Zelgeon's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Hero (WIP)]

hey long time no see! sounds nice so far :) i would spice up the chords a bit tho

Dovax responds:

Que hay bros! Gracias por el consejo, aunque no se cuales chords xd

[Psycholabyrinth]

I like it, it’s well executed! However, from my view standpoint triplets in 4/4 isn’t weird at all. It’s the most used tuplet and people are used to its sound especially because of music that is on 3/4 time signature like a waltz for example. I think you should work on mixing and arrangement; the chords get muddy and unclear in some parts, this is because you are using closed and low register voicings (the way you organize the notes of a chord) for the chords, causing accumulation of frequencies. Have this in mind, in acoustics, lower pitch, will have more overtones and weaker fundamental frequency; higher pitch will have less overtones and more present fundamental. This applies to real instruments but also to some synthetic sounds, especially the ones that have too much overtones. What am i saying with this? when building chords, make sure to not have them be too low, if you think your chords sound muddy, trying a higher inversion might solve the problem! also consider that short harmonic intervals (from minor 2nd to major 3rd) in the low register, because that will generally sound bad, in higher registers short intervals will sound clear most of the time. Now, something else to consider, turning down the 200-400hz range of your chords and cutting all the frequencies below 200hz with an equalizer will make your chords and low end sound cleaner as well.

You have to work on the stereo imaging as well, i notice the mid and low mid range is too wide, this makes the center feel empty and will sound bad when playing in mono speakers. You may have accidentally done that while sound designing, have in mind that unison and detune mess with stereo a lot, when you add for example 16 voices to make a supersaw lead/chords/bass, the synth will copy the sound 16 times and pan it across the left and right channels detuning each voice a little bit to avoid phase cancellation, this makes the sound extremely wide and a lot of producers aren’t aware of this, so next time pay attention to that because a wide main element isn’t good unless there are mono layers as support.

There are other things i could point out but for now that should be enough!

ShockblastDeluxe responds:

Thanks for your input! I look forward to putting the mixing tips you gave in practice.

[xi - Halcyon (Miyolophone arr.)]

don't know the original song but this is well done ngl

Miyolophone responds:

thanks zelg! highly recommend you check out the original

[BORDER - ROLLERCOASTER (NEWGROUNDS EXCLUSIVE MIX)]

ok why does this looks so fucking dynamic

MarcoCarella responds:

i dont even know lol

[CRACK IT - Thunder Cat]

So glad you finally got FL 20! you got really nice spacey vibe and awesome harmonies going on in this track, pretty nice to be your first time using FL Studio, the mix definitely could use some work, like in the drops, they are just a little but unclear, i don't know if this was your approach but i feel all the synths could have been a little bit more in the front, with less reverb (especially the chords), there is also an impact or a crash sfx in the beginning of the drops that is far too loud and high end heavy. Aside from that, the track might need some mastering, it's fairly quiet and dynamic from what i hear and see in the waveform provided by newgrounds.

JessieYun responds:

Hey Zelgeon!
Thanks a lot for the comment and a suggestion, I greatly appreciate it! It was definitely a challenge to master this track, I tried to add the “Fruity Soft Clipper” to make it better. But there were so many clipping so I had to remove it...

[Ricochet]

Dang dude this is actually really good! While listening to this is i definitely can imagine Jason Statham with a fancy suit walking (in a cool way) away from a building, and as he gets far the building explodes while he puts on sunglasses. Really badass stuff man, great job, though, i cannot go without leaving some feedback first ;) so here i go:
The "bram" sounds pretty fat and powerful but is too dry to my taste, it could have a tad bit more reverb, *some* of the hits don't have as much impact as they could, you can maybe make the sidechain stronger so the transients stand out more, there is also a chance that it's a PDC issue or there's a layer in the hits that is a little bit delayed.
At around 0:50 the guitar sounds kinda detuned and (at least for me) it was unfomfortable to listen to. In this section the mix sounds like its getting overpowered by the "bram" and also the drums sound really drowned in the mix except for the ride that actually standed out a bit too much.
At 1:13 and at 1:17 you build a lot of tension but theres no actual hit other than the drums at sound louder than earlier (but still a bit too quiet to my taste, like too in the bg, i just feel they could've been more present, though, i understand why you put them in the back, you have the bram and the guitar in the front so the drums would've clashed with those), so yeah its a bit awkward how you build tension and the only thing that hits is the kick drum, like, i think those parts could have more impact as well.
It still was a good track overall, keep that up and i hope you can take this in consideration the next time so you can get even better! I've always said you should always keep learning and trying to improve, regardless if you think you are already REALLY good, you just have to keep trying to get further and never stop learning.

