ADR3-N's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[God's Winter]

We've got a nice pensive intro. Nothing is offensive to the ear. I think the only part this piece neglects is production elements. The wow factor. But not to worry, that's not that it sounds bad at all. :)

I really like the way you've written your chords, and the structure is nice and comprehensible. There's not an overabundance of elements that aren't adding to the track. Everything has its place. This is good. I would however pare down slightly the reverb tail on any instruments with sustains and percussion.

I'm not really liking the strings -- they have that key string slow attack. You can drag them ahead of the beat a bit to get that gross feeling of almost a full sixteenth beat waiting for them to come in to go away. Experiment with that.

Your low harp, I would edit the velocity of these notes. You may even make two instances of the harp and to get that traveling effect, pan some ranges of the harp to the left or right as you see fit. Panning of various instruments I would experiment with more, more than anything, as your chord writing is pretty good.

Your percussion writing is good. I would bring it up in the mix a couple dB. Also, experiment with different panning. It sounds very centered here. The ending of the perc is the only part that particularly left me wanting more. You could try throwing in a raked cymbal stinger on the end at 2:14 to tie things off. I would humanize the velocities of your cymbal hits here as well.

I feel like we're locked into the same BPM here in a piece that wants to move and flow. Maybe experimenting with the BPM per bar can give you an edge here.

Volume wise, I feel the strings especially by 2:00 are a little too loud in the mid range for the melody and the drums should be pushing through more.

But otherwise you've got a solid piece. Writing wise I'm very excited to see what else you have to bring to the table, and I applaud you for making MuseScore sound good in any case. Great work!

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

[Cursed]

I have no idea what's going on. But thanks at least for not uploading with some random song in the background or ear rape so it doesn't have to be removed and isn't too offensive to listen to.

[No Name Song]

Moved this to Video Game where it belongs. Amazing what you can do with just a couple oscillators. This piece is really short, and it's not my favorite genre, but I enjoyed the listen :)

[MADE WITH FL STUDIO 20]

Drum beat isn't bad. Song itself reminds me of the forest theme in pokemon.

We've got chord changes every two beats. Lot of diminished sounds going on here. That leaves it sounding disjointed almost on purpose, but repetition legitimizes.

It's pretty short.

Now, I actually like the section with the low bass. I'd focus more on that and repeat it more often so that it becomes our chorus. Everything else doesn't really seem to be leading anywhere, especially because of how short the song is in general.

It's important to remember in kinda just tossing out a piece in 5 hours, it's probably not going to be great, unless you've got a full template up with all your instruments and you have in mind EXACTLY what you intend to do with it. During the average song making process you'll probably spend just that amount of time listening, referencing... maybe hear your piece 200 times at minimum, until you go ear dead. For one thing, I'd go onto some song writing channels, see if you can study up on some very basic music theory (it really does help to fill in the gaps when you're just banging away on the piano roll, hating life because you can't get the sounds you want)

Recommend Signals Music Studios, Holistic Songwriting, Ben Levin... The last one is pretty advanced and almost makes me feel like an idiot when I completely zone out on some technical explanations, but he has a lot of great inspiring videos for when you get that awful writers block making music.

In any case, if you really enjoyed making this piece, and trust me, for starting out, this is pretty damn good, it's worth getting a full version of whatever program you feel comfortable with. Some I'd recommend are FL Studio and Mixcraft, though I've heard good reviews for Cubase and Reaper, and Reaper, if you can learn to use it, is borderline free, or, free trial until you can actually afford to pay for it.

Good luck in your music making endeavors! You're off to a great start!

Here from Review Request Club

Samuka31 responds:

Thanks!

[[REMAKE] Re: Reveris]

I dearly want to hear you revisit this piece. Singing. Has been one of the most moving melodies. Absolutely can't get it out of my head.

Also, your production has really improved.

Troisnyx responds:

Yes, at some point I think a remake of the vocal version of Re:Rev is due. O_O I imagine it'd be quite the spine-tingler when it's done.

Thank you so much for the kind words, and for favouriting this piece! <3

[Leave It Be - Mental State (2/4)]

Enjoying your chords.

Your perc feels flat and centered to me, pretty far down in the mix as well. Samples themselves I like. Snare sounds kind of flat. I'd get a transient shaper on that and possibly sidechain it to your more spacy synths. It also could probably use with some different velocities on that roll. That sounds flat.

