ADR3-N's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[-Japanese Saxophone-]

As @AndrewCr mentioned, learn all the keyboard shortcuts you anticipate you'd use. For me, it's deleting tracks, duplicating tracks, adding layers and lanes, and editing stuff in an external editor that would be most frustrating without.

I like the japanese section of the song better than everything else, for one, because I'm a weeb, and for two, because I hate sax synths LOL. If you were to improve on this any, I would glide into more notes, rather than retrigger, and see if there are any different articulations you can pull rather than the twah attack of this one! A different sax synth may be in order.

BUT CONGRATS ON FL STUDIO!!!!

Creeperforce24 responds:

I might get a different sax vst, but I KEEPING THE STRINGS!

[NG Audio Portal 20th Anniversary Collab]

This was published on my birthday. Swiggity friggen swooty, I'm here for it

BBaNK responds:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SHUSSHSKDIDIZJSISLSODLSILSISISHSLSUWM

[Heavy, Simple Things]

Watching you improve throughout the years has been a pleasure. This is probably my favorite of your works. It suffers from some of the same problems as I mentioned in a previous review.

Additionally, I would probably put this in Industrial, given the darker feel and lots of distortion/samples used.

I would recommend manual de-essing of your vocal. Those S's are pretty sharp in the ear.

I love the overall theme of the song, the imagery used, and production. Vocal delivery could use some nudging to be on time with the instrumental at parts, and it is quite pitchy and sometimes shaky, but this is overshadowed by the mood and fantastic storytelling. I'd go as far as to say that with perfect delivery, it would disguise even the hardest points of the songwriting -- parts that feel a bit forced, like the afraid section.

What I mean there is, you have Afraid to be heard, and later, I guess you haven't heard. If I had to I would modify this section to:

I saw your hands shredded and broken
Clawing at nothing but air
Feckless but fuck it cause I care
I whisper in the darkness alone
Afraid of my voice, alone and disturbed
afraid of you all, afraid of the world
You blame me as if you haven't heard
What people do to each other

Something along the lines of these simples changes would help with the rhythm and ease of vocal delivery, avoid repeated words, and get the same message of being swallowed up with all that horror in a funeral pyre.

IndustryStandard responds:

haha thanks! I wish i still had the stems for some of those old songs but I made them several hard drives ago. And I appreciate the genre suggestion, I never know what to choose.

Vocals are still something i'm getting used to, for some reason hitting record destroys my confidence lol. De-essing is also something I'm still getting the hang of, I have a lot of options for how to go about it with my DAW but I haven't fully figured any of them out. I also am (or, was) the type to obsess over something forever and never release it, I'm still fine-tuning how long is too long and when more work is still needed.

I like your lyrical changes, they definitely fit the rhythm better. I'd like to rerecord the vocals again but I just don't have much time to make music right now unfortunately.

[Bottom Fed]

Love those disjointed pans.

What suffers a bit in this piece is vocal delivery. You've got a nice round tone, but an airier, less relaxed, less pitchy delivery would do this track well. That or some melodyne. The amount of bendy notes sounds not only relaxed but uncertain of the notes and tone. More intensity, sharper syllabic/note delivery, clarity, and raspy tone will complement the instrumental and mood. You might even try screaming.

Basically, there's a lot of low end present in the instrumental, so the vocals themselves need a way to stand out -- and confidence is 50% of that.

I also find myself wanting a more level acapella -- there are points where the vox jump up under the master compression -- one of the reasons I prefer to use limiters over compressors.

Drums also are having a bit of difficulty cutting through from the reverb, distortion, and overall muddy mix.

Your lyrics are captivating, however, and your sound design and use of FX are interesting. Particularly great is the outro, which I wish had rung out a bit longer.

Great art piece! Keep it up!

IndustryStandard responds:

I really did rush the vocals on this one. The lyrics were a one-and-done deal too, but I've been writing far longer than I've been singing. I mostly just wanted some vocals to mix with but I ended up keeping what I had for whatever reason. I've been thinking of messing with scream vox lately, maybe I'll play around with that idea this track.

