ADR3-N's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Our Last Day]

Guitar is sweet on that right channel. I'd like a little less low mid and perhaps drive on the left, just keep it a little cleaner. I feel the guitars are a couple dB too loud for the drums and vocal to sustain.

Vocal tone itself is good. I just can't hear it at all in the mix.

I'd apply some saturation to your snare and kick. There is a plugin called KSHMR Essentials Kick available free that has really impressed me with its ability to compress, saturate, and handle transients and width all in one go. I highly recommend trying it on any percussion instrument.

I'm not able to really understand the solo in the middle as anything other than perhaps even being in the wrong key -- but since it's so nicely time locked and sounds nice on its face I'll give it the benefit of the doubt and say it's intentional. It's confident and clean. That's what matters.

So relistening, talking about levels, I'd bring your guitars down by as much as 2 to 3 dB, compress your drums, maybe space out your cymbals further left and right, cut down any reverbs you have going on slightly as its a bit muddy. If by then the bass is sticking out as too loud to your ears, you can move that down in increments of .2 dB or something, pull up the vocals likewise... there's a plugin called spreader that may help you in this regard to get a wide, spacious sound -- I really like your diction btw, at this level, without clear enunciation, I wouldn't hear ANY of your vocals. Speaking from personal experience, this is a problem a lot of metal producers tend to have. We focus so much on the distortion and rocking out that we don't pay attention to the most distinctive instrument of rage we have, our voices, and go ear-dead from knowing our own lyrics well enough to pick them out in a mix, whereas others might not.

So all in all, head bobbing, foot tapping jam. Enjoyed from start to finish. Been a longtime fan of yours as well, and happy to see your improvement over the years. Look forward to seeing more from you :)

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

TSRBand responds:

Thanks for all the tips! Looking forward to trying them out :)

[Stargazer]

Very smooth, clear, almost solitary tones. I like the addition of the string pad without it interfering or overshadowing the lead.

I do feel like some of the progression is a bit cliche writing convention -- but it's a solo instrument track for the most part. What are you gonna do! But it reminded me a lot of The Moments of Happiness section from the Cats musical. One of my favorite songs from a rather... odd production.

I don't have a lot of a critique beyond that. Really enjoyed the subtle piece.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

Thomastique responds:

Thank you!
I agree on the cliché writing, I blame it on only having two weeks 😆
Some very original sounding pieces are coming soon though 😉😉😉

[Amazona NGUAC 2020]

I'm not sure why most of the mix is panned to the left. However, it creates a very.. interesting space in the right. I think if you're going to do that, there has to be some way to pan the kick to the right or something, as well as transition noises moving from left the right -- maybe your monitors are louder in the left than the right?

I have no complaints other than that and a bit too much reverb on fuller sections. The amount of reverb is appropriate for naked sections but can be modulated down for drops.

I like the nice sub impacts and moments of calm in the middle. Shows a good knowledge of structure. Although again I would here because there is so much low and low mid appreciate less reverb. Or at least low cutting up to 250 hz on the reverb. It's very, very present throughout.

Here the mix sounds quite balanced to the center by 3:46, but again the bass comes in the left channel and I don't understand. My right ear wants your juicy bass too!

That said, loving your progression, and I'm happy you decided to share your cup of tea with us <3

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

TerraNation responds:

hehe i have no i dea why its become like that but stay tuned i will fix it after contest is over its to late change it + im gona upload FULL master version so should expecting better mixing.
+ im gona change the song abit for a final release iknow what i done wrong somewhere to.

[Nebulous - Paranoia (NGUAC 2020 | R3)]

Interesting effecting going on here. I wasn't with the clipping, clicking effect until you applied a little bit of pitch effect so I understood what was happening.

I love your use of FX and that heavily modulated, distorted bass. I find myself wanting the snare to cut through just a bit more. You may be able to apply KSHMR Essentials Kick to it and the kick to get the transients and overall sound more present. On the second drop, it's not an issue.

Overall, your sound design choices and structuring shine. Pleasant dissonance, makes me a happy bean. I still find myself wanting as I mentioned, percussion elements, and particularly some hihat and crash action. Those I feel are buried by your lead.

