ADR3-N's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Alone]

Not bad. I'm listening on my phone so I don't have much critique for mix.

I can say that the piano and synths you sidechained for chords seem to have too much reverb and are very chunky in the low mid range. I would bring some notes from those chords up an octave, or pare down the octaves so that the other notes of the chords can be heard. They sound very dark and muddy in comparison to the bright and energetic lead.

Other than that your composition is structurally strong, nice and loud, and the lead is clear. I would bring out your kick and snare just a little more to match the volume of the lead and drive the track harder. You've done a great job keeping the rest clean and tight from what I can hear. Great work :)

OVERSCORE responds:

Thank you, I need as much advice on mixing as I can get… can never seem to get it right
EDIT: maybe it sounds different on headphones?

[Inktober #31 - The Last]

Thanks for taking this beat for a ride. Watching you grow as a rapper has been a pleasure, especially with the challenges inherent in working with a pre-made beat. Excellent work. Sounds especially nice with some subtle chorus or verb on the vocals. Definitely got the energy this beat was lacking when I released it and that makes me proud 💙

Btw your enunciation is getting nice and clear. Hard work is definitely paying off. I'm jealous of your wide subject range. Implementing clear hooks is coming along really nicely too. Comes across clear on my phone with the adlibs, though making sure they lay exactly together on consonants and cutoffs is important. This is massive growth and I look forward to hearing more.

Sorry if the paragraphs are hard to follow. Swipe texting rn and I'm sick as hell. But you made my day :D

Cyberdevil responds:

Eyy, great to hear, glad the energy was sufficient! Feel I could've gotten it a bit heavier still, but I'm happy. Reasonably amped and ripped on attitude after all.

That's good to hear too. With the first verse in particular I wondered if people need to rely on the lyrics to hear what I'm saying - not sure I'd catch everything myself if I hadn't written it myself, so nice with some outside perspective on that. Yeaah the adlibs can definitely still use some fine-tuning. TY! For the appreciation and the solid feedback and the instrumental too! Inspires the best stuff!

Get well too! Bang this loud enough maybe you can willpower the virus away! ;)

[Moonlighter [NGUAC '22]]

Says its not his best work. Comes out with blazing solo and a good mix.

I think your lead synths could have a bit more space, like a pingpong delay or something to the other channel, maybe more chorus, reverb, or flanging at points, but everything sounds just fine other than that. Some instruments are obviously synths moreso than others. Sensitive handling of velocity will help this a lot. I do notice supporting guitars in the left channel up high occasionally sticking out. More distortion maybe and compression to smooth out the volume jumps?

I want to hear a bit more of the high mid on your snare. Maybe touch up the transients and bring it up a tad.

I think you did just fine with this piece. A fine way to close out judging the final round for me and certainly worthy to be here. Congrats on making it, and being such a great composer that you criticize yourself even on such songs as this as not your best. I like it a lot.

Great work. Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

Zip-Zap-Official responds:

I don't like calling them synths lol... I've always given my instruments dynamics (vibratos and pitch bends) so that they sound more authentic and good-sounding, but there weren't many opportunities to do that in this one. I was also running out of time, so the dynamics I did make weren't quite polished.
I originally went with a heavily-chorused lead, but it sounded too... wah-wah? Especially with the cabinet I chose. So I did away with it and just making it clean.

Thank you so much though; I'm glad you like this track, but I know there were so many things that I wanted to do better. After all, the worst critic you will ever have is yourself...

[X3ll3n - Spatium Cursu [NGUAC 2022 Final Round]]

First of all I wanted to say I'm happy to see how far you've come in all these years. Great to see you here, and props for going out of your comfort zone. 5 hours to make? You've gotten fast as hell. Then again all the best music happens in a flurry.

I don't have any critique until 1:10 or so when the reverb on your pads starts to get muddy, and your lead is just a bit too loud relative to the bass. It may not help that other instruments are playing the same melody.

Great work, and thanks for coming out to NGUAC. This piece is shorter than I would have liked, but for what it's worth, I think your piano sounded great here. Very sensitive treatment, taking away just the right amount of frequency and leaving its synth piano character intact. Fantastic job!

X3LL3N responds:

I'm really happy for this comment, especially because it comes from you.

I remember applying for the NGUAC back in 2019/2020 and being absolutely destroyed. Back then you were quite critical of my musics in general, which hurt/annoyed me.

But instead of just complaining, I turned it into a strength, because I wanted to prove you wrong.

I can without a doubt say that it's in part due to your impartiality that I was able to improve this much. I don't consider myself to be gifted or talented, just average, yet even I realise how much I've progressed.

For all of that, I would like to thank you, sincerely.

[Typhon (Unfinished Demo)]

I love Ample guitars! Nice to hear it in the hands of someone who mixes it better than I do. I think the only thing to worry about with this guitar is to make sure your velocity and keyswitches sound natural. Switching between the channels makes it quite noticeable when something isn't totally natural.

Beyond that, your drop at 1:10 is great -- even if I don't particularly like the guitar like lead up high much and think that could come down maybe even a full dB because it is so high up relative to the rest of the track.

The bass at 1:55 is really boxy sounding, almost like it's in a can. Watch those low mid frequencies. I may have put a sub under it for beef.

2:33 sounds great. I may have cut the section at 2:55 and went straight into your build. The section at 3:20 I also may have cut and gone straight into the drop. It was a slight let down for a few seconds.

