ADR3-N's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[CULT CLASSIC (FEAT. AALASTEIR)]

It hurts so good

[AIM - You're going to buy? Right?]

You know, if you had a proper orchestra and not those darn keytar versions in the beginning, this would be a proper orchestral score. And I'm here for it. It sounds like balloon animals when I squint xD

I have to say, the pitch wobbling microtonal you pulled off really sells the piece. This might be the best thing I've ever heard from you, and I generally don't like listening to this kind of music. Nice work

[Queens]

I'm just loving the haphazard weirdness going on here. It indeed reminds me of samurai champloo days

[🎷Daft-Type Jam]

Like DaftPunk indeed. I'm enjoying the bitcrush and filter rate play throughout. Breakdown at 48 seconds is quite interesting as well.

At 1:44 the mix gets a little bit cluttered in the low mids, and I would recommend a bit more hi-hat crash play. Something to give us that fizz. I feel the mix is lacking just a bit off the top. Perhaps you could even adjust it in post.

Now, your sample rate (bitcrusher) modulation rips are pretty sibilant. What I usually do for those is pop an extra lo-fi plugin on top to pretty much immediately tame those highs, while maintaining the resonance/squeal you have at the lower frequencies.

In general, you want to keep that bass in mono, making sure it has a decent presence in sub, and your high mids are saturated. The rest of your mid, you want to stereo spread with something like WideFire, which adds harmonics and leaves your original signal intact -- less phasing issues that way and it's pretty non-destructive.

Your snare, you want that to stick out. It's got to have a bump in the 150-220 range for the transient and the body, and you want a little bit of fizz and mids to have it stick out in a danceable mix like this one. Either a dead 70's snare or a low-tuned dubstep/dnb snare would do for this piece.

You'd probably also want to either layer kicks, bump up your kick volume, or swap out whatever kick you have going on in this song. At 1:38, 1:44, and so on, I'm having a hard time delineating the kick. Basically, the low end and drive are muddied up a bit. Bring those out a bit more and the track will shine.

Same with hats. They don't have to be loud, but you don't want to take too much fizz out of them, excepting for transitions. The less fizzy the hat, the louder it should probably be in the mix.

Overall, steady grooving, and I really enjoyed it. Nice work!

CrimsonKero responds:

That's what happens when you use the drums built-into the sample.

[JUST GD]

Interesting tearout like piece. I would revisit the mix and make those tear out noises a little more interesting in terms of panning around, stereo spread and so on, but certainly an original use of those samples

[OMFG - Hello (Dovax Remix)]

Not sure why this has such a low score. The sound design is quite interesting and varied.

[Razer-Rain]

This is such a wild, weird song. Reminds me of old videogame music from WAY back in the day. The synth work, the bass drops, the lo-fi quality of the mix. Sounds like something I would have heard in megaman x command mission. In short, pretty cool!

[OMGF - HELLO]

@detalexip, I think the word you're looking for is phonk. And this is a perfectly legitimate phonk rmx :P

[The Neon Ascent]

Hearing that you're 17 and make EDM bangers much cooler than mine is impressing, demotivating, and awesome at the same time.

I love the modulations you have on your synths, those filter sweeps. It's such a subtle effect, but it carries well throughout the song. I would back off compression VERY slightly on your master, just enough to let the sidechain breathe a bit. I don't know if what I'm saying makes sense, but the reverb and sustains will cause the kick and bass to lose the feeling of sub at dB if you don't.

Check against quieter sections and listen for sub. On the drops, you can hear a subtle difference.

Past 2 min, there is a bit of what appears to be clipping. Check that out.

Still, very well deserved frontpage. If it had not been already, I would have done so myself.

Your output gets better and better with time. Always a pleasure!

PS: bridge and outro was very well executed. Pleasant surprise!

G2961 responds:

Thank you so much for the very good review, ADR3-N! Your comment means a lot to me!

Maybe you're right, there are flaws in this song, but it was difficult for me to fix them on a lagging iPad Mini 2, on which FLM managed to crash more than 10 times, lol. I could make this song on my phone since it doesn't lag, but it was really interesting for me to make it on my iPad when I just downloaded FLM on it.
Mastering and proper mixing in FLM, and even in regular FL Studio, is my weak side, which I can't fix yet, because I have A4Tech headphones that cost me 300 rubles ($3), lol, so I have to survive somehow.