ADR3-N's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[htaM airA]

Not a huge fan of FNF, but this isn't half bad! I'd bring out your drums a little more, the kick and snare specifically. The concept itself of modding the game is cool as hell

[Inktober #31 - The Last]

Thanks for taking this beat for a ride. Watching you grow as a rapper has been a pleasure, especially with the challenges inherent in working with a pre-made beat. Excellent work. Sounds especially nice with some subtle chorus or verb on the vocals. Definitely got the energy this beat was lacking when I released it and that makes me proud 💙

Btw your enunciation is getting nice and clear. Hard work is definitely paying off. I'm jealous of your wide subject range. Implementing clear hooks is coming along really nicely too. Comes across clear on my phone with the adlibs, though making sure they lay exactly together on consonants and cutoffs is important. This is massive growth and I look forward to hearing more.

Sorry if the paragraphs are hard to follow. Swipe texting rn and I'm sick as hell. But you made my day :D

Cyberdevil responds:

Eyy, great to hear, glad the energy was sufficient! Feel I could've gotten it a bit heavier still, but I'm happy. Reasonably amped and ripped on attitude after all.

That's good to hear too. With the first verse in particular I wondered if people need to rely on the lyrics to hear what I'm saying - not sure I'd catch everything myself if I hadn't written it myself, so nice with some outside perspective on that. Yeaah the adlibs can definitely still use some fine-tuning. TY! For the appreciation and the solid feedback and the instrumental too! Inspires the best stuff!

Get well too! Bang this loud enough maybe you can willpower the virus away! ;)

[Moonlighter [NGUAC '22]]

Says its not his best work. Comes out with blazing solo and a good mix.

I think your lead synths could have a bit more space, like a pingpong delay or something to the other channel, maybe more chorus, reverb, or flanging at points, but everything sounds just fine other than that. Some instruments are obviously synths moreso than others. Sensitive handling of velocity will help this a lot. I do notice supporting guitars in the left channel up high occasionally sticking out. More distortion maybe and compression to smooth out the volume jumps?

I want to hear a bit more of the high mid on your snare. Maybe touch up the transients and bring it up a tad.

I think you did just fine with this piece. A fine way to close out judging the final round for me and certainly worthy to be here. Congrats on making it, and being such a great composer that you criticize yourself even on such songs as this as not your best. I like it a lot.

Great work. Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

Zip-Zap-Official responds:

I don't like calling them synths lol... I've always given my instruments dynamics (vibratos and pitch bends) so that they sound more authentic and good-sounding, but there weren't many opportunities to do that in this one. I was also running out of time, so the dynamics I did make weren't quite polished.
I originally went with a heavily-chorused lead, but it sounded too... wah-wah? Especially with the cabinet I chose. So I did away with it and just making it clean.

Thank you so much though; I'm glad you like this track, but I know there were so many things that I wanted to do better. After all, the worst critic you will ever have is yourself...

[Make it up]

I appreciate the sound design that went into making this track. It sounds at points however that there is almost no center. Maybe removing some reverb here and there, compressing leads harder, etc, would help that. The vocals are also quite thin and sibilant (I recognize the issues with any sort of chip speech here)

Writing wise, it's great, and your lyrics are fantastic. I think this song understands me, haha. Could probably use running through an internet mastering service for loudness and compression. I think it's clean enough to benefit from that.

Wonderful work. I can hear the love that went into hand crafting this piece. The outro was especially great although short. Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

[Last Minute Riot]

Love the name haha.

I think there is a bit much sub, leading to the mix feeling full but empty in a sense, and the leads being at points hard to make out. I think your writing however is great, as is your use of samples.

The section at 1:24 is a nice shift in energy. Keeping the same theme but laying back a bit. 1:52 was unexpected but another nice change.

Overall I'm not sure about some of the instrument choices, mostly FX. Personally I would distort that bass you hear in your outro to oblivion. At times your breaks are not as loud as I would like, but I believe this is an illusion on part of so much sub. At 1:58 that problem vanishes and everything sounds balanced.

I think I would like to hear more center on the lower frequencies from 210 and down for your bass instruments.

Beyond that, great work. Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

[X3ll3n - Spatium Cursu [NGUAC 2022 Final Round]]

First of all I wanted to say I'm happy to see how far you've come in all these years. Great to see you here, and props for going out of your comfort zone. 5 hours to make? You've gotten fast as hell. Then again all the best music happens in a flurry.

I don't have any critique until 1:10 or so when the reverb on your pads starts to get muddy, and your lead is just a bit too loud relative to the bass. It may not help that other instruments are playing the same melody.

