RyeGuyHead's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[IYD - Dead Hope (July NAC)]

NAC Judge

Alright, wow...The intro is mysterious and foreboding, and it IS sort of like waking up and looking around to find that not only are you all alone, everything outside is ransacked and you have no choice but to go out and face it.

Man, the tone of all your instruments is so on point. I must admit, that instead of seeing zombies during the majority of the song, I saw Steve Vai, immersed in smoke with his hair blowing wildly in the air. That's not a bad thing, this song is just so melodic it's epic. The drums could be a little more vamped up, I suppose.

This is one of the coolest, most up-my-alley songs I have heard in a long time. The first thirty seconds are the only hints of zombie during the piece, but god damn if I care because the song is so good. But I do care; I am judging. And while this song is insanely good, it isn't as zombie-ly good as some of the others.

My Score: 9.0

[°°Slow & Hungry°°]

NAC Judge

Funky fo sho mans.

The brass is indeed very weird, I means what is its doing there? Instrument wise, it just doesn't fit..but it does! The timbre it adds to the gritty bass and ghost pads is impressive. The climax of this song is like a zombie beating breakdown. Like, I'm dancing maniacally around a bunch of walking corpses. Haha. I never played Resident Evil, but I could see this in a cut scene for any video game really.

The bass does a good job at carrying the song along, I suppose it might be nice to bring it in earlier, in very small amounts, and then drawn out so the chewing/gargling doesn't stand out too much. A chainsaw would be a nice way to dispose of zombies, though that would get very messy, very fast. Have you seen Dexter on Showtime? The drum and bass elements of this came out of nowhere, but were awesome. Having live drums on a song makes it sound soooo much better.

This is a really good song. It has a great video game vibe and (as I said earlier) would fit just about anywhere, which actually takes away from the contest theme a bit. What I'm saying is, besides the lip smacking and chainsaw sounds, the song doesn't scream "BRAAAIIINNSS" out at me. I like it, I like it a lot. Nice job!

My Score: 8.8

Whirlguy responds:

I can understand why this song doesn't scream "BRAAAIIINNSS" at you. It does to me though. Judging the other reviews, it's must be a matter of opinion. There's so many different zombie genres, but I think I've succesfully recreated the sort of thing I was going for. Apart from the soundeffects and maybe the overal mix, there's nothing(much) I would change about it. It wasn't supposed to sound like a videogame though.

The song was actually pretty much built around the wet noises from the start. Once I had the song laid out, all that was missing was an ambience. I considered those noises better than nothing, but I get your point. I think the climax would have lost a lot of its energy if I brought the bass in earlier too, even if it's just small amounts. And the brass just HAD to go in this song, I intended to use them from the very start, anyway :P

The drums were taken from my neffue's improvisation. I couldn't use all of it for my song, so I took about 2 bars from the recording and looped them at the beginning and end. Then I went all Dexter on the beat(slice&dice), so as to create the climactic part. It was also layered with an already existant beat I had created. While that is a minor detail, the crashes and cymbals you hear were also not from the recording(could have used a little more editing imo).

A great review and an excellent score on top of that. Thanks man (:

[Death Moan]

NAC Judge

I like what you're going for here. The intense hard rock with foreboding swells of synths in the background. The rhythmic element, as a whole, I can best describe as chaotic; that works very well in this competition. You clearly depict what it would be like to be engaged with zombies in an all-out war. I am especially thinking about the part from 1:08-1:30ish at this point.

While I liked the synths a good deal, I thought that they could have evolved a little more towards the end of the song. I realize they were intended for layering and padding and what have you, but if you could somehow change their timbre with a filter or something toward the end, then the song would have much more color. I guess what I'm getting at is the song didn't really go anywhere in the last minute, and I feel like a synth switch could change the mood and make the song more complete. I liked the abrupt ending.

Overall, this was one of best sounding submissions. The dark overtones and chaos drums gave this song a sinister feeling, but there was nothing that screamed zombie out at me. In the end, the slightly above average production and the lack of a real zombie theme kept this song from reaching the very top of the list, but it still had enough merits to do well in the competition. Good way to kick off the competition, indeed.

My score: 8.0

[News of the Dead (July NAC)]

NAC Judge

Prototype

The broadcaster's sounded excellent, and the words he spoke were familiar, and thus effective. I like how you use the recordings to add to the beat (if you will) in the later half. I must say that I think you put one of the recordings on the wrong DSP channel...the one sound bite at 1:35 sticks out like a sore thumb.

The synths are behind a bandpass filter? That must be why they sound so...cheap. The synths are coming out of the radio too, I get it...yea.

Nothing technically jaw-dropping...The production is good, but somewhat average in lieu of the entries to this contest (not a bad thing). But this song could not have fit the contest guidelines any better. The MOST zombie based song in the competition. Belongs at or near the top. Great work.

