ADR3-N's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[The Fae's Spell]

Wow, it's so jarring hearing so many realistic noises written in a way that sort of defies guitar playing.

Ample M is a true gem though

Toward the middle we are more approaching what a guitar can do.

I recommend relying less on chorus and delay to hide imperfections you hear or lackluster writing, and more on simplifying your grooves. Guitar is more a rhythm instrument than an ensemble. If you don't like something, try making cuts! That said, keep doing what you do. Originality makes the world go round :)

["Patience, Child"]

The mix on the section at 3:10 is just a bit too blown out -- could use double tracked rhythm guitars, 2 separate instances panned left and right, less compression, less clipping, and clearing out low frequencies from reverb wets from what I can hear. The levels however are pretty okay. Recommend if you want this level of brick wall to clear out every offending frequency, harsh noise, hiss, guitar tone, etc.

Beyond that, fantastic mood. Consider farming successful!

[Too far gone]

With a little more compression on the master, some more clip on your drums, a revisit of overall eq of the tracks to de-emphasize some of the freqs around 200 hz and bring up your sub, this would 100% bang for me. You've got great groove, a solid theme, good atmosphere and transitions, and interesting sound design. Great work!

Another note, my monitors consistently overestimate bass frequencies. Given that, I would suggest turning down your kick very slightly, and bringing your bass up considerably. Your sidechain is hard enough that it's safe to do so. That may fix 80% of what I was complaining about.

Aistis responds:

Listening again on my monitor headphones, the most annoying part for me is the low frequencies of the kick drum. I've also compressed the bass a bit and made it ever so slightly louder. Although the rest of the mix also needs to be revisited, I don't think I have the skills to properly EQ everything. I'll upload the edited mix once the judging period of the underdog contest ends.

Thanks for reviewing :)

[3manon - Irish Adventures]

Overall the composition, effort, and ensemble I hear in this piece aren't bad at all. I'm just having trouble with the clarity. The amount of reverb is occasionally masking the finer aspects of your mix, particularly on larger sections where the kick comes in. I recommend taking this value down a bit, but more than that I recommend surgically cleaning out the low freq noise via low cut on your reverb. Hopefully it has that function.

Great to see this kind of experimentation going on in the AP. I actually love bagpipes!

3manonMusic responds:

Ah, Thank you so much for the feedback! Bagpipes are hella underrated indeed, just like the throat singing from last year XD
And yea, when I submitted this piece to my mixing class I got the same feedback about the reverb. Overall I think the composition kind of balanced it out tho?? That's why I submitted this one from this year, because I think it is my best composition. That being said, thank you for the feedback, and if there's something else you want to talk about don't be afraid to hit me up in pms :)

[Souichirou Tinder Match]

Some kinder attention to mix, side-chain, and panning would have made this an easy 9.5 for me. Your transitions are good, breaks are crazy interesting, and melodic themes are easy on the ears.

For some reason the bass doesn't feel very driving despite being present in the mix. It feels like it's been stereo spread or chorused in some way perhaps even clipped beyond its limits to keep a good sub balance. Kick is also not sticking out above it but rather sitting under it. Snare and kick in particular need more volume.

Leads and pads also don't sound super clean to my ears. They are sticking out above the snare which typically is a no-go for DnB.

That said, great atmosphere and composition. I really enjoyed it!

2keg responds:

Totally agree, the mix was really hard to "mix", I just threw in the towel towards the end

Anywho thanks for review Mr.ADR3-N

[Pandora's Box]

I actually think this would sound better and much cleaner if the compression weren't as hard on the master. It's hiding your sub and growls! The composition itself is great. I just can't sense where we're dropping or dynamic movement of the piece because everything is uniformly loud

[||TRANZQUILIZER]

This makes me want to make music. Rhythmically, a bop. Got some strange harmonies I don't quite understand in your stabs on occasion, and as you mentioned, it is quite compressed and lacking in range. BUT, I think revisiting again with a mind to clear out wet FX where they aren't necessarily needed, think about your reverb and delay sends -- that low freq noise below 200 hz or so can safely be cut away leaving only the heavenly high freq "air"

Nice work :)

NeuralDelverM responds:

Thank you, always room for improvement so I appreciate the detailed constructive criticism.

[Lime Light (Original Song Doodle)]

Great theme. I recommend doing something about how quiet it is though. You can either do it the quick and dirty way with Audacity's amplify, or you can learn how to master your track in FL :)

[Frenetic]

If you're having this problem with your DAW of quiet mix output, check your master channel and set it to zero. See what dB it's throwing out with all your FX and master comp on. If it's still low like this, but it sounds loud, check your audio driver and make sure it has no enhancements on My previous win 10 machine had realtek drivers which automatically and irreversibly compressed your audio for gaming reasons. I had to install a new audio driver, the HD Audio default sound driver for windows devs or whatever.

Alternatively, you can master your song in Audacity, which is free but kinda hard tbh.

I would honestly just move from bandlab to a more pro friendly program. Myself, I use Mixcraft.

But to an actual review, you already know the song is quiet, unmastered. I'll say I love your bass. Very tasty. The mix is fairly balanced, enough not to bother with going into too much.

Your breaks can get a little repetitive but they are chopped in an interesting way. The samples themselves suffer a bit with time distortion and are artefacting a bit from that plus pitching. That's ok. It's kinda the stereotypical sound of the genre. What I will say for them is that they could use transient shaping and potentially some crispy clipping.

Beyond that, nice little piece!

[SENTIENTS]

This is sort of a hybrid between the modern day midtempo music, house, and synthwave, and I love that.

1:33 I would check your bass levels and see if you can get that bass more into mono. I'm hearing something overpronounced around the 150-200 hz range. It may be percussion.

I think you probably already know what's up with the rest of the mix. Minor gripes of some reverb wet signals muddying the mix, cymbals occasionally washing out with white noise at points, sounding naked and overpresent at others, and not having a lot going on with panning or slap-backs in alternate channels to keep things interesting.

Your vox chops could also come more to the front of the mix and pan around. The mix to me is either balanced slightly right, or I'm losing more hearing. Check that out and lmk.

Fivening for friendship goals

82/100

KI1 responds:

Thanks! I'd love to give actual midtempo a proper go one day.

Scratched my head for a while on why that part sounds wack. After looking back, it might have something to do with the fact I duped the 'lead' synth (which has a ton of unison) and put it an octave down, which may have muddied everything(?).

Really helpful feedback there, thank you. I think it's well past time I improve from the 'put-on-some-reverb/convolver-and-go' approach I've had for too long. Panning has been something I've been tentatively getting into, going a bit crazier certainly couldn't hurt.

I'm not too proud of the chops if I'm honest - cringing if I turn them up, but not hating them enough to get rid of them entirely... I think you may be right (lol), I'm starting to learn that panning isn't just a simple set-and-forget affair. Looking at where I've left the panning knobs on the mixer, it looks about as right-leaning as a Reddit centrist.

Yay, friends! :D A very generous score, thank you.