ADR3-N's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Something's Wrong]

Well enjoyed with lights off, for sure! But I need to type or I'll lose my place

Where the brass comes in, controlling those attacks is imperative, lest they twah twah. Think I would appreciate a thicker ensemble there -- moving individual midi notes back so that they begin to sound where it suits your down beats will do the trick for the first problem -- see 1:10

Insane sound design

I think this would fit great in cinematic, as it very much sounds like a film score

Only wish it were longer. I could listen to this for ... 8 minutes single play. Realistically speaking, for an entire movie

LucidShadowDreamer responds:

Sorry for the late reply! I've had a crazy year. Thanks for listening with the lights off <3

I agree 100% about the brass. I also think it should be a bit less quantized. What I normlly like to do is delay compensate so that the instruments hit in the beat! I won't be too hard on myself though, as I wrote this during my honeymoon, on a laptop xD

I'm so happy you appreciated the sound design! That's definitely where I placed most of my effort for this piece :3

[Waiting For You (WIP) NGADM 2023]

A lot of great ideas here, and that vocal sounds great

I can sort of hear the unfinishedness in that beyond the vocal, the mix sounds a bit flat -- in the sense kick and snare are not at the front of the mix, there appears to be no side chain or synths on the side beyond the keys with which we initially began.

However, it is not by any means bad at all, and is worth listening to, for sure! I think you should revisit this piece and update at a later date. I really like it! The minor touch at the end was a nice move as well which I feel added new depth to the rest of the track.

Some things you can do to tentatively add a "finished" sound is to implement subtle crashes and reverse crashes, and the occasional percussion, rhythmic textures, etc. That will do a lot for that finished sound, even if it only takes half an hour to figure out where to put all of them. Crashes is the big thing, as I noticed the lack of them upon further listening. They add a sense of going places, and no one knows why, but they work.

Tbh I'm giving you the cheatcodes I use when I myself can't figure out how to finish a song, hehehe

MusicSashik responds:

Thank you so much for writing this review. It's always a bit "scary" to be judged, but I'm so glad to receive feedback. If it weren't for you, I'm not sure I would have received any tips. Having constructive feedback is very beneficial, and I completely agree with what you're saying. Thanks!

[Quantize My Heartbeat (NGADM 2023)]

Definitely very, very punk. Love it.

could use some more attentive de-essing of vocals -- simple enough with manually ducking the s's, t's, sh if needed.

There are some issues of clarity -- kick, snare should be up a bit more in the mix, guitars down perhaps a little, bass up on bigger sections, crashes down by a bit as well

throughout, guitars are a bit loud to be sustained by the rest of the mix

Otherwise, cute, catchy, punky. I dig it!

CrossCarrasco responds:

Thanks for the feedback!

[LIVE THIS WAY (internet addiction)]

Banging lyrics. I think the vocals could use a bit less crisp, could use a bit of pingpong delay. At times they are too loud, but not offensively so.

Mix wise, it is hard to make out finer points of the instrumental -- bass doesn't pop, potentially needs more drive/clip, and more hi mid

Due to volume of vocals, is hard to make out side synths. Recommend dynamic compression on them and abusing sidechain tbh

the kick sounds pretty high. No one is forcing you to use a typical hyperpop kick. You can dig in your sample box for a lower, grittier kick

Snare seems to lay flat in the mix, recommend a sneaky delay slapback for space or tasteful reverb.

Otherwise, great song, and really catchy!

Ackee39 responds:

Thank you so much for the incredibly detailed mixing advice!! I wanted to revisit this submission when i get back from vacation to polish it more in the mixing department, so this was really helpful :D

[Eclipse [NGADM 2023]]

This is about as good as house sound design gets! Excellent. My complaints are reserved to mix and volume level for various sections, as transitions.

Loudness at 1st drop is GREAT, but I am struggling to hear finer points of mix, particularly your clap is becoming buried (and I know, who gives a fuck about the clap as far as listening to it intently, but it's there for balance!) Also that perc that sounds like a low tuned guiro is mid heavy and sounds like it's sitting directly above my head like a ceiling fan. I might chorus that and spread it left and right respectively to about 25% left/right pan.