I still ended up feeling quite relaxed and comfortable despite the attempts at horror. Perhaps it's to do with my love of horror music... for sleeping. Nice work.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

ShockblastDeluxe responds:

Thanks for having me, and thanks for listening!

[Happy people want to dance]

I'd like if those chords in the beginning didn't feel so centered and phased. The effect is nicer when they're opened up for your drop.

We've got a nice, relaxing theme, just sort of vibing there. It does stay the same throughout so I find myself really wanting a busier lead than the eighth notes you've got going on with that pluck and to a degree losing interest. However, your levels are good, and your sense of structure is strong.

I find myself agreeing with @mutty99, with a variation in progression or some sort of overarching, blazing lead, this piece would sing. As is, it's right there on the cusp of taking my attention, but sounding somewhat like bgm to a relaxing YT unboxing video of a cool gadget. That's not to say bad at all. In fact that there are no glaring problems to distract me is great. You're really getting somewhere. :)

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

[Remembering the Fallen]

First of all on a year where people were talking about not being able to take 40 people to light the beacons for the towers -- when they didn't mind 400 painting BLM murals, when they don't mind 4,000 protesters and riots in the streets, it warms my heart to hear this touching piece dedicated to those who died that day. I was six years old. I saw the police officers and firemen running into the towers. I saw the people jumping from the windows. I saw the first responders in the rubble. Many died that day, and many died from chronic illnesses from the dust kicked up, years later. Many aren't alive to tell their stories today, and they should not be forgotten.

Your writing is tasteful, moving, and has its own sense of self, a rarity. My complaints would only fall on maybe mix. Reverb is somewhat overpresent, and I think the transients of instruments such as the bass drum and snare could be brought out just a bit. Sustained strings may sound better a bit more dry, though dry is my personal preference. I would also like a bit more pronounced articulations. Your trumpet solo was very well written and perhaps could come a half dB up to the front.

In short, the piece hits a place close to me, and is a much needed reprieve from the animosity of today's world. Thanks for that, and thanks for coming out to NGUAC! <3

potato-stick responds:

Thank you for your comment. I totally agree that the double standards when it comes to public gatherings are pretty outrageous and seem to have zero basis on logic. With that being said, I am glad that I could create something that shed light on the importance of September 11 and to try and honor those who lost their lives.

I completely agree that I need to work on mixing. To be honest, my main focuses have been orchestration and composition, and I've heard from a lot of judges that this is showing. I've only started pretty recently, so I'm tackling things one thing at a time and mixing just hasn't been a high priority yet. I am sure that as I continue to progress, mixing will be the next thing on my list to get better at.

[Be Gay Do Crime]

Speaking as a VERY queer pro-law and order capitalist here, who once identified as trans and very much thinks the western world is the best place to be gay anywhere on Earth, I could get down with "Be Gay Do Crime" as a slogan somewhere like Russia, Saudi Arabia, China, etc. If the US penalized gayness with prison time and I hadn't been able to get prep myself when something happened to me from the Gilead program (WOW that stuff is prohibitively expensive, thanks insurance racket, Pharma, and CDC/FDA regulations making it impossible to get low cost meds out!), I'd be right there with ya.

It's so rough with the gay community and minorities especially, higher rates of deadly STD exposure, probably going to be higher now that California has basically made it legal to knowingly give someone HIV, changing the prison term to 6 months and the charge to a misdemeanor. Granted, prison where the disease spreads like wildfire due to a certain kind of mistreatment of gays there is probably the worst place to have HIV infected individuals, if you don't like HIV spreading.

Then you have countries like Russia that have made it illegal for people in the US to adopt their orphaned children -- which there is an epidemic -- just because we've legalized gay marriage, and they have anti-gay propaganda laws. I was and still am a huge fan of T.a.T.u for daring to make a whole music video in the 90's of two chicks making out, and perform here with a shirt that had to be censored from Хуй войне meaning Fuck War to Жуй войне meaning Chew to the war live. To save their careers I'm pretty sure when the group broke up they both had to pretend it was gay propaganda and they have somehow reformed their ways. Though Yulia to this day maintains she loves Lena, and the tension between Lena's religious upbringing and confession and Yulia's bisexuality was palpable in their interviews, even if Lena may have had to play it up to keep from attracting negative attention from the Russian government.

