ADR3-N's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[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.

[The Big Bad Beastlands]

If the mix on this were fixed, it would 100% bang. As is, the hihats and cymbals are quite loud, the kick is hard to hear, and the snare is just barely peeking out. Beyond that, the elements in the mid-mid and low-mid could stand to be pulled out to the sides a bit to differentiate between near-notes. The horns uniformly sound like they're all balanced to the right, particularly.

I'm having a hard time hearing the bass and rhythm chugs.

Besides the mix and the twirly sounding attacks/releases on your horns occasionally trailing over each other unpleasantly, I think the writing of this piece is great.

I would turn up the master and see what could be done to clean it up besides. Good work!

6.6/10

Kman465 responds:

Yeah... I am a very rookie mixer. I’ve been trying to put in some more effort into it but growing pains and all that jazz. I got a long way to go I suppose. Haha

Thanks for the listen! I appreciate the feedback!

[Unstable Showdown]

Good ideas here, which would certainly hit hard if the mix were improved upon. The kick and snare are far down in the mix relative to the lead and other rhythm elements. The low octave bass is difficult to hear over other elements. I would recommend turning down the leads, turning up the kick and snare, and sidechaining.

The master is also pretty quiet. Besides that, the rhythms are good, and the overall theme is grooving. Sounds like a boss theme. I also love your pads :)

6.4/10

[I Slip Into Bed]

Master is very quiet, and guitar amps sound pretty rough on your rhythm guitar. I would switch them out. The lead could in most parts use to sound more as it does at 1:00

Writing is good, if a bit simple-happy-jig-y

I would take down your wood block, bring up kick and snare, and take down cymbals just slightly. If these are your live drums, great job recording them. They're straight on and have good feel.

I'm just really not jiving with that rhythm guitar. It could stand to be double tracked if it is not. Hard to hear.

7.4/10

[Basket of Skittles]

I think the volume of your sub is fine. Sines are hard to hear on almost all sound systems. They need more oomph ;)

Your choice of synths is not really my jig, but the writing is lovely. Breaks are also nice, and so is sampling. You're really going bonkers on that outro :)))))

I would pan your samples around a bit more and trigger 2 similar sounding keys/pads left and right for a feeling of more space in the mix, but other than that, gorgeous work :)

8.2/10

[Chunky's Song]

This somehow manages to have a lot of vibe despite the mix being close to destroyed. I would go back and clean it up, because it would make a smacking album intro or interlude. Extra half-star for personal preference. Sorry I don't have much else to say, just needs a revisit on the mix!

BlazeLOGC responds:

oh for sure, this was thrown together really in one sitting and I was more focused on the composition. 100% agree on the mix and thanks for the kind words!

[Nekomaton]

Mix is dirty as all get out, but your writing and transitions make up for this. You combine several electronic styles flawlessly in this piece. My advice would be to pull down the intensity of all your wet FX on average by 25% (except chorus -- you handled chorus quite well throughout)

What's going on in this mix is that reverb wet signal has too much low freqs in it, is too high up, delays are ringing out a bit too long with similar issues, colorized wet signals are giving their typical tin-can feeling and clouding the mid and lo-mids. You could also pan and spread these freqs more carefully for more spatial movement.

But in terms of composition, you're killing it!

EQ wise, more can be done to make room for your bass and rhythm synths. Sidechain too.

Besides, amazing work. 8/10

CloudNinja responds:

This is actually the best advice I have ever gotten since now I know what the actual problem is when it comes to mixing in some of my songs lol
You might have just solved a big problem.