ADR3-N's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[HYPERta1L (NGUAC 2025)]

It's because @G2961 is a banger machine. High output, and high quality. It being associated with him is gonna naturally add a lot of traction!

But production is also nice and high quality. You've done a great job with that stuttering trap groove. Makes me want to do it myself. What gate did you use?

Ps, great sound for such a short stack of tracks. Goes to show minimal is not always a bad thing :)

PSS, grats on the frontpage ;)

ZedzyMusic responds:

@G2961 IS a banger machine. he is just SO AMAZING, that's why this is getting so popular. also, my method of making the gate effect wasn't just a 16th note gate effect, it has a certain rhythm when you hear close enough. i actually just set the attack and release to 0, and placed in all the notes myself, which creates annoying phase clicks, but I EQed out the low end, because it's a synth chord, not a bass, and that seemed to help.

also, you DARE DOUBT MINIMALISM??? >:((
im joking lol, thanks for the review! :D

[Zeddius - The Card]

Not typically my style of music, but you've made musescore sing. I'm not sure what magic you used to get these soundfonts in there, but killer sound.

There is a bit of clipping and crackling however that could be removed in a program like RX9.

Besides that, great work!

Zeddius responds:

Thanks for the feedback!

The sounds I used aren't anything particularly special, they're just from MuseScore's official free plugins in the Muse Sounds range, designed exsoressly for MuseScore Studio (except for the piano, which was IK Multimedia's Pianoverse). MuseScore Studio supports third-party VSTs surprisingly well; stuff like Serum just shows up as an option from the mixer menus.
With plugins more focused around mixing and post-processing, I haven't been able to find a whole lot of options to master the sounds, although I will sometimes bounce it into FL Studio to do so, usually if it's a part of a larger project within that.

Thanks again, appreciate the support!

[Meteor]

Absolutely killing the retro vibes! Only way it could get better is to clean up the low mids (mostly reverb wet signal) and compress the master a bit. We have a lot of peaks that I can see, meaning it can be pushed harder.

Also, what laptop. 17 years and still kicking? That's beautiful to see.

Voytek-Music responds:

Thanks for your review! When I was making this one, I was sick and I made it in 3 hours, so the mix may be a bit bad.

Idk what laptop model, but Ik it's a Dell (it originally used windows 7 (when it was NEW)).

[Absolution]

That first bass is just beautiful. Though I feel it's a bit flat in the stereo field. Maybe something like WideFire would open it up and brighten it a bit. That's what I feel it lacks, bright low mids.

Besides that, nice groovy track, perfect for zoning out, sitting at the bar at the club, or just watching the fancy lasers. :P

Ultimatepalmtree3 responds:

Thanks for the feedback, I’ll look into that! :D

[Treachery]

I would recommend playing your track against references to address some issues of mix balance here -- after applying mastering compression and bringing this up to a suitable volume.

The themes here are VERY NICELY written, and sound design is not bad! The issue here is primarily in leveling. The rhythm guitars and wubs are far down in the mix, the master is quiet (not even approaching 0 dB), and the drums -- if we were to fix the master volume -- would then be far too loud, excepting the kick. It can afford to be pretty loud.

It's just that you're butting up against both the problems of mixing for metal AND mixing for dubstep and other EDM genres. It's very hard to pull off both, speaking as someone who has tried and many times failed, despite being competent-ish at both.

Your drum grooves sound lovely though.

Another thing that consistently bugged me is most everything feels centered. Partly owing to lack of double or maybe even quadtrack as would be needed for this piece and the thinness of those high-tuned guitars. Actually, if you were going to keep these guitars, I would recommend quad tracking even just the root note of your chords one octave down. I just can't pick out a double-track if there is in fact one due to how quiet the whole mix is.

But by all means, try studying up on YouTube about mixing and mastering electronic metal, synth metal, symphonic metal, and so on, and then get into mastering metal. Apply the principles you learn to what you've already released but still have projects for. Grab a reference track to compare against and work to get as close to that mix balance and power as possible. Then compare the end result to the piece you released. I promise, you will learn so much. You'll blow this track out of the water.

Would love to see you continue in this vein, and soon. I very much like where this is going!

TotallyDementedOff responds:

Mixing is still something I have mostly no clue about, yeah, that's a thing that needs A LOT of work on. Especially for different genres since I don't really listen and know much about metal(or rock or whatever), this is me taking a genre I don't really care about and making it into something for my taste, if that makes sense.
As weird as it sounds, my music is just making something that sounds good to me, without much knownledge about music theory, instruments, mixing etc etc.
Also big thanks for the feedback.

[No Escape]

Guitar playing is good, and so is arrangement. Guitars could stand to come down in the mix. I can tell that you are mostly focused on them and their playing, as they are the loudest in the mix, where the most attention appears to have been paid to ensuring they sound perfect. Drums, particularly kick and snare, could come up by a couple dB -- and cymbals down slightly. The guitar is completely overwhelming them.

Lyrics are fine, but vocal delivery is a little pitchy and unsteady. I think you could stand to sing out a lot more.

It feels as if the lyrics are delivered half between talking and full bodied singing, which the intensity of the instrumental contrasts heavily. It almost feels as if these two halves of the songs are strangers to one another.

Going back to delivery, good mixing and even pitch correction will not save a vocal take that is even somewhat less than ideal. I hate to say that about a vocal, because it's so personal -- hell I hate the sound of my own voice, to say less of criticisms on my singing -- but the vocal department leaves a lot of room for improvement. The rest of the song is good, even great, but the shaky vocal takes away from that for me.

I guess what I'm saying is, don't be afraid to sing badly. Sing loudly, proudly, knowing you can always save the best of your takes. Practice before each and every section of song you're about to sing, and don't feel like you have to sing the whole song or even the whole verse/chorus straight through. Many times, my best take is after singing the same line a whole 20 times and punching in!

More than anything though, I'm glad to see you pushing along with your work. This is much better than the last I heard from you, and I hope you only continue to grow!

TentotheC responds:

Thank you!

[bubbles]

Gorgeous ideas. Though the snap is quite loud and dry relative to the rest of the piece. The mix on the drums is actually my biggest complaint. Kick could do with more muffling, hi-hats are dry as is the snap. And I really would have liked to hear this piece open up a bit. Even if it continued droning the same melody, adding a section with bass and synthy string pads would be the cherry on top. I left this piece feeling it ended where it began, and I wanted more.

SUMMERmusic responds:

Thanks for the feedback!

[The Journey Down the River]

My commentary aligns exactly with Overscore, with the exception that I would not jam the transient of the snare up. I would just raise the volume, and failing that, find another sample to layer beneath it for the body of the snare.

SnipeshotGames responds:

Thanks for the feedback!

[troubled individual]

With double tracked rhythm guitars, a cleaner mix, and particularly drums that aren't quite so blown out and muddy, this would 1000% slap. Slap me so hard, my head would spin 360 degrees, and start up like a jet engine.

Schizo3099 responds:

Hey, thanks for the feedback, I really appreciate it :p
I'm not really aiming for a clean or polished sound, though. And even if I wanted to, I can't get much done with what I have.
Besides, if you ain't redlining, you ain't headlining :)

[Phantom Weenis]

With a better vocal recording/mix, this would be awesome. I recommend research in that area. Working with less than ideal mics is perfectly possible, with the right approach to distance, recording environment, and fx. Lyrics are very metal. Theme makes me laugh, and I'm impressed by your creativity in that area. Guitar recording is also totally fine, and for the most part so are the drums -- though they and the rest of the track sound a bit muffled.

JPE1776 responds:

Thanks!