ZipZipper's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[A World of Blue (Studio)]

The vocals were a little bit too dry for the mix of the instrumentals, in my opinion. Maybe it's just the mix in general...it sounds too real in the forefront! Hahahahaha. I guess I like hearing a slightly more cavernous club ambience. Anyways, nice groove and great assortment of brass. You're so lucky to get to work with live players so often. I thought the lyrics had awkward pacing, but they still worked. Welp...in the end it's a really nice song!

deadlyfishes responds:

The vox is still a WIP for now, I did them last minute at my apartment instead of at the studio because of some stupid scheduling issue. It was insane that we got it done quickly enough to show off the film the song was in the very next morning. Thanks for the feedback, I'll be working on these things more this week. Also I was going for more of a feel that the recording was from 1940-1950. On my website I made vinyl versions that make it sound pretty authentic--- http://www.matthewpablo.com/archives/new-jazz-film-score-11-17-13

:D

[Want Some Candy?]

Wow! WOOOOWWW!!!! I am bowing down to you so hard I burst through the ground and fell into the fires of the underworld! My favorite part was obviously the beginning; it really really caught my attention with how creative but quintessentially clownlike it was. And the fact that you still seamlessly weaved the carnival through the orchestral movement of the latter of the piece made me very glad, I was half expecting to hear the distinct clown beginning but just a cinematic rest of the song. No, you still kept the clown lurking underneath the music. I have to say, the building up at around 4:00 sort of bored me. But thank you for bringing back up the insane waltzing at the end! Wow...both epic and terrifying, this is the blood clown. The ending kind of died off, which I understood yet also didn't understand. Maybe if the calliope just kept its pace and faded out at least for a little bit at the end, I would feel the piece was a little more complete. Anyways, excellent work! Loved that eerie bassy silence between the beginning and then transition into the cinematic. I love this!

[Teaching My Students]

When the flute appeared, I immediately thought of Windwaker. I can see Toon Link roaming the halls of a prestigious academy to pick up and break all the fine pottery.

Bosa responds:

lolololol. That is what made those games great; you could act outlandish and nobody scolded you for it.

[Bei Mir Bist Du Scöhn]

Oh I like this song too. Although your voice is used in so many different ways and sounds in tune and perfect blended together, I thought it could be more creative! I don't know...it sounds empty to me. Maybe because it's so short or that the mixing was dry. Weeelp either way, a really cool rendition! It's short and to the point and has a great swing timbre. I think it would have been neat if the time was cut to make it different and not swingy...but that might ruin it idk my bff jill so yeah nice work!

Rampant responds:

Doing these a cappellas is quite fun, so you can expect more in the future :P I'll try to be a little more creative in my renditions, but this is such a great song, so I didn't want to mess with it too much haha

Thanks for the review :)

[Agnos]

I hear you're experimenting with your voice here, which I really enjoy. I hear ornamentation like an Islamic call to prayer or Bollywood singers. I'd love to hear you sing something along that line, you sound like you have the soul for it. There's a couple of interesting mix-ups in terms of chords and instrumentation that I also like, but essentially very you. And some well-coordinated ritardando and tempo changes. Nice work!

etherealwinds responds:

Thank you for your review Zip! The difficult part was performing meligmata that wouldn't be *too* much but still managed to suit the song. I'm not the best vocalist in the world, but I've always thought of the voicebox as just as much of an instrument as a flute, piano, violin etc.

That's definitely something I'd be interested in doing in the future! It'll be a tough challenge to take on though. I really appreciate your wonderfully kind comments! Thanks for listening! =]

[Dark Woods Circus (WIP Cover)]

I did a cover of this too!...a super long time ago so it's kind of bad ahahahaha. If you wouldn't mind, I would definitely sing for this when you're done, unless you really like the vocaloid sound. I personally prefer a real voice more than a vocaloid's. Though, my main problem right now is that I don't have a functioning microphone...but I'm hoping to change that soon. Whomp whomp...

steampianist responds:

really what a small world lolz that would be great PM as soon as you can. ill keep both vocaloid and your version

[A Long Way Home]

