ADR3-N's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Kitchen Appliance Auditorium (NGUAC Knockout Round)]

I would firstly modulate or apply some kind of fx to that intro piano dirge.

Spicy chords in the intro. You could also probably apply some kind of filtering, chorus to make those stand out. I find myself wanting more of them when our drop comes in.

Percussion could use to come out a lot more in the mix. Mostly the kick. The snare seems to do fine. It seems like there's some kind of rubbery flange effect going on with it.

Overall this piece has good elements, some strange instrumentation, and a polka feel I think could probably use more switchups. It ends up feeling like a slapstick horror chase through a Scooby Doo episode or something, with not a lot of overarching melody. What it does have is hidden down low. Those hoovery leads through 1:29, I'd like those split into two lines and panned something like 40 percent right and left

But overall, good use of piano without making it too cheesy, piece holds cohesively together, and for being forced to create this on a time crunch, I'm impressed. Good work :)

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

[Journey]

Nice intro going on here.

Some comments, I really like your chords, but the bass is too high up. The chords end up sounding very chunky and congested in the low mid range, which hurts your very pretty writing.

Percussion is also hiding in the mix on your big sections. I would rather than turn it up, turn everything else down until it is clearly heard, strongly -- apply compression to the percussion itself, possibly space out your hihats more.

2:20, I'm not sure if it sounds better, or if I'm getting used to the congested writing.

I'm just not liking bar 7 and 8 of that progression where the bass note is so close to the chord itself. It also sounds like going up and down in a perfect fifth or perfect fourth or just going back up to a note we've heard before. Either change the chord inversion maybe.... change the chord... Something's going on there. It's hard to hear what because it's so tightly wound and muddy. It may even be that the bassline is too busy.

I would also suggest checking out the rule of pairs -- it's a video by Kush After Hours explaining best practices for transitioning. Basically, for every transition, you take away two elements and then add or change two new ones. A lot of problems I have with this track are simple add one element transitions, and that can lead us to cluttering, which happens here.

Mixing wise the piece sounds like it has almost no highs. That could be because the hihats are so far down in the mix, transition sweeps aren't really used, the snare doesn't have any high or white noise frequencies. I will say good job not overcompensating for space by getting that effect with high end reverb.

On your sustained instruments you may try a sidechain to the kick and snare to get more movement out of them.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

[Displacement]

Right off the bat, liking your chord here. It's unusual. I'd like maybe some filter on that bit crushed whole note synth.

Interesting, spacy vibes going on. I would take that bassline you have and take it down about half a dB or more, and bring the drums out. They're bit crushed so they're going to have a harder time cutting through the mix.

Overall, I'm not really sure what's going on, if we're ever coming to a chorus. Saying this as we've gone about halfway through without moving away from the tonic note of A and the run of A, G, C, to say, F, E, G and back to A. There just seems to be no B section to your A section, figuratively speaking... and literally speaking. That's really the only thing keeping me from jiving to this piece. Otherwise it's not offensively mixed, and the instrumentation isn't bad at all. Just lays there is my thing.

I'd love to hear you experiment outside the box with some chord progressions.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

BrandonTurner responds:

I definitely agree with you, I should've had more of a chord progression to make it more interesting. You're right about it needing a B section as well, a more unique verse in the middle to cut down on the repetition would have been a good idea.

Thanks so much for the critique! I appreciate it!

[Is That the One We Have To Fight?]

I have to say I agree with @ChrisisD. But it's not that you don't have good ideas going on here at all. You have a pretty solid chord progression. What you're lacking is strong transitions.

I actually found a talk on this the other day you may enjoy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MADvn8apYlQ

It's five minutes, but if you don't have time, it's called the rule of pairs. For every transition, you take out two elements and add or change two elements. That way the song keeps sounding fresh. The reason this sounds like a lot of buildups is because nothing really changes. We build and build, and then we never get to a big chorus, with cymbals and new chords. For instance I would do... and let me just try to write the notes.

