ADR3-N's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Conductor - NGADM Round 2 & NGUAC Finals!]

This track had me sit down and say "what the fuck"

I am in awe. I'll leave it at that. I would prefer a bit more volume or perhaps distortion on the sub in the latter section, but beyond that, this track is just, chef's kiss.

GameBoyFireworks responds:

Thank you so much!! That means so much coming from you!

[Powerful Melodies (NGUAC - Final Round)]

You managed this good of a mix on $5.5 dollar headphones? What a beast! I would only recommend check out the EQ curve of said headphones, as the compression, overall master level, and other aspects of mix are fantastic, but it sounds as if the balance is tilted toward treble.

What I mean is, the sub is definitely present, and the dynamics are good, but the cymbals, EQ, snare fizz, transitions, color FX, and other high pitch elements of the track are proportionately much louder.

All other elements of the track are totally on point for the genre and even pushing the envelope of what can be done sonically. For instance, that extreme panning decision in the beginning and glitching was a huge detail. It set this track apart from others I've heard in the genre, and the detuning/slowing was great.

[(NGUAC '24 Final Round) So Close, Yet So Far...]

Some finer aspects of mix are not quite all there -- the song sounds very much as if mixed by a guitar player, if you catch my drift. By that I mean, all elements sit behind the guitar, particularly the upper mid range of the guitar.

HOWEVER, the balance between kick drum and the rest of the track is pretty good. It cuts through well, sounds good. I only have a bit of gripe with the particular crashes chosen not sounding too great a fit for the piece. A bit darker treatment to the EQ or alternatively backing off their volume a bit and giving just a bit of gentle verb may help. They're very bright, sticking out over the rest of the arrangement.

I like the snare drum but would recommend turning it up a bit and allowing for a bit of verb as well. .2 to .3 dB would be fine.

The section at 1:30 is absolutely beautiful btw -- reminds me of the nightwish I would jam out to in my youth. Overall, great playing, great writing.

I would raise the bass up to a dB, turn the rhythm guitars down a little when they are playing in the upper mids. They sound fine in the lower range. Some kind of resonance or EQ is causing that jump in loudness, must be.

The lead at 6:00 could use more 2k-4k imo until 6:25, where it sits very well.

Compositionally, so, so great. This is the kind of music I dream of. Great work!

[There's a Battle in the Owl Forest]

The instrumentation and arrangement is insanely interesting to listen to, as always.

I'm torn on the execution, particularly mix. At points, it can get pretty sibilant. I would have approached things differently. For instance, the shaker volume and percussion transients are as perceptible and sometimes more perceptible/up-front than the rhythm section -- the low brass, bass, and so on.

The violins at 1:41 and organs are louder than the vocal elements in the section at 2:17, as well as the build into our final big section. In terms of transition and the space you have left to work with on the master, I would have added even more dynamic contrast between these sections. I would grow that gap in max dB as the song progresses for a more bombastic conclusion -- allowing for the vocals at the end to REALLY stand apart from those throughout.

If sibilance or boxy breath noise is stopping you from getting those (wonderfully performed!) vocals to sit right in the mix or perhaps making you fear bringing them up front, try rolling off highs or lows to taste, notching lower frequencies down.

Even de-essing in post via RX or another program can help. Getting them into the same sonic range/vibe as the other instruments, respecting microphone/room frequency responses, and approximating the same ensemble feel is paramount to blending live recorded vocals with VSTs.

I have one big problem toward the end of your piece. It isn't the level of the master, as cinematic pieces are often forgiving in this area, and it isn't writing, playing, singing, arrangement, or even sound palette. It's a single source of ultra high treble, the pipe/reed instrument way up there.

I'll try to explain.

In general, the higher something is in pitch, or the more distance there is between it and other elements of a piece, the louder it's going to sound in relation. I don't know what synth is playing 4 octaves + higher than the vocal line if it's not in fact pipes/reeds, but as the only thing in that gap, it's naturally going to sound screaming loud. It has quite a unique sound, one I like, but I would roll off some of the higher frequencies from that synth, and see if it sits better in the mix.

