ADR3-N's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Adventure]

The attacks on that piano are kind of jarring for me.

Also, synth panned hard left sounds good but I'm not sure why you would pan it so hard.

When we get to our drop, I can tell things were mixed too loudly. You've got some soft clipping going on.

That said, track does sound good regardless. I would recommend you revisit the mix after the competition, strip down, re-do all your volume leveling. That's literally the only thing killing this track, other than some machine gun key attacks.

Protip, make sure your track peaks no higher than -6 dB, then apply mastering FX -- not sure if there even are any on this track, but mastering services almost universally recommend this because it allows you the freedom to shape the end result as you please without clipping. If your mix sounds good here, it will sound good at any volume, and most importantly BETTER when properly mastered.

Definitely recommend looking at mixing and mastering tutorials. You have a good sense for melody and harmony. The mix is your weak spot here. Fix that and this would be a solid 4/5 to 4.5/5 for me, depending on how good the mix is.

[To Battle]

Orchestral elements here /do/ sound nice. It's the guitar that's lacking. Doesn't sound like they're double-tracked. Kind of hiding in the mix. I'd probably recommend RealEight in place of whatever you've got here. I can tell 2:05 is not a synth. If you didn't commission someone else to record that or play it yourself, I'm not sure why you would chose to synth your rhythm guitars there. Not a serious detractor but does take off a good half star just for guitar mixing/synth. You could probably have gotten away with slapping an amp on a dry cello with a pick sample midi vst the keep the attack clear.

That said, wonderful writing. I found the only thing this piece really lacked aside from what I've already mentioned is some compression to give it the power I know you want to convey.

[New Loop Thing]

This reminds me of the typical 4 chords progression -- the one we find in Pachelbel Canon, only without the 4th chord.

Overall, not a bad piece, but there's very little variety. I'm not really hearing any melody, just the chords sort of added and subtracted to.

2:01 we get a bass arp and a slight switch up, and then the bass turns into a riser.

For a song with so few statements, I don't really think it needed to be 4 minutes long. I'm not sure what to comment otherwise besides ... hmm. Now that I pay closer attention, this file sounds over-compressed. That could be side-chaining or something. Recommend maybe checking some mixing and mastering tutorials for your DAW.

[Sea Drift]

Lot of lo-mid noise on your reverbs. Try turning down the FX wet and hi-passing it. These frequencies tend to gradually build up and muddy your mix. I hear it especially on the big boomy FX. You'd be surprised how little reverb you really need to accomplish the sounds you're going for.

Boom FX is too loud in the mix. I think I hear clipping at points.

Other than that, chill piece. I'm vibing with it. Synth bass could probably use some humanization.

2:56 is clipping pretty bad. I don't think a limiter would be a big enough bandaid for it. Protip, make sure your track peaks no higher than about -6 dB. If your mix sounds good here, it's ready for FX and compression in the master channel. It's hard to squeeze a track under -6 dB when you're used to mixing everything all the way up, but it's worth it.

KnockVoltage responds:

Cool, thanks for the tips! The clipping near the end gets me every time I hear it. I'll have to work more on master channel FX and compression so I can mix lower.

[The Visions in 140]

Just a bit hard to hear that sine bass once things get going. Then by 0:39 between the throbbing bass and that one TSSS perc, I'm feeling just a little bit of a headache coming on. It kind of sounds like a limiter was tossed on top of the track without concern that some elements may have been mixed too loudly.

You have some cool elements going on, but I'm not really able to tell what direction we're headed in melodically. It's not quite noise music but certainly some atonal elements going on here until about 3:09. As such, I'm not sure how to comment other than perhaps recommending some mixing and mastering tutorial study to make things a little more palatable/clean up muddy mix.

Protip, before you apply FX to the master channel, make sure your track peaks no higher than about -6 dB. If your mix sounds good here, it's ready to be mastered. It's hard to squeeze a track under -6 dB when you're used to mixing everything all the way up, but it's worth it. Even if you just render your track before popping it over to one of those auto-mastering services, it really does make the magic happen.

