ADR3-N's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Remembering the Fallen]

First of all on a year where people were talking about not being able to take 40 people to light the beacons for the towers -- when they didn't mind 400 painting BLM murals, when they don't mind 4,000 protesters and riots in the streets, it warms my heart to hear this touching piece dedicated to those who died that day. I was six years old. I saw the police officers and firemen running into the towers. I saw the people jumping from the windows. I saw the first responders in the rubble. Many died that day, and many died from chronic illnesses from the dust kicked up, years later. Many aren't alive to tell their stories today, and they should not be forgotten.

Your writing is tasteful, moving, and has its own sense of self, a rarity. My complaints would only fall on maybe mix. Reverb is somewhat overpresent, and I think the transients of instruments such as the bass drum and snare could be brought out just a bit. Sustained strings may sound better a bit more dry, though dry is my personal preference. I would also like a bit more pronounced articulations. Your trumpet solo was very well written and perhaps could come a half dB up to the front.

In short, the piece hits a place close to me, and is a much needed reprieve from the animosity of today's world. Thanks for that, and thanks for coming out to NGUAC! <3

potato-stick responds:

Thank you for your comment. I totally agree that the double standards when it comes to public gatherings are pretty outrageous and seem to have zero basis on logic. With that being said, I am glad that I could create something that shed light on the importance of September 11 and to try and honor those who lost their lives.

I completely agree that I need to work on mixing. To be honest, my main focuses have been orchestration and composition, and I've heard from a lot of judges that this is showing. I've only started pretty recently, so I'm tackling things one thing at a time and mixing just hasn't been a high priority yet. I am sure that as I continue to progress, mixing will be the next thing on my list to get better at.

[Be Gay Do Crime]

Speaking as a VERY queer pro-law and order capitalist here, who once identified as trans and very much thinks the western world is the best place to be gay anywhere on Earth, I could get down with "Be Gay Do Crime" as a slogan somewhere like Russia, Saudi Arabia, China, etc. If the US penalized gayness with prison time and I hadn't been able to get prep myself when something happened to me from the Gilead program (WOW that stuff is prohibitively expensive, thanks insurance racket, Pharma, and CDC/FDA regulations making it impossible to get low cost meds out!), I'd be right there with ya.

It's so rough with the gay community and minorities especially, higher rates of deadly STD exposure, probably going to be higher now that California has basically made it legal to knowingly give someone HIV, changing the prison term to 6 months and the charge to a misdemeanor. Granted, prison where the disease spreads like wildfire due to a certain kind of mistreatment of gays there is probably the worst place to have HIV infected individuals, if you don't like HIV spreading.

Then you have countries like Russia that have made it illegal for people in the US to adopt their orphaned children -- which there is an epidemic -- just because we've legalized gay marriage, and they have anti-gay propaganda laws. I was and still am a huge fan of T.a.T.u for daring to make a whole music video in the 90's of two chicks making out, and perform here with a shirt that had to be censored from Хуй войне meaning Fuck War to Жуй войне meaning Chew to the war live. To save their careers I'm pretty sure when the group broke up they both had to pretend it was gay propaganda and they have somehow reformed their ways. Though Yulia to this day maintains she loves Lena, and the tension between Lena's religious upbringing and confession and Yulia's bisexuality was palpable in their interviews, even if Lena may have had to play it up to keep from attracting negative attention from the Russian government.

Anyway gay counter culture has always been a big part of my life. It's only recently I became so disillusioned with the left for telling us gays how to think, like we don't check enough oppression boxes to say we don't like the idea of forcing everyone to go to workplace trainings to tell them how to treat us. To me, being gay shouldn't make us more special than anyone else, and I had constantly this ... stubborn feeling the left were always going back and forth between patronizing us only to ignore our needs, claiming we have to stand together, and then bashing down anyone who doesn't 100% agree with doxxing people for thought crime and burning down ironically majority minority communities... Or preferential racial favoritism, replacing one supremacy with another, etc., etc. The feeling that after so many people, I -- and the larger gay community, would be next. Like what happened to the TERFs, trans-exclusionary radical feminists, who are on board with everything until you get up to trans females.

All that said I think you've made something really interesting.

I think probably the strongest section is your outro. This is where I get the most sense of motion and clarity. The rest of the piece, as you can hear by the reverb on the end, is overcome with a lot of sustained harmonics picked up by the verb. Wherever you have reverb, I would turn it down by as much as half or 75% on the wet signal, and low cut said wet signal as much as 250hz. These frequencies sound nice on a solo instrument, but across the whole mix and in an ensemble create a smokescreen around all those beautiful cinematic sounds I felt you wanted to cut through the mix. A clean sound makes a statement.

