ADR3-N's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Einveru.]

Wow this was not what I was expecting hearing your work with @Ultramartyr. You have a really nice voice. I'd like to hear this in a heavier style, honestly, but it sounds quite good. Might add a small delay to your vocals, take the drums down .3 dB or so, and bring the vocals up by .2

Great work

[Once Buried]

Miss you, man. I've always loved the rough, gritty quality of your tunes. This is a little quiet -- could probably be fixed with just a free online master at this output volume if you don't want to spend a lot of time doing that yourself. It sounds like the high 18-22k is overrepresented in the cymbals, and the drums themselves could use some compression. I would also take the bass up by anywhere between .5 to 1.5 dB. It's sort of hiding with a low end fuzz. I can only hear a bit of sub.

But not complaining. The writing of this piece was pretty splendid

[Inktober #4 - Actualize]

Wow this is wild. I never imagined somebody spitting on this track! It was intended as a score :o

Now that I think about it, the structure makes sense. I think this is a vibe!

Onto the mixing, it's getting better and better with time, whether you know it or not. I might cop something like KSHMR Essentials (Kick, the free version) and see if I can use the width function on those adlibs.

Regardless, if you can get just a little more clarity in that upper mid, your flow believe it or not will almost totally outshine most mixing issues. I still would probably drop or chop a little tighter some of the adlibs. Occasionally they run over each other and get a little muddy.

But overall, this slaps. Glad my junk inspired you to make such impressive flows. Great work!

Cyberdevil responds:

Glad you liked it! I do love spitting particularly on tracks not intended for spitting on. XD

Hmm definitely was an elaborate attempt with this one but I feel like it might've actually been a step back since the first, turned out a bit messy somehow, vocal tone a little blander, which is why I tried messing around with a bit too many layers I think. But maybe that's not really the mixing, just the recording this time. Anyway that'd be awesome if you want to! I'm thinking when Inktober's over and all has calmed down I could give this another run too, but anytime you want to mess around with and potentially greatly improve a mix I'm happy to send over files. :)

Yeaah more clarity seems key. I do agree. Gotta work on that.

Thanks for the feedback again ADR3-N! And your tracks really are dope you know! Addictive just like coke and blow! Though more so empowering and soulful so.

[Inktober #1 - Run]

You know, as much as you say you aren't happy with the vocal quality, despite some muddyness on adlibs, the overall quality is improving by leaps and bounds with each year that goes by. Your flows are becoming more and more refined. I think if you were just a bit more selective with your chopping vocals, pare down the track number just a bit, or perhaps have one lead center vocal that's nice and clean, and apply a chorus, eventually you'll get results. Keep experimenting.

The mid is just a bit heavy on the vocal, making it sound just a little nasal, but it's not overly sibilant from what I can hear on laptop speakers. Try some EQ play and compression -- by the way, check my latest post, some vocal processing freebies are on there.

Glad to see you still at it as always. Keep it up!

Cyberdevil responds:

Hey thank you ADR3-N, good to get an outside perspective on things; hear that I am actually getting somewhere. Yeah I gotta master the chopping, though it felt like the muddiness worked pretty well with the beat in this particular case sometimes, especially towards the end. More so feel I didn't manage the right tone and all, voice strains too quick, but that should get better.

Hmm I totally forgot the EQ advice I picked up last year!!! Thanks for that reminder! I'll check out that post too.

Always. :) Thank ya very much for stopping by for the premiere; dropping all this very useful feedback no less!

[Strait outta Dayton]

This song is a meme. The mixing works for it. The only thing I would suggest for this format is hold some kind of cloth in front of the phone mic to soften those Fs and Ps

[Variations on Endless Handbag]

A nice fresh take on one of my favorite songs. It has the feeling of a live lounge recording (while also reminding me of the original menu theme for Dragon's Dogma) -- I think some of that is to do with loads of low end reverb and sub. That chorus is very nicely done, positively angelic, and the composition really shines through here. I would want just a little more compression and some de-essing, but it comes through quite nicely.

I may bring the bass down by about .2 dB, the guitars up by a similar amount, and perhaps the marimbas down ever so slightly.

