIP idea maybe? :) Not a bad thought. Thanks for the kind words.

[Starry Night]

While the gentlemen and you both are correct about it having bass, there isn't enough bass in the right places. Of course there are no hard rules to mixing, but there are things that people across the board can pretty much agree on, and one of them is what sounds good on the low end.

The kick is definitely there if not a bit muddy, but they are right when they say there isn't much of any bassline because while it might be there, you can't hear it because the low end is polluted by reverb from other things. On FL Studio and pretty much any reverb plugin I can thing of, you can control how far down in frequency your reverb will sound. Keep it in the same lane as the instrument itself, whether it's in the mids or highs. As a general rule of thumb, never ever put reverb in low end frequencies, they'll clog up your mix with mud. Another way to clear up your low end mix is to put a side chain on your bassline, so when the kick hits it will lower in volume so the kick and bass won't be fighting for the same space. You can use panning to clear up room in higher frequencies, but it's not advisable to do that in the low end because it sounds weird as hell. Try sidechaining some upper frequencies with your snare and lower frequencies with your kick, if you like that effect.

The biggest problem many musicians and producers have is that they fill up their mix with too much stuff that's unchecked, and the frequencies bleed into each other and make bad sounds. Hopefully some of the stuff I said helps you out a bit!

5TanLey responds:

I think I already do almost everything you said, but it still doen't sound very clear :D.. anyway thx for a great review!

[Skylight]

Where's the DnB part?

Ediwow212 responds:

Wait a.... I forgot to put it.
Damn...
Only the bassline are present wtf.

[Trillionz (Original Mix)]

Why is this featured? No offence to you, because this has nothing to do with you. But like, the amount of unwarranted features on NG is getting ridiculous: any one with connections to anyone that's popular on NG or people that know the admins can get their songs featured without even a single look to see if it's actually something quality they're pinning up. Don't take much of this to offense, because I wouldn't even be here if this wasn't featured.

This just sounds like a hot mess, in all honesty. There's not enough time in a day to list all my grievances about this piece, but I'll try to put it in a way that's productive and not plain hurtful, at least not without any benefit :P

It's not structured well, and repeats itself. As a fellow below me said, it's all the same transitions and they never change, and it stays on the same chord and doesn't lead anywhere. It is all very safe and doesn't take any risks with the writing and the structure. Try weird or interesting chord progressions and see if it works or if it doesn't. And there's always more to learn in terms of music theory, even if you've taken a course or two.

I usually don't nag on synth or instrument choice, or sample choice, but these instruments do not mesh well together at all. The instruments or VSTs themselves are necessarily bad, but they way they are used aren't conducive to their sound, and it makes it seem out of place. As you gain more experience you'll get a sense of what kind of instrument goes where and where to use certain things. As for the samples, let's just say you can polish shit, but in the end it's still shit. The samples are really the same deal, they don't mesh with the type of song or structure you're going for. Also, the cymbals at every kick is kind of ridiculous.

Now, all of that would just be icing on the cake, just little things in comparison to the larger problem.

It just flat out sounds BAD. Like, REALLY BAD. Easily the worst sounding thing to be featured (again not on you, but yeah) that I've heard since the late 2000s. (Although I will say you don't have the worst composed.)

Your biggest offence is that you have this massive, ugly distortion caused by clipping, which is too many frequencies competing for head space with the fusion of it in general being WAY too loud. When you hit the ceiling of how much informtion you can fit into a file, it start distorting. There's only so much sound you can fit into a mix, and a MASSIVE part of being skilled at EQ and mastering is being able to manage that. It's especially difficult when you want to have a lot of stuff going on in a song, finding spare room or turning down certain frequencies or volumes just right to make parts stand out is incredibly hard, especially if you don't know what you're doing. In general what you want to do is to start with everything at a lower volume, then carefully raise it to an acceptable level and making sure that nothing is clipping. ANY sort of distortion you have from volume or frequency management that is unintentional is bad. EXTREMELY bad.

TL:DR - Work on music theory and writing. Use variation to your advantage when arranging. Use instruments to their advantages, instead of just using them solely because they sound cool and plop them in anywhere on your mix. TURN EVERYTHING DOWN, FOR PETE'S SAKE. Worry about volume control before you start going into EQing, because that's a whole different world, baby.

Khris responds:

I have never seen someone so salty about not being made a feature lmao

[Bouncy Bass]

Not bad. Keep on keeping on.

JaThu responds:

That's the plan :3 Thanks!