xxxZigZagxxx's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[found]

0:00 OK
0:20 I'm not that experienced with Grunge, but this sounds cool. Reminds me of when people used to have bands in their Garage.
0:37 Pretty tight work with drums. Some is a little offbeat but that doesn't really matter when you've got a nice sound. Especially when you hvae the fills, it takes just a little while to come back just like an inexperienced drummer. But it reminds me of Meg White, and coincidentally Meg White is one of my favourite drummers coz she keeps it simple.
1:29 It's pretty nice. I like the 4-hit snare roll you do sometimes. Perhaps don't do it after every single beat, otherwise it might get a little old.
1:51 Yeah there we go, it's changing up.
2:05 OK let's see if it's staying like this for ages.
<skips about the song>
4:15 ooh i like this part. it's really solemn nice guitar playing, but it's so quiet you can almost not hear anything.
4:57 reminds me of oldfield or something. pretty nice.
<skips>
6:00 lol lots of extraneous sound. oh well.

Pretty nice demo. I liked it. I'm not experienced with grunge but it sounded good to my ears. Kind of like Nirvana meets White Stripes or something. Garage rock and Grunge or something.

Cool stuff.

sixshadowsix responds:

THANKS!

[Neo-Drama]

0:04 Sounds like an infomercial. That cheesy drum loop tho.
0:15 I wonder why it says... "Metal, Rock - Pop"? I'm guessing from the intro it's just straight pop. I wonder why they put it in Metal and Rock.
0:33 I can see this in the background of an advertisement. It's very... soothing.
0:51 The drum loop's a little boring but this works better as background music than anything else.
1:03 You could have changed it up there a bit, maybe? Since it was the beginning of a new... bar, or what do you call it... idk. New part of the structure.
1:33 Yeah. This is nice. The clap might be a bit... dry... not sure. It just feels like it's poking out just a bit. Poking out of the mix, that is.
2:04 Yeah needed a bit of variation here maybe. Perhaps you're the slow builder kind of guy. Which I guess is fine, but that is sacrificed for boredom kinda thing.
skipped to 2:50
skipped to 3:36
3:39 Ok it's mostly the same.
skipped to 4:06
4:11 Yup. Fade out. Pretty nice stuff.

It's pretty good. A little boring, but good. The drum loop kind of stays constant throughout like some commercial. Which I guess is good, but it's kind of boring for my tastes. I wouldn't say it's interesting enough for personal listening, but in the background for presentations or whatnot it would work.

Good job.

RayS10 responds:

thanks i did this back in 2007. i was young back then so i had to learn some FL Studio 6 on my own because i wanted to be able to copy the style of Shinji Hosoe a little bit.

[It's Been A While]

0:04 OK, very bassy, but still melodic.
0:11 I like your sense of composition.
0:14 WOW that swoosh was way too loud
0:21 The drums could use a bit of energy. It's a bit too... boppy for my taste.
0:33 You've quite a lot of harsh frequencies making their way through... piercing ones. Maybe you can EQ them so they don't seem so piercing
0:54 OH GEE THAT SWISH way too loud
1:00 I do like your melodies though. Very fresh. I think you need better synths though.
1:10 That kick is a bit too... bassy and its release is too... short or something.
1:24 I like that synth. It's very short and nice and cuts through nicely without being brash.
1:35 that swish. man, your swishes are terrible.
1:43 Hmm... not too sure about that synth that stabs on every half a note. It's too... dominant. It doesn't flow.
2:06 OK the melody might be getting a bit old now... or is it the chord progression. Probably the chord progression. You can change it up for different parts of the song, you know.
2:28 Hmm. This is nice and calm ending.

Overall, a good song for where you're at. Maybe you need to work on flow, groove and other things, but right now I suspect you're learning so these things will come to you in time. Overall, very nice. Needs improvement, but nice.

SolarFloss responds:

Wow, okay thanks for everything! :D

[On The Wings Of An Angel]

0:07 Interesting chime effect, it takes up quite a lot of the EQ'ing space because of the Bass that it has, I think.
0:24 OOOoooo I like the brooding piano underneath. Let's hope you lift this with some kind of string component.
0:38 yes. Very nice, please make those choirs louder. This is a very uplifting piece. It takes a while to warm up, but very uplifting.
0:58 Something about that electric piano is very modern. It's almost kitsch in a good way.
1:14 Eek! Ouch! Those hi hats are very piercing. I don't like how they hurt. They're too sharp!
1:33 Please don't stick knives in my ears... ouch. stop it.
2:08 Wow. That sharp sound ruins the whole song. Ow. It actually physically pains me.

OK I had to skip
2:58 Much better. No more sharp noise.
3:14 Very uplifting piano chords.
3:22 I like these snare hits. Very triumphant.
3:28 Yes! Bang that crash. I love the epicness. Lift me higher!
3:37 This is beautiful. Very uplifting. If I was a crier I would.
3:57 AMAZING. Best part of the song. I love that descending riff by the electric piano.
4:03 Did you make a mistake on the piano here? lol. not many people would notice... you played it live I guess, but forgot to fix it? Or maybe I'm being critical
4:27 Still beautiful. You have that arp still going. Stoic. Unchanging.
4:40 I'm glad you got rid of that piercing hi-hat, I really am. It wasn't even a hi-hat, it was more like... one of those really piercing metronome sounds.
4:59 OH CRAP ITS BACK... pls stop it...
5:09 You're ruining a beautiful ending with that piercing sound......
(skipped to 5:54)
5:59 OK. Nice.

