ADR3-N's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Inktober #29 - Halloween In Sweden]

Dropping fire as usual! Have you thought of releasing these to spotify? Distrokid is cheap and your output is prolific

Cyberdevil responds:

Much obliged ADR3-N! :) Was thinking of that very thing very recently actually - though aiming to have all this material a bit better mixed and mastered before I do. I doubt it'd be profitable at this point but it definitely would be cool!

[My Infinity]

The articulations on that ... ocarina... tin whistle??? are wonderfully varied and gorgeous. Same with the... pan flute?? Very natural.

Piece flows well into 55 sec and transitions are well done. I think the strings at 1:13 could have come in a bit softer, and the cello been just a bit more loose and languid. At times it feels a bit locked in. By 1:43 this isn't much of an issue. I would like to hear a bit more of the duet there. The piano by then is a bit loud. Same with the viola at 2:17.

Loving the complexity of the arrangement and chord progression. A lot of time spent outside of this genre has left me grasping for words on the finer technical details of this. Luckily for me, you don't actually need my commentary in that area to improve any. It is already a flawless piece to that degree. But for a few minor areas when we have moving parts at the bottom of the piano competing for space with a low cello line, it is clean, moving, and dynamic. Your transitions such as after 4 min are quite satisfying. I was expecting a terminus prior to 4:40, but I'm not upset you wrote what sounds like 2 outros there.

Without exception, great work! May be the finest composition I've heard all year, and perhaps longer, and I say that as someone who often hears people overcomplicate their work to the point of detriment. This piece is not in that category. It works BECAUSE it is complex. Great modulations, and great control of articulations for effect. Fantastic.

LucidShadowDreamer responds:

I'm glad you appreciate the articulations I picked for the woodwinds! One of them is indeed a tin whistle. The rest are an assortment of different ethnic flutes :3

You know, originally I wanted to perform them myself, since Jordi has a cool collection of whistles. I even manage to arrange it all for them with articulations and all. But it just would've been too difficult for me to learn to play well, on such short notice. I was contemplating asking Jordi, but in the spirit of the competition, I wanted to do every single thing myself this year. (In past years, instrumental performances have been allowed, if the direction is very explicit. However, I think there was some type of misunderstanding last year, so I've avoided it completely since then).

I agree with your point about the strings at 1:13. The tremolo things were actually the last element added to the piece, and I was running low on time. I like this composition well enough that I might go back and just fix those last little details up. I've said that before though, but only done it a handful of times, so we'll see xD

I couldn't help doing the "fake-outro" in this one. It practically wrote itself, on the piano. I've learned not to shy away from stuff like that if it screams out at me like that. Sometimes it's nice to just go all the way, and do it!

Wow, thank you so much for the praise, it means a lot to me <3

[Unlocked Access]

This piece is a bit quiet, and I still think there might be a bit much reverb, only by a smidge of a few percents on dry wet. I have to say I love your writing and arrangement. I still think there could be a way to coax more varied, natural articulations out of that trumpet and mix it better over the rest of the ensemble. For its solo lines, it's suprisingly out there, loud, and a bit dry sounding.

OH I HEAR THE BOND RIFFS YOU SLY SNEAKY LITTLE DOUBLE AGENT YOU

This gets a 10/10 arrangement from me, and about a 7/10 on mix. I'm quite torn on how to score it, as I'm a massive Bond fan. Great work!

[Separation (NGADM 23 Semifinals)]

I think the vinyl scratches in the beginning are a bit too loud, but beautiful playing, chords, and blending when those strings come in. Gorgeous texture by 46 seconds.

I think the mix on that lead cello could be just a little less sibilant and low mid heavy.

1:19 was an unexpected change-up. I have no comments here beyond perhaps to reduce the cymbal volume just slightly, as little as .1 to .2 db, and give a bit more high mid to that bass, more presence and center it below 230 hz.

Your chord progression is great for easy listening

I'm hearing a fizz in my right ear through 2:48 that is pretty high up in the mix. At first I was unsure if it was my tinnitus (it is about this loud when nothing is going on) so I might lower that a bit. Speaking of, music is the only thing that allows me to forget I do have tinnitus. Glad to be here listening to you :)

Though the piece is 4 minutes long, I felt like I wanted more out of it, more development, more directions. I think you might have been able to pull of a key change for a final chorus, but otherwise, flawless work. I hate to be forced to choose between such wildly different, beautiful pieces!

papkee responds:

The fizz you hear was my attempt to bring back in the noisy radio traffic from the intro & midsection, but it got kinda drowned out in the mix and ended up sounding like, well, just noise. Whoops.

Thanks for the kind words otherwise! More electronic stuff like this isn't exactly my specialty so it's always fun to branch out even if it doesn't turn out amazing.

[Lordant - Allegro Fratturato]

What a wild set of time signatures! Really adds to the cinematic feel.

There are some minor mixing complaints I have. 0:16 leading into 25 seconds, I think some of your panning might be a bit aggressive. Articulations of string staccatos could be more varied. 0:55 the horn line sounds as if it had the low mids sucked out a bit and as such is a bit in the background. I would like it more in the foreground.

