ADR3-N's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Toast]

This is odd, in a good way. It's hitting on several familiar points in my library of references, from corporate, to girly j-pop, to video-game EDM, and beyond. I don't quite know what to make of it, perhaps because it's so unfamiliar, but I do think it's well composed.

I also think that the level of snare and cymbal to lead, pad and so on, as well as master could be approached again some time in the future, while studying references in these similar genres (where you can find similar instrumentation in particular and have an idea of where to place them)

The jump in volume at 2:52 was unexpected, but again, I think you've written a satisfying progression, and the piece concludes in a pretty satisfactory way.

My favorite part overall was the guitar. I think it was wonderfully mixed and the picking style quite interesting to listen to. Great work and certainly an unexpected piece for me to stumble upon this round!

icantpronouncethis responds:

Thank you for the thorough review.

I was worried about the guitar. I haven't gotten the chance to mix real instruments so this was a challenge in many ways.

A lot of my influence do come from the genre you listed. (Snail's House, in the blue shirt, San Holo, etc). So it's really cool you were able to point those out.

One of the thing I should do more often is to use reference track when I am mixing. Honestly never really done that before. I was wondering if you can give me some tips or general information about doing that.

Thank you so much once again.

[Last in Line]

The chords on the vocal must have been quite hard to sing -- you rarely hear them in comtemporary alt rock, punk, ska, and indie.

I would appreciate a bit less distance from the mic, recording at a lower volume to eliminate room noise. I think I hear some but I can't be quite sure due to vocal treatment. There are a few good vocal plugins I recommend also, for dialing in a quick rock tone, Howard Benson vocals being number one for rock, and Xvox for smooth lead vocals. Some very cool things that can be done with both.

Your adlibs were mixed perfectly imo. I wish the leads were given just a bit more of an up-front, aggressive treatment (the singing will speak for itself, given the right edge to cut through!)

I also like your writing in general. That little G#3-A-G# is one of my favorite riffs, and the felt suspension of G# makes for nice moody dissonance. Overall, the feeling of being flippant and slightly unhinged brings me a nostalgia like you wouldn't believe. Well deserved frontpage.

Areas for improvement -- clarity especially in the lower registers and guitars and vocal balance. EQ in some places, again particularly guitars. Having a reference or 3 handy in this genre and comparing the overall sound profiles, both auditorily and with a spectrogram, will help in this area.

Otherwise, this is nearing on industry standard level mix and master. Keep doing what you're doing! I love it :)

Ajtastic responds:

Thanks so much for the awesome feedback and recommendations! I really appreciate it :)

[Alteria, The Fallen Dawn NGADM (Round 2)]

I would recommend a revisit to the instrument balance of this piece. The sound design is all great but the leads are really loud!

I also think the bass could be swapped out entirely for a hardstyle kick and better serve the piece. If not that, then something that approximates that overall sound profile. The bass is a bit spread out, dark, and muddy in comparison to the lead.

I can see something is going on with the master. It looks like there's quite a bit of reverb and low frequencies crowding out the bass, such that the falling synths/samples are also getting a bit lost. Try going at this later on down the line with a reference for the genre you're going for, and see if you can approximate those levels!

at 2:05 approx there is clipping going on before the master, perhaps on an instrument channel

Beyond that, the hook is quite catchy and I enjoyed the piece!

[Oh Brother [NGADM Round 2]]

I feel about this track essentially a mix between @creeperforce24's review and your own response to it. This has some truly exceptional moments which satisfy my ADHD brain. A revisit to instrument balance, clarity, and eq on some instruments and this would get close to a full ten from me though. I love the arrangement and colors chosen.

trixelbit responds:

I'm glad you enjoyed those high moments! I'll definitely be revisiting this to give her the proper TLC she needs to truly shine. Aside from mixing, there's ideas I want to further explore and refine here too.

I would also love to use this for a game, just need to find a good context for it.
A battle theme? Character theme? I'll need to ponder more 🤔

[Could've been something Neat...]

This is a great progression, and I love the synths -- Kawai K1v is actually one of my favorites.

Despite the short length I still think this is a worthwhile listen. I will be stoked to see if you ever turn it into a full track, so please ping me if and when! Great soundscape at the very end!

EppuJoloZ responds:

Thank you! The least I could do was to give it a clean mix so atleast this little dissapointing piece sounds great. We shall see where this thing'll head – will keep you informed!

[Lost and Found]

This does sound like a Hans Zimmer piece. Very dynamic, inspiring, with satisfying resolutions and overall great sound palette. I think some cutting of reverb here and there for faster moving parts and shifts in chords would give it some more oomph; there is a little bit of mud in the lower register. But beyond that and a somewhat quiet master, I have no critique!

The reason I mention master is -- for years they were trying to institute standard LUFs for various platforms and genres, and lately, it's clear they haven't stuck. The average range of dynamics has, but the loudness has not. So I was advised it's best practice to normalize your audio to 0 dB headroom, just to make full use of the sonic space. If you've heard different, let me know. These things are always subject to change

[Zenology (NGADM - Round 2)]

I think the loudness is pretty much fine -- yes, it's brick-walled, but the majority of this genre is becoming that way. I think the fact that you established such clarity and balanced mix at this degree of loudness is pretty astounding.

At 1:26 however it is apparent there is just a bit too much compression; the sub is losing a bit of energy to the hard compression. I think just a slight amount less would help with the balance.

The various sections and changes in instrumentation throughout this track keep it interesting to listen to. Great work!