Alternatively, you can turn everything else up in proportion. I assume you are mixing on monitors -- I am listening on monitor headphones. It may be worth checking the mix in multiple environments, if you can't quite hear what I'm talking about, because the spatial aspect of your mix is bang on, but something is happening there in that range.

In short, wonderful composition. I liked it enough that I even experimented with turning the volume up and down, outside of my normal monitoring and reference range to see what happened. The result was, the lower end of your composition came more into perceived balance as I turned volume up, but the high end of that particular synth became almost painfully loud. So I tried it the other way. I ended up turning the song down by half before the pipe synth was more tolerable.

By chance did you mix this song very quietly? I was shocked when, like magic, once I turned it down, everything felt more balanced. The phenomenon must have to do with psychoacoustics and Haas numbers, which I am not as well versed in as I'd like to be.

Please let me know, as I will be very intrigued!

[Ultimatum (NGUAC Finalists 2024)]

Loving all the modulations, synths chosen, FX and mixing decisions through this piece, with the exception of one. The bass should have some dedicated space! I can hear it, but it's pretty quiet throughout. My setup emphasizes these frequencies, so I know they will be near non-existent on other systems.

Are you using a pure sine for your sub? You may consider a slightly distorted waveform for it, or applying distortion.

The problem is less pronounced at 2:09, but I worry that stray reverb low frequencies or delays would stick out if you were to emphasize the low register much more. Something to think about in future mixes.

Overall great mix, good looking levels on the master, controlling for dynamic range, just a bit sibilant. I wonder if alternatively, you could roll off some highs OR take down your hi-hats and so on, adjust your master accordingly, and the perception of tinniness would go away.

I've been reading up on psychoacoustics, or the science of sound perception in layman's terms, and what I've discovered confirms my every day observation. The higher a sound is in pitch, to a certain extent, the louder it seems; the highest extremes of course suffer the opposite -- fading into silence like a YouTube hearing test for the partially deaf. Somewhere in the middle hi-hats and cymbals make their entrance, high-pitched and almost universally loud, such that they are easy to over-crisp and over-pump. A nice balanced EQ I've found for dealing with them is EZQ, a light touch in any direction will gently roll off the volcume of some of these offending frequencies for you, with minimal effort!

DefectiveSmile responds:

Thank you for the feedback! I appreciate the very direct and straightforward paths to make mixing just that much better. ♥️

[Eye of Evolution]

You really nailed that 80's vibe hard with the instrumentation, the artistic theme, the overall mix levels, and driving arrangement.

It does take a WHILE to develop, and I have gripes with some of the levelling and panning, but I'm really enjoying from 2:00 on. Feels like a song that never ends, in a good way.

I do think you can cut the silence off the end, take your hihats down a notch, bring your kick up slightly, your snare by about 1 dB, and potentially change out that crash cymbal.

Master sounds pretty good! Great work

[Way Back Home]

Great writing -- I think your piano might be a bit too wet in your intro. It feels quite spaced out, and not in a dreamy way. Check your tail lengths, your low frequencies, and so on. The shoe-gaze feel is hard to nail down; I hear the same issue with your pads and keys throughout.

The vocal is a bit boomy and plosive. This may have to do with distance to the mic, too high of a volume going into the interface, or saturation and compression in post. Experiment with pulling back from the mic a bit -- or singing at lower volume, particularly for such a laid back piece, and putting a filter or two between the mic and your mouth. Recording at a 45 degree angle from the mic is also an option.

It may simply be that the EQ is tilted toward the low mids as well, leading to the PA-system feeling I'm getting.

I also recommend a little less aggressive autotune. The attack on some more variable notes was noticeable.

Your breaths are not too distracting, but your S and T's across the board are quite loud. I recommend opening your vocal in another editor and manually de-essing, OR hand-ducking the volume. Once that is done, you can safely use an EQ like EZQ to gently shape the tone of the vocal to be a little tinnier, brighter, warmer -- whatever it is you feel is balanced.