I understand there are two mics on the drums and that's rough to work with. There has to be some way to bring out the profile of the snare just a bit, or go back in and either record or trigger a VST snare. It's only a very slight distractor. Overall the playing is wonderful and outshines the recording.

I very much love to see how you, Troisnyx are progressing through the years, and the collaboration here is spectacular. Everyone is playing to their strengths. The lead guitar soars without completely owning the track. All other parts of the arrangement are in their proper place, and it flows masterfully.

Great work, everyone! Thanks to @BBank for pointing me here!

BBaNK responds:

You are welcome! Glad you enjoyed it!

[lately]

Really pretty arp in the beginning! The chords themselves are very pretty, and I like the old 90's synths. The only issue I have with this track is although everything is very nicely written and progressed, it's very hard to hear your bass synth. You could possibly apply some subtle distortion and open up in the high mids. Everything else is sort of crushing it down, especially the percussion, which is definitely nice that it isn't buried, but the track itself feels topheavy in terms of frequencies represented.

Still, I really like it. Great job!

[Max Rena - Chemical plant Zone (Sonic the hedgehog Remix)]

This sounds really uniquely quirky and interesting. I love that you incorporated the sound effects rather seamlessly. The only thing I might change is cutting a bit of reverb, side chaining the wet signal from it, and cutting off the low end to 250 hz.

You might also cop a plugin like KSHMR Essentials for processing your kick and snare, get some harder transients on them. They seem low in the mix compared to your cymbals, which I might bring down some. There's basically nothing in that range frequency wise, so hihat and cymbal naturally stick out. Experiment with turning the volume down on your mix as a whole, and see if you can push them down a bit without losing them. Then bring the volume back up and hear how much fuller your mix sounds when you get to the final result.

Anyway, sounds great. Keep up the good work!

[Max Rena - Sonic The Hedgehog - Final Boss theme Remix (Doom Eternal version)]

The idea for this is freaking great. I only have a few small gripes. It sounds like everything was mixed a little too loud, and the mix itself is clipping a bit past 0 dB headroom, even in the beginning. It could be the clips of individual instruments as they render. It gives a bit of a fizzy whitewash that makes the rest of the track sound pretty centered.

For the guitars, it sounds like there may only be one centered low rhythm guitar. Standard practice for rhythm guitar is to mix two slightly varied iterations of your rhythm line panned 100% right and left respectively. You can humanize the left track's attacks and releases, as well as velocities, by a small percent, and change some of the amplifier settings to give a rich, open sound. It will also help your rhythm line cut through the mix without getting muddied up in the center. I can't hear if that's been done here due to some mixing decisions, like the heavy lead in the right and some other leveling which I will get to.

The track itself sounds like most everything is in the center and heavily compressed. Not that heavy compression is a bad thing. In this genre it's usually just fine. Part of what's adding to that centered sound is the snare is too far down in the mix, as is the rhythm guitar throughout.

I think the bass may be slightly too high in the mix, or should have a sidechain to the kick applied to it. The crashes are also a few fractions of a dB too high, along with fizzing transition noises.

Overall, it sounds really good. I think the low snare volume and just a little bit too much compression doing the job that a little bit more sensitive mixing could accomplish in bringing out the most striking elements of your track is most of the issue. I like to use audio signals from my percussion to auto duck the volume of any instruments that are consistently holding the same note or rhythmic lines, rather than forcing them all to the same volume with compression. You'll notice looking at your waveform, even on the more quiet portions of your track all are peaking at about the same or close to the same volume as your chorus, due to pretty heavy compression.

I would probably turn down your leads and other instruments, with the exception of the rhythm guitar -- that I'd turn up. It should give a sense of urgency to those builds, so you don't lose intensity, while slightly quieter auxiliary instruments will give some suspense.

Personally I recommend House of Kush's mixing tutorials on YT. He explains these concepts so much better than I do, in the mix more often than not. It's not metal, but the same logic applies.

Overall I really enjoyed the listen, and it's a nice take on the theme itself. Great work. You may have already implemented a lot of what I mentioned. If so, even easier fixes, just back off the compression a little and manually mix things before applying it, see what happens. Would love to see more like this :)