ADR3-N's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[The Concept of Time]

I would take the heavy reverb off of your mysterious ticking noise, and also by extension your brasses and drums. Back it down and shorten the decay. It sounds like with either compression or something else, the low end is getting muddied by it.

Originality wise, I am noticing a lot of cinematic tropes, as mentioned by other judges. That 7th to octave violin drag being a particular offender. However, I do feel like the track as a whole has been pretty well executed, and sounds close to, if not industry standard. It just so happens that from watching so many film trailers, film score for the pure virtue of film score has for me lost its epic sheen. So despite being well crafted for the most part -- aside from reverb, your leveling and use of instrumentation is quite good -- I don't get a lot of excitement or wow factor, and it ends up sounding very much like something I've heard before.

That said, I think it's great you can pop out a piece like this in 2 weeks, and am not the slightest saddened to see you on the front page. Congrats on that btw. There's a lot to be said for being able to imitate the world's most well-renowned composers in your genre. Great work. :)

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

KevinMueller responds:

Thank you for your review! And thanks for the tip with the reverb. :)

[Alabaster]

Super original transitioning here. I wasn't quite expecting the move into the intro here.

Sound design definitely has a lot of cool factor here and brave choices. Getting a follow from me if for nothing else other than exposure to interesting ideas.

Now, structure itself I feel could probably use a bit of work. When you come in with the bass at 1:13, I was expecting more of that. It's so disjointed from the rest of the track -- and sounds very good, mind you, that I wanted to hear it more regularly. Repetition legitimizes, after all. I was expecting to hear it at 1:44 again.

2:03, that snare sample you're using, metallic sounding, could use more velocity, panning, or modulation so it didn't clearly sound like the same sample.

2:30, lots of interesting breakbeat feel going on.

Looping that snare, I'd have liked pitching it up gradually and more obviously from the outset. The ear very quickly picks up that we're looping and fatigues. Constant motion.

That said the rest of the transition barring the long hold was very well done, and I was expecting one final chorus. That's where the structuring portion falls short for me most glaringly.

Otherwise, song is mixed pretty well. Overall I would want more snare, about one to two dB, more kick, less reverb. You could probably bring your leads out by an additional dB, and your bass throughout up as well -- it's fine on sections that aren't super droppy, although throughout those sometimes percussion samples get just a little bit too loud for it to sustain.

Very interesting and stand-out piece, taking a lot of risks for good payoff. You've got a really unique sound and I appreciate that. Looking forward to hearing more of you in the future.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

Zerisan responds:

Thanks for the review! Understand that you expected another chorus at the end, but I personally like to go for more unorthodox layouts.

[Incise ~ Starburst]

Mix wise, I think this pretty muffled sounding, with a LOT of reverb, which I feel takes away a lot from your sound. If you're using Nexus, I know that every patch has a ton of reverb on it for whatever reason. I would, if you insist on having so much reverb, sidechain it by a lot, take the wet down a lot more, and further apply low cut while looking at the spectrum analysis, usually to 250 hz for me. Too much of it gives a very full skull feeling when listening, or not being able to get enough loudness.

Lead writing I very much enjoyed, and your progression as well. Nice long progression with interesting chords, and unusual choices.

Percussion I think goes between muddled and laying on top of things. For instance, your clock ticking, and the snap up to 0:50 are laying on top, not really meshing. Your snare on the other hand despite sidechain is sitting inside of the mix with a layer of what sounds like low pass on top of it. If you're going to do that, I'd take your snare and kick up by a couple dB at least and tune both to the tonic, possibly the snare to a harmonic that sounds good to your ear. Each snare has overtones and can sound more pleasing when in tune.

Beyond that, I do like your writing. It's nice and fresh. I feel with the mentioned changes, especially the reverb, you will be able to make better use of the space in your mix and be more satisfied with them overall :)

The rest of any commentary I could have would fall somewhere between @mutty99 and @trunotfals, especially regarding the saws and transition. Sometimes a simple transposition does work very well, as it does here. I might have ring modulated the transition FX sample to hit the new tonic, myself, or portamentoed it, something, but that was quite literally my only gripe. Nice work!

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

[The Beginning]

I find myself agreeing a lot with trunotfals.

Some exceptions I wanted to note -- on your intro, a lot of that reverb I know is necessary for transitioning into that nice sidechained synth line. I feel like by the time that cuts in, you should be able to safely drop it down. Right there it covers up your percussion, which is muffled. It might help to tune your kick to the tonic of the piece.

That said I really like how laid back this piece is. It's really relaxing. Just would cut back your verb sends by a lot throughout. In the intro they cause your vocal samples to almost distort trying to stand out.

Other than that, really enjoyed the piece. I think you could stand to maybe try ... there's a plugin called IRID, which is makes reverb out of the harmonics of whatever lead you run through it. :)

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

[bit coin]

Hey nothing wrong with flipping the same sample again! As long as you make good music, that's what matters :)

What 808 is that? I'm digging that salty saturated overtone.