G half note, F half note, A half note, C half note. And you could just octave that on your sustained high strings, have a big section, continue with F, E, G, A. That's 8 bars, or 16 in half time. And that be a lead line.

Overall that's what I really feel the piece was lacking. Dynamics between the instruments weren't too wonky -- I especially liked those little plucks. Spicy. Maybe had some loudness issues on entrances, but you can easily learn to tweak those by popping back and forth between reference tracks you like.

Not bad at all for just learning your way around mixing and mastering. Good work!

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

[Chilling With my Megadrive]

1:04 or so with those very disjointed -- I forget the word I'm looking for, thanks, Russian language -- rhythms almost kills the song for me.

Otherwise, I really enjoyed this tune.

Question, did you mean for the bass to mostly sit in the left channel? I think it'd sound better centered.

Overall I like the sounds going on here. I'm a huge fan of VGM. Some things for the mix, the piece sounds either over compressed, or just like everything is much louder than the drums, which don't stick out a ton anyway on their own right just as lofi drums in general. I'm not able to clearly hear them throughout either way.

Bass as mentioned is in the left channel. At times the leads sound about 1 dB too loud. There may be reverb or other FX muddying up and covering up the percussive elements in the piece I wasn't able to hear clearly. The mix in general sounds like it's just sort of there. You may want to go in individual instances of instruments and clean up the frequencies below 250 hz, to try and make room for the bass and kick. None of them should really be that low anyway.

But great piece. Love your lead writing. Rest of anything I could possibly say has been stated in @trunotfals's review. Though, not sure if he meant to leave half a star?

Anyway thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

[ALGO - Electra]

Right off, those stick clicks are a little tacky -- I would change them out for live stick clicks actually.

The melodies themselves aren't bad at all. Really enjoying them. Reverb is making them hard to process. Like being in a big club, except the big club is on my head, and I can't really hear what's going on.

Watch the transition at 1:25. It's not obvious enough with white noise over that riser. At first I thought it was wrong notes.

Anyway, I really would cut your reverbs down by a lot. By 2:11 it's not so glaring, but especially on instruments that sustain, listen to the overtone frequencies that reverb is grabbing and not letting go. I would cut the low end on the wet signals up to 250 hz.

At 3:00, you've got a nice bass, but it's hidden under more reverb slap back I think even than the dry signal. There has to be another way to get that sound without sounding hollow.

Now other than that, those rubber banded tonic notes are ridiculously catchy, and I really like what you've done, just watch for mixing clean.

Great work. Enjoyed the listen. Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

[Abendland - Featherblade]

Writing and scoring is good. It's being smushed up and muddied with a lot of reverb, but I very much appreciate what you're doing.

Those claps I would stereo out very vide and perhaps ensemble. That way you get a choir clap effect. Same with all of your higher percussion.

Really, you could do with taking reverb down on every sustained instrument and finding a way to create a spacious chorus effect with more instances, different patches, etc.

Your choir however sounds very appropriately spacy.

Your percussion and most everything sounds very centered.

Dynamic wise you have a handle on the piece and it follows naturally. The lower strings especially could use 0-250 hz cut on their reverb sends. I recommend this on every reverb, unless it's a solo instrument on a naked section, but it resonates especially on bass instruments.

Really the only problem I have with this piece is intonation of the synth instruments on repeated notes (velocity may fix), and the very, very heavy reverb. Otherwise it's a fantastic score.

Great work.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

Abendland responds:

Thanks a lot for your constructive feedback ADR3-N. This Track was all way to rushed and I wished I had a bit more time to work on it, but I had to submit early due to personal circumstances. Your inputs are extremely valuable and I appreaciate them a lot. Cheers and have a nice evening,
Chris

[4nZwar3 - Gerund]

I'm not a huge fan of the chord progression -- it seems just kind of ported up and down.