The piece is quite repetitive, though I sense you're pointing out the ongoing struggle you feel yourself facing. I think now that I relisten that part of the problem may be the cinematic bass drums having so much verb to them naturally. There's a plugin called ERA-R which can be used over top of samples if you find no way to otherwise divorce them from it. Sidechain could be applied here if it has not already, lightly, or KSHMR Essentials Kick for quick emphasis of transients and compression. The free version of this plugin worked wonders for me even with less than stellar drum machine emulators.

There is quite a lot of unresolved tension, which of course was intentional. Beyond wanting perhaps a couple more laid back sections peeling back the layers, that's all I could ask. Otherwise, kept me interested until the very last second, just on the knife edge and still wanting more.

Great work. I really enjoyed the listen. Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

Also how do you pronounce your name again?

zybor responds:

Thank you for your awesome deep thoughts and advice. :O

I agree with you on the left's problems when comes to lashing out queer people with shit like cancel culture and infighting. The left, despise they promised to provide safe space for marginalized people, they still happen to embrace the toxic culture of cishet capitalist society, which makes matter worse because now you have both left and right toxicity compounding the already struggle of surviving as a queer person in this society.

While I also find disappointment and disillusionment at the left, I though see the good side of anarchist culture in compared to like Marxist and ML tendencies that tend to reduce everything they see down to class, and the fact that Marxists believe queer culture as "idpol" or identity politics. Anarchists on the other hand view queer culture is one of their cores of liberation through intersectionality, and anarchist value both individualism and collectivism. When I started out I was a left-anarchist, but overtime I see that anarchy transients leftism. You can be an anarchist and queer without labeling yourself as leftist. Also, being anti-capitalism is not unique to leftism, many anarchist tendencies like Egoist and post-left tendencies reject the left for the reasons that you and me listed out. Though, still, I recognize the good side of both left and post-left, and I'd try to find a common ground between those as anarchist to also flourish queer identity as free as I could, and I work harder to help liberating any queer who still stuck under oppression, whether they're in Russia, China, Saudi Arabia or any other part of the world where queer still being oppressed.

[The Concept of Time]

I would take the heavy reverb off of your mysterious ticking noise, and also by extension your brasses and drums. Back it down and shorten the decay. It sounds like with either compression or something else, the low end is getting muddied by it.

Originality wise, I am noticing a lot of cinematic tropes, as mentioned by other judges. That 7th to octave violin drag being a particular offender. However, I do feel like the track as a whole has been pretty well executed, and sounds close to, if not industry standard. It just so happens that from watching so many film trailers, film score for the pure virtue of film score has for me lost its epic sheen. So despite being well crafted for the most part -- aside from reverb, your leveling and use of instrumentation is quite good -- I don't get a lot of excitement or wow factor, and it ends up sounding very much like something I've heard before.

That said, I think it's great you can pop out a piece like this in 2 weeks, and am not the slightest saddened to see you on the front page. Congrats on that btw. There's a lot to be said for being able to imitate the world's most well-renowned composers in your genre. Great work. :)

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

KevinMueller responds:

Thank you for your review! And thanks for the tip with the reverb. :)

[Alabaster]

Super original transitioning here. I wasn't quite expecting the move into the intro here.

Sound design definitely has a lot of cool factor here and brave choices. Getting a follow from me if for nothing else other than exposure to interesting ideas.

Now, structure itself I feel could probably use a bit of work. When you come in with the bass at 1:13, I was expecting more of that. It's so disjointed from the rest of the track -- and sounds very good, mind you, that I wanted to hear it more regularly. Repetition legitimizes, after all. I was expecting to hear it at 1:44 again.

2:03, that snare sample you're using, metallic sounding, could use more velocity, panning, or modulation so it didn't clearly sound like the same sample.

2:30, lots of interesting breakbeat feel going on.

Looping that snare, I'd have liked pitching it up gradually and more obviously from the outset. The ear very quickly picks up that we're looping and fatigues. Constant motion.

That said the rest of the transition barring the long hold was very well done, and I was expecting one final chorus. That's where the structuring portion falls short for me most glaringly.

Otherwise, song is mixed pretty well. Overall I would want more snare, about one to two dB, more kick, less reverb. You could probably bring your leads out by an additional dB, and your bass throughout up as well -- it's fine on sections that aren't super droppy, although throughout those sometimes percussion samples get just a little bit too loud for it to sustain.

Very interesting and stand-out piece, taking a lot of risks for good payoff. You've got a really unique sound and I appreciate that. Looking forward to hearing more of you in the future.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

Zerisan responds:

Thanks for the review! Understand that you expected another chorus at the end, but I personally like to go for more unorthodox layouts.

[bit coin]

Hey nothing wrong with flipping the same sample again! As long as you make good music, that's what matters :)

What 808 is that? I'm digging that salty saturated overtone.

