ADR3-N's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Programmed Sky (NGRMC Remix)]

I'm not a huge fan of that initial icicle type stab, or the kick intro; that could just be my preference of genre talking though. I'm also not sure this is synthwave.

A major detractor for me is the lack of a bass line. The only thing we have anchoring us in our key is that tuned kick to tell me we're in Ab minor or something related, and without a bass, subsequently we don't really feel a tie to the tune itself. The kick alone would have been fine for an outro or break. As is, the song feels underdeveloped.

Going without a bass line really limits your chord combinations. With one, you can change the feeling of entire chords just by moving the bass note around in the scale/mode. It's really cool, and I definitely recommend trying it out.

Also, the chords themselves seem like they may just be the same triad ported around. The detuned ... saws(?) sound too loud for your lead to sustain, and percussion is lying on top of that pretty heavily. A little music theory goes a long way; I definitely recommend hitting up YT for inspiration in that regard. Some great channels out there like Signals Music Studios have helped me personally. Guaranteed to take your writing to the next level.

That said, your sound design itself was creative, turning a major sounding melody into a minor chillout. So it's not that I don't dig the idea, just the execution.

Thanks for coming out to NGRMC!

[lost in my mind]

Interesting chord progression. I wouldn't have expected it to work. Still, piece seems to be the same thing over and over after the lead comes in.

[What i see]

An interesting theme, but not a lot of development. For your second piece, not bad. I don't think it's the "samples" or FX that's the problem so much as a very short, very simple tune.

[Creepy Manision]

Sounds more like a ringtone than a level theme. A bit ear piercing.

[good]

Hmm... I'm not sure what's going on here. The chords here seem to be all the same interval transposed. You'll want to check out something called voice leading -- it's a music concept that will help you immensely to get those tight chord progressions.

That said, your bass sounds really good. I just can't really hear anything else but it and the percussion.

Also, why choose a stock piano? Mix things up a little :)

Overall, this track is very quiet. Sounds uncompressed. Although before I would worry about compression, I would learn all you can about mixing the genres you want to make properly. Don't be afraid to copy what other people are doing in that regard. Learn by doing.

I do like what you've done with your lead, though. Interesting and funky melody over an unconventional house arrangement. The lead made your progression work much better than I thought it would.

[The Bëker x Jon1000 Split]

Music here is interesting, but I can't really hear the conversations going on. That could be mixed louder probably.

3:21 the FX on the vocals are interesting but probably be side-chained over the rest of the music. At points it would be ear-rapey if it were louder.

Century sounds almost like vaporwave, but faster, haha. Interesting!

9:39 I'd like something other than stock-y piano sounds. This theme kinda middles throughout, not really developing a lot but having a sort of interesting sound to it.

12:04, I'm wondering what you're going to do with that... clarinet synth? It's an interesting theme for sure, sounds super lo-fi, which may or may not be a plus. Over time I find myself wanting to hear less of those quarter notes. They sound all the same velocity. A hard-soft-hard-soft approach might help. Tune itself is pretty sweet, even if it feels like it progresses very slowly.

16:21 is actually pretty cool despite stuttering delivery. I'd sample it.

17:49, cool 80's inspired theme going on here. Wanna hear more of your vocals as opposed to the FX on the bass. Could maybe use a bit less keys. Genuinely interesting song. Vocals would sound great if they weren't so dry, as well.

22:44 Nicely written semi-free verse. I would also sample this. Delivery isn't too bad but needs a bit more attention to diction/intensity. Not bad!

[sad]

Interesting chord progression -- not to far out of the norm, but the secret sauce is in that 4th chord.

It looks like you've taken special care to monitor your levels at least in your opening. I feel like you could have cut your intro some and maintained more drive throughout. Those tom fills are pretty good, btw, just a bit too loud.

0:32 is where I would have put 0:39, and I probably would not have taken the piano down so much.

The sub in this is entirely too loud for the hats and perc to cover. If you ever want to test how balanced a mix is, just see if it still sounds good with your volume turned down to about 20%. If you can still hear everything clearly and you like it, it's sounding good.

It does sound like this track has a brick wall limiter over it. I can hear this at 1:04 where everything is kind of distorting in that high range. Listen carefully.

Overall, other than the super loud toms, which do sound good, just need to be a bit quieter, this is a pretty good piece -- and this is in July. Not bad. I would definitely start looking into some tutorials for your favorite genres. You're getting there, just need a little push :)

Also, trim that silence in your outro. There's a free program called audacity that can do it for you in a matter of seconds.

[f*ck]

I like the idea here but this sounds pretty unbalanced. Normally the problem with new dubstep makers is the percussion -- not being able to hear it specifically. What this sounds like is the percussion is too loud over the drop, no side-chain, and backing pads too reverbed up.

Turn that reverb send on your pads down, cut the low end on it, and bring them down a little.

Kick and snare are okay until 0:24 where you can see we have some peak distortion. If this is just an idea you're doing some light mixing on, you can clap an emergency limiter on it as a bandaid but I recommend just avoiding it at all costs.

I try to mix everything so that the entire track peaks at no more than -6 dB on the master channel before I even touch it. This approach totally avoids the peaking problem is why, mostly. That and when you do apply compression -- which it sounds like this piece has not had, you also avoid over-compressing, to some degree.

Now to side-chaining, if you haven't had any experience with this, I recommend plugins like fabfilter C2 or sidekick6, but you can do it by hand if absolutely need be. Basically, you have your bass line, and whenever your kick/snare hit, you duck your bass and sometimes other synths so the kick/snare don't have to push THROUGH the low frequency noise to get to your ears. It's so prevalent now that a lot of people use it, even in genres like metal.

I also note the lack of a sub under your wobble synth, and the wobbles themselves aren't compressed. Something to work on.

That said, good dubstep standard composition going on. I'm excited to see you improve in the time to come. :)

TheVillagerPlayer responds:

Thank you very much for your advices :)

Dubstep is a music genre that iI haven't already tried it was my first time.
I made this in one hour because I was bored and I actually wasn't expecting anyone to listen to this. I'm ok on the point that the pads have too much reverb and low end .
I actually have experience with sidechain, I tried to do the compressor method, lfo tool, kickstart and gross beat, I also used automation clips on the volume (not in this) and I didn't think to add it so thank you vor the advice once again. I'm ok with the entire comment, you're right but I had two problems during the making of this music:

- I don't have a good computer and my cpu was dead at like 11 tracks on the playlist

- It was my first time experiencing the serum plugin and I didn't know how to create growls

btw I'm not english so if my response may have grammary problems (I mean It's still a problem) but I don't speak engliah fluently

Thank you very much for giving me good advice :)

[Endless Handbag Loop]

Most iconic sound in all of NG history right here. First discovered in that one NG rpg. My absolute favorite.