ADR3-N's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[-AnxiousBreaks-]

Great groove to this track overall and handling of FX initially. I really think the only thing holding it back is mix -- and 1:25 the choir is distractingly lo-fi

1:44 I think it would have paid to keep things chaotic and offbeat, using samples rather than synths. You appear to mix samples much better than synths -- the non-bass synths occasionally get quite loud, are not necessarily great quality, and they also clash somewhat with your bass.

At 3:09 the initial charm which drug me into this track is somewhat lost. You're bringing some of it back for the outro, but by then I know the track is over, and this makes me sad. I do really like the wild stuff you do at the end with samples though. Bring on the confusion lol.

In short, I think you had a really strong statement in your opening, with a little lapse in the middle. It's okay. Experimenting is part of what makes music a blast. No pun intended. Good work, and thanks for coming out to NGADM!

6.5

Creeperforce24 responds:

Thanks for the criticism! Yeah, I’m probably not making it past the first round lol!

[The Fate of the Reverent]

The over-presence of reverb on your percussion and other instruments without controlling tail length and low-frequency wet signal is causing what ordinarily would be a driving march to sound very muddy. The reverb itself sounds louder than the initial attacks of each kick/bass drum.

The instruments chosen also are not the best (I understand this, we work with what we have)

What can be done to help this is to disguise the poor-man instruments by not using them by themselves -- for a string patch, I will have 5-7 similar instruments all panned slightly apart (or widely depending if it is a lead or a rhythm instrument), and I make sure that they are not immediately recognizable as a lone string synth, etc. This is hard though and I really just recommend finding better sounding instruments AND using this technique of layering.

One of the biggest giveaways that either the equipment or the arranger is lacking in this film-score/orchestral hybrid genre is single trumpets, single violins, and etc trying to carry a whole tune, or instruments with attacks that all sound the same on repeat notes or fast notes. If you want massive scale, you must provide massive ensembles. It doesn't matter TOO much what they are made of, if you are clever.

I myself struggled with this for a long time. It really came down to having to get a new PC and picking up every good free orchestral library/patch/vst I could get my hands on. If you're in need of those I just did a blog of some great freebies.

In short, good writing, great even. Just hampered by some very common mistakes in mixing and instrument quality. Don't worry. We've all been there! What's important is not that I or someone else think your piece is the best thing since sliced bread -- it's whether you're making the kind of music you want to make! Study your genre. See how it sounds, and how people make it that way, and you will be golden. It's much easier to fix mix than it is writing, too!

[cORRuPTEd]

Mix is pretty quiet overall with what sounds like some clipping/clicks from zero crossings in the intro.

It also is pretty unbalanced in terms of both panning and levels of lead, percussion, and bass. The lead contrary to popular belief shouldn't be the loudest in your mix -- it actually falls behind the bass, kick, and snare. The bass should be just slightly louder than the kick, side-chained so that it ducks whenever the kick hits. Optional to sidechain to the snare as well.

Compositionally, however, this is fantastic. Your production and FX are creative and keep me engaged despite the flaws of mix.

I would give your bass more mono-presence. There are plugins that will allow you to mono-ize bass below a certain frequency. I usually choose 180 hz and below, or sometimes 150. This is because when you add chorus to a bass, you increase the chances of phase cancellation -- of weakening it. We definitely don't want that in 99% of cases.

In short, I think your ideas are fantastic. It's just the mix and master that need a tune-up. Keep doing what you do!

6.7

rYANCOOPERmx5 responds:

I really appreciate the feed back, Thank you a bunch :D

[Illusion]

Yo, Audio Technica headphones are beast. I prefer the m40x for the sound profile

The transition into bassline was unexpected and probably could be either A, more smooth, or B, more jarring for maximum impact. Bass is throbbing in my ears pleasantly, but other elements could be darkened and obfuscated sufficiently to better fit with the bass. The lead through your initial drop is pretty clean and contrasts against the bass rather than providing lifting accompaniment.

As we go on, your wetter synths are sounding more enmeshed with the bass and thus better.

I think your kick could be a bit louder. Your snare is about appropriate in volume and sounds pleasant. Sample at 2:49 is a bit indistinct and a little sibilant due to bit-crushing.

For the genre, song is about the right length, since psytrance is generally quite progressive in nature.