G2961 responds:

Thank you for your feedback! Yes, I totally agree that the mix is not the best, since my headphones broke, I had to use my terrible spare headphones. And sometimes I have such a problem that I hear that I did something wrong, but I can't fix it normally, because either my old laptop lagged so much (now I've built a computer with a Xeon E3 1240), or just bad headphones. It's not in vain that I've been looking for good headphones all this week.
Yes, to be honest, those headphones for $ 5-6 still do not suit me, since they have some kind of flat sound, or simply not enough high frequencies and bass. However, I had a very reduced budget.

[(NGADM Round 2) Paralellism]

Really moody from the jump in your intro! Great spacy sound on the drums. I would take just a bit of reverb off of everything else to give us some breathing room. You have a lot of instruments in the mids.

At 1:08, I love that wobbly chorus on the guitar, super glassy.

I do think that rebalancing the instruments in the sound pyramid so to speak (bass, kick, snare, guitars, leads, pads, cymbals, in order of loudness) and cutting out more low end on non-bass and non-rhythm instruments would lend to more clarity, which is what I feel is lacking here (though not by much!)

Your cymbal samples are sounding pretty good, though I would take them down just a tad few tenths of dBs all around, in favor of making more room for the snare. The body of the snare is getting lost on larger sections.

This composition really pulls you in and keeps you invested through the duration. Great job!

[A Silent Mist]

Compositionally, this is a masterwork. Ranks among some of the best solo piano and vocal pieces I've ever heard.

However I have some similar comments about the vocals to @creeperforce24. They're mixed a bit like modern pop vocals at first, as opposed to, I guess this would be 80s piano ballad.

By that I mean, they could use manual de essing and some gentle treatment to roll off the highs.

It gets better as you go on, perhaps recorded in a different take with different position. Microphones are finnicky creatures.

But in general, the performance was wonderful overall, varied, emotional without sounding insincere. I think that's saying something!

Great song, great modulations, and great poetry. It doesn't get much better than this!

LucidShadowDreamer responds:

Wow, what amazing praise, thank you very much!

I agree (almost) completely with your points about the vocals. I have to get better at handling the mic for sure, but I suppose that'll come with experience, and following good advice ;)
Actually, I've got a slight lisp, so I'm pretty happy with the result, considering. I know it can be heard a bit in the end result, but I managed to get reasonably decent takes, overall. I did universally de ess a bit, but I probably should've paid more attention to individual lines, as you say!

I suppose the only comment I would have, is that I personally am not too much of a style purist (I know you're not either), so I think it can be okay to have a piece in a style of a certain era, with aspects from another, including in the mix. That said, I think in this case I wasn't able to achieve that smoothly enough! I need to get better at making the vocals sound intentional, both in the recording and mixing phase :)
I'll try some of your tips next time!

Btw, this has nothing to do with this composition, but I happened to notice you said "So I was advised it's best practice to normalize your audio to 0 dB headroom, just to make full use of the sonic space. If you've heard different, let me know." on CloakedSoup's submission. I am not secretly the alt account of CloakedSoup (fun as that conspiracy would be :O), but I thought I'd reply to that here anyway, as I've looked into it quite extensively.

I also agree that the standards that were recommended for different platforms didn't seem to stick so well, and the loudness war does seem to be over, with loud being the victor. All that said, in my understanding, mastering (/normalising) all the way to 0.0dB headroom can and does lead to issues in digital to analogue conversion (DAC), which is to say, especially older systems will produce artefacts and clipping if there is not a bit of headroom in the final version. -0.1dB will already reduce the risk a lot. If the mix is good though, the perceived loudness should already be pretty good even at -1.0dB though, which should be safe in almost any format. For that reason (amongst some other even more technical ones), although a 0.0dB master will indeed be the slightest bit louder, and work on many devices, I think it mightn't be good to expect that from all tracks, as they're at that point essentially guaranteed to sound bad on many systems. If the mix is good, it should work well regardless of that last decibel. Also, if one is listening to professionally produced tracks from many genres in the same sitting, I think the volume knob tends to see some action anyway ;)

Feel free to let me know your thoughts on this, as I secretly quite like to get into the technical aspects of music and sound quite a bit too <3

Thanks again for your uplifting review, it made me happy to read!

[Pirates Interrupted My Dearest Boy's Performance - NGADM]

The easteregg of @Troisnyx as an aristocrat is not something I expected in this piece xD

I think it could have been mixed a tad more consistently across. Just make the fuller voices/mics sound roomier and tinnier, to go with the old-fashioned feel of the dulcimer, then open up those filters and EQs as you approach the body of the piece.

I also would have liked more narration from the pirates or even a swashbuckling poem over this composition; the arrangement is great, but I have the feeling something is missing -- that you wanted to do more with it.

Some of this may be from the very dynamic (quiet) master, with little compression on the larger sections. Additionally, bit MORE dynamic range, from the light and thin dulcimer part, to the entrance of the pirates -- and a bit more fullness as we progress through the day-ruinage, entrance, and romp of the pirates -- would help considerably.

The dulcimer part may need a revisit of individual note velocities, as a period-typical (is that baroque composition?) line is bound to revisit the tonic note many times, and those samples are bound to draw attention. You may also thin out the lower mids and push the dulcimer pack just a tad. A bright, tinny sound at quieter volume, farther from the stage, would introduce another element of transition first and foremost, but add a bit of posh to the sound palette as well.

As we go forward into the composition, these are the only points I find pertinent to mention. Otherwise, your work is harmonious as always, and your overall theme is both funny and original!