ADR3-N's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Terminal]

Lovely atmospheric piece, very spacy, reminds me of olskool gaming back in the day. Banjo Tooie actually

Minor gripes-
The drums are not popping, and seem to be missing a lot of low mid, could be a problem of compression and EQ

hihats through 3:16 are so loud! though I love the panning

3:36, as with other sections of drums, I believe panning could be applied to the drums to help give them some space. Alternatively, they can be processed through a plugin like Diablo for width, dynamic compression, and transient shaping. I used to use KSHMR Essentials Kick for a free fix

Overall the piece is fairly laid back and suffers from a few mix woes, mostly just the drums being out of balance. Drums should be the loudest portion of a mix, namely kick and snare, while hats and tambourines and such accent off to the side. I also can't recall any crashes throughout

On 2nd listen, be sure your bitcrushed drums at 2:08 are balanced. The snare there is quiet, which is not bad for such a section, but the hat, if that is a hat, is quite loud. I would actually double check that highs are represented well on whatever system you are mixing on so they are not over done.

I really enjoy your sensitive approach throughout to phrasing, arrangement, and especially your use of panning for leads. Your transitions are great, and you have an ear for atmosphere in the extreme. Takes me almost back to the club. Great work!

[Not Like This Again]

I am utterly aghast you criticize your voice at all. I think it's crisp, clean, and refreshingly natural.

Also amazed you mixed this on apple earphones. I also have tinnitus so I sympathize with mixing with one's eyes LOL. I constantly hear cicadas, crickets, whining computer parts, and TV static that isn't really there. It's a challenge to cut through that. Sometimes sounds like I'm listening to the world through a drink straw.

Only mix critique I have is that vocals be bumped up a dB or two, and hihats and cymbals conversely come down a wee bit. Beyond that, this is about as perfect for me as it gets. Perhaps the open close hi-hat could move a bit to the left channel, 5 percent or so, with room overhead emphasized in the right, if applicable. I also can't hear toms too well, perhaps .4 dB boost or less would do the trick there.

I feel your automations of FX serve your phrasing really well, and the choice of Battery with previously recorded samples was a genius idea.

Also, glad to have surprised you with my true nature LOL. I'm a goof with resting bitch face in the nth degree, and I like to make weird faces.

SpoonMix responds:

I agree 100%. Aware that the voice can be louder and could use some more automation. I just listened to this again yesterday and, yuup, my voice is low again. As for the drums, my performance wasn't good, and I'm not working on my drumming skills. It should work for demo purposes and I should hire a real drummer for anything serious!

Thank you for the time, Adrean! I've learned many things from you, including "resting bitch face"... :D

[NDXL - Last Time]

Really appreciating the blend of various EDM stylings here, though I think the piece as a whole could be bumped at points a few bpm faster.

Some things I notice off the bat --
track is compressed probably harder than it needs to be

Sidechain is very hard to make room for not quite being able to hear snare on drops, and synths on the side are very loud, like at 2:50, notice that lead is much louder than the snare

I do appreciate the hihats are not SCREAMING loud, though they could potentially use less reverb and instead be ping-ponged subtly left and right, or incorporate more articulations, open, close, roll, different samples etc. They are loud enough that they should be more interesting imo.

I feel mix is off balance, lead is audible which is good, but it's in the mid range, which the human ear naturally hears already as quite loud. On sections where it is present, it is hard to hear bass as well.

The drop around 1 min, that snare is buried in the mix and almost impossible to hear even with hard side chain. The bass also sounds a bit hollow (not the sub) perhaps due to overly chorusing and potentially not enough clipping/drive/saturation or over applying harmonics. I can't tell which at the moment.

I listened through twice to 3 times to see if there was anything else I could add, but I think the last I can think of is perhaps sidechain is too aggressive on the amount of dB ducked in places, and the combination of hard compression, high volume hihats, a subby mix, loud leads, and an almost absent snare on drops causes the song to fall a bit flat -- OH I know what it is now for the final drop -- the harmony synths and lead are blowing out the bass and other elements due to being turned up too loud, and sidechain is a bit overdone there, causing the song to sound flat.

Otherwise, I really enjoyed your approach to structure, transition, melodies, and virtually every other stylistic choice you made. Aside from mix, an absolutely banging dance track!

NDXLOfficial responds:

Thank you so much! I really appreciate the mixing feedback. Over the last few days listening back I was picking up on things I wanted to change about it, but since I only had 4 days I could work on but here wasn't much I could do about it at that point. If I make it into the next round you can expect a much better mix from me!

[Flight of the Drake]

Mix on the portion at 22 seconds is quite off balance, with the strings far off in the left being much louder than the rest of the ensemble. This is present more or less throughout, but for the intro particularly, I struggle to hear the woodwinds clearly at all, and they should be giving somewhat of a pulse, if I am picking up on what you were intending them to do.

The progression to me sounds familiar to me as a staple for the epic cinematic genres, which may have to do with my having watched tons and tons of historical, LoTR and etc., as well as anime, and less with it not being an actually epic piece or w/e.

My problems mostly sit with lots of reverb throughout and some muddy sections such as 1:12. I definitely feel like articulations of lower brass could have had more attention paid to them, the synth brasses chosen for low brass could certainly be thickened with multiple instances of either synths, or false round robins crafted out of neighboring notes. Even transposing up sections, rendering output, and then pitching down the results would help, panned out to separate space and so on. The descending 8ths at 1:25 stood out to me as very thin and synthy.