Watch your high frequencies at 3:40. They are getting fizzy. The tongue clicks also are distracting.

Beyond that, props for going all out and not being afraid to get weird. Really enjoyed this piece.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

Venomite responds:

Experimented a lot with increasing low/mid frequencies in the basses to try and get close to how subtronics does his mixes. put a bit crusher on the reverb at 3:50 to fizzle it out to nothing as I liked that effect. Experimented with creating more tension in the 3rd drop by the fakeout as that is a technique I hear in a lot of rave sets. Thanks for the in depth feedback! I know there’s a few tweaks that I can make, but ultimately I did not have time to do everything I was hoping to do with the cutoff.

[Champions]

Absolutely fantastic writing. I would like more loud, and less reverb. Louder snare, maybe some transient shaping to bring it out. It's almost inauduble.

Your writing covers a lot of the finer mix points that are missed.

It sounds like the right channel rhythm guitar is louder than the left.

The drums in particular, and by that I mostly mean crashes, could use softer panning in each ear imo, as well as more modulation of velocity. The crashes are louder than the snare and toms, which I barely hear. Maybe it is on the part of compression. Make sure your composition sounds as good at a quiet volume as it does loud.

All that said, I think you've put together a wonderful piece. I really enjoyed it. It was varied, intense, interesting, had blazing solos. Great work.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

EDIT: I wanted to add I'm listening on professional monitor headphones, audio technica ATH m40x, and I've been doing metal for... 10 years? I can't remember.

How you do your mix is up to you, but just passing along the tips and tricks that I learned from others through the years. If it really does sound different to you than for me, might check out the frequency profile of your sound card and headphones. Mine came factory with a Realtek driver that automatically compressed any output that came through it. I had to switch to the default high definition audio driver. I haven't had any problems since. And theres always comparing your master to others you like from the same or comparative genre. Best of luck, and hope it helps. I know how it is trying to work your sound toward the lowest common denominator of speaker and someone comes along leaving you scratching your head about the sound!

Anyway, nothing personal. Let me know your hardware and drivers. If it really does sound different that's something I need to think about balancing my own mix!

TheUnnamedPlayer responds:

honestly, i do believe you must be listening on weird headphones

I make my music for low-quality speakers

i actually don't see the snare and toms bit, i've actually lowered them because they're too loud in the master so perhaps you aren't familiar with metal righting, unfortunately

the crashes as well are barely even audible in comparison to the snare, so i genuinely don't understand that part,and i master my music at a quiet volume first then go loud

oddly enough, literally everything you said is the exact opposite of what i actually need to do, but thanks for trying to give feedback i guess?

[Manentrix]

Wonderful and contemporary sound. Your use of sidechain is perfect. Your choice of percussion works. Mix is at just the right loudness through 1:29

Only complaint is a hipass before 1:37 or so that was just a little too intense. It repeats throughout as well.

Not a whole lot of critique. Just nice job. Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

Linearity responds:

Sorry about That! This song was made in 3 days. The mixing is not my best, but I tried. I had to rush because of shit with my laptop dying and having to get a new one, it sucked. Anyways, Congrats to everyone who made it here, lets see this year's results!

[Sicra - Wanderers [NGUAC]]

I think you still managed to get dark and mysterious in there ;)

Overall, I love the pacing of this piece and the melodic theme. However be careful with your high mid and treble. At points it is overwhelming (heavier sections, some snares, fizz, and auxiliary samples)

I think you otherwise did a fantastic job, and your experiment has borne fruit. Give me some more volume on that reese bass somewhere before 2:00 though. Please. It is tasty.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

SicraMusic responds:

Wow thanks for the detailed review! The reason for the somewhat noisy mix is that I always had this feeling that the drops weren't powerful enough so I kept trying to make them hit harder and harder until I may have overdone it.

I have learned so much during this event and I'm definitely planning to apply next year, hopefully I'll know more about mixing and composition then!

[NGAC Final Round Submission]

Simple and happy piece. It sounds a bit dry in the beginning with the crowd and claps, although mixing of samples into electronic music is harder to achieve in my opinion.

What stands out to me are the synth guitars and their extraordinary dry, clean sound. Even with your great sounding drums and good composition, I don't think they fit here. I would swap out synths for something like Junk Guitar (free for Kontakt), something by AmpleSounds if you want a self contained plugin, and ditch the current lead and rhythm guitar. The bass sounds okay as is.

You could sub them for cellos if you have a good cello with sensitive velocity and multiple samples per note.

Otherwise, nothing wrong with this piece at all, though I would find a different genre to put it in.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

RocketStart responds:

(◕ω◕✿)

[We Come In Peace]

Love the clean intro. Reverb seems to be used tastefully through 28 seconds. And continuing onward. This does indeed remind me of deadmaus. That's an achievement.

Great mix. I think the kick may be just a hair too loud. With such a clean mix otherwise it's not a huge issue. Sounds like lead kick, haha.

I really enjoy this piece. Beautiful and deceptive simplicity.

Second half of the song is a nice change. I have virtually no complaint whatever. It sounds indistinguishable from what I would hear from a signed producer. Great work, and wonderful transitions on your part.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

rajbeatsofficial responds:

woo! thanks a lot for the feedback. kick was quite a nuanced pain. its actually 2 kicks layered together, do you feel the high part of the kick is bit too loud or the lows? just curious. thanks again