Overall, I feel like this track would serve well as a backing, but it's lacking something to bring it into the foreground. It's very slow so without some definite melodic movement it tends to lay there. Maybe add some tinkling or swooshing sound effects here and there, some other SFX throughout.

Mix wise there's a ton of low end reverb ring. I would cut the wet send on that below 300 hz, maybe even cut your reverb tails. I'm a fan of using delay more than reverb honestly. And if I do use reverb, I use the delay after the reverb so as not to muddy the crisp delay. Short reverb tails do a lot more than you think. There is a gated reverb technique that was used in the 80's to get the big spacy snare or perc sound without having a muddy 5 second tail, and I think you could benefit from that with your snare in particular. It's not hard to do, don't worry; there are free plugins abounding for it as well.

I would experiment with more panning and different hihat samples to bring variety to this track. Without perc to drive it, it kind of sits there.

That said, your lead writing isn't bad. When we do have it, it's relaxed, spacey, and I sense that's what you're going for.

Bass wise I would apply some compression. As is, the leads and pads are on top of pretty much everything. Mix wise, your percussion should be loudest -- barring maybe crashes. Those sit in a space all their own. Next, bass should sit in a place where it's audible and driving. Lead should soar above but not lay over top of everything. Pads and other instruments can be spaced into separate channels or doubled with doubler plugins to exist in the space without crowding other instruments out.

Beyond the kind of dragging pace and some issues with a mix, this isn't a bad piece at all. I enjoyed it. :)

NoStereo responds:

Thanks a lot for another awesome review, I really appreciate it!

[My Personal Hell - Mental State (1/4)]

I feel like the waves in the beginning are really centered and separate from the beat itself.

Piano chords are nice, a little... also centered. Try some sort of spatializing doubler plugin, maybe.

You've got a nice little groove by 49. I like the atmosphere.

I would actually bring up your stabbing chords a bit. Although I think they're a little chunky and disjointed compared to the rest of the atmosphere.

I would probably also like a more audible bass than a sine for most portions here. I have pretty generous monitors and the 1:55 section, your glassy tinkles are very loud in comparision to both the bass and percussion. Percussion imo, at least kick and snare, have to do a lot to stand out in a mix.

By 2:28 we're really out of balance. The lead is standing out not because it's mixed in very well but because it's just very loud.

Also, not sure what's going on at the outro. It feels very abrupt.

Overall though I did enjoy listening to the piece. Here from review request.

Some recommendations you may enjoy looking at are the Reaper series of plugins which you can use to clean up a lot of the low end on your instruments and make them sit better in the mix. A lot of people don't realize how much the 250 hz and below bleed on their synths is covering up their basses and kicks. That may be part of the problem here in being able to hear that low sine.

NoStereo responds:

Thanks for the detailed review! It seems most of my issues are mix related and I can definitely hear a few things you pointed out. Looks like I am gonna need some monitor headphones though. I have tools but I am constantly trying to improve what I can do with them!

Ending is definitely abrupt, but by design. I'd very much love it if you listened to the rest of the EP if you'd like. No pressure of course, but I really value this type of review.

https://nostereo.newgrounds.com/audio

[OMO Presents - Octorok Talk - Formative Video Games Podcast 1]

Came here to drop a 5. The only thing I can say is at some points when you talk a bit more loudly the mic distorts.

There are plugins like ERA-R that can help you eliminate that reverb noise, and applying a compressor could help you get a cleaner sound without really having to put in a lot of effort. :)

oldmanorange responds:

Glad you dug the fun, and dialing in the audio levels will come in the next episodes. Thanks for the little tips.

[Phoenix Rising]

Your crash cymbals in the left channel are distorting noticably. I would pan them less harshly.

Hats are sizzling kind of endlessly. Like the reverb just hasn't been cut. Try a compressor and turn up the theshold and take the release down a bit.

I would bring the drums up more in the mix, as well as the vocals, and take the synths down a little. The snare especially needs to come up.

Vocals end up being a whisper compared to the rest of the mix.

Writing is wonderful. Beautiful solos. Very rhythmically concise and musically interesting. There's a ton of red line peaking going on and that really distracted me from an otherwise gorgeous piece.

DanJohansen responds:

I disagree with most of that, obviously. But glad you enjoyed the track man! This is an instrumental tune, the vocals are supposed to be low in volume, if the vox were too loud it would create an anticipation and take too much attention which wouldn't be a good choice considering how little of it it is.