[Preheat]

Interesting intro. I think that string synth probably could have benefited from more volume.

0:30 is a fairly new presentation style. I feel like we were really lacking the usual dubstep snare pattern there, and that would have beefed up the composition a bit. Also, section after was a very abrupt return to our intro.

The following build leads to a chorus that isn't bad but sounds like it belongs more in hiphop. Also, this track feels like it's totally lacking a bassline other than the drops. Drops additionally could probably benefit from coming down an octave. That's reeeeally high for a dubstep bass. I could play it on a trombone, without an F trigger.

I think everything roughly fits together. It's just there's no bass to give this track punch. Interesting writing, though!

[Ecliption]

Sounds like clip-clopping digital horses. Do like the organic feel and what you've done with just your voice, but I really think you're doing yourself a disservice not using a traditional DAW like say, Reaper.

[dontwannagohome]

I agree with Kwing. Love a good beatbox, but the mix quality and hardware is a little... not great. Cool idea that I would like to see revisited with better equipment/mix.

[Charmer's Concoction (Bass Remix)]

Oh, so very 90's... Kinda reminds me of Megaman X : Command Mission. I'm feeling it.

About 2 minutes in, my complaint is largely that the track sounds like it was mixed too loud. Leads are hanging out over the bass a little unsupported. Bass is hiding in the mix, and so is the Amen Break. I can finally hear it at 3:00.

Protip, before you finalize your mix, make sure your track peaks no higher than about -6 dB. If your mix sounds good here, it's ready to be mastered. It's hard to squeeze a track under -6 dB when you're used to mixing everything all the way up, but it's worth it.

I'm noticing consistently the overly loud mixing on your synths by 4:00, which gets louder and louder by 4:30. I can hear an almost saturation style distortion by 5:00. Despite how much I like the DJ set vibe, this kind of consistent problem is really hurting your mix.

Definitely look up some mixing and mastering tutorials. By 6:00 we're distorting pretty consistently. At 6:32 at least I'm able to hear your perc more clearly, but at 6:39 the leads resume being too loud relative to them. Your perc should be the loudest element of your mix so as to still sound present throughout. Our brains don't pay much attention to them, so they sound quieter to us than they really are.

7:20, that drum loop is nice. I appreciate the return to the main theme at 8:00 or so. 8:56, things are significantly distorting again, and it continues getting worse as more elements are added.

9:30 sounds cleaner, despite still distorting, and there is our long-awaited outro.

All due respect, this didn't feel as long as it really was, so props for that. Normally I would be bored out of my mind by now. I'd love to see this song revisited with some proper attention to volume levels and mastered.

[The Seven Heavens - HalfEvil333.com]

Layering those two drum beats gives the sound a kind of cluttered sound, which is compounded more as we get into 0:57.

Overall, fairly simple track. Manages to make the orchestral and techno elements work together. Transitions are a little weak though, and I'm not sure what's going on structurally since we seem to almost be hanging onto the same chord for a majority of the song. I can't tell if you're just letting that held bass arp define the key for us or what.

2:30's are where the most adventurous part of our tune begins.

3:25 elements over top, I'm not sure where this came from and occurs without any obvious transition, twice. Not even like, wikki-wikki record scratches.

Also, random boom at somewhere around 2:40. Not liking that.

In short, I'm not really able to understand the piece. There were no fills or transitions to make me feel like it was anything beyond some moderately appropriate orchestral samples beat-matched to our drums, key-matched to our other samples. The arping bass also didn't do much for me. I would have rated higher for an olskool sounding bassline somewhere in there and some chop-sampled drums rather than loops.

HalfEvil333DB responds:

Thank you for the feedback. It really helps as I make new tracks. The idea for the song is to create 7 different heavens using similar sounds. Which is why all the sudden changes but similar beats. I will work on better segways in the future. The boom at the end was a thunder sound with rain to go into the next track. I am working on a song called when the Heavens meet the Earth where it will be a thunder storm with metal and beat elements. It's a tough one.

Again thank you your insite helps a lot. I want this new album to sound much better.