Now what is causing this apparent burying is not that your clap is too quiet, it sounds, but that the basses and side synths are too loud by perhaps up to 2 dB. I might also take down hihat by .2 dB.

Mix at 1:19 is approaching perfect. The gated chords/synths could come down somewhat and be autopanned slightly for more illusion of space. At 1:55 I want to hear more of them, with some creative filtering.

1:34 sounds a bit too oud for the preceding section. I would pull a gradual crescendo through here or make the preceding section louder.

that hey prior the final drop I would have loved to hear much louder

2:42 nearly nails the mix problems I was talking about earlier. They're better here. Not quite perfect but much improved.

I would have liked a longer final drop to pull off that breakdown you inserted at 2:48.

And with those nitpicks out of the way, I'd like to say what a grand slam of a track this is otherwise. Fantastic and driving piece. Great work!

Benji-G responds:

Thank you so much ADR3-N!

[Not Like This Again]

I am utterly aghast you criticize your voice at all. I think it's crisp, clean, and refreshingly natural.

Also amazed you mixed this on apple earphones. I also have tinnitus so I sympathize with mixing with one's eyes LOL. I constantly hear cicadas, crickets, whining computer parts, and TV static that isn't really there. It's a challenge to cut through that. Sometimes sounds like I'm listening to the world through a drink straw.

Only mix critique I have is that vocals be bumped up a dB or two, and hihats and cymbals conversely come down a wee bit. Beyond that, this is about as perfect for me as it gets. Perhaps the open close hi-hat could move a bit to the left channel, 5 percent or so, with room overhead emphasized in the right, if applicable. I also can't hear toms too well, perhaps .4 dB boost or less would do the trick there.

I feel your automations of FX serve your phrasing really well, and the choice of Battery with previously recorded samples was a genius idea.

Also, glad to have surprised you with my true nature LOL. I'm a goof with resting bitch face in the nth degree, and I like to make weird faces.

SpoonMix responds:

I agree 100%. Aware that the voice can be louder and could use some more automation. I just listened to this again yesterday and, yuup, my voice is low again. As for the drums, my performance wasn't good, and I'm not working on my drumming skills. It should work for demo purposes and I should hire a real drummer for anything serious!

Thank you for the time, Adrean! I've learned many things from you, including "resting bitch face"... :D

[NDXL - Last Time]

Really appreciating the blend of various EDM stylings here, though I think the piece as a whole could be bumped at points a few bpm faster.

Some things I notice off the bat --
track is compressed probably harder than it needs to be

Sidechain is very hard to make room for not quite being able to hear snare on drops, and synths on the side are very loud, like at 2:50, notice that lead is much louder than the snare

I do appreciate the hihats are not SCREAMING loud, though they could potentially use less reverb and instead be ping-ponged subtly left and right, or incorporate more articulations, open, close, roll, different samples etc. They are loud enough that they should be more interesting imo.

I feel mix is off balance, lead is audible which is good, but it's in the mid range, which the human ear naturally hears already as quite loud. On sections where it is present, it is hard to hear bass as well.

The drop around 1 min, that snare is buried in the mix and almost impossible to hear even with hard side chain. The bass also sounds a bit hollow (not the sub) perhaps due to overly chorusing and potentially not enough clipping/drive/saturation or over applying harmonics. I can't tell which at the moment.

I listened through twice to 3 times to see if there was anything else I could add, but I think the last I can think of is perhaps sidechain is too aggressive on the amount of dB ducked in places, and the combination of hard compression, high volume hihats, a subby mix, loud leads, and an almost absent snare on drops causes the song to fall a bit flat -- OH I know what it is now for the final drop -- the harmony synths and lead are blowing out the bass and other elements due to being turned up too loud, and sidechain is a bit overdone there, causing the song to sound flat.

Otherwise, I really enjoyed your approach to structure, transition, melodies, and virtually every other stylistic choice you made. Aside from mix, an absolutely banging dance track!

NDXLOfficial responds:

Thank you so much! I really appreciate the mixing feedback. Over the last few days listening back I was picking up on things I wanted to change about it, but since I only had 4 days I could work on but here wasn't much I could do about it at that point. If I make it into the next round you can expect a much better mix from me!