Also, flute flourishes are hiding in the mix as well.

I will say tuba at 1:59 sounds as great as I can expect a synth to sound!

Overall I would like more out of your low brass and low string sections, and more of a ratio of them to leads as the song progresses toward climax. I look at the waveform and the loudest portion is your 35 to 51 second section. That should to my mind be more for a mf, not a f. The next section goes on at mf until 1:29, which I think potentially should crescendo to f or perhaps ff at our tidy cliff hanger, 1:36. Contrast is king. Dip down post-haste, return to f or ff, or even fff, as we change keys for the outro.

Beyond that, the more I listen, the more I like this piece. Just some minor issues of this synth here, or that mixing nitpick there. I wanted to stop while I'm here and tell you how proud I am to have watched you progress throughout the years. You are an astonishingly gifted composer with a knack for finding the right tools for the job, with great instrumentations even better phrasing. This and many other things have only improved with time. You almost make it seem effortless. Great work!

CloakedSoup responds:

Thanks for the detailed review! I agree with a lot of the mixing critiques, as that was the most underdeveloped part that I worked on due to the limited amount of time I spent on the track as a whole (as the description notes). I'm definitely happy with how I have progressed over the years as well! :D

[Lets see that Exhaust! (NGADM)]

This is such a cute song! And well written. Only wish it were louder. Mastering compression would do it well! And perhaps to take down the hihats some, and add more layers to backing claps with stereo panning. What I do hear sounds good :)

[Famous ft Hania (NGADM R1) Mastered]

I love the blend of olskool and modern sounds. Hania is an absolute diva, perfect for this track.

I would appreciate a bit less reverb throughout and tamer delay wets. Perhaps rolling off the low end of these wet signals would help improve clarity. Upping snare and kick volume or a bit of sidechain would help. Bit less hihat or rolling off some high from them -- they are quite loud relative to the rest of the track -- could also use some panning play or slapback in the opposite channel.

For the intro, Hania's vocals could be compressed a bit more, or apply some distortion/soft clip. The track as a whole could use a bit of a bump to bass instruments, sub on drops, and perhaps a tinge more compression.

Otherwise, stellar work!

Trackers responds:

Thanks... Only two can enter and our third member usually does the mix and master so we are kind of flying blind here... Will definitely look at fixing up those things before I ship it off to be mastered :D

[Let It Out (ft. Mai)]

I want to hear a bit less of your orchestral and side synths, more of your vocal, snare up in the mix, and more obvious kick. Sub bass is also pretty present. prior to 2 min

Piano low mid and reverb wet signal are a bit up there after.

I can hear the mixing difficulty with the tons of tracks throughout but I want to say don't let that stop you! Take your time, audition sections bit by bit. Make adjustments by hand and in small increments rather than at the mixer track itself. Automations help! It also helps a lot to keep your reverb signals free of low mid and roll off low end where you can to make room for the bass, rather than cranking it at all times.

Some lyrical turns of phrase are awkward, or sound as if written by a non-native speaker, but that's fine as this sounds like an art piece rather than pop. :) Great work, all constraints considered!

NASHqp responds:

Thank you for your review!

I’m glad you enjoyed my song. I agree that the mixing could be improved, and I apologize for any errors that might have affected your listening experience. I faced some challenges while producing the song, such as noise, heat, and language barriers.

I used a software called Synthesizer V Studio Pro for the vocals, which is mainly designed for Japanese. I wanted to sing the vocals myself, but I didn’t have a suitable recording environment. However, these are not excuses, but rather areas that I need to work on and overcome.

I appreciate your honest feedback and I hope to do better next time! :)

- NASHqp

[Hunger]

Throughout, I feel this song is missing mids and low mids. I want to hear more of that delicious bass, more of the harmony you have in the left channel, a bit less lead perhaps, and a little less wetness on your percussion. The hihats, cymbals, leads, and high synths being so far up relative to the bass and harmony is causing the mix to feel empty.

Additionally, toms would benefit from saturation, soft or hard clip, and panning around. Want to hear more of that piano as well, perhaps also with some soft distortion. I am not really able to hear a lot of the electro elements, mostly the lead.

Otherwise, swinging track, and great writing!

[ColBreakz - Summer Days]

Beyond sounding VERY overcompressed and needing some adjustment of levels, I love everything else about this song. It's so loud though that it's causing my ears to think they hurt, despite listening at a low volume. Fix that, and I would bop it all day.

[Krea - Crystal [NGADM 2023]]

I would like a bit less lead and fizz in your intro, a lot more clarity on those intro drums

42 seconds sounds GREAT, might be a slightly off bass note -- can detune bend that a bit into key

1:26, wanting more of that mid range bass

Otherwise, wild track. 2 min is bonkers. I think I want a bit more tonality vs noise there. Any identifiable pitch.

I also would like for the outro, one final luscious 1 chord. Beyond that, amazing :)))

Kreagato responds:

Thank you for the feedback !! I agree with all those suggestions (I think I might have accidentally shifted one of the bass notes up or down a half step and didn't notice ;w; ), and I'm glad you think the drop at 2 mins is cool!! I tried to get a little more tonality in that part but It was my first time doing sound design similar to color bass and was struggling a little bit, so I settled with what I had after working on it for a few hours, but I'll practice more on that in the future

Thank u again for the feedback!! I really hope I end up scoring well overall, being part of a competition like this is rly fun :3