ADR3-N's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Say my name]

I agree with Kwing here. I was really enjoying your instrumentation until the chip portion came around. The chip synth at 0:52 that vanishes as abruptly as it appeared was a bit loud. It's not so bad at the loud section at 1:39 -- until 1:45, and that lead is also super loud -- but I find myself missing something...

Traditional percussion probably.

That said, your chord progression does not get old over the course of 3 minutes or so, which is an accomplishment. Ritard was a nice touch, and your piano stinger at the very end was tasteful. Wish ritard were slower. Didn't feel like we'd ground to a complete halt yet.

Mixing on this piece could use a touchup, especially on that piano. It feels like the piano samples were recorded with three socks and a towel over the mic, if you catch my drift. Let it sing out, all breathy and sibilant like. Your chippy synths are super gritty by contrast, which makes their sudden entry a little more jarring than it ordinarily would be.

[Adventure]

The attacks on that piano are kind of jarring for me.

Also, synth panned hard left sounds good but I'm not sure why you would pan it so hard.

When we get to our drop, I can tell things were mixed too loudly. You've got some soft clipping going on.

That said, track does sound good regardless. I would recommend you revisit the mix after the competition, strip down, re-do all your volume leveling. That's literally the only thing killing this track, other than some machine gun key attacks.

Protip, make sure your track peaks no higher than -6 dB, then apply mastering FX -- not sure if there even are any on this track, but mastering services almost universally recommend this because it allows you the freedom to shape the end result as you please without clipping. If your mix sounds good here, it will sound good at any volume, and most importantly BETTER when properly mastered.

Definitely recommend looking at mixing and mastering tutorials. You have a good sense for melody and harmony. The mix is your weak spot here. Fix that and this would be a solid 4/5 to 4.5/5 for me, depending on how good the mix is.

[To Battle]

Orchestral elements here /do/ sound nice. It's the guitar that's lacking. Doesn't sound like they're double-tracked. Kind of hiding in the mix. I'd probably recommend RealEight in place of whatever you've got here. I can tell 2:05 is not a synth. If you didn't commission someone else to record that or play it yourself, I'm not sure why you would chose to synth your rhythm guitars there. Not a serious detractor but does take off a good half star just for guitar mixing/synth. You could probably have gotten away with slapping an amp on a dry cello with a pick sample midi vst the keep the attack clear.

That said, wonderful writing. I found the only thing this piece really lacked aside from what I've already mentioned is some compression to give it the power I know you want to convey.

[New Loop Thing]

This reminds me of the typical 4 chords progression -- the one we find in Pachelbel Canon, only without the 4th chord.

Overall, not a bad piece, but there's very little variety. I'm not really hearing any melody, just the chords sort of added and subtracted to.

2:01 we get a bass arp and a slight switch up, and then the bass turns into a riser.

For a song with so few statements, I don't really think it needed to be 4 minutes long. I'm not sure what to comment otherwise besides ... hmm. Now that I pay closer attention, this file sounds over-compressed. That could be side-chaining or something. Recommend maybe checking some mixing and mastering tutorials for your DAW.

[Sea Drift]

Lot of lo-mid noise on your reverbs. Try turning down the FX wet and hi-passing it. These frequencies tend to gradually build up and muddy your mix. I hear it especially on the big boomy FX. You'd be surprised how little reverb you really need to accomplish the sounds you're going for.

Boom FX is too loud in the mix. I think I hear clipping at points.

Other than that, chill piece. I'm vibing with it. Synth bass could probably use some humanization.

2:56 is clipping pretty bad. I don't think a limiter would be a big enough bandaid for it. Protip, make sure your track peaks no higher than about -6 dB. If your mix sounds good here, it's ready for FX and compression in the master channel. It's hard to squeeze a track under -6 dB when you're used to mixing everything all the way up, but it's worth it.

KnockVoltage responds:

Cool, thanks for the tips! The clipping near the end gets me every time I hear it. I'll have to work more on master channel FX and compression so I can mix lower.

[The Visions in 140]

Just a bit hard to hear that sine bass once things get going. Then by 0:39 between the throbbing bass and that one TSSS perc, I'm feeling just a little bit of a headache coming on. It kind of sounds like a limiter was tossed on top of the track without concern that some elements may have been mixed too loudly.

You have some cool elements going on, but I'm not really able to tell what direction we're headed in melodically. It's not quite noise music but certainly some atonal elements going on here until about 3:09. As such, I'm not sure how to comment other than perhaps recommending some mixing and mastering tutorial study to make things a little more palatable/clean up muddy mix.

Protip, before you apply FX to the master channel, make sure your track peaks no higher than about -6 dB. If your mix sounds good here, it's ready to be mastered. It's hard to squeeze a track under -6 dB when you're used to mixing everything all the way up, but it's worth it. Even if you just render your track before popping it over to one of those auto-mastering services, it really does make the magic happen.

[Preheat]

Interesting intro. I think that string synth probably could have benefited from more volume.

0:30 is a fairly new presentation style. I feel like we were really lacking the usual dubstep snare pattern there, and that would have beefed up the composition a bit. Also, section after was a very abrupt return to our intro.

The following build leads to a chorus that isn't bad but sounds like it belongs more in hiphop. Also, this track feels like it's totally lacking a bassline other than the drops. Drops additionally could probably benefit from coming down an octave. That's reeeeally high for a dubstep bass. I could play it on a trombone, without an F trigger.

I think everything roughly fits together. It's just there's no bass to give this track punch. Interesting writing, though!

[Ecliption]

Sounds like clip-clopping digital horses. Do like the organic feel and what you've done with just your voice, but I really think you're doing yourself a disservice not using a traditional DAW like say, Reaper.

[dontwannagohome]

I agree with Kwing. Love a good beatbox, but the mix quality and hardware is a little... not great. Cool idea that I would like to see revisited with better equipment/mix.

[Charmer's Concoction (Bass Remix)]

Oh, so very 90's... Kinda reminds me of Megaman X : Command Mission. I'm feeling it.

About 2 minutes in, my complaint is largely that the track sounds like it was mixed too loud. Leads are hanging out over the bass a little unsupported. Bass is hiding in the mix, and so is the Amen Break. I can finally hear it at 3:00.

Protip, before you finalize your mix, make sure your track peaks no higher than about -6 dB. If your mix sounds good here, it's ready to be mastered. It's hard to squeeze a track under -6 dB when you're used to mixing everything all the way up, but it's worth it.

I'm noticing consistently the overly loud mixing on your synths by 4:00, which gets louder and louder by 4:30. I can hear an almost saturation style distortion by 5:00. Despite how much I like the DJ set vibe, this kind of consistent problem is really hurting your mix.

Definitely look up some mixing and mastering tutorials. By 6:00 we're distorting pretty consistently. At 6:32 at least I'm able to hear your perc more clearly, but at 6:39 the leads resume being too loud relative to them. Your perc should be the loudest element of your mix so as to still sound present throughout. Our brains don't pay much attention to them, so they sound quieter to us than they really are.

7:20, that drum loop is nice. I appreciate the return to the main theme at 8:00 or so. 8:56, things are significantly distorting again, and it continues getting worse as more elements are added.

9:30 sounds cleaner, despite still distorting, and there is our long-awaited outro.

All due respect, this didn't feel as long as it really was, so props for that. Normally I would be bored out of my mind by now. I'd love to see this song revisited with some proper attention to volume levels and mastered.