ADR3-N's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Misham Studio - Apollo Justice Remake]

I might take the snaps down a couple dB, but that upright sounds good, the piece moves along like it feels it should. The muted trumpet sounds pretty natural, as does the brush kit. I may take some of the sibilance off of the vocal and remove some boxy mids, but as a whole, everything sounds good.

Azurenite responds:

Thanks for the feedback! I listened back to it and I agree with the things you pointed out. It's something I can definitely improve on next time I try something similar to this.

[Major Dissonance]

Interesting use of dissonance and bass instruments. Smooth and nostalgic

[Old Vibes Loop]

It does sound like old pinball music. I dig it. Some of the chords are a little dense in the lower range. Feel like you could take them up an octave or invert them, the bells, and free up some space in the mid range for the bass to shine

[Elevator Trap]

Smooth. I would take down the triangle sample just a little. It's pinging just a little hard in my left ear, but otherwise groovy

[Thicc Tabby]

Giving me all kinds of ideas of what to do with this synth. Props

[Aster - Meowsynth]

I love this synth, and I love what you've done with it. Goes to show it by far isn't useless. I might try to make my own meowsynth song! I already made one with Elsita, with much less surprising results. I don't even care that it's distorting a little bit. If you mix in 32 bit floating point that can be eliminated. Then all one needs is a plugin like Smiley vst or Sausage Fattener to crap out a quick mix

I wonder if you COULD make drums with meowsynth.

What were your settings for the bass?

Aster responds:

meowsynth no release all the way decay and sustain. low filter + ott + chorus to imitate multiple voices

[Besmirched]

Sounds like a long theme from an olskool videogame. The static in the beginning is a little loud, but the rest sounds pretty good. I might use a different cymbal synth or sample on your hihat. You could try some drum machines that are out there laying around the web

The song is also quite long with mostly the same instrumentation. You could try to vary them in velocity or loudness, since it is quite slow and slow developing. The instruments themselves sound good, though

[They're Terrible]

You know, interesting enough, I kind of prefer the quirkiness of the original, with the mixing and clarity of the present iteration. It's a nice little goofy theme, with that galloping feel. A little taming on the reverbs with gates or what have you, some light mastering, and I think there would be nothing more I could ask from it. :)

Fantasyck responds:

Funnily enough, in regards to it sounding less quirky than the original, that effect was intentional on my part to reflect how the characters this theme represents changed after their first appearances. Thank you for the feedback, I'll be sure to keep that in mind for my work going forward!

[Soulless 35]

Sick arp that comes in at 30 seconds. This could be a kick ass battle theme with some software upgrades as mentioned in my previous review. You really pulled out all the stops with those melodies in the synths, brings back old computer music memories. Very nice writing all around. Sometimes the best pieces come on a whim :)

[Exultant 2]

Like the olskool synths in the beginning. I think maybe you could apply some LFO modulations to them to sound a bit more lively. The melodies are nice and dour, everything seems to flow well into your build.

One thing, your drums sound like FL stock or something, and they struggle to peek through the shoegaze reverb. I would cut below 250 hz on your reverb wet signal if you absolutely must keep it, maybe even employ something like a side chain with the degree of bleeding.

To do that, I'm not sure what program you have. I have mixcraft. I apply a simple EQ over top of whatever tracks I want to side chain, and then use an audio controller to duck the volume. It takes less CPU than using some of my compressors, I've found, and achieves the same result I'd get from manually ducking. I'd use the snare and kick respectively as signals there.

Your writing and arpeggios really shines, despite the boxy low reverb bleeding. You're quite talented as a composer.

For drums, there are lots of free online drum kits and samples. If you'd like a few, I can go digging through my library for recommendations. Saudade snare and a sampler that supports multiple files works nicely. Dark Kick is a staple of mine. I occasionally use crash VSTi, although it has no round robins. Cymballistic is a nicer, if hard to understand cymbal vst, with many options. I haven't got a favorite for toms. You could probably rip them from MuseScore and use a sfz player like Plogue's sforzando. Somewhere I have a tutorial I made for that in my news posts, where I did it with Muse Score drumline.

Oh, and I forgot to mention, KSHMR Essentials Kick is a free all in one processor I recommend using on your percussion. You can apply saturation, stereo widening, and transient shaping so your sounds cut through, all in one, as well as add mid or sub to your liking. It allows you to see the waveform right there in box. There's a paid version that has more options, but the free version is fun to use on just about any single instrument.

Ultimately, I enjoyed the piece. It's well written and progressed, with clear themes. I think some more force could be derived if there were a clear bassline, rather than the low saw that sort of sat there in the mix. I think you're onto something though. It's only up from here. PM me if you'd like recommendations for synths, collab, etc :)

HowtoAvenge101 responds:

I used garageband to make this, and i also didn't know what the fuck i was doing mixing-wise back then. i really REALLY appreciate the essay though, thank you very much. i appreciate the recommendations, i'll install those now.