There are some issues before the master. I think I hear clipping at 1:34, on though, show, find my, home, sure, fire, find my, oh, promise, strong, find, and so on. Take a look at your lyrics and follow along, keeping an eye out for these downbeats.

If you are not mixing in 32-bit floating point and the highest sample rates your PC will stand, I recommend switching to it.

If this causes latency issues for you as it did for me, a solution is to print your track to mp3, load up in audacity, and punch in your recordings on a new audio track. Mute newly recorded tracks as you go. After you have normalized the resulting takes and edited as you please, you can then export all your takes separately using Audacity's native functions. Life hack right there.

The master itself is also somewhat quiet and could theoretically be pushed harder, but I think the track was too hot going into the compressor.

Moving onto the instrument balance, the vocals are a bit loud relative to the rest of the track. Perhaps consider taking down by .3 dB. The hi-hats could stand to come down similarly, and the snare up by the same amount. I would reduce the volume of all wet FX by around 25% and shorten reverb and delay tails, hi-passing the wet signals up to 170 hz; you have a perfectly pleasant soft bass in the bottom register, which is hard to hear under the wash!

That's really all I have to say technically for this piece, mix and master being the primary things I look for critically.

As far as songwriting, it's intimate, warm, and there is not one single element I dislike. Your chords are good, your structure is very strong. Your transitions are simple and even abrupt, but they suit the composition totally.

I know I wrote a LOT of critique, but overall, I really enjoyed it and think you did a great job!

AveragePhoe responds:

Hi, so, there's a lot here. Thank you so so much for taking the time to analyze the song so thoroughly and provide such priceless feedback! Mixing is always the hardest step for me in music production (you might notice that if you listen to some of my other songs), and this was only worsened by the tight deadline. While I had more time to work on it, I chose to stop the moment I felt it was good enough to be submitted. The alternative was endlessly obsessing over every detail, and probably going a few nights without sleep. This way, I can go back to it with a clear mind and calmly work on a Spotify release. Still, I'm proud of the song I submitted, and I'm really happy you enjoyed it! Constructive criticism is one of the greatest gifts a creative can receive, so again, thank you so much!

[AndrewCR × Upcoda - Glee]

With more time to refine the mix prior to the final drop, I think this song would be an instant classic. I'm hearing composition elements that remind me of the best YouTuber let's plays I've ever seen, and Calvin-Harris-esque rhythm sections -- think This Is What You Came For.

I don't mean that in the sense of plagiarism. Rather, I think it's a sign of great technical ability on both of your parts. The compositional elements work in a technical sense, and all the instruments sound good in context. It really inspires me to learn these styles.

Where this song suffers is in dynamics and a few somewhat heavy-handed hard-ish panning decisions. Those take time to get used to and might be items to revisit, should you ever touch this piece again.

Regarding compression and dynamics, look at the waveform. Only in the final chorus are we feeling full throttle, in genres which are known for being unapologetically loud and high energy for each individual drop, utilizing heavy sidechain to compensate for squashed dynamics -- OTT, soundgoodizing.

The compression between parts is not entirely uniform, nor would I say the input level being fed into the master compressor is adequate at all times. For instance, on the intro, I can see some very dynamic peaks.

Another concern is the overall level of kick and snare specifically throughout. At times they are hard to discern -- both transient and note body.

This is in part due to their frequency profile and in part due to relying on sidechain and silence to make them cut through across sections. Yes, by all means use these things, but be mindful that your snare does need a little bit of bite to sound connected in the context of the song -- it should always cut through, excepting for transitions, where hi-lo pass asssist in motion.

I'd have liked to hear the high end of the snare emphasized a bit more and a slight .2 to .5 dB pump on it in particular; by 1:00, it's lost in the mix. Side chain around there also might use an adjustment to the ms used. The gap is slightly more noticeable than I would usually expect for the context.

At 1:39, there is a fizzy layer, probably a ride or hat playing on top of the snare and the percussion there rather than being muffled takes a turn for tinny. As a transition, this is definitely something I noticed as development but was unsure how to feel about it

Moving to 1:50, I think comparing to a gain-matched reference, perhaps the one I name dropped, This Is What You Came For, would have helped bring this portion in balance.