Singing bowl/temple ding cymbals are slightly too loud at 3:27

3:42 was a pleasant drop of retro strings that made me smile. Your portamento laser synth could stand to come down and be wetter and further back

Your handling of perc next was an eargasm. Like literally spinning in the middle of a perc groove. It does go on for a while so I recommend modulating other FX such as tremolo, delay, hi and lo pass or flange to get more mileage out of them. Even just a subtle change in volume can make all the difference in holding out a groove.

I love your bass mix overall despite thinking there could be just a bit more hi-mid range to it.

Overall the track is much more than the sum of its parts and kept me engaged throughout. Great work!

7.8

burningmagma responds:

Thanks, glad you like it! :D

[Lucky Boy]

I dunno if I'd call this hip-hop, unless you're leaning toward R&B, but color me shocked to hear this haha. Or maybe we're bridging between lo-fi chill.

The things that bother me about this mix have a little to do with it being outside of my genre preference, but more to do I think with mix. The hi-hats are pretty high up there in volume, much louder and at higher sound output would be uncomfortable.

The bass also is quite high at points and sounds like it may be conflicting with your backing keys where the latter overlaps. Sounds also occasionally leap up in volume where they enter, be it the kick, or the lead. Watch for that. This could be the fault of master compression if it's hard relative to the volume of the input. As the track gets less sonically complex and quieter, the comp kicks in and there goes your naked solo instrument, loud as can be, before the rest of the instrumentation kicks in and likewise so does the comp.

Overall the composition is solid, if a little simple. I'm on my third listen to see if there is anything else I can pick out

At 10 the volume modulations on your hihat are quite noticeable. I would more slowly automate that. The delays on it also sound a bit loud, overly panned, and clumsy to me (in that they are very noticeable as I listen to the rest of the track, not that they sound terrible)

1:37 the hi-hat approaches a good volume but is not consistent in loudness, so it occasionally jumps under or over about where it should be in order to stand out (sound good) without sticking out (like a slightly sore thumb)

46, the shaker sounds bit crushed. Some additional EQ could be done to give it some shimmer. The tuned woody perc at 1:08 also could use to be panned to the left or right and given a more spacious treatment. Revisiting the flourishes of the shaker, around 2:06, I can hear some FX on it attempting to give more space. I think you could accomplish this by panning repeat notes differently from one another and leaning into that delay.

I think overall the volume of the bass at 2:14 could be louder throughout. It's the only moving part and thus the point of focus for the listener. Bass overall does not feel like it has as strong of a mono presence as could be.

Overall, good work and solid writing. The groove is there. The relaxation is in play. This sounds like something that would play as you build a cute little videogame village in something like... what is it called, Animal Crossing? Something like that.

NGADM score: 7.3

Extra half star for VGM feels

[Stuck]

1:50 is where this song begins to take on its most pleasant tonality -- which is unfortunate as your melodic ideas aren't bad at all.

I have mega ADHD so I totally understand not wanting to work on anything and being so crushed trying to get anything out, especially when under life stress. I don't want to do anything most of the time, so imagine something bad happens. I just want to lie in bed and watch YT.

My problem with this piece is the overly harsh synths in the beginning and slow pace, with lack of percussion and other development. I can feel your hatred for the piece in the very chords and your frustration! I do hope that making this helped you vent some of that though.

I wish I could give a higher score, but I suppose what I can give is half-decent advice.

Learning some solid song structure would help make the most of even what elements you have here, that you hated. Any structure will do, but there was this one channel by the name of Signals Music Studio that helped me most tackling formulaic songwriting.

None of your melodic ideas are bad, but the track as a whole feels very samey throughout due to using the same two chords for the majority, and bringing in and out the same exact elements, such as the falling string synth, the dulcimer sounding synth, and so on. The rhythms are pretty straight, and modulation begins half-way through. What you could have done is to pick a single note in the very beginning and spend 8 bars or so developing it. Simply the root note of your first major chord in the bass would do.

Your synths are also quite harsh for such a slow piece, from the very beginning. I would rather spend some time building up to that level of harshness and sibilance, easing in and backing out as you go along. Things sounding uniformly harsh makes otherwise perfectly fine writing feel a little uncomfortable!

