ADR3-N's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[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

[Krea - Crystal [NGADM 2023]]

I would like a bit less lead and fizz in your intro, a lot more clarity on those intro drums

42 seconds sounds GREAT, might be a slightly off bass note -- can detune bend that a bit into key

1:26, wanting more of that mid range bass

Otherwise, wild track. 2 min is bonkers. I think I want a bit more tonality vs noise there. Any identifiable pitch.

I also would like for the outro, one final luscious 1 chord. Beyond that, amazing :)))

Kreagato responds:

Thank you for the feedback !! I agree with all those suggestions (I think I might have accidentally shifted one of the bass notes up or down a half step and didn't notice ;w; ), and I'm glad you think the drop at 2 mins is cool!! I tried to get a little more tonality in that part but It was my first time doing sound design similar to color bass and was struggling a little bit, so I settled with what I had after working on it for a few hours, but I'll practice more on that in the future

Thank u again for the feedback!! I really hope I end up scoring well overall, being part of a competition like this is rly fun :3

[The Last Warlord]

For the cello articulations, they are quite slow -- back them up so they come in at the same time as the piano and other instruments. Same with the brass where you notice this problem. There is a bit of lack of clarity on the downbeats for what sounds like a death march.

Praise your tasteful mixing of gong

I think the timpanis could have a bit more stereo spread and volume at different points. By the end of the composition, it sounds as you have a better idea what you are doing with articulations and so forth.

2:25 if there is a snare hiding underneath, I would like to hear it brought out, and the jinglies down just a bit. They are coming out of stereo phase with the ensemble.

Choir sounds great, btw, what is it?!?!?!

One last bone of contention, I would like a bit more volume, and if not that, contrast in volume between sections, by making the bigger sections just a bit louder. Great work!

IglicaV responds:

Thanks a lot for the critique, I will definietly keep that in mind next time! For the choir I uesed Oceania by Performance Samples :)

[Trauma]

Lovely experiment and sounds like a lot of fun! I definitely feel your electronic roots in the production. So there are some things I would note if you intend to continue in this direction down the road.

Guitars for heavy metal are typically double tracked, meaning rather than using a chorus on the rhythm guitar to achieve stereo width, 2 different performances of the same guitar line are panned 100% left and 100% right. To achieve this digitally, edit the midi velocities and occasionally articulations and pinches, hand position if applicable, and attack and release times. I will usually use humanize function on only one track.

It sounds like this was not done for your 7 string, and that detracts from the mix for me.

Regarding your approach to drums, I think your drum writing is great. That jingle bell in the right channel I would pull down some volume wise and move a bit more to the left than where it currently sits. More orchestral cymbals would be appreciated. At subtle volumes they add a lot of space.

I think I would put this somewhere in industrial, as it feels very electronic and not so much metal, but definitely a fusion genre (and I am not rating genre anyway)

For your snare, I think I would actually hard or soft clip it and compress it dynamically, as well as add a subtle slapback delay or other FX noise below it with a longer tail. It sits a bit flatly and could use grit -- have you ever heard the bottom of a snare?

Your hihats could probably sit a bit further in the left channel. Sometimes I like to add a subtle delay to them that ping pongs to the right channel.

Some variation to guitar articulations would be appreciated, like diminished chords and dissonance, chuggs, etc.

Otherwise, wonderful piece. Great work!

ESHRR responds:

Thanks for the feedback! Definitely a new style for me so I appreciate it. About the doubling, I had it on in the quarter-time parts since those parts were where the rhythm guitar was the main focus. And yeah, listening back to it I see what you mean about the hats and snare. I’ll work more on that in future projects! I do also agree that to the song could use more variety. I made the song thinking about how a metal song with vocals would be made, but obviously this is instrumental so some parts ended up a bit lacking. Again, thanks so much for the feedback!

[The Threat in the Corner of Your Eye]

I think I actually would like a bit of high end rolled off of your cymbals for this track. They are quite bright for such a dark and brooding dirge.

Some issues with mix early on, lots of wet verb and delay crowding out the finer points of your mix and muddying the dry signals. Bass playing is taking center stage, and it sounds great, but I also want to hear your kick, snare, rhythm guitar, and lead. 2:30 is a point of contention in that regard. 2:48 suffers less so as it is intended to be a big open section without extreme lyricism.

Overall, I find that the verbs could be taken down and or tails shortened as not to take away from your fantastic structure and melodic ideas.

3:44 sounds best. Bass playing is lovely and lyrical. It almost becomes a lead instrument of its own.

Panning on the hihats could stand to be pushed to the left channel and taken down a bit. Snare may benefit from a 3 to 5 percent right panning and the room panned 2% to 4% left.

Love 5:29. This is much cleaner and a great balance.

Synths could use low end rolled off of their wet signals and low mids. The lead guitar chugging in high mids could be pushed up .3 dB and high end rolled off. Ping-pong delay, chorus, or auto panning 15% left and right would help bring that element above the shoegaze subtly enough to be heard.

Mastering compression to be applied after these and other small fixes would do much good! Compositionally I would rate 5/5. In terms of mix, there is just a bit holding it back. Fantastic playing and mood is on point. Great work!

Mischa-head responds:

Thanks for listening and the really detailed feedback!