Zazzy's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[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

[Chara theme /RmX]

With all honesty, and this is no way your fault, but unwarranted feature.

There are tons of good songs out in the audio portal that could be featured, but this isn't one of them. It's not of the same caliber, and it's pretty boring and lazy sounding. Generic.

[Bouncy Bass]

Not bad. Keep on keeping on.

JaThu responds:

That's the plan :3 Thanks!

[[Electro] Majora's mask - stone tower remix]

Okay, this is pretty awesome. Not gonna lie.
Lucky me to find a gem going through this trash heap of an audio portal.

[Break the Norm (FInished)]

Doesn't really belong in New Wave.

trunotfals responds:

I had no idea where to categorize this!!!! I dont write music for the genre's! I write for music! Also this is really old I totally forgot about it.

[Revisions]

The frequency range on that reverb is a bit too large, I think. Try notching the bottom cutoff to about 2khZ

[Flow - Rum and Monkey (Original)]

MMMM THEM DEEPS B ASS SOUNDS

SoLoR1 responds:

Mmmmm it's pretty sensual

[Amoeba Gemini]

It's interesting, but too muddy sounding to really draw any attention to it, especially at the beginning where drawing a listeners attention is more vital. At that point it sounds literally like noise with some kind of fast backing beat, but you can hardly tell what's going on due to the EQing, unless you listen really intently at the noise. And by that time you've probably already lost the attention of your listener.

If you'd like, I can take a look at it, as I have FL Studio, and see if I can make it a bit better sounding. I'm by no means a professional, but I do have a little experience. If you're interested, shoot me a PM.