Great work, and thanks for coming out to NGUAC. This piece is shorter than I would have liked, but for what it's worth, I think your piano sounded great here. Very sensitive treatment, taking away just the right amount of frequency and leaving its synth piano character intact. Fantastic job!

X3LL3N responds:

I'm really happy for this comment, especially because it comes from you.

I remember applying for the NGUAC back in 2019/2020 and being absolutely destroyed. Back then you were quite critical of my musics in general, which hurt/annoyed me.

But instead of just complaining, I turned it into a strength, because I wanted to prove you wrong.

I can without a doubt say that it's in part due to your impartiality that I was able to improve this much. I don't consider myself to be gifted or talented, just average, yet even I realise how much I've progressed.

For all of that, I would like to thank you, sincerely.

[The Custodian]

Great job expanding your comfort zone!

I think the drop at 45 seconds is too loud for your compressor to handle nicely. It's an extreme jump in volume from the rest of the track and doesn't need to be that loud.

Compositionally, I'm very much digging your work all the way through 1:35 and on. The second drop has the same issue as the first but less so due to less harsh frequencies. Love the rhythms through 2:10. I was not ready for it to be over!

Love this piece. Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

[Typhon (Unfinished Demo)]

I love Ample guitars! Nice to hear it in the hands of someone who mixes it better than I do. I think the only thing to worry about with this guitar is to make sure your velocity and keyswitches sound natural. Switching between the channels makes it quite noticeable when something isn't totally natural.

Beyond that, your drop at 1:10 is great -- even if I don't particularly like the guitar like lead up high much and think that could come down maybe even a full dB because it is so high up relative to the rest of the track.

The bass at 1:55 is really boxy sounding, almost like it's in a can. Watch those low mid frequencies. I may have put a sub under it for beef.

2:33 sounds great. I may have cut the section at 2:55 and went straight into your build. The section at 3:20 I also may have cut and gone straight into the drop. It was a slight let down for a few seconds.

Watch your high frequencies at 3:40. They are getting fizzy. The tongue clicks also are distracting.

Beyond that, props for going all out and not being afraid to get weird. Really enjoyed this piece.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

Venomite responds:

Experimented a lot with increasing low/mid frequencies in the basses to try and get close to how subtronics does his mixes. put a bit crusher on the reverb at 3:50 to fizzle it out to nothing as I liked that effect. Experimented with creating more tension in the 3rd drop by the fakeout as that is a technique I hear in a lot of rave sets. Thanks for the in depth feedback! I know there’s a few tweaks that I can make, but ultimately I did not have time to do everything I was hoping to do with the cutoff.

[Champions]

Absolutely fantastic writing. I would like more loud, and less reverb. Louder snare, maybe some transient shaping to bring it out. It's almost inauduble.

Your writing covers a lot of the finer mix points that are missed.

It sounds like the right channel rhythm guitar is louder than the left.

The drums in particular, and by that I mostly mean crashes, could use softer panning in each ear imo, as well as more modulation of velocity. The crashes are louder than the snare and toms, which I barely hear. Maybe it is on the part of compression. Make sure your composition sounds as good at a quiet volume as it does loud.

All that said, I think you've put together a wonderful piece. I really enjoyed it. It was varied, intense, interesting, had blazing solos. Great work.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

EDIT: I wanted to add I'm listening on professional monitor headphones, audio technica ATH m40x, and I've been doing metal for... 10 years? I can't remember.

How you do your mix is up to you, but just passing along the tips and tricks that I learned from others through the years. If it really does sound different to you than for me, might check out the frequency profile of your sound card and headphones. Mine came factory with a Realtek driver that automatically compressed any output that came through it. I had to switch to the default high definition audio driver. I haven't had any problems since. And theres always comparing your master to others you like from the same or comparative genre. Best of luck, and hope it helps. I know how it is trying to work your sound toward the lowest common denominator of speaker and someone comes along leaving you scratching your head about the sound!

Anyway, nothing personal. Let me know your hardware and drivers. If it really does sound different that's something I need to think about balancing my own mix!

TheUnnamedPlayer responds:

honestly, i do believe you must be listening on weird headphones

I make my music for low-quality speakers

i actually don't see the snare and toms bit, i've actually lowered them because they're too loud in the master so perhaps you aren't familiar with metal righting, unfortunately

the crashes as well are barely even audible in comparison to the snare, so i genuinely don't understand that part,and i master my music at a quiet volume first then go loud

oddly enough, literally everything you said is the exact opposite of what i actually need to do, but thanks for trying to give feedback i guess?