ADR3-N's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Mater Infinitum - Part I]

This is a whopper of a composition, wow. I'm sitting around the two minute mark before 35 seconds and already awed with your use of that choir. It sounds quite organic for a synth, and of course beautiful chugs. Your composition surpasses the limitations of those violin leads -- long my least favorite synth, and your writing is pensive and pleasing to the ear.

The proceeding section is thoughtful and full of soul. Loving the progression.

4:22 sounds great, I think some of the best guitar writing I've heard from you. Some of the articulations on the guitars could use more modulation on the velocity, but it's a synth with probably less round robins than we want, who cares. The piece is so far wonderfully varied, yet remains in the same character.

5:51 is brilliantly transitioned into and gives a sense of awe. I'm amazed I haven't gotten bored. I generally see such a long track, eyeballs widen, and I question whether I have the attention span to finish.

6:50 is another nice shift in tonality. I think it may be my favorite so far. I'm amazed this song has received so little attention relative to its quality. I'm curious as to your flute library, bass amp, and what you used to get that gorgeous clean chorused tone.

Actually, I wanna know how much RAM you think you had stacked on back in 2013.

8:46 sounds like a breakdown from a song all its own. Is that Emissary amp? Sounds familiar.

Leads are really nicely written through 9:32. Could have probably used either a legato through the runs or keyswitched some double pick noises so the attacks sound less machine gunny, but I'm really just nitpicking here.

10:28, the strings sound pretty synthy, but as with everything throughout, your writing really triumphs over the limitation of the software.

Through 11:08, I really love your chugging. Shredding to hell. The cutoff is a bit abrupt therefrom, could use a mute noise to complement the cymbal choke, but again, nitpicking. The composition flows naturally from that moment and had I not been writing this as I listen, I would have totally forgotten about it.

12:43, the deathmarch is in full swing, and I recognize where I've heard this melody before. Guitars coming in sound pristine. Some of the higher powerchords don't sound quite as intense -- I think that's just the samplebank itself being quite mid-heavy and chunky.

So far so good as we move on into the next marching snare section. Your cinematic percussion here carries very well, and I enjoy the dissonant locrian and harmonic minor elements going on here. If I used a wrong word -- oh well it's been years since I took theory and myself compose largely by ear. Can't wait to see what else we have in store.

15:53, my anime face is uwu at that entrance. Blazing fast, and low tuned baritone guitar on the rhythm. I always feel like you're pushing the envelope for what synths will and won't do under pressure. A swell finale.

Aaaand now I've finished and can solidly say thanks for the recommendation. Remind me to snag some more of your albums :3

[Bells]

The sound quality is pretty rough because the limitations of the music software, but this is actually pretty interesting to listen to. Sounds very lo fi industrial hiphop or something

[Bleed For Me (Instrumental)]

Super smooth. Still love the original's phrasing, but this breathes new life into it, getting a glimpse of your original vision. That could be my inner twelve year old speaking, but I just don't think this song ever gets old. I gotta head off to work for a bit but I'll be sure to take a gander at the tracks you mentioned in your thread when I get back

\m/

[Melancholy in G-minor]

Nice relaxing house beat. I particularly like the wistful vibe around 2:40. I might tame those higher frequencies just a little bit past 20khz, but otherwise this is everything I could have asked for it to be. Loving the shift at 3:26.

By any chance are you using Nexus 2? Oh no, I see Serum in the software notes. Insanely similar sound. Wicked cool.

Crazy to think you do house. I have a ton of your metal tracks on an old mp3 player, over a decade old now. Hearing this has me thinking about my own journey through music, for better or worse, listening to those old tunes, clawing through a trial version of the same software I use today. Really enjoyed the listen. Surprised me :)

[Repetitive Distortion]

I'd be more likely to call this synth or darkwave, with industrial flavors, but this is a nice driving little piece. Kinda cyberpunky to me. Great work, and nice to see you outside of genres I would typically expect <3

[LABS]

Is this made using actual spitfire LABS instruments? If so, wicked cool. It develops a little bit slower for me than I'd prefer, and some of the instruments and choir seem a bit sharp or flat relative to one another. That's not a hard fix.

I would bring your flute in the left channel up a little, or tame the reverb on the instruments with whole notes. Otherwise, pretty freaking cool.

yagru responds:

YES DUDE! user buggagumpus (below) suggested them to me! love it. i agree about the flute tho...just created this randomly last night and needed to upload so i could listen in the car lol

[A Dman's Valentine]

Yo, smooth and sick. Grats on the front page! I wish this was longer

[Plans]

I was about to write this off, but your vocal mixing hooked me into the rest of the production. I think with just some taming on your sibilants, s and t and such, even if it's just manually lowering the volume so you don't have to spend money on a bunch of fancy programs to do it for you, that would help a lot.

Overall, your bass is just a little bit flat compared to the rest of the track, and your drums could stand to come out a few dB in the mix, but your structure is nice and strong, and you have an interesting chord progression. Nice work!

floorboardofficial responds:

YES hahahaha. I did NOTHING for sibilance control back then. The worst part is when they're not quantized properly and you get this unpleasent surprise ping-pong effect that just ruins the illusion of the overdubs. Anyways, in the years since I made this I've started doing exactly what you said and manually dealing with sibilants, but holy hell is it a time consuming pain in the ass cheek. Are there any "fancy programs" that you'd reccomend? I've tried a couple free de-essers here and there and frankly they were all pretty much unusable. I honestly wouldn't mind throwing down some cold hard money cash to save myself the pain.

But hey, thanks for the review! Much appreciated :)

[Ease Your Mind]

Not bad! I think it could use mastering compression but other than that a solid structure and a driving beat, complete with a recognizable melody.

I really think you could use to start making news posts so people can know more about you as an artist. Every two weeks you can post to the front page. It's quite useful :)

[FVIII ~ Wonder]

A lot of great melodic ideas here. Congratulations on your first song on NG. It's missing a bassline, and you could definitely make use of a more conventional structure. The intro feels as naked as an outro, and by 2:03, I feel like we've been in either a build or an intro for a very long time, especially by 2:30.

Without a bassline, 2:41 doesn't hit as hard as it should. That said with those small fixes this would be a pretty nice little track. Great work, and a fantastic start.

Keep it up! Let me know if you want any help resources or tips or tricks :)

FVIII responds:

thanks for the feedback! I made this track a couple months ago and I had much less experience with music-making at that time! I have a bunch of other tracks coming, but they still need a lot of fixing. I'll make sure to add a baseline next time :)