[PSEUDOENDOTRIZINE]

This whole track slaps. The only thing I might change is to bring the hihats and shakies down just a tad and bump up your whiny atmos just a bit. Beyond that, just a hint more of your bass so the sub sounds a bit more balanced, without actually having to be touched. Balance otherwise is pretty good!

KI1 responds:

Thanks! All good points thank you - I'm most definitely planning on revisiting this with a V2, especially since this one was done with such haste.

[SKIRMISH MODE]

IT'S PERFECT.

KI1 responds:

IT'S... certainly something! (And it's on the frontpage?????????)

[EXTRADITION]

This track is a freaking diamond in the rough. I genuinely have no idea how it has zero reviews. I blame ebaumsworld and the all but material death of myspace. Somehow.

KI1 responds:

Honestly I have no idea if I even have the project file for this thing anymore, I hope I can find it somewhere. It certainly does remind me of that era of the internet... what was I cooking 🤔

[RAWR - ZIGGYRENO]

Just a reminder to never, ever delete your old catalog. This one is a treasure

KI1 responds:

Dude, I have come this close 🤏 to nuking everything pre-2021 many times. But what hope is there for the future, if we cannot learn from the sins of our past... or something to that effect 😆

[3manon - Me ("you" re-remix)]

I'm not totally sold on the mix on the vocals, or introducing them so early, but as we move into 0:25, I'm starting to feel it.

Also, I had no idea how godly those hihats sounded until I heard them as almost the lead instrument here. I mostly mixed my drums with the rest of the track already complete. So quite interesting to hear them in this context!

I may not have layered the psytrance kick on top of the original drum beat but rather sidechained out the original kick. Bringing up the acoustic snare in the mix would help keep the energy high. The hi-hat is really drowning it out.

But as far as structure and the interesting samples and ideas going on here, this is just cool. Had I known you enjoyed drones I may have pointed you to some samples of me throat singing I did ages ago haha.

The 1:20ish mouth/snap percussion may have had more impact if moved around the stereo field via something like brauer motion or action tremolo's panning effects. I highly recommend both although the former no longer works for me since swapping pcs one too many times.

The transition at 2:35 was totally unexpected and cool once I read what it was haha. I would just tame the volume once rhythm hit pitch lol. It was a bit ear piercing for a split second. Super cool approach though and props for style!

Mix wise, I'd like a bit of throbbing sub to underlie your rolling bass. Just a simple off beat sub, ramp, saw, or pulse would do and fill in the remaining space you can see on the waveform. You may have to slightly adjust compression to account for that, but as it stands you could use stronger compression -- or higher levels going into your current comp. There is quite a bit more space to be filled out in those drops, and a dB or two makes all the difference for throbbing psytrance.

Even so, very compelling theme. I very much enjoyed it, especially how you completely flipped the theme from YOU to ME. That's masterful compositional reworking. :)

3manon responds:

As far as the vocal mixing goes, I totally agree with you. I let them mostly dry whilst trying my best to make them even audible in the first place (the raw audio was REALLY soft). Actually, my first inspiration came from the fact that you had a specific layer in your stems that said "100% wet this". And holy moly I did that fir the first part.

Yea I love the funky rhythms of those hi-hats so much that I kept introducing them in new ways (my favorite part of that being 2:11 when it syncs with the gated overtones)

Good call there yea! I was struggling on how to transition the "mostly original" track, and dare I say it; earlier attempts were a lot worse haha. So I just tried playing it safe by introducing only the psy-kick part while remaining the rest integral so that the transition didn't feel too radical!

Yup I'm very fond over throatsining/overtone drones. In fact the NGUAC I'm working on rn is full of it!

I absolutely understand that my earcandy probably could have profited from more panning. I do think of all the tracks I made this one is definitely the most packed with earcandy, such as the occasional triplets, lasers and braams.

Thank you for liking that transition! It had lots of split reactions. When I let my gf listen to it she literally pulled out her earbud because of it 😭

Even though I did add a solid bass to go further with the rhythmic rolling of the psybass, it probably wasn't deep enough. I could've definitely accompanied it with a sub!

Thank you so much for the review! (Even tho I didn't really do much to completely change the them from "you" to "me", just changed the name cus I thought it would be funny)