Let me explain what I hear. The ride cymbals due to their frequency feel like the lead instrument in this section and are clearly audible through the drop. Backing them off and going with a 808 or 909 fizzy cymbal underneath may have helped give them some more context (so as not to stand out), while allowing you to turn them down or pan them out. They just feel disconnected somehow.

I appreciate the sample at 2:01 and want to know what it is -- reminds me of the "Infinite One" Goldeneye OST sample I'm so very fond of.

The sub to me almost completely drops out, and quite early for the build into the final drop. I feel it should have been very present from 1:50, growing at 2:11, and only begin to fade around 2:20.

There's not much feeling of crescendo in this portion due to input into the compressor being quite low already, then being squeezed again via hi-pass/band-pass. I have some gripes about the overall instrument balance. The rides are rides up too high, colorized textures sit a bit over top of other elements, glitches and hats lie over top, and of course the rhythm section (i.e. bass and rhyhtm synths) is not delineated enough to form a driving foundation.

As I said, the levels of the drop are pretty great, as is the composition. I still think the bass is not standing out much as in should, in a way that will be noticable in other spaces, on other devices.

Having a handy reference for all these mix issues, as well as ample time to work on a piece, will fix all of the issues I mentioned.

Otherwise, the composition is super banging. At the intro I was a little unsure, partly influenced by your description of things being dragged out, but realistically, you could have cut the drop portion past 36 seconds off and gotten by fine; I didn't really feel that was necessary, but just a response to your notion that it was too long. I think it's fine.

Was a real pleasure to listen to, as evidenced by the amount of time it took going back and forth with this review. Great work!

AndrewCr responds:

Thanks for the feedback and criticism!

One thing to take note of that we each use a different DAW, so we had to send each other .waw files and such. Meaning, we each mixed and mastered the song on our own, hence the difference in compression levels.

Regarding drowned drums - I'm not too familiar with glitch hop. I just went for whatever sounded good to me, not any industry standards. One of those things was the focus on melodic elements instead of percussion, so the quieter snare is actually intentional

Again, thanks so much for the review :)

[Finale]

When I first heard the intro I thought I might be heading into a hiphop beat, but I held my breath. I think this might fit somewhere in lo-fi hip-hop for the intro.

Something is going on with the high end. Though those scratches sound great in isolation, they're a few dB high in the mix. As the only thing in that sonic space, it's especially noticable.

The vocal sample also caught me off guard as quite clean, however, it served to break us up for the final section. I think for the final chorus, the snare drum is a bit loud and dry, and the kick would be better served to have some more bottom.

In short, pretty much the only thing wrong with this track is balance. But I give props for making something entirely different to what I've heard from you so far, as well as a hook that stuck with me long after it was over. Great work!

[Glitch - Music from Alan Becker's 'Influencer Arc Ep. 1]

It's only been half and hour, and 9 listens is not enough! Thank you for sending this to me! I have yet to open up the animation, but after hearing this, I certainly will. You should add it to the description as an embed so folks can find it easily.

Also, I would kill to have some of these patches in my library to study. I'm just coming around to doing wavetable stuff, and this, this is what I'm aiming for uwu

I only have one point of critique, after listening on both headphones and speakers, the low mid could translate a bit better to the latter, and at 1:56, the bass jumps out just a bit on the high octave. It's just slightly sibilant. Perhaps back off the compression very slightly overall.

2:52 is my favorite section. Reminds me of Borderlands 2 OST in a good way.

3:36 was unexpected and a very pleasant modulation.

That's really all I got though, a couple minor gripes, but the piece is 100% serviceable for its intended use, as a commission for an animation!

AvenzaMusic responds:

Thank you so much for taking the time to listen, for your support, and for your thoughts, I really appreciate it! Great idea to add a link to the description on yt, just added it in now :)
Ohh this is excellent feedback, thank you! Will defo look over the compression twice in the future and think a bit more about highs in the basses, actually didn't think about that myself but you have a good point.

Thanks again!!