ADR3-N's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Ironface]

Sounds like silence of the lambs, yo! And love that it was made on GarageBand. People shit on GB a lot.

Composition wise, this is great, nice structure, cohesive sections and chord changes that don't sound forced.

Mix wise, good 80's aesthetic. Could probably use more bass, some chorus on that bladey quarter stab that comes mid-range in the right channel. Something to give it some silk.

If you haven't learned gated reverb, that would sound good on your snare, just for a little extra grit.

Really enjoyed the piece. Not a lot of other comments. Sounds great.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

[-Stoopid-]

The idea for this is pretty cool, oldschool even.

Some notes. I like the sample you've chosen, and the ... sounds like either a tight delay or ringmod, but I can't quite understand it. Might compress it so that the consonants are more out there.

Your drop suffers from a thin, airy quality, though I like the idea of the tone overall. I would throw a bass under it.

Mix wise, percussion at times is buried. Make sure at all times, your percussion is the loudest element -- proportionally so, so it isn't obnoxious -- in your mix. The human ear doesn't listen to it first, so it has to work twice as hard as say, even one random piano note strung somewhere in the song. We'll hear that, but we might not notice the snare unless it's an offbeat, backbeat, or funky rhythm.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

Hzrdous responds:

Thank you so much for the honest review! I love when people give me comments like these! My mixing does need a major overhaul so as of now I am practicing a lot more in the mixing scene. But I will make sure to take what you said into consideration! Thanks for the review! And no problem! I'm glad I got the chance to join!

[Where did it all go EDM]

Interesting touch with the overtone strings. I would probably pull down the reverb some, just to keep things clean for that bass coming in. Probably low cut to 250 hz on the sends so that through 55 seconds sounded cleaner.

As is, the combination of elements is sounding good so far up to 1:11. By 1:48 I'm expecting the drop you give us at 1:59.

Some mixing critique, sidechain isn't doing a lot to make your percussion stand out. The instruments themselves are muted, particularly hihat and snare. Before applying sidechain, I'd make sure the instruments themselves, hihat and snare, could compete with those big chords in the space. So you can either take the leads down -- I would recommend that to .7 dB or so. A lot of the lack of contour between sidechain and instrumental is that volume difference. Then I would compress and possibly gated reverb your snare, and bring up the hats about .3 to .6 dB.

Other than that, I really feel we could have used another drop, but the composition otherwise is a great listen.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

[Love - Native Maker]

Feels like sort of layering a new line every few bars or so. So, eventually, we get a chorus, but by then we've gone through the idea enough times to more or less have exhausted it. Nothing sounds too bad or out of place, but nothing sounds exciting either.

I would look at some song structuring tutorials on YouTube, pick one you like, and learn to write with it. You know what you want to say, and we eventually get there, but the song ends up feeling a one trick pony. Feel me?

Some channels I can recommend you are Signals Music Studios and Holistic Songwriting :)

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

[NaNo - Grey Sky]

Wow, this is so loud! The lead is way up there. I'd pull it down about .5 to 1 full dB

There's not a ton of critique I have other than some mixing decisions, such as the very, very thick sausage fattened sound. Great for drops, makes it hard to make good mixing decisions. Also not a giant fan of that super boxy transition noise wooshing drop offs from the sidechain. That's a nice touch in its own way, I figure. Hopefully it's a sample and not what the mix sounds like without sidechain on! lol. You can make that sound prettier by playing with low cut up to 200, or even 250 hz. Those frequencies are pretty boxy.

I also found on intros and builds that I was wanting a bit softer of a sidechain since our kick is loud there already. We just end up with a dry sound there that isn't super pretty in the middle of a nice mesh. Might drop the amount to say like a 70-90 percent range rather than complete dead wall sidechain.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

[Exoverse]

Intro is sounding good.

Coming into 20 seconds, I'm wanting a bit less sub on your kick, and some more space on that backing drone. I might actually bring that up about .5 dB or so.

By 1:29 we have fantastic rhythms. But I want more bass. Give me some of that tasty 8khz to 12khz, so I can hear her character.

It actually sounds like the song as a whole may have been clipped off in that range -- through bass boosting and compression. Bass will stand out on its own without boosting. Make sure you have a sound system that accurately represents sound, without artificially boosting or clipping off any ranges of sound.

Also, nice Russian sample. Enjoyed it. I'd like to hear more of your samples over all. They're very quiet in relation to the track itself. Hard to understand.

Here is what I heard -- don't know if you are Russian speaker... перед мной в любой точке земного шара, определенной заранее с большой точности. Excuse whatever the first syllables after pere are, because I know it's not pered mnoj, but that's about what I heard. I know enough Russian to work in professional capacity and the mix has me really working for it, is what I'm saying. Meaning the sample is not doing its job of getting me hype. If you are Russian speaker, lemme know what that first word is please!

Beyond that, great piece, really enjoyed it.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

Michamadman responds:

Oh hey thanks for this great review! Fun fact is that I changed this song few times and last one seemed to be best. Who knows maybe in future I will remix this or make something like this but in different genre... For now I dont think Im some great and professional musician. I got some inspiration from other songs and used FL Studio and Audacity to make Exoverse. Also I am not Russian, Im actually Serbian but yeah we are slavs too.

