ADR3-N's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Spruce needles]

Nice opening chords. I like that arp.

I do agree that the mix is pretty far out of balance. Pull that bass down some dB and center it. It's almost totally in the right channel for me. Actually most of the mix is in the right channel it sounds like. You may have accidentally nudged the balance on your mixing rig at some point or have faulty headphones. Do a test on that and see what's going on. I had another entrant tell me this was what was going on in their own gear when a similar thing happened.

Other than that, enjoyed the listen.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

[Shanlix - Night Adventure [Drumstep]]

Pretty basic, relaxed bassline going on here. I'd encourage you to step out of the box when it comes to your wobbles. Keep the same notes, even, but try something beyond eighth notes!

I don't really have a lot of critique beyond that. The piece has nothing really wrong with it, it just tends not to take risks. Structure is fine, lead writing isn't bad, just as is the case with dubstep and drumstep, there's not a ton of interesting percussion or moving leads to pull your attention away from hey, there's no shock factor to this bass -- although if you listen, the genre is stagnating due to just how numb we've become to the sounds of transformers procreating.

Beyond that, I'd study a little bit on good mixing practice, just to bring your drums to the front -- they were sagging just a tad here, and you've got a nice, listenable track going for you. And no matter what happens, never stop making music. The more you make, the better you'll become. It sounds like you're well on your way already :)

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

[Runa - Black Hole]

Intro reminds me a lot of Mass Effect. What was the name of the mallet sounding synths you used for arps in your intro?

My only real critiques are going to sit on the mix. On your orchestral and synth orchestra, as well as other instruments, there is a ton of unneeded reverb. I would not only cut the send down some, but also low cut up to 250 hz or so. Having all those frequencies with compression going on will push the mix out of balance and force you to mix top heavy. I'm hearing that here. The mix is very sibilant in the 15-20khz range. Even the high fizzle reverb is out of balance.

I find myself actually wanting a lot more low mid, talking range frequency out of your bass throughout. That's the range where it's crowded out. Percussion also has a hard time sticking through the mix. You can try to push it through that wall with sidechain, or you can just drop levels of other instruments until they push through well. By 4:47, they are drowned, and there is some not quite clipping -- sounds like a limiter is on, and we're getting distortion trying to keep levels down. Compress those drums. For a spacy feel you can probably apply gated reverb to the snare. Sidechain if you need to, but all those other levels are just too loud for them to compensate for.

Other than that, beautiful piece. I really enjoyed your rhythms. Thinking outside the box in a time signature always makes my day. Great work!

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

Runanova responds:

Thank you very much.
I went through a lot of difficulties with the mastering because of the number of elements and i now understand the problems.
About the synth, it accidentally made a "water" pluck and decided to split the high and low frequencies into different parts.

Thanks again for the feedback!

[The Beginning]

First of all let me say I really like the idea and structure of this track as a whole, as well as bothering to go through hard work to bring resampling and gross beat applications to the table. What's killing it is inattention to the mix. I sense we have a limiter on because there's no hard clipping, but levels are so high, there is distortion throughout the whole track, and volume fluctuation is particularly noticeable when the entire track becomes sub heavy as the bass goes up in the register, then tinny and distorted when it drops down in the 50 hz range and below.

Everything is just too loud. Turn it down until you're mixing at -6 dB before we hit the master. With it this loud, every effect you've got will sound like absolute bunk, and the more sausage fatten you do to get back that punch, the more of the same will happen. Brick wall is no substitute for good mixing. Trust me. My early tracks are a testament to that.

Take to some mixing and mastering tutorials on YT for a while, keep making music, see if you can reopen and apply these tricks to older tracks of yours even. But don't take it to heart. Making good music, particularly EDM, is hard. You are working entirely in a virtual environment, changing one parameter at a time, hearing the same thing over and over, going ear deaf to when things are missing or just not knowing how to put the spice back after making a megaton of changes, or even what would get you in the doorway of cinching those last couple knobs sometimes. I've been there. Just keep making music. It's only up from here. :)

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

[omnicide]

Rhythmically, I like where this piece is going -- chord progression on the intro could use some work. Maybe study briefly chord progressions or song structure. There are plenty of great youtube channels online for that but Signals Music Studios is probably the best for this. You'll probably want phrygian mode or something like that.

Now, beyond that, my critique is probably going to sit on mix. We've got a very nice, but also very loud bassline that's covering up our percussion and even our lead. I would bring it down .5 or so dB although.... I see it might be a compression issue. When we get to the section at 2:42, the harmony is pushing lead and bass out of balance. In that case I would also take your individual instruments that aren't bass or drums, scoop out a low cut up to 250 hz or so to make room in those spaces, and do the same with reverb wet signals. You can also turn down reverb somewhat to remove a little of that reverb wash. Then, reajust levels as sounds good to you.

A technique you can try on your snare to get that extra grit is an oldie but goodie, gated reverb. All you need is high ass reverb and a compressor. Check it out and try it -- it'll go nice with this synthwave, dnb fusion you have working for you.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

rat9352 responds:

awesome review, will def. experiment w what you suggested. cheers! :)

[Piel - Redondel Eléctrico [Argentinian Rock]]

Is that a freaking kazoo, or a guitar? We'll never know. I gotta say, I dunno what the hell is going on with that thing. It do what it do.

It's super hard to pick out your vocals as someone marginally familiar with Spanish, until the chorus. Sounds like you're on a dynamic mic, the vocals aren't compressed much if at all, and the high end has been sucked out from 8khz to 14khz to de-ess it. You can try instead a multiband compressor or de-esser to accomplish the same effect. The transition noises going up on your outro show really clearly how much high end is missing on your mix. I find it from your vocals to guitar.

Speaking of, your guitars, all of them, are quite out of tune, sound super sharp.

But other than that, great idea, good playing, singing is passable, and the piece as a whole still holds together. I enjoyed the listen.

thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

[AWAY - Sleepwalker (QWAZDYN Remix)]

There's a lot of artefacts sounds on that acapella -- might be the vocoded line in the back, that sounds granulated. When we get to 1:00, I understanding we're moving into a build, but the sound is pretty tinny, to the point of sounding obnoxious. When we get to the drop, it's super distorted and really sub heavy.

What sound driver are you using? I noticed the same kind of sound when I was mixing on Realtek High Definition audio. It heavily compresses output so you can't really tell what you're doing.

I have to say I'm not a fan of the super distorted double of the melody or the gradually increasing speed for transitions. 3:38 just sort of feels like pitching around the track. I don't know if this is a trend in modern edm.

The glitching on the outro isn't bad though.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

QWAZDYN responds:

thank you for the feedback! i really appreciate it :) I've been using DirectX drivers