ADR3-N's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Souichirou Tinder Match]

Some kinder attention to mix, side-chain, and panning would have made this an easy 9.5 for me. Your transitions are good, breaks are crazy interesting, and melodic themes are easy on the ears.

For some reason the bass doesn't feel very driving despite being present in the mix. It feels like it's been stereo spread or chorused in some way perhaps even clipped beyond its limits to keep a good sub balance. Kick is also not sticking out above it but rather sitting under it. Snare and kick in particular need more volume.

Leads and pads also don't sound super clean to my ears. They are sticking out above the snare which typically is a no-go for DnB.

That said, great atmosphere and composition. I really enjoyed it!

2keg responds:

Totally agree, the mix was really hard to "mix", I just threw in the towel towards the end

Anywho thanks for review Mr.ADR3-N

[Pandora's Box]

I actually think this would sound better and much cleaner if the compression weren't as hard on the master. It's hiding your sub and growls! The composition itself is great. I just can't sense where we're dropping or dynamic movement of the piece because everything is uniformly loud

[||TRANZQUILIZER]

This makes me want to make music. Rhythmically, a bop. Got some strange harmonies I don't quite understand in your stabs on occasion, and as you mentioned, it is quite compressed and lacking in range. BUT, I think revisiting again with a mind to clear out wet FX where they aren't necessarily needed, think about your reverb and delay sends -- that low freq noise below 200 hz or so can safely be cut away leaving only the heavenly high freq "air"

Nice work :)

NeuralDelverM responds:

Thank you, always room for improvement so I appreciate the detailed constructive criticism.

[Lime Light (Original Song Doodle)]

Great theme. I recommend doing something about how quiet it is though. You can either do it the quick and dirty way with Audacity's amplify, or you can learn how to master your track in FL :)

[Frenetic]

If you're having this problem with your DAW of quiet mix output, check your master channel and set it to zero. See what dB it's throwing out with all your FX and master comp on. If it's still low like this, but it sounds loud, check your audio driver and make sure it has no enhancements on My previous win 10 machine had realtek drivers which automatically and irreversibly compressed your audio for gaming reasons. I had to install a new audio driver, the HD Audio default sound driver for windows devs or whatever.

Alternatively, you can master your song in Audacity, which is free but kinda hard tbh.

I would honestly just move from bandlab to a more pro friendly program. Myself, I use Mixcraft.

But to an actual review, you already know the song is quiet, unmastered. I'll say I love your bass. Very tasty. The mix is fairly balanced, enough not to bother with going into too much.

Your breaks can get a little repetitive but they are chopped in an interesting way. The samples themselves suffer a bit with time distortion and are artefacting a bit from that plus pitching. That's ok. It's kinda the stereotypical sound of the genre. What I will say for them is that they could use transient shaping and potentially some crispy clipping.

Beyond that, nice little piece!

[SENTIENTS]

This is sort of a hybrid between the modern day midtempo music, house, and synthwave, and I love that.

1:33 I would check your bass levels and see if you can get that bass more into mono. I'm hearing something overpronounced around the 150-200 hz range. It may be percussion.

I think you probably already know what's up with the rest of the mix. Minor gripes of some reverb wet signals muddying the mix, cymbals occasionally washing out with white noise at points, sounding naked and overpresent at others, and not having a lot going on with panning or slap-backs in alternate channels to keep things interesting.

Your vox chops could also come more to the front of the mix and pan around. The mix to me is either balanced slightly right, or I'm losing more hearing. Check that out and lmk.

Fivening for friendship goals

82/100

KI1 responds:

Thanks! I'd love to give actual midtempo a proper go one day.

Scratched my head for a while on why that part sounds wack. After looking back, it might have something to do with the fact I duped the 'lead' synth (which has a ton of unison) and put it an octave down, which may have muddied everything(?).