Anyway gay counter culture has always been a big part of my life. It's only recently I became so disillusioned with the left for telling us gays how to think, like we don't check enough oppression boxes to say we don't like the idea of forcing everyone to go to workplace trainings to tell them how to treat us. To me, being gay shouldn't make us more special than anyone else, and I had constantly this ... stubborn feeling the left were always going back and forth between patronizing us only to ignore our needs, claiming we have to stand together, and then bashing down anyone who doesn't 100% agree with doxxing people for thought crime and burning down ironically majority minority communities... Or preferential racial favoritism, replacing one supremacy with another, etc., etc. The feeling that after so many people, I -- and the larger gay community, would be next. Like what happened to the TERFs, trans-exclusionary radical feminists, who are on board with everything until you get up to trans females.

All that said I think you've made something really interesting.

I think probably the strongest section is your outro. This is where I get the most sense of motion and clarity. The rest of the piece, as you can hear by the reverb on the end, is overcome with a lot of sustained harmonics picked up by the verb. Wherever you have reverb, I would turn it down by as much as half or 75% on the wet signal, and low cut said wet signal as much as 250hz. These frequencies sound nice on a solo instrument, but across the whole mix and in an ensemble create a smokescreen around all those beautiful cinematic sounds I felt you wanted to cut through the mix. A clean sound makes a statement.

The piece is quite repetitive, though I sense you're pointing out the ongoing struggle you feel yourself facing. I think now that I relisten that part of the problem may be the cinematic bass drums having so much verb to them naturally. There's a plugin called ERA-R which can be used over top of samples if you find no way to otherwise divorce them from it. Sidechain could be applied here if it has not already, lightly, or KSHMR Essentials Kick for quick emphasis of transients and compression. The free version of this plugin worked wonders for me even with less than stellar drum machine emulators.

There is quite a lot of unresolved tension, which of course was intentional. Beyond wanting perhaps a couple more laid back sections peeling back the layers, that's all I could ask. Otherwise, kept me interested until the very last second, just on the knife edge and still wanting more.

Great work. I really enjoyed the listen. Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

Also how do you pronounce your name again?

zybor responds:

Thank you for your awesome deep thoughts and advice. :O

I agree with you on the left's problems when comes to lashing out queer people with shit like cancel culture and infighting. The left, despise they promised to provide safe space for marginalized people, they still happen to embrace the toxic culture of cishet capitalist society, which makes matter worse because now you have both left and right toxicity compounding the already struggle of surviving as a queer person in this society.

While I also find disappointment and disillusionment at the left, I though see the good side of anarchist culture in compared to like Marxist and ML tendencies that tend to reduce everything they see down to class, and the fact that Marxists believe queer culture as "idpol" or identity politics. Anarchists on the other hand view queer culture is one of their cores of liberation through intersectionality, and anarchist value both individualism and collectivism. When I started out I was a left-anarchist, but overtime I see that anarchy transients leftism. You can be an anarchist and queer without labeling yourself as leftist. Also, being anti-capitalism is not unique to leftism, many anarchist tendencies like Egoist and post-left tendencies reject the left for the reasons that you and me listed out. Though, still, I recognize the good side of both left and post-left, and I'd try to find a common ground between those as anarchist to also flourish queer identity as free as I could, and I work harder to help liberating any queer who still stuck under oppression, whether they're in Russia, China, Saudi Arabia or any other part of the world where queer still being oppressed.

[10 Pieces of Bread]

I think the bassoon and bass could come down slightly in the mix -- a dB or two.

Cute use of 808 tom it sounds like.

This piece is lovely and bright.

I would prefer snare to interact more with the left channel or sit in the middle.

Phrasing in this piece is strong, and so are movements. Reminds me very much of Disney scoring. My favorite moment would probably be 2:24. I was not ready for the end at 2:33 and would have liked the entire ensemble to have a nice 2 note stinger on the end with the 1 and 5. So, quarter rest, quarter rest, eighth rest, 8th note, quarter note stinger.

I really loved throughout your lead writing. Very pleasant little piece.

I also disagree that the strings should have had more reverb. The bright sound I feel is very appropriate.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!