ADR3-N's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Imo Ringtone (Bandstep Remix)]

Interesting. So you're using Musescore. Are you including accents? Any good piece has accents. This would be the equivalent of velocity in other DAWs. It still sounds really rudimentary, and I urge you to think outside the box. Adding octaves is not really adding depth to your piece. The parallel motions sound lazy!

theweathermanYT responds:

I wrote this song for a percussion quartet, which might explain the emptiness. I, again, was rushed into this song. And there are accents, but MuseScore sometimes doesn't pick up on them. Thank you for commenting!

[Unraveling [Bandstep Remix]]

This doesn't sound as naked as your other piece, but I know partly that's because it's a remix. You're really suffering from percussion not giving this aaaaany kind of boost. The perc is so hidden in the mix, the lowly flute covers it up. Compress your drums! Also modulate your velocities or every note will sound the same. Now if I heard a band playing this, dynamic issues fixed, I would be quite a lot less bored, I suppose. It just lacks substance on its own and is pretty boring and monophonic at points. Also, what the hell with that trumpet part coming in at the end. That was very abrupt.

theweathermanYT responds:

I understand what you are saying. I tend to focus more on harmony and making sure each note is either matching or harmonizing with the other ones playing at that time. I do need to focus more on dynamics and structure, as you mentioned. And the abrupt loud ending is a glitch in Musescore. I put a crescendo there and it did not read that I put one there. Thank you for commenting!

[Saxostep]

This song really doesn't feel like it goes anywhere. The build up is miles long, and then it's still really naked. Percussion is really rudimentary.

The tempo change and key change are fine, but this piece lacks almost all of the gravity you wanted to convey not only because of the emptiness, but because the percussion instruments you chose don't lend to it. This sounds like a song someone would perform in beginner band. Also, where are cymbals? What are transitions and structure? You should really ask yourself this. Also, one of your progressions is a scale toward the end. We start and end in the same key, so this isn't a biggie, but I was mostly just bored.

theweathermanYT responds:

I can assume the reason that it doesn't go anywhere is the way I wrote the piece. I focused on each individual "block" (every 2 measures) of the song, which might have led to the lack of structure and transitions (and the fact it doesn't go anywhere). It is empty because the instruments I used were 4 types of saxes and percussion. Yes, I understand it sounds like a beginner band song, I tend to do that in all of the works I scrap, but I finished this one. As for cymbals, I was going to use them (and I should have kept them), but in the end, I scrapped them because of a MuseScore glitch which totally messed up the cymbals. The way music is around my neck of the woods, this song is very nice. Lol I'm a band nerd. Thank you for commenting!

[Waterbird (re-imagined)]

Not too bad. Mastering needs a lot of work, and you have a lot of muddy frequencies blending into each other on the low end. I recommend looking up johnfn's mixing/mastering tutorials, which you can probably find in the NGUAC thread.

The progression here is about the same as Pachelbel Canon. Melodies sound pretty canned to me and aren't really .... melodying. They're just sort of porting around in the chords. Melody usually goes stepwise.

Also, be mindful your bass drum can actually be heard in that muddle of low frequencies. Compress your percussion. Snare and hats also seem overly dry and stick out because of that.

My computer crashed while I was writing this review so I forgot a lot of what I was going to write. Bottom line, good idea, not so good mixing. Also try to incorporate more stepwise and fluid melody. Jumping around is for harmony -- otherwise you end up with a song that sounds kinda neither here nor there

ColinMuir responds:

Thank you, that means a lot. Ill take everything you said into consideration :)

[Heartbeat [Melodic Dubstep]]

Low pass intro is interesting, but I'm not sure if it's my speakers, or your mix is distorting badly. Okay, so it's very static-y. Just checked. Also, check the chord resolutions you have. They sound sort of bland and very repetitive. Recommend some basic music theory. The only thing that breathed life into them was the riser! This tells me the chords are not resolving in ways they typically would or should to satisfy the ear.

Everything is just too loud, too reverbed and too over-compressed. Frequencies are muddy as hell. Transitions are not making much sense at all. I can't really tell much else about the quality from the volume levels just red-lining to hell.

Your drums aren't hiding, which is good, but the treble is flat out destroying the bass.

Focus on volume leveling before you do ANYTHING on the master. Compression will kill any mixing decisions you make.

Also, avoid perfect fifths in your chords as they move. It just doesn't sound good when you're trying to do something happy.

Overall, the distortion makes it almost impossible to listen to this track. Go back to it, lower that volume across the board on every track with all your compression and whatever off, and THEN you can think about applying it, once the rest is taken care of. It just destroyed the musicality of your track.

[Become Like Them]

Interesting start, and this one picks up very quickly. Drums are still buried in the mix, and the track sounds a little muted. Again, the harmony is a bit too loud and buries everything. Vocals stick out reasonably well, but it sounds a bit like listening to a YT video in 240 or 360p. This can be caused by over compression, or it simply can be a combination of EQ issues piling on top of one another.

rsonbie456 responds:

Thanks for the review!

Yeah, I think it's mainly EQ mixing + the compression I'm using. Usually, when I listen to it directly in FL Studio, it sounds better, but the output version always sounds a tad different. I created this song a couple years ago, so hopefully, my mixing got better!

[Efficient Bird]

Not bad, fairly empty sounding spatially and a little repetitive. This definitely wouldn't suffer from having some percussion to give those arpeggios weight earlier on. Also, what perc you do have could be louder. Again, buried by the melody and harmony majorly. Compress those drums hard.

Doesn't sound bad, but it takes a while to get where it's going, and mixing decisions make it hard to get into.

rsonbie456 responds:

Thanks for the suggestions! Yeah, I do think the percs could be a lot more noticeable, huh?
Hopefully, I can improve on mixing more. Drums and "spacious" sounds are especially hard for me.

[Reflect Upon]

Sounds quite empty before it gets going, but I think this may be what you're going for. However, it stops holding my interest somewhat due to lack of dynamic contrast and very slow, somewhat uninteresting progression. The chords ported around with doubled octaves are a little predictable, and it sounds very much like something we've all heard before. However, this doesn't necessarily make it bad.

Release on your piano notes needs to be a little longer, or perhaps there should be more reverb. Cutoffs are very short and abrupt in what feels should be a spacious piece.

Your mixing is extremely muddy! Percussion sounds like it's a mile away, hiding under the piano, and FX is drowning it. Too much reverb, too long of a release, not enough highs and mids. Perc should almost always cut through, even in quiet pieces such as this, to give a little drive. Remember not to do any sort of compression or FX on the master until you've got ALL of your volume leveling down pat. It can make it impossible to make good mixing decisions.

2:15 feels less like an ending and more where the track should have been at its height. I would have shortened your intro by about half and built to that a little more quickly, held it for most of the duration of the track, then fell off into a diminuendo and stinger on the end. If you don't know what I'm talking about, listen to some similar pieces in the genre. I'm getting sadness and determination from this piece, but it delivers none of the determination until the very end, when it's too late to enjoy!

rsonbie456 responds:

Thanks for the awesome suggestions! I agree with what you noticed. I'll try to improve mixing a bit more.

Originally, this song was going to be for an animation, so I timed the ending scene with the ending melody. However, I realized that as a piece alone, it does move too slow as it does not have anything interesting in the beginning.

Yeah, I'm still trying to figure out mixing/EQ. I recently just got into the realm of actually messing with it. I'll take what you said for future stuff.