Phew! That was a beautiful song. Especially the point at 3:57, which I believe is the apex of the song. It just delivers in so many ways during that portion and the part before.

I think I made my point with the piercing metronome-like sound that physically hurt my ears so much I had to skip. In my opinion you should either EQ the sound to make it less piercing or remove it altogether. I enjoyed the moments without it that much better.

Aside from that minor letdown, thanks for letting me listen to an immaculately constructed piece that touched my emotions, especially at the buildup. A little refinement (and by that, I mean the removal of a certain PEST sound ;)) then your song will be *sweet*.

Thanks again for the song!

Macca3232 responds:

Thanks for the really in depth review, it was a great read to know what you where thinking listening to it, I don't normally do songs like this so I had alot of fun making it. At the time when I made this I was really happy with the way it turned out but you'll be pleased to know that I did do a remake of this song which ill drop in a week or so, which gets rid of the 'piercing metronome-like sounds' with more or a kick back and relax vibe.

[water+]

0:00 Nice loop. The mixing is a little funny. Not sure if those are real chords.
0:11 I can hear a little voice loop in there. Funny.
0:19 If anything this sounds like experimentation. I don't mind experimentation.
0:28 It's slightly hilarious.

It is repetitive, but kinda catchy. But it's just experimentation, and it gets really jarring after a while with the really off-putting chords and such. Needs a bit more to push it past average.

Cool!

Tarteviant responds:

Thanks for the feedback.. my ears can't really do everything by themselves lol appreciate it loads guys.
The mix is mind boggling. It sounds like some simple little loop but I have to compress this, reverb that, eq this, quiet that, just for it to even sound bland enough to not be a pain.

But yea this was an experiment,

yea..

[Traphouse4]

Interesting new style. I want you to keep trying stuff like this, even though the synth isn't that well mixed. The snare is nice though. Your kicks are a bit over-bassy and the snares clumsy, but your overall progression is tight.

ThaKidd responds:

I don't care for trap so I said fuck mastering haha

[Every day of Every week - Zieg]

I do like your flow quite a lot on this one. You've got a very cool voice for rappin and stuff ^_^

If you had a better mic it'd be even better. And you're good at lyrics too. The song's got a general theme of hustlin :)

ZigZag

SinZLazTWordZ responds:

Thanks ZigZag. I appreciate the review man. I dont think the problem is the microphone though. Its what the microphone picks up... its a fantastic microphone but I dont have a secluded closed off room to record in. Picks up other sounds sometimes. But I know what you mean man.
Thank you again for taking the time to review.

Ziegie

[Goodbye-[Cinematic]]

This song blesses me in so many different ways. The composition lifts my soul with grace. I feel weighted no longer by concerns of death, but by the promise of life. A weight is lifted off my shoulders. I feel lighter. The world surrounding me looks brighter. I stare into the distance, the grains of sand coarse between my toes, the sunlight beating down on my forehead, the wind blowing across the desert landscape. I can bend time. Life makes sense now in this universe. I am no longer encumbered by all that crap I used to think was important. I cut off my heels and ascend into the sky.

keepwalking responds:

I hope you notice what you just wrote there. Such deep words, man.

[Relentless]

Sounds like dubstep and got lots of wubs and lots of glitches. Much like. There is a bit of dissonance with the riff though around 0:20, I'm not sure if it's just the melody. And a lot of these rely on oscillators, but your filters are BAWS.

I don't really care what genre this is as long as you're pushing boundaries which you are. Nice.

CHiLEDAWG responds:

ZiGGGZAGGGG thanks for the review dude, means alot. part around 0:20 was definitely just what i was feeling lol, pushing boundries in 2014 baby!

[The Traveler]

0:00 Some nice aciddy wubs. I like that.
0:15 This track seems very atmospheric to me. I'd say I'm not very experienced in the genre, but I'll try to provide some useful feedback.
0:35 I can hear some rustling, and birds chirping... oh, there's an art piece attached to this.
1:00 Ah I see. It's very much attached to the art piece. It does feel like a time traveller discovering forests of time past.
1:30 Plucked instruments meandering their way through modulated frequencies.
1:45 A steady melody makes its way through.
2:35 The riffs are kind of getting more sweet than I wished of this piece. I wanted it to be more brooding, mysterious. I thought that was where I was being lead.
3:30 The sounds of the wind and rain surround me. It's very soothing. The piece ends before I wish it to, and it doesn't seem to have developed much over the course of its duration.

It's a piece that fits with the artwork. A calmish song of guitars, and modulating synths along with wind noises and some rain and rustling. But I feel like the song doesn't really develop into what I wished it to develop into. Sure, there are some nice sounds, but they got sort of sickly sweet towards the end, and the atmosphere that the beginning was building kind of dissipated.

I'm not experienced with this genre, but I feel like it should be a bit more swelling, a bit more harrowing given the dark and mysterious nature of the art. Spiritually deep is what I'm trying to convey, and I didn't really feel it in this one. It's still well-mixed and easy to listen to, so it gets points for that.

Thanks for the listen.

Chemiqals responds:

Thanks for the feedback! I actually went back and forth between a more dreary tone and this happier one that I settled on. I can definitely see why you'd want it to go the other way. I decided that I wanted it to be about discovery. So it starts out a bit more careful, then evolves into a sense of wonder and joy. The fact that there was still life in this depicted world was something that I felt deserved a more optimistic song =P

Thanks again for the feedback!