The hybrid cinematic nature makes some of the mechanical quality of the attacks forgivable. I'm enjoying the complexity overall and by 2:11 am having a great time. I think the ride cymbals in the right channel could come down somewhat, have more varied panning, and more different articulations throughout.

Beyond that, lovely work! I appreciate the decrescendo and delay on the outro. Great work!

[Pixel Storm]

None of your ideas are bad, but I think the quality of synths is doing your arrangement a disservice.

Let me pause to explain what I mean as I realize that's vague. I think you need more instruments and contrast of instruments. Something besides the bare leads. Pads, clear bassline, etc. A little study of songwriting and arrangement will do you a lot of good in this area. And don't feel like you absolutely must create every single sound you use, down to the waveform. Some samples are perfectly okay as long as they are royalty free.

I run into the same issue you have in this track a lot, in that the rest of the instrumentation is pretty bare, so I completely rely on the lead to carry the track the whole way through. It gets so complex, so busy, that even my best lead lines go unnoticed.

Also never underestimate the power of offbeats and weak beats. Not every melody must start on a downbeat

Back to arrangement

It's quite busy and there seems to be an ambivalence in terms of structure. I would like to see more of this kind of ambition, especially the final big section, with just a little more structural finesse! You're getting there!

Sneep-Sn00p responds:

wow, Thats one long take on this. I'll consider it, Thank you for your feedback!

[castle deep south of nowhere]

This is a pretty sweet piece for beep box! It sounds like with your experimental works, you are taking it to the limit with pitch bends.

I can hear a little of what you mentioned to me in struggling to structure your piece. However, you deliver a pretty consistent melodic theme and a clear outro.

It sounds like what is the problem is not knowing where to stop stacking when it comes to complex rhythmic and melodic elements. For 1:20 seconds, you have a full minute of that with most or all of the instruments playing at the same time, and various quick pitch drifts occurring, taking up a lot of the attention of the listener. I am not immune to this myself, so I will listen through several times and explain what I mean.

In your intro, complexity develops quickly, with moving melody, bass bopping around quite a lot, and what sounds in between mallets and organs also entering and exiting.

The lead has several nice licks, but it can sound a bit disconnected perhaps due to a bit of muddiness in the chords below. If I am not paying direct attention to it, it sounds nice, but when I am paying direct attention, the mallets in particular are distracting from it by hanging out on a minor third and being quite busy.

You may have better luck by starting with fewer instruments at first, a bass, a lead, and a pad, and then further adding occasional accents.

Further, a study of song structure may help you organize these musical ideas and develop them into satisfying phrases – I actually think everything I heard would be catchier if parsed out like so: intro with mallets > verse with developing perc sounding instrument and mallet > chorus with your lead > verse with mallets and perc > chorus > bridge building into another > chorus > chorus into outro.

You have done some very nice transitions with your pitch bends and made with beep box what many don’t take the time to, so pride yourself on that!

Regarding your arrangement of chords, there is a phenomenon that happens with triads as you go down the keyboard – the lower a chord is, the more chunky and dissonant it starts to sound. Try to keep the low mid and low range of your tunes as clean and uncluttered as you can.

I’ll explain further. Notice the lead up top sounds very sonorant and clear, but if you were to drop that down an octave, it might lose that clarity. I think this is happening with the minor 1 and 3 in the bass in your outro, as well as with the mallet hanging out on the 3rd of the minor i chord a lot. If any of this is unclear, I’m more than willing to go deeper, but for learning applications, I recommend a channel called Signals Music Studio for songwriting in particular; Adam Neely is a step up from that into finer concepts of music composition, but both are great places to explore this terminology. And if you are an absolute nut who wants to make everything weird, Ben Levin is another great stop on your research journey.

For this piece as is, I can see it as a menu theme for a Genesis-like game or something similar, something involving building alien worlds or exploring new planets/prospecting. Perhaps even something like Minecraft. There is no kick/snare/hat, so it lends itself best to waiting, pondering, observing. Very chill stuff.

JimmyTheCaterpillar responds:

I really appreciate all of your words -- it's crazy! I'm not even sure where to begin with a response,, but the song structure bit has sincerely got me thinking critically about much of the music I hear lately. I listen very analytically to poetry, and i'm starting to do it with music too more consciously;; it's kind of exhausting lol but i'm trying! thank you so much!!

[amp chant / orange dance]

This piece is a bit short to properly comment, but from what I can hear, it is utterly filthy in a good way. You have a talent for creating alien textures and a clear eye for rhythm. I am imagining that you did this with audacity as well, which is an achievement. Horror composers make soundscapes like these all the time for shows like American Horror Story and its discombobulated intros.

The repeating cronenberged section sounds like an auto-filter or gate, and I appreciate the organic horror, as well as how if I zone out hard enough, the sensation between psychosis, washing dishes in the back of a restaurant, and at 0:15 in particular, a surfer rock drum loop through a cochlear implant. It would be a treasure trove for sampling and BGM.

