ADR3-N's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[[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!

[Millennial Falcon]

Casually listening here from Review Request Club. Found your song as I was about to post my own.

First thing I'm noticing is that sped up transition is nice and moving. I think you might have a bit much white noise there. I would take that instrument down a bit.

Actually I would cut the reverb on most of your instruments. You actually need a lot less of it in a mix than you think. It gets really muddy. It's keeping me from hearing your bass super clearly, resonating in that range. I like to cut up to 250, sometimes higher, depending what I'm doing. It's particularly noticable on your lead and other synths and those glitches.

Your mix also sounds somewhat heavier in the right channel. I'm a little bit hearing damaged on that side so it might be something to look at.

I would probably choose a grittier kick. This one sounds both very tame and possibly not tuned to the key of the song (that helps to work with your bass)... I might pitch it down some. It's in that uncanny valley midrange for me. I'm not expecting to hear it in this type of genre.

But overall super cool track. Enjoyed the listen :)

[Bring The Heat]

I agree with most of TL's review, with the exception of width. On those big sections particularly, that shines. I would draw it back in with automation on your smaller sections to give a sense of apprehension.

Now, where the piece struggles to hold together for me is mix. It almost feels like you're afraid of your drum set and guitars. Those should be the loudest parts of the mix and clearly audible. I can barely hear them at 1:30.

The drums particularly feel cut down and mids sucked out. The hi-hat sticks out but it's very dry. This would be one case where I would say give it some verb, or pull it down. Now, your cymbal writing is moving and interesting for my ears.

Toms sound like twapping on notebooks to me. Compress those and bring out the wood resonance and that will help your sound here.

Also, your reverbs need to come down quite a bit. A reverb doesn't have to be very audible to do its job, and I feel the left hand piano in the intro would be well served to be thinned out. Cut off the low end of that verb up to 250 or so hz.

Your writing here is beautiful. I really enjoyed it. No comments there.

I will say watch your chunk chording rhythms at 1:00 for the velocity machine gun robot effect.

Also on those timpanis, the low mids and reverb to me sticks out pretty hard.

Throughout, your guitars could all stand to come out. I don't care if they sound synthy or not, the brass, when guitars are in the mix, should at least sit back farther.

I also felt throughout reverb could come down. On sustained notes, it tends to grab harmonics and overtones and just carry them to stupid levels. Not saying I'm hearing a lot of that here, but if there's mud in your sound, reverb will drag it out from under the rug, especially plate.

Overall, a great listen. You might appreciate some work of Chernobyl Studios on mixing and bringing out drums and guitars. I like this direction though. Keep doing what you're doing!

[BEST BUY TYPE BEAT]

This is so bad it's good. I'm really impressed you got Speakonia to flow!

[boom]

Yo! Glad to see you around! I don't have my monitoring headphones on, so I don't have a lot of mixing critique, but I like what you have going on here. I will say on my laptop speakers, I'm not able to hear any bass at all, so if it's there, I might recommend grabbing a distorted 808. That's really my only gripe other than there don't seem to be a ton of switchups between sections, leaving a comparatively long sounding drop and only some small bridge sections. It ends up sounding like you really only wrote a couple different 4 bar sections. A nice moving 808 with a 8 to 16 bar progression on it could totally change the feel of this piece.

But beyond that good work. I enjoyed listening :) Hope you're doing well. Ain't seen ya around in forever!

[you won't last 5 seconds after clicking this link]

It's been five seconds. I haven't killed myself yet. I'm telling mom.

Idea is pretty cool. Think it could use a lot less reverb and shorter delay tail, and no sloppy fade out at the end. Extended version over a standard house structure pls. Could really do with bringing out your percussion, too. Maybe try a transient shaper like dominion (it's free)

[Competition]

Listening to this, you've got some good writing ideas that are being held back a lot, I feel, by instrumentation. Those trumpets tend to bleed into one another. I would use a different synth say from a commodore 64 emulator, SQ8L synth, or maybe psymon. Particularly glaring is the overtone harmonic guitar and banjos.

The mix is out of balance, with bass hidden in the mix, hihat at times overpowering instruments on quieter sections like with the bass. The trumpets covering each other up. I would probably choose a different instrument for chords there just based on how muddy they tend to sound and trying to keep the texture varied.

The electric guitars at the end are still out of tune somehow. I don't know what's going on there really.

Rhythmically, the piece is pretty well written, but I would put my focus on structure and phrasing. There are some parts where it sounds just really busy for no apparent reason other than to be busy, with contrasting parts, particularly the outro, and I'm not sure where you want my attention to go. That's probably my main issue with the song actually, forgetting even clashing keys at one point and mix issues. I would recommend some laid back study of lead writing say from Signals Music Studios or Holistic Songwriting on YT. I used to have the same problem as you back in the day -- if you listen to my work from say 2017 and earlier, writing a ton of really complicated parts for no reason other than maybe cool points tbh. Watching their material helped me grow as a composer. And if there's hope for me, there's destiny for other folks like you out there -- because I was awful.

But no matter what, keep following your craft. Three years in the making, and still going -- don't ever let your memes be dreams. The more you do, the more you learn, the more you know, and the more you grow :)

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

[Wertw - You Are Not Alone]

Piece sounds great, with the exception of what sounds like over-reverbing and those double or triple kicks that I actually can't tell if they're separate percussion samples in the background due to reverb. Muted like they are, they kind of, and don't take this wrong, sound like me farting in my blankets and trying not to be heard. No offense intended. But if you have some cinematic percussion down there, bring that up and be proud of it! I have a hard time hearing both that and your kick on your smaller sections with less sidechain. Mostly just sounds like a case of other instruments being way too far up in the mix, up to a dB, and muddy verb.

For verb instances, I almost always low cut up to 250 hz and try to keep the length and amount as low as I can to achieve the sound I want. For things like snares and percussion, you can use a technique called gated reverb. I will also scoop those frequencies out of most things that aren't a bass or percussion instrument for the purposes of saving space in the mix and eliminating low mid and high wash over big sections. That would really help you here.

Also, this piece is pretty long. You could probably stand to cut one drop by half or so. I remember thinking in that midsection as I was writing critique that the same section had been playing for quite a while without much variation.

But other than that, really enjoyed the listen. Good work :)

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

Wertw responds:

Thx for the review dude! I'm gonna try to improve all that stuff you said, glad of take part in this, hope that the next year I can do best and kill 'em haha

[Fizzy Frost Ice (NGUAC 2020)]

Some nice polyrhythms going on, everything building off of itself until the drop. I can't really say I'm a huge fan of that section or the one following. That's a little disjunct for me, augmented chords. Then we go back into the drops.

I find myself thinking, there's got to be something different with the drop we can do, in terms of lead writing. And I really think that is where you stand the most to gain from studying. You know how to use samples and structures. But we go from major chords with stacked intervals on the verses and intros to a monophonic drop on diminished intervals, to augmented stabs. I'm trying to put them together as one cohesive thing in my brain and it's not really working.

You might find some videos from Signals Music Studios on writing melody and harmony a good study -- they're not bogged down in music theory too much, so if you don't know it, it won't stop you from learning, but I think it will help you get the cohesive, weird vibe you're going for, without making what sounds like parts of three different songs and putting them together :)

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC, and congrats on the front page!

chris-marcell responds:

thanks for you review, i realli appreciate tht!