ADR3-N's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Holy Omnipresence]

Already liking your chords and arrangement up to 12 seconds in. Would place less reverb on virtually everything by a factor of 1/4 to 1/2 the current values.

Your drums are cutting through wonderfully at 45 seconds. There actually could be more reverb on toms and snare. Some points the velocities sound the exact same. Watch for that. Can add humanization to the note heads.

Your guitars are suffering the same way. They also should be double tracked, if you are aware of what that means, and brought up in the mix much louder, by probably about 2 to 3 dB at least -- except for 2:06. The level there doesn't sound bad.

At 2:15, guitars should be IN MY FACE.

You have a great synth line at 2:30 that would be wonderfully supported by those guitars.

I also forgot to add nice use of choirs and transitions throughout. My only complaints are related to metal mixing, and when it comes to your current ability, I think you should have no problem mastering that. Wonderful and touching work.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

[ThunderFrank - Apocalyptic Destruction [NGUAC]]

I think the track may be too loud before it hits the effects on the master channel -- compression, etc.

The percussion is no issue to hear but is VERY loud relative to the rest of the instrumental and occasionally hurts my ears on quieter sections of the track, where the other instruments aren't as loud.

1:33 sounds like an explosion of static. That one hurt.

Now I will say you take a lot of elements that sound atonal and make them seem as if they belong together. I appreciate that part of your track.

I would like to hear a growling bass underneath the synth bass at 2:26.

Other than that I don't have much critique. It's a simple piece with a good arrangement. The mix is what makes it difficult for me to listen to. Less snare volume, whatever that loud sample is on your outro could be changed out or dropped in volume, more kick volume, a sidechain if possible on kick and snare, more volume on bass, less reverb on the lead.

That's all I got. Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

ThunderFrankMusic responds:

the one at 2:26 is the subass, bro, thanks for rating my song :D

[=If I made Stereo Cloud now=]

15 seconds, you have a chord completely out of the tonic of your melody. A minor against F I'm not sure what chord that is. Going to the G against that A is gnarly. The next chord doesn't really feel it fits either.

All the chords are parallel movements with no inversions -- some study of music theory would be helpful.

Your percussion is VERY loud relative to the rest of the piece and kind of hurts to listen to, no offense, just because it's loud and repetitive at 1:17.

I'm not sure what to really make of it, but it certainly is not just noise, and that I appreciate. There's room for improvement, and I think you'll find that if you look up songwriting, song structure, and music theory tutorials for a while, practicing and releasing as you go. I highly recommend Signals Music Studios on YT. They helped me get to where I am today. I see no reason why you shouldn't be able to do the same. My first music submissions were not even this decent -- I was submitting crap I made in punkomatic or online browser DAWs with loops at the time.

Wishing you the best in future submissions and all of your endeavors. Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

TimeWarpKnight responds:

I not very skillful, but thx for VERY big comment with critic

[UDG]

Right off the bat, I can barely hear your percussion over the synth guitar. This is a problem throughout. Mostly the snare. I can hear the hihats okay, and the kick is fine. Turn that snare up and make it cronchy with some FX if you prefer.

I like your transition at 1:21. That actually sounds pretty freaking cool.

The rest of the song you have some nicely written rhythms that are not really served by the quality of FX you have OR what the instrument itself is designed to do. However I do hear you using a lot more of the parameters than most people of your level typically use, so I have hope that you will find some way to transform them in the future. I recommend grabbing a free guitar amp or something off the internet. If I can turn a commodore 64 synthesizer into a NASTY distorted bass in "youre late for work," I think with time you can find what you want to do with FL Slayer or whatever Electric guitar synth you pick out.

Meantime I suggest Ample Sounds Bass Lite -- I can barely hear your bass and it does not sound bad but it never hurts to have options.

I also recommend seeking some different drum kits, MT Power Drum kit is free, as is Salamander Drumkit and Saudade Snare

If I ignore the synths, this kind of sounds like olskool Rammstein Feuer Frei and similar works. Dig it. It will be stuck in my head for a while.

Be sure to research doubletracking. It's something you at present could do with two instances of different synths playing the same rhythm guitar line panned 100% to different ears and with slightly different humanization values.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

[User 817sd - APAC:3]

This sounds like Mass Effect had a baby with CyberPunk, and then lived out its days in the 80s.

I think it would benefit hugely from a reduction in reverb wet signal and tail in all areas, as well as low frequency cutting on the reverb wet signals.

At 59 seconds, sounds fantastic with that lead.

The beat is simple but it chugs along nicely with different elements and transitions spiced in the mix. That's where you shine here, the transitions.

