ADR3-N's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Lesser]

I sits. I enjoys straight fire beets. I fade away in a pair of acid wash jeans to the sound of a world in decadent decay, carried on the wind by the digested mess of lead guitar.

LexRodent responds:

Can't tell if this is an abstract review or some modern poetry.
Either way, it's very appreciated ;)

[Madness]

I have no idea what you're sampling, but you're absolutely destroying it, and that's interesting in and of itself.

I'm not sure about the reverb on the bass at 15 seconds or so. I think that could come down by a lot. It would sound much better with a centered bass with not too much reverb or chorus.

I'm not sure about the machine gunning marching snare, but by 1:18 we're getting a nice little bit of spoop going on. I like how unusual the piece as a whole is. It's hard to even form a coherent thought with this on.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

deepfriedfiend responds:

I ripped and modified most of the sounds from Hydrogen's death metal drum kit, even turning a cymbal into a lead. Some are resampled and modified from individual notes recorded from various Yamaha keyboards, my own voice, or made entirely from FLStudio plugins.
I am glad to join NGUAC. And thank you for the advice! I'll consider that!

[Hell]

The SHSH sample in your intro is pretty loud relative to everything else, as is your hihat and ride ting.

The idea itself I really like -- sounds like industrial dubstep. 1:00 is a very pleasant, ugly cacophony, which sweet nois. I would like to hear a sidechain on your 8th note bass for the kick and snare. That may not be possible with your current software. I'm not sure.

The tom at 1:50 or so sounds out of place. I would sub for another strange industrial bang noise.

Make sure to monitor velocity for multiple hits of the same noise.

I think with some better access to sounds and instruments, you have a fine future ahead of you in this genre. Your piece is dark, mysterious, and creative. I enjoy your samples. They fill my widdle heart with edgyness and remind me of simpler times when I used to listen to more of the same. I'm excited to see what else you come up with!

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

[Offline]

Really enjoy your chord progression in the intro.

Something is happening at 25 seconds. I think it got louder but can't tell you how.

I'm not sure about the structure of the piece. We've just heard a chorus for our intro. At 1:00 it sounds like 2 bridges to me at the same time. Perhaps some study of song structure will help you organize ideas like these into cohesive wholes. I was expecting another chorus before your outro.

You manage transitions fairly well even without a lot of transition FX, crashes, or a lot of complex elements. I would suggest doing some digging for more of these, as it could do much for the perception of motion in this piece.

Other than that I don't have much critique. You have moving, sad melodies, solid chords that are catchy, and nothing is sticking out as badly mixed. Just hard to follow the progression is all. Despite what you may think, that isn't hard to fix at all. Hold onto this piece for a later date and see what you can chop it into, and tag me if you do!

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

[Conspiracy]

SUCH WOW MUCH LOUD

Oh I recognize those snares and can't even tell where from. I think I would have liked some panning play with the individual snare samples, and rolling across channels from left to right. Anything to keep from sounding flat.

I like all of your samples. I think at points like 53 secs it's almost impossible to hear the bass doing what it do. Your auxiliary perc should come down, or your compression should come down and your bass should go up on those sections, because 0:59, 1:22, etc are perfectly audible. It's when the 1:38 loop and your breaks are hanging out at the same time everything else is almost impossible to hear.

You can also strip reverb from your basses and that will help a little with compression pains.

Great rhythms though dude. I really enjoyed the variety of sound, even if at points things were inaudible or tinny -- I really am starting to think that's a compression issue of big sections having too many things that by themselves sound nice with the basses but all together squash it too much.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

DEATH-DANGER-INCOME responds:

Thank you. Yea i know. It's just, i needed to make something. Andddd no time was even left before i needed to go do something else. Not going into detail.

[DatCat11 - Frozen Over]

I'm not a huge fan of the steel guitar synth, and I think it's a bit loud over your accompaniment, but the melody writing is great. Recommend doing something, applying reverb/delay to it so it doesn't sound so naked overtop the rest of the ensemble.

I really enjoy your chord at 2:11. I forgot what to call it :')

I think you have a great chord progression. I think it would be even better if you were to use inversions.

The sub bass sounds REALLY detuned and at points is clashing pretty hard on lower notes with the tonic of the chord it is underscoring, giving a mean head throbbing experience.

That said I enjoyed the section through onto 4 minutes. I was expecting a louder, harder drop than was received. Think a different bass would achieved that for you. I actually think using a saw bass or pulse bass would have been a better choice at points.