What I feel this lacks is a driving beat, structure, and cohesion between sections and phrases. As a loop, it DOES function well due to the buzzing in the left channel and throughout. This can be remedied to a degree as I mentioned earlier with creating the mangled samples in Audacity and exporting them to your DAW of choice.

I can see this as background to a dystopian animation like as Salad Fingers, owing to its atonal nature and ambient noise.

I’m actually in awe at the way you destroy these samples. I would have never guessed until the outro what you could have used to create these textures. 30 seconds literally sounded like spraying down a sink drain, and the rhythmic buzzing was an excellent choice for the outro. I have genuinely enjoyed the listen, the longer I have gone on, and as someone who doesn’t often consume this kind of music, that is surprising!

This one also could use a bit of a boost volume wise, and perhaps compression of the overall result, but it’s easy listening as is. Consider me a fan from this point on!

JimmyTheCaterpillar responds:

tbh i remember when I was making this track i was in a big ol funk and i was kinda just pushing through building it to keep my mind off of other shit, but the other shit would creep in intermittently with jabs like "wtf are you even making rn" "where is this going" "yo this shit is ass" but I was kinda just like shut up!! to myself. i am really glad i saw the effort through and this review does a lot in helping me see the value i saw innately in the process, so thank you -- sincerely!

[Ginger Cranberry / guitar knots piece I]

There is a haunting quality to the intro of this piece. It has a very avant-garde feel and an ambient style I enjoy. Reminds me of a lot of music I used to make years ago. Weird, unapologetic, and it is what it says on the tin.

Employing various effects throughout lends a familiar and alien feeling at once. Modulating the amount of noise in the recording through what sounds like low-pass further contributes to the atmosphere.

If you were to improve upon this work or continue in this vein, I think the samples would be best edited in audacity first, exported, and arranged in another DAW where you have more control, such as Reaper.

There are some concerns I have such as mic quality, position, and room noise, which are difficult to overcome in more conventional styles but work pretty well for you here, minus where sharp fades of treble hiss are noticeable. I won’t go into detail, given that you don’t seem to be going for a “pristine” sound, but these are worth watching some tutorials on for whenever you decide to branch out and explore.

If you were to record as is, the ever present noise probably should be removed and added in post where you feel it will provide the most effect. I notice your penchant for texturizing, as you have already employed this to some effect with native FX.

Typically this is how it is done professionally. A sample of pure noise will sit vertically atop the processed recordings, to be modulted in and out at will. This will provide a cleaner result and potentially aid in structuring the piece – coupled with having a beat grid, snap functions, and many more options for modulating parameters.

As is, it is difficult to ascertain tempo. Audacity has a beat overlay feature that I am aware of, but it is difficult to work with due to the nature of how its tracks function -- generating silence early or cutting it to get a track starting on beat. It is also hard to crossfade, which is a basic feature in most DAWs, one I personally take for granted but I think would be most useful around 1 minute of your piece, or anywhere you have multiple entrances.

I particularly enjoy 1:25 and beyond where we delve into downpitched and reversed, glitching tones. 1:56 in particular caught my attention, as did 2:11. You've almost turned it into a rhode, and I would love to hear the production process on that.

In conclusion, this piece has quite a few stops and starts, but it contains many worthwhile, very weird ideas. Despite this not being my genre of choice, I really enjoyed the listen, and the parts I highlighted in particular!

JimmyTheCaterpillar responds:

you're the best and this audio review commission was such a worthwhile expenditure!!! everyone should hit you up for structured thoughts!

[Walk Away]

You know, I don't remember if I was actually the one who frontpaged this or not. That was the first thing I noticed when I recognized your song.

I think you've got a great structure for contemporary EDM going on here. The square was a fantastic choice at 1:30 approx, and I enjoyed your writing. I think the sidechain actually could stand to be a bit less aggressive, with a little more clarity in the mix for this section -- we can bring back the dreamy quality with lots of reverb and pads later, for contrast. Though it's worth noting that I think you've done a good job contrasting sections already.

The only element I'm not sure about is the short, loud, chopped snare for your builds. I think something with a longer tail as you neared the drops would further build tension. That one sounds a bit dry.

The switchup around 3 min and something was unexpected and had me checking to make sure a measure had not been deleted. However, it was neither a detriment to the track as a whole, nor a complete side-bar. I think you could have developed that further in some way to perhaps a more varied drop, but it's not bad as is.

The final drop is quite relaxing and really gives that feeling of bebopping around space. Sincerely hope it's seen some good use in GD, because it deserves it!

OVERSCORE responds:

Ah, yes, an actual review!
If you were the one who frontpaged this, thank you. I’m glad you enjoyed the writing and structure. Yeah I do think I could have improved on the buildups, I see what you’re saying about the snare. The switchup was definitely supposed to have that kind of slap in the face surprise element to it, there was no measure deleted, just some weird rhythms.
There hasn’t been very many GD levels with it yet, a bunch of recent tab junk and one rated level. I hope that changes soon!
Thank you for all the advice! I’m shocked that you didn’t have anything to say about my mixing, I guess I’ve improved there a lot!