Kwing's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Would Rather]

I like the layering a lot, but I'm kind of lukewarm on the sample choice. The drums are a little weak, and sometimes it just feels like there's too much going on, especially with the samples being kind of short and repetitive.

Curious to see how this sounds with vocals over it, the tone is different and the 3/4 time signature would be challenging to spit to.

glitchs2d responds:

Thanks for the feedback. The beat may still change a bit by the time the full album is done. I have been listening to a lot of Ka and Roc Marciano recently, which is why the drums are on the weaker side. Honestly, I may remove them altogether in the end.

The flow of this song is atypical, to say the least. Most of the project is pretty traditional, but I really wanted to break out of the typical hip-hop structure for a few tracks to push my creativity.

[All Said and Done]

Interesting, I think the experimental genre fits here. Most of this has some definite lofi vibes going on (percussion is fantastic,) but the layering in the second half sounds a bit different (second phrase is a little corny but it probably wouldn't be hard to rewrite it into something more compelling.) I do like the development, but I think cutting out the original looping melody from the first second and having a dedicated B section would have worked a bit better (that one loop does get a bit repetitive.)

ShinsukeIto responds:

Thanks for taking the time to review! There's definitely more I could've done composition wise but I decided to just upload whatever I had after one week. That said, as I re-listen to this, I would pretty much agree with all of the suggestions you've raised.

[Reefer Fight]

Some great layering here. With the scratching and boom bap you'd never know this was made in 2021.

Libby-Shimmz responds:

LibbyShimmz: (2004)"Yeah dood! I found this sick video game in my cousin's attic called The Witcher 3! Mixed it with an old 70's breakbeat and some hook samples from Peanuts and Corn's John Smith and Gruf! Check it out on my MySpace! myspace.com/libbyshimmz

[Horror Chase]

The classical instruments in this are well-done but take away from the pure horror aspect and make this more suspense than anything. I can imagine being chased by a boulder, a guy in a car, or maybe zombies in the daytime, but probably not something that would be seen as terrifying on its own.

The driving synth in the background makes for a good substitute for percussion, but gets really repetitive. Even in parts that utilize it less you still hear it toned down.

Zeekyboogydoog responds:

Thanks for the listen, and the critique!

[the next tiesto]

I've come to associate you with fast, upbeat tunes, but the intro to this track is surprisingly subtle, and I'm really impressed you were able to do that with default samples, too. Sounds almost like something out of a Worms game.

bryce responds:

not sure what gave you that idea, just listen to my 'lape polaris' (418155) or 'circular shift left' (815778), both got kinda subtly intros. :)

[He Is Risen (Libby Shimmz Remix)]

What to say about this? The beat choice is really great - quite different from the first verse I heard (presumably with the original beat) and yet Ogle's fast-paced delivery seems to work with the beat despite them being quite different.

The acapella itself is strong. The flow is varied and creative, the rhyme schemes are intricate, and Hamsa actually does triplets RIGHT - incorporating them sporadically without allowing them to turn the whole track into stock trap rapper flow. At a few points the fast flow outpaces the beat and becomes slightly off-tempo, but it's not enough to seriously impact the song.

The scratching starting at 2:30 is such a breath of fresh air. That said, with the repetition and catchiness of the line, it might have made sense to mix it in somewhere in the middle of the song too (1/3 to 1/2 of the way through the track) to make the whole track feel a little more cohesive.

Aside from a few nitpicks (occasionally off-beat, AutoTune at 1:20 is somewhat jarring) this is really fantastic.

Libby-Shimmz responds:

The acapella was hard to beatmatch. That's something I'm not really adept at yet.

That AutoTune was from Hamsa. I was going to ask him why it was there, but it's probably a stylistic choice on his part, so I relented.

[-mao- 'I Dunno' prod by BoJangles]

Your flow has always sounded super weird to me, but you sound surprisingly comfortable here. Whether intentional or not, there are a lot of oldschool Korn vibes going on here.

Some nitpicks - you mumble a little on the bridge, and when you use multisyllable rhymes you sometimes rhyme them with a different rhythm, which is a little jarring and keeps the line from making intuitive sense to the listener.

MaoDaMighty responds:

Much appreciated feedback Kev. I have been consciously trying to work on relaxing my flow so I'm glad you noticed.

[Gone I]

I'm really impressed by how smooth you sound here. You sound so much more comfortable than you have on your older tracks. I would suggest switching up the inflection on repeated phrases - repetitions of "and then she was gone" sound kind of robotic and monotone. There are a few things you could do to fix that. The first thing that comes to mind is saying it monotone three times, then changing pitch on the fourth repetition.

supafreshpjs responds:

Thanks I’ll definitely try that and see what else I can do for the track. I swear it’s the new set up that makes it all sound better and smoother, and I guess I’m learning more about mixing still slowly as I go. :) thank you for the review big dog.

[Monica]

It's uncanny how much this sounds like Viper the Rapper. The difference being that this is actually decent as far as that style is concerned (probably because unlike him, you aren't stretching yourself thin by putting out an entire album EVERY DAY.) Maybe you should start making vaporwave from now on, because you really do have the voice for it.

I think the biggest problem with the song is its length. Since the song is really just there to carry one joke, having the joke last almost four minutes gets old (two minutes would have been more appropriate, and comedic rappers like Pink Guy realize this all too well.) Moreover, since your greatest strength (multis) gets shoved under the rug for the sake of carrying one rhyme scheme all the way through, the joke only gets old that much faster because there isn't any substance or even a reprieve from the central theme.

Teqneek responds:

I was originally going to keep this to 2.5 minutes in length, but it stopped the "story" dead in its tracks.

Really though, how many popular 4 minute songs are there where people just repeat the same "I got money", "I got bitches" lines over and over? Plenty. At least this one has a premise, humor, and cleverness added added.

The final 2 verses are the bread and butter of this song, and in order to get to those, it needed the set up.

Anyway, this shit is at least 5x better than you two reviewers have given it credit for.

[Sea of Love Tears 「恋水の海」]

I really love the soundscape. The piano and intro are very pretty, though the crescendo at 1:00 is somewhat dampened by the repetition and an overall lack of impact. My overall impression is consistent with you saying you wanted to mess around with it but ran out of time - 1:00 and 1:55 are the only high-energy parts of the song, and based on the structure it feels like the quiet bits are meant to bring these sections into focus, but the end result feels like a beautiful pedestal with a nothing burger on top of it, which is really a shame because I feel like some relatively minor changes could make this outstanding.

Tennon responds:

Yeah you are pretty right about the lack of time. It usually takes me at least another week after I finish a song to improve it to the maximum.