ADR3-N's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Psychadelic Junglegolf]

Insane, love the breaks. However, I'd like less volume on your non-bass synths, as they are covering up your intro breaks.

Those rhodes are yes.

The amen sections sound straight out of a MegaMan game I used to play on gamecube. Excellent work, and love your portamentos. But for mix, this is right up my alley! Great work!

[Into the Sunset - NGADM]

Really tricky getting those flubby trumpet articulations in the intro right -- I think taking some reverb off of it and a bit more low end down will assist, as well as manually modulating volume and pan. There are some articulations which sound a bit mechanical on the intro, sections where this instrument is used, etc. The muted bit at 1:45 is better in this regard but also has some rougher hard attacks that could also be tamed with a bit of manual ducking.

I find the western vibe of this to be quite interesting but think throughout the kick and tambourine are quite dry and upfront for the rest of the track to sound so wet and verbed.. I even think the tambourine could come down a lot and have a more obvious slapback delay in the right channel -- or a swung "_--_/" rhythm, where _ is the kick, and -- is tambourine notes similar to "dah-dit", followed by kick, and / represents a longer "dah." Text is woefully difficult to convey this through, but I hope that makes some sense. The tamb backbeat is so out there, it's obvious if it remains samey. It was easier to make out the articulation on it than it was to hear the guitar in the right channel.

Toms also are not offensive in the least, but I think they would benefit from 80's shoegaze to fit in with the rest of the track.

Compositionally however, quite enjoyed this song. Great work!

Payton-Petkus responds:

Wow, thank you for the excellent mixing feedback! I'm going to try to apply your advice in my future tracks, especially your advice about the lack of reverb on the percussion, using slapback delay on perc, and cleaning up the flubby trumpet articulations.

Thanks so much! <3

[While We Still Can]

Fantastic composition and ambitious production!

My complaints are reserved for mix almost in their entirety.

Throughout, the kick and snare are muted in comparison to the strings, anywhere they are present. 15 seconds, 58 seconds, 1 min to 1:30 being prime examples right off the bat. On softer sections, they are closer to norm, but still lacking punch. Toms are difficult to hear. Crashes could come down by .2 dB

2:22 is such an interesting section. I wish panning were handled a bit more wholistically so the rain stick, if that's what it is, matches ambiance with all the other instruments involved. It is difficult to hear here what is going on for the next 30 seconds -- lots of reverb is covering up toms that should be higher in the mix by about .4 dB at least, and there are low rumbles in the left channel I can't tell what they are.

Throughout, you have fantastic power metal vibes which I love, note. Playing is also fantastic.

I wish you would lean more on your metal orchestration for leads than your strings, as the attacks on them are quite slow and falling behind the beat, and they sound thin if not very artfully mixed.

The strings in the intro, particularly low strings, are causing the piece to sound centered -- actually the reverb on virtually all brass and stringed instruments is causing that, I believe. It's got a hum in it, around the 180-300 hz range if I'm not deaf. So even though I'm complaining about volume on the strings, I think if you were to thin the low end off of them, you would get a fuller sound out of your ensemble.

Rain stick at the 3min or so solo section could come down quite a bit as there is nothing in that space.

Snare and kick at 3:35 are safe to come up .3 dB, and cymbals down by .1

But I stress that your writing brought me lots of joy and I really dig this piece. Great work for such a short amount of time!

[Dreamwalker]

Such a nice blend of genres. I'm swept up in your composition from the start.

My complaints are reserved almost entirely for mix.

Snare could either use swapping out, or some more bottom head snap. The shoegaze across the track is kinda drowning it out.

hihats and crashes are about 20% louder than they should be, given the lack of other instruments in that sound space.

Your leads and fantasia sounding instruments sound like they've been boosted up way high in the 8k and up range, given really long reverb tails or delays, etc. I would like to hear a bit more subtle treatment of your pads and any instrument that isn't currently performing a solo. They are somewhat covering up your leads.

1:06, reverb and delay is muddying that solo. Paring it down and taking that solo up would help clarity. Perhaps a chorus to subtly spread it out.