My score: 9.4

Bad-Man-Incorporated responds:

Thanks man. Sadly, I really wished I had more time. I got this AWESOME broadcast and very little time. I may play with it some more, just to. I did accomplish what I wanted. That one spot does stick out, and I must have thrown it on a different channel. haha. Thanks for picking that out...I'll have to take care of that when I have some time. :)

Thanks for the review.

[SR - Plateau]

NAC Judge

A motel in the middle of nowhere with a vacancy sign swinging from it...

Waiting, building...western zombies? Is that tumbleweed I see? Have you seen that AMC zombie series "The Walking Dead"? This definitely reminds me of that...it BELONGS in that show. Open landscapes, emptiness, dead people walking around. Hopelessness, that's what I feel.

The tone of the guitar is insanely good. There's a perfect amount of reverb, enough to create a drifting, droned mood, but not too much to get in the way of clarity. Great use of sound fx, like the white noise and the sound of what seems like a rocking chair swinging. I really liked how the feedback ebbs and flows. And those pads, if there was ever any doubt about this song's place in the zombie genre, it went out the door with the introduction of those pads. They make it seem like the zombie wave is getting ever closer. Perhaps the addition of a lower octave on the pad would spice things up a bit.

It's an overall rather simple and sparse song, but the subtleties make it extravagant. Both of your submissions for this contest are some of the best songs I have ever heard from you. This song belongs at the top of the list. Great job.

My score: 9.4

[No Brainer]

NAC Judge

This has very good production quality. I like how the screams were used with the beats during the little breaks. Bassline was pretty funky, gritty, and not overpowering...I think the part that is soloing around 2:30 could use some more processing; like a phaser/flanger/chorus type effect. But that is really the only sample I have any gripes about. One of the better electronica/techno songs in the contest, by far.
Yeah, I really like the way the bass sounds, and the use of silence in your breaks/transitions were top of the line. You do a good job of mixing up the parts, but I am left wanting more of them. What's there is good, I'm just a layer nut...think nothing of it. REALLY cool fade out.
While you used some screams, which gave the song an aura of zombie appeal, I felt like overall the sound effects felt forced and unnatural. You're getting minor points for taking a serious stab at the zombie genre, but they would have been major points if the song revolved around the zombie theme and not had hints of it every here and there. An overall solid song that definitely deserves to be in the top 8. Good stuff.

My Score: 8.8

wwwyzzerdd responds:

I was thinking of doing something else around 2:30 when I dropped the "farting" bass synth (as Chronamut put it, haha), but alas I was lazy and said "meh, this works."

I hate to keep playing the "I sat down and shat this out in about 2 hours" line, but on the flipside, maybe if I dedicate more time to things, I'll have a better end product.

Thanks for the review!

[OMG Zombies!]

Imitation

Is the most sincere for of flattery...or something.

Danny Elfman is an insane composer, so props on being able to accomplish something remotely similar in a fitting fashion. I think the melody is being played too low, it's sort of hard to catch. I think film scores go for that nowadays though. Wasn't very keen on the drum kit selection at the end.

Grats on the 100th submission!

Those oompa loompas should get back to work...

[Smooth Operator]

Has its merits

The saw synth should move down a register if you're going to play it with whole notes like that. Otherwise "chop" it up a bit, give it some pattern variation (compliment the hi-hats). It is also too loud the way it is not, overpowers the bass and pads.

Not much diversity in this beat. Fade out was pretty cool, try to incorporate more dynamic changes like that throughout the song, music needs dynamics.

[Run On Lava]

Diggin the flow

of the first thirty seconds. has some great potential composition wise. Some of the synth patches you used were less than desirable, namely the one that came in at 0:37, you should have kept it the same as before...

The sound from 0:24-0:30ish should be utilized more. Pretty cool, I'd work on the middle part a bit more to keep it sounding as good as the rest.

BurnedVirus responds:

Thank you very much, I'll work on these points.

[°°Industrial Detour°°]

bitchin

Could use a little more kick compared to the level of the snare. The lead that comes in around 0:30 is really cool...I don't know if you were messing with the filters or pitch bending, but it had a sweet effect. The buzzy lead that comes in after the voice is a little too low in the mix compared to the arpeggios. Fix those two mastering issues and I can't really see any flaws in this.

On second thought, I wasn't sure if the original string was supposed to be orchestral or synthy. either way, it could have stood out more.

Whirlguy responds:

I'm not too proud of the mixing on this one. I had a hard time getting the mix to sound right on several different outputs. The smallest tweaks would either channel certain instruments out to barely hearable, or make them way too loud. Probably a case of bad equalizing, but I was getting impatient with this project. Seeing as the file's been corrupted before, I just wanted to get it over with.

The lead's actually a piece of field recording from years ago. It was created by scratching a plastic ribbed surface, which I looped afterwards. Nothing special about it, really. I'm still pretty fond of it for it's industrial sound. Oh and yeah, pitch bending! Actually it's the piano roll portamento function which I love so damn much <3

Thanks for reviewing man, sorry for the late response.