CloakedSoup responds:

Thanks for the critique! I'm always working to try and find ways to improve my music so helpful criticism like this is always useful! :D

[Jeemboo & DJRadiocutter - Virus Detected]

The description says the track is in C Major and this is clearly in the key of E Minor. The melody and chords of the track sounded pretty familiar to me, and it turns out its exactly the same melody and chords than the track GRGE made for his glitch hop tutorial, link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujKCz1dhHrU, it even has the same synths, however, aside from that, let's talk about the mixdown a bit.
The main lead is way too loud. The mix overall is pretty narrow, it's lacking a lot of length/widening which makes the track kinda weak already. The drums don't fit well in the mix, they don't stand out as much as they should, especially the kick and the hi hats, they get drowned in the mix several times as the track goes. The drop is lacking sub frequencies, especially around the 60hz-40hz range, this may be because the sub of the bass is way too high. The bass sounds you used just sound messy and all over the place, they are really unstable and that could be fixed with some compression. The elements of the mix in general are clashing with each other mostly in the first drop section, though the second drop is a lot less messy.
You gotta make sure you don't accumulate frequencies like that because that will cause mud, when putting together a bass and a growl bass you are overlapping those frequencies and you'll get clipping and unclear low end. Each instrument should have its own space in the mix, this can be done successfully with EQ.
For example, if you have supersaws layered with clean square wave doing chords in the same octave how do you make them blend well together in a way that you can hear both pretty clearly although they're doing the same thing?? Either you could pan one at the left and the other and the right or you could put both stereo, equalize the supersaw and do a high passcut around 1500hz in order to fill up just the highs and equalize the square wave cutting the highs and boosting the mids. While doing this you gotta consider that the lead and the bass also need space in the mix, you could set the lead to be mono (since the chords are already filling up the sides) and high pass cut around 200hz to leave space to the bass which will also be in the center of the mix and will have a low pass cut around 200hz.
Something that also takes place here is the gain staging which is basically getting your levels right, balancing the volume of each instrument so none of the sounds drowns other sounds in the mix. All this also applies to drums, keep in mind that in electronic music all the transients of your drums should be dead mono, you want them to hit you right in your face. In case of drums you cut the lows of the cymbals and put them pretty wide and sidechain the kick and the snare so they get heard a lot more easily and the body of the kick won't clash with your sub bass.
All this was an example of you could give space to each instrument in a mix, remember that you don't have to follow strictly all the stuff i said, you can get really creative witht he way you balance your mixes, especially because each mix is different and this example won't work all the time, so i'd recommend you to experiment with various styles and genres since each genre has a way to be mixed and mastered, this will help a lot to improve your mixing techniques very quickly, but this also depends of the person, some uys will learn fast and some others may need more time to learn, just keep at it and never stop learning, always look forward to improve your production and you'll get somewhere eventually.

Something i forgot to mention about this track is the mastering, it's too quiet and dynamic to be glitch hop (-11.5 RMS), keep in mind that if you want a loud master you gotta have an excellent mix and probably in this case if you compress more than what you are compressing it right now it will sound overcompressed and distorted, most glitch hop tracks like -7/-5 RMS loud and if you want to get that loud, get to work out your mixes.

Jeemboo1216 responds:

Holy cow, thanks for the review! I'll try to be better soon though. And as for the melody, I had no idea that it was (kinda) like in the tutorial. Also idk how to widen the bass, but I'll try to watch sum YT vids to see how.

[Root Beer Float]

amzainng trak mayo imma use this on a gd lvl srsli tho this is the best song EVER i totlaly luv it <333333333333333333333 thAt vibrato made me nut

Miyolophone responds:

egg

[AIM - out of order]

This track is the definition of ambitious. Such a journey man. I I'm more than amazed.

Miyolophone responds:

So much appreciation for you guys :pray:

[Stray]

why the fuck is didn't noticed you released this xd

this reminds me a lot to that soundtrack when u fight with Bowser Jr in a casino in the game Mario Party 9

btw this is wonderful! diggin the amazing and cool composition. Though imo the kick's transient is way too click and noticeable and it didn't fit very well in the mix, but other than that this is fucking great! I'm really proud for how much you've improved and because you're getting more exposure! keep that shit up dude.

Miyolophone responds:

Ty Zelg!! In case you haven't noticed this is almost a year old by now haha but I still appreciate it! I agree that I've improved a lot since I've released this and you're definitely one of the reasons why <3