1:14, the sub bass drop or tom hit utterly distorts upon compression so that I cannot tell what it is. This happens again at 1:46, and everywhere you have that as a transition. This appears to be due to low end mud.

I was not a fan of the tongue click noise thrown in there. I think a wine cork pop would have worked better with similar FX. Maybe I just hate clicking noises.

I would like to hear .2 dB more of your guitars, OR .3 less of that pulsating synth line at 2:20, and .2 less of your super verbed synths, and .5 less of the vinyl staticy noise in the outro. Less low mids and sub on your reverb wets all around, and this would perfectly fit my bill.

Other than that, loved it. Please don't read this review and think I'm shitting all over your track aha. It's great!

BeyondOurEyes responds:

Thank you for the love and greatly appreciate the constructive critique! I'll keep this all in mind for future :)

[That One Talks]

Other than some mixing choices which result in this piece having a somewhat off balance feel (loud mids around 2:30 and a few extra chunky notes in the low strings), this piece is great. Develops a bit slowly and could perhaps have a bit more humanization to velocity, perhaps more subtle velocities on softer sections altogether, but ultimately holds together quite nicely throughout, and development was indeed satisfying.

[[MAFFAKA OBO$RALSYA!]]

Я пришла дать 5 звёздочек.
Текст песни невероятно смешной. Мне очень понравился трек, хотя не знаю кто такой наш Маффака (motherfucker lol)

G2961 responds:

Если ты знаешь про игру Geometry Dash, то знай, что это плохой русский модератор в этой игре. Он много ошибок и зашкваров вытворял в русском коммьюнити этой игры.

[Conglomerate]

You know, I almost was completely unable to give critique for your piece. Jazz is not entirely my purview. If anything, I might change out the snare on those drums. The piece is a bit short and that is my only gripe. But given that theme, it's to be expected. Chord progressions are positively spicy

[Vanguard]

Other than the guitars and drums, I feel mix is done quite well. I'm having a hard time picking out bass. It sounds like guitars were not double tracked but a chorus applied. Rhythm guitar has a pretty heavy cab noise/room sound to it which I feel it would sound so much better without. It's a bit muddy. The low mids are rumbly in the wrong way imo.

However, writing is GREAT

Snare is suffering from the same over-reverb sound as the snare. I want to hear more high mid on it

Great work otherwise!

TheUnnamedPlayer responds:

listen to the new song i made (the system is flawed)
i fixed a lot of those mixing issues, was compressing everything too much so i just dialed back the compression and everything became a lot clearer
my guess is that because of the level of compression everything was getting squashed together too much, especially the drums with the high-frequency cymbals and low-frequency bass kick trying to be evened out
similarly with the bass, there was two compressors on it, one before and then after the distortion, just turned off the one before it recently and it gets a lot cleaner and more authentic/human sound (very open, roomy, mid/high-mid heavy)
i will take into account these criticisms even through, however, but the reason i chose this song was simply that this song was done before the newer one (otherwise i would have chosen the newer one because its millions times better)

tldr: listen to newer song, i was compressing everything too much and squashing the sounds together making it all sound same-y and indifferent to each other

[Alright, Alright]

I really enjoy the lyrics, but I feel the vocals can come up quite a bit. Don't hide them under the instrumental! Delivery is getting better in time, and the composition stands on its own

It's odd to hear what sounds like a love song to God and hear slap me down, aha, but the world needs more good christian music. Keep it up!

SoulSecure responds:

Really? The vocals are too quiet? I've worked to get them where they are, I hate obnoxiously loud vox, but I'm really out of my mixing game and I don't have the ear for it I did a few years ago. I know there's couple spots in the first verse I can hear what you're sayin' and in the chorus when the backing vocals aren't present. I'll have to tweak it. Thanks for the feedback! I really appreciate it!

[PHONK+++]

Love the arrangement and this genre in general but the cowbell in the intro is quite dry, and when the 808 comes in the entire beat distorts. I love distortion, but I also like to be able to hear the 808 note!

Otherwise, keep doing what you do. I think your ideas are solid, and you have a lot of room to grow into your style!

Skymine123official responds:

Can u comment on my new one