[S1LENT GHO5T - Two (Official Instrumental) [Bi Remastered]]

Never heard the original Bi, but this key sounds like where it wanted to sit all along.

Some comments. The mix as a whole is pretty sub heavy on the kick -- can probably afford to bring it down about .2 to .3 dB and have the rest of the track stand out more from behind it. Sounds like you could also benefit from cutting some reverb and cleaning out the sub 250 hz on any sends, just to keep from sounding bogged down. But this isn't a huge issue.

There are some percussion slapbacks on your final drop that occasionally come to the fore in a very noticeable way, and not necessarily as something the casual listener would intuitively understand as a transition.

Overall the song is good, but I end up feeling something is missing, something like the vocalist you may have mentioned. There's not really a ton of moving lead material to carry us through sections. But overall, good work. The piece is cohesive and flows without having to be forced.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

LJTLegendaryL responds:

To completely transparent, I wasn't able to rerender the new version since I wasn't back in my original set up, so I tried to send the most recent one I had on my phone. In the updated one I did more EQ work to cut out unnecessary frequencies while keeping the mix stable and fixed the issues with the drums so that they don't overpower or collide to keep the synths from delivering their power.

Thanks for the feedback and it was still worth a shot. My vocalist is delivering the vocals soon so once I mix them in, emotions will be felt. The vocalist is also a fantastic artist, we're going to work on making something special with the song altogether.

Lots of concepts and planning. Once it's complete I'll probably post it on here and promote it across as many platforms as possible.

Fun Fact: The original key was 3 semi-tones lower, but I raised it so my vocalist could sing. Though, I think the raise is what perfected the sound.

The song, in the end, will also be a motivator since that's what I felt when I was producing it.

So even if I may not make it through, I still have something I'm really proud of ^^!

Again, thanks for the feedback, have a good day :)!

[copy and shadow]

Interesting polyrhythms going on here. Some comments on mix and structure.

Reverb here is 100% out of control -- tame that low end by throwing low cut up to 250 hz so the instruments aren't all muddying together. Gated reverb will sound better for your snare, btw, than that long tail. Hell, use it on everything if you want. It's a lot cleaner than just point blank reverb. But if you must use reverb, try to cut it down.

Now, I am a big fan of all your elements -- although they all sound panned left. That could be because your drums are mostly all on the left.

Protip, there are a ton of 808 and 909 sets out there that are free. I think 99sounds has one that I regularly use, for instance on my latest track here on NG, Progressing Degrees of Insanity, if you want to hear what I'm talking about.

Unexpected sections here and there, but this piece is already adventurous enough that I just get used to them.

Your drums I will say, are almost totally buried in reverb and just from not being loud enough in the mix. I would turn everything else down. And probably recommend centering that lowpass bass synth.

I don't know what the noise was at 4:35.

Are you by any chance using Trompette paper trumpet synth? I swear I recognize that flappy noise.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC! Really interesting listen :)

lofiskyline15 responds:

thanks a ton for the response!! yeah the storminess kind of started to envelop the mix but I had to pump it out to hit the deadline haha

it'll definitely be hit by a huge remix and all of the constructive criticism about the mix is hugely appreciated! I realized quickly after this that my mixing gear is slightly unbalanced stereo-wise so over time things kinda started to drift which leads to a lot of the leftness (especially in the drums and bass). it's also pretty reassuring that you thought the drums were actually too quiet cause I usually over-boost them and so I probably course-corrected a bit too hard on this one haha

one thing I was/am having a ton of trouble with in this particular track is having a punchy bass drum and it definitely shows in this mix. so I think just across-the-board cutting the low end on a ton of stuff like you said would provide the breathing room necessary for the kick to actually be heard. and I also think that, even though the reverb is pretty dang in your face, clearing the air in the lows-low mids would make the verb a lot less intrusive so i'll definitely jump on that.

what's kind of interesting (and just goes to show that there's a ton of muddiness) is there's almost no reverb on the drums besides a slight slapback delay on the snare so that just ties back in to the overall washy-ness of everything (which I do want to maintain in a shoegaze-y sort of way but not in a sounds-like-hot-garbage one haha)

and the trumpet is surprisingly just from the Spitfire BBC Symphony Orchestra Discover pack! with a ton of reverb (again) and some Izotope Vinyl processing (which definitely enhances the flappiness of it all).

overall, thanks so much and I'd love to be on shortlist for any upcoming music competitions!

[Lil Bear - SGD]

Personally I'm not a huge fan of e-piano chords just sort of moved around. I'm so glad I picked up this was mostly a joke before I almost died trying to tell you how to make the vocals sound better.

Still, compress that shizzle, my guy. Make it the best sounding joke on the internet. As it's mixed, I really struggle to hear your vocals over the percussion :P

Also, why not make trap music about Susie the trap? You could be her trap star. She could be your trap queen <3

But yeah, most of my critique is gonna sit on this could be an epic sounding joke song, if it had more attention poured into aspects of compressing vocals, mixing in a balanced way so that those vocals came to the front, and making sure we know Susie's got a dick, and that's okay <3

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

LilBearMusic responds:

I really appreciate you giving me this criticism. Ill definitely compress the vocals and mix it better. ❤