Mix wise, I don't really feel a bass in the center, gluing everything together. I also don't have a real sense of unity between the various instruments. They seem to be in separate spaces. Part of this overall sensation is the use of dense chords in the lower register as the foundation for the track, with the bass quite low in the mix, those high up quarter notes starting at 1:22 being both hard to hear in terms of harmony, very sibilant, and seemingly very chorused, but also somehow in the center, and the strings falling being the strongest element I hear.

So in short, a study of mixing, production, and songwriting would be first on my list of things to do. But don't ever let the frustration or what anyone says about your music stop you. What's important is that you keep going. The point you're at now is not where you will always be. It won't always be this frustrating!

Don't give up!

NGADM score: 5.6

[Circuit Breaker]

Writing this review as a verbatim shorthand of my thoughts for comp scoring

Percussion is really tinny in the beginning and then the kick and bass start having a really strange interaction with the sidechain -- the bass is just too loud, and compression too hard. Amen break enters with the lead and is barely audible, with the whole mix balanced to the lead and sub barely audible (owing to it being a sine)

Transitions are structured well up to this point, mix is just a bit heavy handed -- the growl sounds like it's contained to a tin-can, but rhythmically stands up well. Foot tapping commencing.

I think a revisit of this track with an eye for clean and crisp mixing will take it from top-notch EDM demo to pro-level track.

My concerns, the growls on the drop are just not loud enough relative to the lead and pads -- meaning turn the lead and pads down, and potentially the compression as well. The comp may be sucking the power out of the drops. Visually, I can see something is just not quite right with the waveform on the verses relative to the drops, and you may want to pull up a reference or two for this.

There are two things you can do for that growl -- you can try stereo-widening it starting from 500 hz or so and adding a hard clipper before or after, or you can reduce any colorization/chorus if any is present. I'm not sure where the tin-can noise and lack of presence could be coming from.

Reverbs and delays all around can afford to be dropped 10-25% in level and low-cut to 210 hz. All leads and pads can afford to drop in volume by 15% or perhaps a bit more. Sub could use more presence, but pay attention to how it sounds without compression first. If the sub sounds fine before compression, this should tell you all you need to know -- it's entirely possible that this track was just mastered on the hot side.

Other than that, great compositional skills and rhythmic drive. It's still stuck in my head after finishing. Great work :)

7.6/10

[Crew Battle]

Great writing, hampered by the limitations of beepbox's mixing -- at 1:27 the reverb is causing a lot of resonance in the low mids that I would personally clean up

Would have been a BOP in the old arcade days!

The problem of reverb and resonance repeats throughout with low-tuned parts, and it is also hard to make out percussion, particularly kick.

3:03's busy bass occasionally is having trouble cutting through due to near notes in the low register.

By 4:30, the track feels quite long, with empty arrangement here. I might have saved some of these ideas for another song, but the outro is good, using a familiar motif.

Overall, great work and a showcase of composition skill using minimal tools!

6.7/10 comp score, 4/5 NG score for preference

[Oso Viajero]

Sounds very 80s -- partially owing to the reverb -- a bit too much reverb and delay fx for my taste. I would recommend low-cutting reverb and delay wet signals up to 200 hz.

I would also keep the low end of your bass mono. It sounds like you've applied a chorus, which is fine, but the bass sounds very spread out and hollow as a result

Writing wise, you have very nice harmonies and good structure. The fusion of genres is pleasant! I heartily advise you to keep studying music production, particularly mixing, and keep pursuing your craft. This piece is one to save the midi and revisit with better technique <3

6.6/10

Force64 responds:

Thanks for your review! I will do my best to improve my work :D

[Plastic Bits]

Great groove and sound design all around. I think you could pump that bass just a bit more and reduce vinyl noise/wet fx's all around by 10-20% and come out with a cleaner mix. It seems like the mix is heavy in the low-mids and somewhat lacking in the air department, but props for tasteful hi-hat volume.

Great sounding ghost notes also

What I would appreciate is more mono-presence of the bass. As is, it's a bit spaced out and loses some thrust as a consequence. There is such a thing as mono-ing the sub and letting the rest of the bass spread out a bit, so see what you can do in that area!

You could also use two similar instances of your key synths and add more depth to sections such as 2:46 by panning them in opposite directions.

A bit of cleaning out the low mids of your synths and auxiliary rhythm synths would help this sound a bit more crisp

8.4/10

Jatmoz responds:

Thank you so much for the indepth review! Will definitely keep this stuff more in mind.