I'd like a stronger kick and snare, more presence, maybe even sidechain, as by 2:08 they are barely audible under the reverb and other louder synths. Try mixing at a quieter volume and discern if you can clearly hear all elements. If not, mix at that volume until you can, then turn the volume back up and fix any exaggerations you made. It will make a big difference!

Nice piece. I really enjoyed it. Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

[Memory of a Muse]

This is like one of those send to your crush songs, except for it was composed by the same guy who wrote Marino and Spider's theme for Megaman X Command Mission.

I think as a whole the composition as a whole shoots its shot early on and continues on into 1:05 in the same vein. I was not expecting the paring down of the composition into 1:20. I think it's just a bit too short to have an outro at that point and another drop could have been squeezed in between at some point.

Beyond that the use of the same instrumentation throughout sort of stifles any feeling that we're really moving anywhere with the arpeggios. I would caution you against that but then again I am a notorious offender, myself.

Nice work. Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

[Frozen Industry]

Oh UwU listen to them percussions in the beginning. Reminding me of Turok. I'd like to know what you used for them.

I think at 26 seconds the sudden increase of volume is just a little bit dramatic, and some of the bangs also could come down very slightly. Maybe try a bit more aggressive panning for some SFX and particularly motion in the panning from one side to the other.

Despite having not a whole lot of melodic content, my brain is beginning to interpret chords in the drums at 1:40. One of the resonant bass notes is a low B. Another is a G#4, and your bass comes in at C and F when we get to 3:00. At 4:24 we have a Bb5. Very interesting timbres. Were you aware of those note relations in making the piece and did this on purpose, or did it just sound right?

The piece is super long, but I don't mind. I'm just enjoying the ride. Perhaps the TIKtik-titik could come down just a bit throughout but it's not too bothersome.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

VictorLincolnPine responds:

Yeah, mostly this was done by ear like most of my other tracks. I have it really long cause it's a game track and I wanted enough variation to the music for the listener not to get used to it too quickly as it loops.

As for the drums, I used a combination of dragging my keys on a table and two drum packs: "Bins and Barrels Kit" and "Foley and Real Drum Kit", with a metal pole hit sound in the former kit that I added a slow phaser effect to in addition to delay effects and Valhalla Supermassive reverb effects via aux buses to get both the full wet and full dry signals at once.

Thank you for your input, by the way. I'll take that into consideration for my future tracks.

[ikitai (feat. 初音ミク)]

This track is very quiet. I think it could benefit from a free online master or amplifying in Audacity.

I really enjoy your pingpong delay.

I think the hihats are a bit loud.

I appreciate the use of Miku and the Japanese. I myself am an occasional vocaloid and Alter Ego user myself.

I don't have much critique as the composition is fairly simple and nothing sticks out to me as dissonant or poorly mixed. It's so quiet that mixing decisions really only matter in so far as I wouldn't be able to hear anything -- but as bare as this piece is, everything is audible.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

wheremakingthishapen responds:

hi, thank you so much for your critique!!! i do have a problem with making my tracks a bit too quiet, as i tend to get worried about them clipping and such, but i'll definitely keep your critique in mind for any future tracks i make and try and work on making them a little louder. i'll also try and work on adding more stuff to my future tracks so they aren't as bare :) again, tysm for your critique, even if you didn't have much to say it was still very helpful!!!

[Ys - Mountain Pass (Windman Remix)]

That ambient intro is wild. Kinda feels like dementia. We lead from that straight into a 4 to the floor kick and a minor chord progression hanging out around the tonic of I.

Your transition was flowing well up until 2:58 or so. I was expecting another chorus, not a quieter section INTO a chorus.

Your melody writing and chords are quite catchy. It's like disco met olskool diva synth rock. The electric guitar synth could probably be subbed out for another instrument that sounds less obviously like it is trying to do a real instrument's job and draw less scrutiny.

The piece keeps plodding on into 6:39, which it should be mentioned is VERY long for a track that is not some kind of symphony. I really think you could have gone without the ambient outro. Just a hint of it would be enough.

Some comments. Your percussion, particularly crashes, feels a little cheap. Kick, snare, and crash are three elements you want to be clean, pristine, and crispy in a mix. I want to hear more of them in both terms of volume and crunch. You may find some free percussion processing plugins to help you in this endeavor such as KSHMR Essentials Kick and Diablo Lite by cymatics

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

[rotting.]

Super dirty beets. Me like. I think the cymbals could come down in the mix to improve intelligibility of the harmony.

Personally I would not have gone past 1:36 on the first drop to give time to breathe -- may have chopped elements from the end of the first drop into the first half.

I can't really properly express how much I love this pile of dirt decaying in my ear holes. It feels like what my daily life with a TBI feels like. Forgetting shit constantly, not really knowing where I'm going half the time, and kinda feeling dead inside.

I also have no fucking clue why you're getting zero bombed.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!