Now, when your lead comes in, it works.

Leads are pretty well written. I'd prefer a faster portamento. Piano lead sounds good.

Structure wise, the section at 1:21 on isn't flowing super well to me. The space between drop and verse is pretty short and unpredictable. It ends up sounding like several songs mashed together. If you usually spend a year on tracks, I understand why -- it's your work flow. Having to take a fire and forget approach makes it hard if you don't usually work with a set structure.

That said, your lead line is interesting, and the track itself holds together nicely. Your use of different instruments keeps things varied and fresh, even if at times I don't understand what's going on.

There's something with the mix. The percussion is laying down a bit in the mix, and it sounds like there's a ton of reverb that is being sidechained off. I'd turn those wet signals down and scoop out the low end up to 250 hz. A lot of that gets in the way of your actual instruments. I especially noticed it on builds where your kick would sidechain that out, but it still wouldn't sound a lot cleaner.

Bass I would say could probably come up .5 dB

Other than that, really interesting listen. Enjoyed the piece.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

[[NGUAC 2020] claustrophobia]

You know, I had a song called Claustrophobia back in the day. I think yours is better, haha.

I like that opening chord. It almost sounds like a ringtone.

Ah, now that everything's come in, I understand what you're doing with that.

I have to say, the mix is super mid heavy here. Does Amplitube come with a cab? If not there are cabs like NadIR or Kefir for free. Tames that fizzy noise on top.

Writing wise, this piece is great, if a little shaky in structure. I would not have repeated your breakdown at 2:40 twice -- I would have gotten back as quickly as possible to a final chorus. It sounds like you actually have two breakdowns one after the other, and the section you end with, right before the outro, I would have put where your distorted synths at 2:20-ish are.

Those synths by the way, I can't tell if that's a ring mod or something like Saturn distortion/saturation thrown on, but it's pretty sibilant and could probably use compression to tame it and take it down a bit.

Your modulation of effects throughout was very nice and adds touches that a lot of producers would have let go to waste. Some nice spicy moments.

The main issue to fix would be the mix. So I'll just try to parse out commentary by instrument

Drums, are not standing out in the mix when all instruments come in. This tells me either the drums are not very compressed, or the track is too compressed. I can't see the waveform since it doesn't like to display in my browser, but it sounds like there are actually just guitars covering them up, tbh.

Guitars, I would recommend something other than FL Slayer, or at least modulate velocity more. For guitars, you'll want something you can actually doubletrack without phasing, and that isn't going to sound so boxy in an amp. There's a lot of 250 hz range noise it sounds like, trying to mix in that aggressive tone. I recommend for mixing guitars a quick search on Chernobyl Studios on YT. He uses reaEQ to cut out everything on that guitar send to up to 250 hz. It helps.

This said there are good uses of Slayer, and it does not ALWAYS sound bad, but those are when the instrument is played to its strengths, which is obvious synth keytar solos, not rhythm guitar. There are lots of free guitars on the net. I would at this point even recommend something like Ample Sound's free Taylor, if you can find a way to cut off the reverb. Then I think there's a junk guitar for Kontakt, among others. Look around, I'm sure you'll find something. I think there's a Kontakt factory that offers freebies, and you can work up enough kredits doing reviews or product demos with that to afford instruments, if that's your thing.

Mix wise I think the drums and bass need to stand out more. That mostly just means turning everything else down until you can clearly hear everything. Some people recommend mixing in mono to achieve a cleaner sound profile and cutting down on reverb as much as possible.

When I was working at this stage I would then render the file at -6 dB and see if I could find a free mastering service. Helps if you want the raw product out without spending a day on the master channel.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

4203 responds:

Yeah, I struggled a lot with the mix, and my instrument choice is not that great xD
I considered a lot at the breakdown, thinking it's a good idea but now it seems not quite... well, at least I got something good out of it.
Thanks for the tips!