[Flight of the Drake]

Mix on the portion at 22 seconds is quite off balance, with the strings far off in the left being much louder than the rest of the ensemble. This is present more or less throughout, but for the intro particularly, I struggle to hear the woodwinds clearly at all, and they should be giving somewhat of a pulse, if I am picking up on what you were intending them to do.

The progression to me sounds familiar to me as a staple for the epic cinematic genres, which may have to do with my having watched tons and tons of historical, LoTR and etc., as well as anime, and less with it not being an actually epic piece or w/e.

My problems mostly sit with lots of reverb throughout and some muddy sections such as 1:12. I definitely feel like articulations of lower brass could have had more attention paid to them, the synth brasses chosen for low brass could certainly be thickened with multiple instances of either synths, or false round robins crafted out of neighboring notes. Even transposing up sections, rendering output, and then pitching down the results would help, panned out to separate space and so on. The descending 8ths at 1:25 stood out to me as very thin and synthy.

Also, flute flourishes are hiding in the mix as well.

I will say tuba at 1:59 sounds as great as I can expect a synth to sound!

Overall I would like more out of your low brass and low string sections, and more of a ratio of them to leads as the song progresses toward climax. I look at the waveform and the loudest portion is your 35 to 51 second section. That should to my mind be more for a mf, not a f. The next section goes on at mf until 1:29, which I think potentially should crescendo to f or perhaps ff at our tidy cliff hanger, 1:36. Contrast is king. Dip down post-haste, return to f or ff, or even fff, as we change keys for the outro.

Beyond that, the more I listen, the more I like this piece. Just some minor issues of this synth here, or that mixing nitpick there. I wanted to stop while I'm here and tell you how proud I am to have watched you progress throughout the years. You are an astonishingly gifted composer with a knack for finding the right tools for the job, with great instrumentations even better phrasing. This and many other things have only improved with time. You almost make it seem effortless. Great work!

CloakedSoup responds:

Thanks for the detailed review! I agree with a lot of the mixing critiques, as that was the most underdeveloped part that I worked on due to the limited amount of time I spent on the track as a whole (as the description notes). I'm definitely happy with how I have progressed over the years as well! :D

[Famous ft Hania (NGADM R1) Mastered]

I love the blend of olskool and modern sounds. Hania is an absolute diva, perfect for this track.

I would appreciate a bit less reverb throughout and tamer delay wets. Perhaps rolling off the low end of these wet signals would help improve clarity. Upping snare and kick volume or a bit of sidechain would help. Bit less hihat or rolling off some high from them -- they are quite loud relative to the rest of the track -- could also use some panning play or slapback in the opposite channel.

For the intro, Hania's vocals could be compressed a bit more, or apply some distortion/soft clip. The track as a whole could use a bit of a bump to bass instruments, sub on drops, and perhaps a tinge more compression.

Otherwise, stellar work!

Trackers responds:

Thanks... Only two can enter and our third member usually does the mix and master so we are kind of flying blind here... Will definitely look at fixing up those things before I ship it off to be mastered :D

[Let It Out (ft. Mai)]

I want to hear a bit less of your orchestral and side synths, more of your vocal, snare up in the mix, and more obvious kick. Sub bass is also pretty present. prior to 2 min

Piano low mid and reverb wet signal are a bit up there after.

I can hear the mixing difficulty with the tons of tracks throughout but I want to say don't let that stop you! Take your time, audition sections bit by bit. Make adjustments by hand and in small increments rather than at the mixer track itself. Automations help! It also helps a lot to keep your reverb signals free of low mid and roll off low end where you can to make room for the bass, rather than cranking it at all times.

Some lyrical turns of phrase are awkward, or sound as if written by a non-native speaker, but that's fine as this sounds like an art piece rather than pop. :) Great work, all constraints considered!

NASHqp responds:

Thank you for your review!

I’m glad you enjoyed my song. I agree that the mixing could be improved, and I apologize for any errors that might have affected your listening experience. I faced some challenges while producing the song, such as noise, heat, and language barriers.

I used a software called Synthesizer V Studio Pro for the vocals, which is mainly designed for Japanese. I wanted to sing the vocals myself, but I didn’t have a suitable recording environment. However, these are not excuses, but rather areas that I need to work on and overcome.

I appreciate your honest feedback and I hope to do better next time! :)

- NASHqp