Well I definitely hear some improvement here! I was actually hoping that was your voice but just altered a little higher to sound like a girl's hahahaha. The beginning vocal arrangement is masterful, and perfectly enhanced with her voice. Are the lyrics Dutch? I'm just taking a guess. Then when the second part opens up with the piano, flute, and erhu combo...it actually reminded me of some of the sad music in Naruto hahahaha! Your instrument choice there was nice, but your instrumentation overall still seems very comfortable to me heeehhh. I'm waiting for that extremely sudden wrong turn with you, but you're here building up your character, so I can't blame you. Your melodies and harmonies overall are great, peaceful and emotional. There are some interesting turns in the key that are subtle but catch my attention musically. An overall fantastic mood setter, but still waiting for some madness to come hrehrehrehrehreh. Wonderful job!

etherealwinds responds:

Thank you so much Zip, that's such a lovely review! The problem with me is that I haven't much experimented in too many genres of music, at least with FL Studio. I'm not even sure how to create a drum loop bwahaha, so I guess for this competition I'm trying to stick to what I know but injecting creativity whilst doing so. It can be boring doing the same kinda thing over and over again so I try to avoid that! ^ ^ The lyrics are in Danish. I just love Scandinavian languages, something about them sounds so Earthly. Also, wow @ the round 1 results... 0.2 difference!! Really great submission, you're a winner as well as steampianist in my eyes. Keep it up :)

[Automation]

It is a ripoff of Mechanical Anima hahahahaha I think it's even in the same key signature or very close to it. But since there's a lack of this kind of music here I think it's still very welcome. Still professionally done. There is definitely a rich underline of percussive noise here, but the melodies also take over in a sense. I can't say I hear anything really counterpoint as each phrase sort of lets way for the others in an order with instruments working together in one melody at a time, but definitely good harmony work and complex instrumentation. I wish I could do the same. Especially with such perfect production construction where no crevice is left empty. Great work!

Step responds:

Yeah man, after three attempts at trying to make a cave/lab theme I said "screw this" and ripped off a Newgrounds track haha. Although joking aside, I did admittedly borrow a lot of ideas from that track! Mostly the whole "machine + orchestral instruments" idea and some percussive ideas (and a few notes off one of the melodies unintentionally!). His track blows mine out of the water though.

Aw man, I really tried to add a bit of counterpoint in this. It's one thing I have always been very bad at (my songs are usually structured as one melody in the foreground and then everything else supporting it). But maybe I just have the wrong idea of how to make counterpoint :P.

Thanks for your help in this track, and for this review!

[Misty Moons]

Well, the first thing I notice is all the sudden I'm plunged into this track hahahaha, but it is a nice plunge...the end is not so nice of a sudden plunge though. And I also hear the rhythm is not really consistent. I'm assuming this was being recorded in real time, and I understand that the genuine feel of real time is something commendable, but really keeping to a set rhythm would help the flow and not make it sound like stomping feet up some stairs. I would also note that the arpeggios aren't very dynamic, but for an ambient piece like this I don't think that's too necessary. I did like a bunch of things. The note choice is mystical, sounds like you're ascending in key signatures. The sound choice is nice, this piano something combo is very nice and the background synth underlying it all is really magical. The transitions from place to place are also nicely connected, I can hear you've got a slight ritard right before the next phrase. What this piece lacks is more musicality. Arpeggios are nice, but as a constant theme it gets tiring to me, and as mentioned before the rhythm. Pretty good idea here, just needs details tightened. Nice job!

[Glitching]

Whoa...really cool! You seem to have quite a mastery at glitching here, albeit with a single purely electronic sound, which I guess is why you say it was experimental. This is definitely something I would like to hear more experimental exploration of. Next time a melody that changes more over time and drums not so cheesy hahahaha. Yeah, I wasn't a fan of the drum sounds, but the rhythms fit so strangely with what was going on for the moments they interluded that I loved it. Really nice quality mixing of the 8-bit as well. Overall, this sounds like a really cool experiment! I think you definitely succeeded in the glitch. Great work!

lantaren responds:

Awesome! That's the kinda feeling I was going for, and it was almost impossible to make more melody that would work lol, I hand-glitched most of it with the actual notes themselves, but I did make use of dBlue glitch as well, although only to really chop it all up and spit it back out. And I'm glad I succeeded. I thought it was kinda too glitchy, but seeing as you didn't think it was, I think I need to glitch the drums :P Idk. Anyways, thanks for listening.

Just to note, that first phrase was all done by hand on a squareish wave, completely unchanged. It was insane, and I think I have at least 2-4 fairly different melodies, they just happen to have the same central theme, of "I'm not glitched enough" lol