For your percussion I think you could use something to compress and widen them out. I used KSHMR Essentials Kick on every percussion instrument in my last track -- and they were all lofi drum machines with terrible transients. Get it while it's free. It's good quality :)

Like the glitching on the sides. I think the only thing this beat really lacks is maybe some layered hihat rolls, a nice orchestral crash to glue it together, and compression mix glue. I found a new structuring method that works too to get a solid drop and stretch it to a full track searching on youtube. Might look there :)

Glad to see you out here still doing your thing!

heyopc responds:

I made the 808, imma check out kshmr rn

[Hand In Hand- NGUAC 2020 Final Round Submission]

Really nice clean playing for those acoustics in the opening. Very nice production. I personally would have liked with the vocals as naked sounding as they are, bringing them up in the mix. I have a lot of issue understanding the lyrics and hearing them as the lead instrument. It does have a nice, bar-rock blues meets country feel.

From what I've heard of you, live mixing is probably your best strength. I personally feel on bigger sections, your acoustic chugging rhythms are just a bit too far pushed up in the mix, contributing to the muddiness of the very dynamic vocal.

That said, absolutely love that you've written it for a friend's wedding. That's super cool man.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

ConnorHeather responds:

Excellent thanks for the great constructive criticism i will take everything on board it helps a lot, ear fatigue is a real thing and is difficult when you do it all by yourself, having fresh ears and perspectives is a big help thanks! Will most likely go back and take onboard what you said for the final mix.

Thanks for all the work you guys do to make NGUAC happen! It's been a pleasure to participate!

[Ahurac - ID 2 (NGUAC Final Round Entry)]

Starting off, I like your intro and transitional FX. I think you could stand to sidechain them against your synths.

The mix as a whole sounds pretty heavy on reverb and super mid heavy. Almost like there's a vinyl effect across the whole song.

Kick I think could stand to have a bit more bite, maybe saturation. KSHMR Essentials Kick is a good one-stop fixer. You could also tune it to the tonic. Something's going on with the harmonics in the upper low mids and it's not meshing to my ears.

Other than that, compelling melodies. It almost sounds too balanced of a mix for me. There are points -- your 8 bit percussion could stand to come out a LOT and possibly sidechained for where it's present. I can barely hear it under your top snare, but I know it's there because I know the sound -- so it's serving as mix clutter.

Reverb I would say you could stand to either take down by about half its value or more. I feel like it's being used to make synths sound more real, opposed to modulating them by hand. I say that as I'm guilty of having done it myself just to get done with a track. If you're going to do that, I would low cut up to 250 hz on the verb itself. Almost every instrument I'm hearing sounds like it has reverb on it, very boxy low mids.

I might tune your snare so the overtone is either a harmonic of or the tonic itself, to give it some feeling of belonging.

Beyond that, a bit short, but I enjoyed the tune. Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

Ahurac responds:

Woah thank you for all these feedbacks! I'll take them in note for the final version (because yes, this is still an ID, that's why it's a little bit short).

[Midnight Shuffle]

Something about that first bass note in the chord progression I don't really like. I'm sure I'd get used to it over time listening through.

This is an interesting composition.

Personally I would take down your reverb sends across the board, low cut them up to 250 hz or so if you find you must have this shimmer. You can also apply autogate effects to it to keep things interesting.

By 3:44 the progression itself is sounding really good but the reverb is muddying it up.

Also I feel like there's a but much sub on your kick. Could use some more air to it. I came across the plugin KSHMR Kick for quick, easy mixing on that front. It's a free kick shaper. I'd also recommend following Bedroom Producer's Blog or BPB for more freebies to enhance your sound and get you away from sounding stock-y.

Anyway, nice work. Saw you in Audio Ads, hit the play disc, and here we are :)

ScottJacob responds:

Hey man! You're feedback means a lot! Thanks for taking the time to write this, i appreciate it! I definitely feel i struggle with mixing and want to get better. Thanks again for pointing everything out and suggestions, it all helps!

[Shimmer]

Overall really smooth writing. My critique would go on mix.

We're really heavy in mids -- good mixing of more live-y instruments and samples like the chimes and piano.

At times I feel, such as around 0:42 those fantasia sounding leads high up in predominantly the left channel are much too loud -- about a dB or two. They're such high frequencies, they're just going to be heard by virtue of being there. On drops they don't stick out as much later, but still overpresent.

At 2:19 there is mild clipping.

I would bring out your talking lead more, and possibly put a resonant auto-filter on it to bring it to the front more. A lot of the instrumentation stands out on top of it, leaving it to be heard as the lead only because it's the only instrument in that space moving.

I really like the chord progressions going on here and your writing itself. Thanks for sending me this!

trunotfals responds:

it's funny how you can hear all of these other things but you get really blinded to your own music sometimes I listen to this over and over and I never heard a problem until you point them out and now that you've pointed them out it's blaringly obvious to me. Thanks for this review!