Really helpful feedback there, thank you. I think it's well past time I improve from the 'put-on-some-reverb/convolver-and-go' approach I've had for too long. Panning has been something I've been tentatively getting into, going a bit crazier certainly couldn't hurt.

I'm not too proud of the chops if I'm honest - cringing if I turn them up, but not hating them enough to get rid of them entirely... I think you may be right (lol), I'm starting to learn that panning isn't just a simple set-and-forget affair. Looking at where I've left the panning knobs on the mixer, it looks about as right-leaning as a Reddit centrist.

Yay, friends! :D A very generous score, thank you.

["Lose/Lose"]

Due to how naked this song is, it's very easy for the vocal and guitar to sound as if in two separate places. Guitar playing is very clean. I would recommend changing the way you record your vocals, your setup. I can hear a lot of room tone, where that isn't the case for the guitar. The vocal also doesn't sound very compressed, nor up front in the mix. Also, the performance could be a bit more passionate, but hey.

Your songwriting is great, and so is your structure. Keep at it! The only thing holding you back sounds like is mic setup and maybe a little self-consciousness. That's not a lot in the grand scheme of things, so keep your head up!

LANPartyAnimal responds:

Appreciate you taking the time to listen and provide feedback

[The Expedition]

This track would get 100% love from me if the huge amount of reverb were cleaned up prior to the drop at 1:54. Literally almost nothing else is wrong with it except there is a lot of low frequency noise on the verb and long tails, resulting in a muddy mix.

Your drop writing and sound design is wonderful, your melodies are compelling.

Minor gripes aside from that, the electric guitar is in the center channel; best practice is to double track the electric guitar with 2 separate instances, one humanized, one not, and pan them 100% left and right opposite one another. This creates depth and a thicc sound.

I love your drop rhythm and growls

I do think on the first drop the snare is getting buried a bit though.

In short, keep all the ideas you have for this track. They're freaking great. Clean up the mix and it will be PERFECT :)

OkuuMusic responds:

thx for the feedback!

[Without]

Офигеть, рифмы и мелодии такие... Понимаешь, мне очень нравятся.

Но глюки/глитчи около 1:15 -- по моему ты ставил туда либо слишком много, либо не в то место. Мне казалось так просто потому что во всей песне, их совсем мало, только там с 1:15 до 1:20. Поэтому я их не ожидала, и мне тогда пропала (временно) атмосфера песни.

Если глюки были более распространены, я не бы заметила, и наверное мне бы понравились.

Но в общем, песня хороша. Так продолжай!

[Doppelgänger]

Indeed sounds thicc

Two things I wish:
One: that the track were mastered -- although it looks some compression may have been applied to the track based on overall waveform. If this is the case tbh I would throw it in Audacity and hit amplify and this is a quick fix for quiet waveform.

Two, the snare were more audible

Overall great groove and intonation on your playing. Love the chugs.

Also love the clunky bass tone. Sexy. I can't tell if it's been chorused but if so, I would bring the freqs below 180 or so hz on the bass into mono and emphasize some of the mids. Also, it sounds like you're quad tracking -- are you panning all the guitars hard left and hard right or no? If yes, try bringing them in a bit more. I'm feeling a weak center in the mix. Though perhaps some of that is the drums lacking presence. The snare in particular, I can only really hear the bottom rattle and the transients for a hair of a second.

Kick drum is also a bit out front relative to the rest of the kit. Cymbals are at about appropriate volume.

I also think for NG you could make a version which properly loops, or just punch in a final stinger note here and not loop the track.

I'm stoked to hear what else you come up with. Seriously great grooving.

76/100

BALDORF responds:

Thanks! And really great feedback!

I struggle with mastering and drums quite a bit, so it's good to get some specific notes on what seems to be lacking and how, appreciate it!

Indeed, I am quad tracking, at least I think lol not very good with technical terms.
But I layer two rhythms hard left/right and layer two leads just slightly left/right, generally speaking.

Oh and one last note, it isn't supposed to loop, I just thought it sounded good to go back and conclude with the opening.