I really like your lead melody, and this will be stuck in my head for a while. Nice work, despite the head throb. Working with sines is rough in general. I respect that.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

[Talking Tracy]

That melody is catchy. I'm tapping along unconsciously. I think despite the poor quality of instruments, this song manages to stand on the merit of its melodic writing.

also is that M-Theory?!!! <3 memories

What I would do in the absence of better instruments is make the best mixing and FX choices you possibly can. Meaning use reverb sparingly, and when you do use it, clean those low mid frequencies -- and by that I mean eliminate them. Make use of transition wooshes, find some cinematic cymbals, or make your own reverse cymbals for transitions. Find some good free instruments such as Junk Guitar for sforzando, a free amp that's half decent, and as many nice free drum samples as you can get. I have tons of them in my news posts if you can be bothered to sift through them and some FX no longer available on the web if you'd like to PM me some time.

Despite being a relatively simple piece and being severely limited by lower quality instruments like FL slayer which I think I hear, I really enjoyed the piece. Your writing is a huge strongpoint here. Looking forward to hearing from you as you expand your horizons over time.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

damnhurt responds:

Thanks man, I appreciate that.
I'm just learning about mixing, so I will try to fix it as soon as I learn.

P.S. And what is M-Theory?

[Phase - Corruption Part II (Paradox LP)]

Very nice spacy FX in our intro, cinematic muted kick heartbeat going on.

I think I would like a bit softer hihat when the drums come in, by a dB or less. I would also take down pad and bassy lead slightly. until we reach a more developed part of the song.

It's quite hard to hear the sub bass. I feel it in my lower jaw on headphones and can hear it interacting with the compressor. It's so low and there is no harmonics or etc, it ends up sounding like detuned low frequency noise to me.

The low frequency lead is so pensive and slow I'm having trouble processing it as a lead instrument and not a bare harmony.

However your outro around 3:00 is GORGEOUS with those ghostly chords.

Sound quality wise this is great, even if I'm not sure about the chords or where we're going. I think I would simply have brought out more of your ghostly harmonies and used a different bass than the sub for portions of the song.

The arpeggiations are very nice and interesting to listen to. I think I would like to hear more variation in percussion, particularly cymbals and snare, as well as a grungier kick. The low frequency end almost sounds monotone, eaten up with so much sub.

But nevermind my nitpicking. It's a very interesting approach all around, and were I not focusing in on it for listening for composition, in the absence of any other stimuli, I would have highly praised your sound design. Nice job!

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

[rain.]

Nice panning on your ocean FX. I would like to hear some chorus and more volume on those leads in the beginning.

At 35 seconds, that 808 is simply too loud and is blowing the rest of the track completely out. Bring it and the kick down a few DB. I can hear almost nothing else. I think I would bring the water FX down also to make room for your tinny melodies.

Writing wise I really enjoy this. It's almost olskool.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

Crysstal712 responds:

Thanks :), i didn't really have time to do this because i had school and stuff like that, and I'm also not really good at trap. But I'm always trying my best so thank you a lot for the feedback =)

[Thistle]

I would like to hear a bit more of your low strings -- although being careful to watch harder attacks with long releases, as they sound a bit gnarly in your intro.

Beyond that, fantastic piece, great sound quality.

I would take the violins chugging into 1:20 down by about a half dB and push them to the background.

Throughout I find that I want just a bit less reverb than is there.

Windchimes at 2:00 could also come down in volume. They're quite strong.

Your chords are confoundingly complex. Much love.

I languish that my orchestral instruments sound like trash in comparison to yours, as does my capability of using them.

2:56 you could certainly use a better orchestral brass. Those attacks are a bit poo-poo compared to the rest of this GORGEOUS work. I recommend Spitfire Brass. I've also used their Albion library. Then there's a few nice freebies like carpenter trombone that can be fooled into becoming an ensemble with enough beating kontakt to death with transposing.

Beautiful, beautiful piece. I have little if anything to actually critique. Stellar composition.

Cresince responds:

Thank you so much for your detailed feedback!

I do agree that my mixing could use some work, I mostly mix on headphones but I believe if I used some studio monitors or even just speakers I could iron out some of those stand out instruments that don't sound as harsh on the set up I use now.

Also one thing to mention on this piece is that I used the fantastic VST Arkhis. It is good for preset orchestral textures that can really uplift a piece, I recommend it.

I will have to check out your VST recommendations so thank you for making me aware of them, and also thank you for the kind words! Glad you liked it. <3