ZaronX's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Whispering to my Windows]

It's certainly an interesting mix of elements, and I like it a lot more than I expect to when I see Dubstep listed as the song genre. I do find myself wishing it evolved somehow, though, like with some added instrumentation or melody work thrown into the back half to keep things fresh. Granted, if my main complaint is "I wish there were more of it," then you aren't doing half bad.

Lucozire responds:

Thank you, this really means a lot. I was fairly suprised how nice of a combination these two elements worked together. But here I am with a really short dubstep track, I might extend it in the future but as of right now I am not sure.

[Leaves in the Current]

Well done for the most part, but a little repetitive, and I can't really get over that the most repeated bit is basically Zelda's Lullaby with the last measure or so changed up. The instrumentation is solid, tho, and the only other thing that stood out was one of the brass notes sounded a bit too dissonant.

papkee responds:

Wow, I've never even heard Zelda's lullaby but you're right. That's a bit crazy. Also, that brass note was not there when I wrote it, and like I said before my drivers were so messed up I couldn't even tell.

[Wind Waker - Laruto's Lament]

O: <3

I used to think the only other vocalist on Newgrounds who could compete with you was Hania.

I don't think that anymore. You win. You win all the things. <3

VGSongbird responds:

WOW. Thank You :D

[**Zelda's Lullaby**]

Yup

I still love your voice. *o*

Really not much else to say here. @_@

VGSongbird responds:

^_^
I'm happy to still be pleasing to your ears!

[Queen of Chaos]

Poor Percussion

Not an easy song to recreate, I am well aware, and in terms of getting the notes down you did a good job.

Your instrument balancing is a bit better here, but the percussion sounds completely bland and MIDI. It's really distracting to the overall piece.

I question having a flute take over the epic choir melody from the original, and the strings at the song's climax sound rather dissonant at first (though they're rather nice in their other appearances throughout), like a foul note or two crept in there.

Overall, it needs work. Kudos to you on rebuilding the track, but most of it comes up short.

Shanath responds:

I pretty much agree with all your points. I wanted to keep the amazing choir melody the original one has but I didn't want to use a synthesized one for it and I couldn't get anyone to lend their voice for this.

I want to make a V2 of this one of these days, but that's probably not gonna happen anytime soon. :x

Still, thanks for yet another review. It's helpful when they are as critical as yours. :3

[Chaos Angel]

meh

The choir's too loud and overpowers the piano even when it's meant to be the focal point of the song. The mixing of instruments could be solid if it were mastered better, but as is most of the song sounds really muddled.

As a more positive note, the piano melody is arranged really nicely, even if it gets drowned out fairly often. I wish you'd done more with it instead of just a basic cover though.

Shanath responds:

I didn't really notice the choir being that loud, but now that you mention it, it does seem to drown the piano melody quite a bit.

As far as mixing goes, I'm not very good at it yet, but I'll try my best to get better.

Thanks for the in-depth review.

[Solemn Walk]

Digging This!

This has a sort of ancient ruins vibe going on for it, which is totally something I have a soft spot for. The guitar sounds awesome, the bassline is good, and the flute's melody won my heart over pretty much instantly.

The song itself thus is pretty damn good, but the mastering could use some work. The strings in particular seem to overpower the rest of the instruments despite their melody being particularly background-ish. The flute and bass are both rather dry, the former in particular being a case where a little reverb could go a long way. The guitar seems a lot louder at the beginning than it becomes as the song goes on, which makes me think a limiter is involved somehow.

Again, the ruins-like vibe this has going completely rules. You have it marked under R&B, which tells me that's not what you were particularly after, but if you embrace it and give the instruments and beat that sort of ambiance I don't think anyone could complain. As is, it's still an excellent combination of melodies and decent instrument work that's marred just a little by a handful of mastering nitpicks. This is still going right into my faves.

takeflight responds:

I'm so glad you found this song so enjoyable, and thank you very much for this helpful review!

I agree, the mastering is a bit off. I hear what you are saying now, but I'm constantly switching between headphones and speakers which makes the song sound different each time I switch. But enough excuses! lol

I honestly hadn't thought about expanding the flute's sound, but it could do with perhaps some widening, and like you mentioned some reverb. There is a slight reverb on the master track (using FL), which I believe adds to that ancient ruins vibe you mentioned. I also have a limiter on the master track, but I still have the most difficult time getting it all to sound right, and in the end it never does lol. I suppose practice is in order.

You're right on the fact that I didn't really know where this was going head when I first laid down that guitar track; I had no idea it was going to sound this way. I figured it sounded like R&B. However, I think this is going to become a standard for me now, as I happen to really appreciate this type of sound (not to sound conceded).

Again, thank you for your thoughtful review :]

[Valley of the Lillies~TEN~]

Good base, needs a lot of work.

The piano melody itself is decent, though three quarters of it is just one part repeating. The drums are more intrusive and out of place with the rest than anything, and the bass is a smidgen quiet and could flow with the piano more.

As is, this seems more like a quick concept than a finished song. Loop or not, flesh it out a bit more and make the individual parts more coherent with each other, and maybe add something in to keep the piano from repeating the same couple of measures three or four times in a row, and honestly unless something can help balance them out or make them feel natural, either tone the drums down (especially the shaker-snare thing in there) or just nick them completely.

S'my two cents.

TheEpicN00b responds:

I recorded the base, accompaniment and melody separately, and then merged them. As I have no experience with music editing tools, or recording tools, this was done by a third party, so it seems he did more editing than I had anticipated. The drums were also his idea, used to keep the beat while I recorded, seems he forgot to take them out.
I'll have a word with him.

Thanks for your review

[.~.~Rapture~.~.]

Nice

Ended up looking up the source material, as I knew I'd heard that melody somewhere before. You did a good job adding your own spin to it, and the production is, as best I can tell, pretty top-notch. The additions to the melody keep it from being too derivative, the instrument choice is nice, and I honestly can't think of anything to complain about here.

Good job! :D

DJ-Steeve responds:

Thanks!

[Ripukku Daiski]

Bing Bong Bong Bing Bong DUNNANANANANA!

I think the opening bit goes on a bit too long. The song's not bad, but that part could rather easily turn away the sort of people who'd enjoy this the most. The more redeeming parts of the song where the melody starts standing on it's own tend to not really come into play until after the 2:30 mark, which is a lot of time for someone to have to wait for a song to finally hit true stride.

Aside from that, not a huge fan of some of the instrument choices, but they kinda come with the genre so I can't dock you too much on that one. You vary the focal sound on a regular basis as the song goes through, which is totally a good thing and given the length and amount of variance this goes through pretty impressive.

I think of the lot the piano's melody is probably the highlight of the song for me, but in the end it's pretty well-balanced, though it takes a bit too long to get going and could use some minor tweaks here and there.

Ragezero responds:

Thank you for your feedback. I only just noticed how long the intro actually was ^_^
I switched off mainly the 'beat' and 'melody' quite a few times. Indeed something related to the genre which it was meant as. Anyhow, I might make a second version with some extra tweaks, and most likely without the long intro (or at least some more variety in the intro!\