For your percussion I think you could use something to compress and widen them out. I used KSHMR Essentials Kick on every percussion instrument in my last track -- and they were all lofi drum machines with terrible transients. Get it while it's free. It's good quality :)

Like the glitching on the sides. I think the only thing this beat really lacks is maybe some layered hihat rolls, a nice orchestral crash to glue it together, and compression mix glue. I found a new structuring method that works too to get a solid drop and stretch it to a full track searching on youtube. Might look there :)

Glad to see you out here still doing your thing!

heyopc responds:

I made the 808, imma check out kshmr rn

[Hole In The Sky]

Reading the other reviews, I'm not seeing any really issues with mixing outside of maybe too much reverb on sustaining instruments. I would like to hear those strings back some off of that piano. They're sustaining, and the low strings are even sort of drowning out the bass at points. I would on the contrary bring that up more.

The coins falling are a bit distractingly loud for me. I might bring that down or pan it differently.

Lots of interesting world sounds here.

Maracas or shakers could move around in the space or be taken down some. I also think the coins or whatever that falling percussion instrument is could stand to move into the right channel probably.

The drum set, I'm not sure what it is that I don't like about it. I think it's the hihats and maybe the snare. Could use saturation there. But I'm very, very happy that you didn't bury them in reverb to get a pleasant sound.

.... I figured it out, it is the hihat. There's a very synthy ring that I don't like. More velocity editing may help. It could also probably be compressed more to drive the piece.

I felt one thing that could have been added is some bluesy ride cymbal work and big spacious crashes throughout.

Other than that I found the melodic content quite compelling and was reminded of the Fallout 4 theme, mixed with Dragon's Dogma character creation theme. Very pleasant, positive, and uplifting vibes. Really enjoyed it.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

[Nebula (Official Release)]

Я вижу на странице, что вы из Владивостока, итак приветствую! Стараюсь на русском писать отзыв, чтобы мы с вами друг друга лучше понимали. Простите меня за возможные ошибки. Не все термины сведения и музыкальной теории мне знакомы.

Скажу прямо, мне очень нравится песня. Жанр совсем недавно был мой любимый. Вы выбрали приятные аккорды, и показали хорошее знание и структуры и прогрессии того жанра. Единственный недостаток -- я бы хотела слышать чуть чуть поменьше сайдчен. То, можете просто делать большой барабан немножко громче, может быть и басс, и малый барабан. Мне кажется, что сайдчен вот здесь лишь 1 2 децибел по громче, чем должно быть.

В общем, сведение мне звучит чисто до 0:50. Потом я бы делала реверберацию тише, чтобы барабаны звучали как можно яснее, может быть увеличить уровень сайдчен. Проблема не повторилась около 2:52, но тогда звучит, что возможно все треки играют чуть громко для компрессора.

Но как уже сказала, песня мне так понравилась, что я слушала 5 раз. Очень хорошо сработали!

Спасибо за участие в конкурсе NGUAC!

[Raindrops]

In your intro, that piano probably could use some more velocity in the right channel. The string impact almost becomes a percussion instrument itself.

By 0:54 compression or lack of a limiter is causing a lot of distortion in the low end.

I agree with Mutty99, despite lots of technical issues, the underlying melody and composition itself were an interesting listen, even if fraught with so much reverb. I would take it down probably by more than half the current value, change the decay to a faster rate, and low cut up to 250 hz.

To fix your distortion issue, you can take your master channel, mix in 32 point float, and pull it down until the levels are no longer in the red or orange. I personally prefer yellow to green. Then I master in a third party service or using a different host of plugins. Alternatively, you can mix the entire track so that without touching master volume or fx, your track never hits those nasty red levels.

For your percussion instruments, it sounds like the transients could use shaping. There are two free plugins for that dominion and KSHMR Essentials Kick. I recommend both highly. I use them on literally everything.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

[Hand In Hand- NGUAC 2020 Final Round Submission]

Really nice clean playing for those acoustics in the opening. Very nice production. I personally would have liked with the vocals as naked sounding as they are, bringing them up in the mix. I have a lot of issue understanding the lyrics and hearing them as the lead instrument. It does have a nice, bar-rock blues meets country feel.

From what I've heard of you, live mixing is probably your best strength. I personally feel on bigger sections, your acoustic chugging rhythms are just a bit too far pushed up in the mix, contributing to the muddiness of the very dynamic vocal.

That said, absolutely love that you've written it for a friend's wedding. That's super cool man.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

ConnorHeather responds:

Excellent thanks for the great constructive criticism i will take everything on board it helps a lot, ear fatigue is a real thing and is difficult when you do it all by yourself, having fresh ears and perspectives is a big help thanks! Will most likely go back and take onboard what you said for the final mix.

Thanks for all the work you guys do to make NGUAC happen! It's been a pleasure to participate!