ADR3-N's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Abendland - Featherblade]

Writing and scoring is good. It's being smushed up and muddied with a lot of reverb, but I very much appreciate what you're doing.

Those claps I would stereo out very vide and perhaps ensemble. That way you get a choir clap effect. Same with all of your higher percussion.

Really, you could do with taking reverb down on every sustained instrument and finding a way to create a spacious chorus effect with more instances, different patches, etc.

Your choir however sounds very appropriately spacy.

Your percussion and most everything sounds very centered.

Dynamic wise you have a handle on the piece and it follows naturally. The lower strings especially could use 0-250 hz cut on their reverb sends. I recommend this on every reverb, unless it's a solo instrument on a naked section, but it resonates especially on bass instruments.

Really the only problem I have with this piece is intonation of the synth instruments on repeated notes (velocity may fix), and the very, very heavy reverb. Otherwise it's a fantastic score.

Great work.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

Abendland responds:

Thanks a lot for your constructive feedback ADR3-N. This Track was all way to rushed and I wished I had a bit more time to work on it, but I had to submit early due to personal circumstances. Your inputs are extremely valuable and I appreaciate them a lot. Cheers and have a nice evening,
Chris

[[NGUAC 2020] claustrophobia]

You know, I had a song called Claustrophobia back in the day. I think yours is better, haha.

I like that opening chord. It almost sounds like a ringtone.

Ah, now that everything's come in, I understand what you're doing with that.

I have to say, the mix is super mid heavy here. Does Amplitube come with a cab? If not there are cabs like NadIR or Kefir for free. Tames that fizzy noise on top.

Writing wise, this piece is great, if a little shaky in structure. I would not have repeated your breakdown at 2:40 twice -- I would have gotten back as quickly as possible to a final chorus. It sounds like you actually have two breakdowns one after the other, and the section you end with, right before the outro, I would have put where your distorted synths at 2:20-ish are.

Those synths by the way, I can't tell if that's a ring mod or something like Saturn distortion/saturation thrown on, but it's pretty sibilant and could probably use compression to tame it and take it down a bit.

Your modulation of effects throughout was very nice and adds touches that a lot of producers would have let go to waste. Some nice spicy moments.

The main issue to fix would be the mix. So I'll just try to parse out commentary by instrument

Drums, are not standing out in the mix when all instruments come in. This tells me either the drums are not very compressed, or the track is too compressed. I can't see the waveform since it doesn't like to display in my browser, but it sounds like there are actually just guitars covering them up, tbh.

Guitars, I would recommend something other than FL Slayer, or at least modulate velocity more. For guitars, you'll want something you can actually doubletrack without phasing, and that isn't going to sound so boxy in an amp. There's a lot of 250 hz range noise it sounds like, trying to mix in that aggressive tone. I recommend for mixing guitars a quick search on Chernobyl Studios on YT. He uses reaEQ to cut out everything on that guitar send to up to 250 hz. It helps.

This said there are good uses of Slayer, and it does not ALWAYS sound bad, but those are when the instrument is played to its strengths, which is obvious synth keytar solos, not rhythm guitar. There are lots of free guitars on the net. I would at this point even recommend something like Ample Sound's free Taylor, if you can find a way to cut off the reverb. Then I think there's a junk guitar for Kontakt, among others. Look around, I'm sure you'll find something. I think there's a Kontakt factory that offers freebies, and you can work up enough kredits doing reviews or product demos with that to afford instruments, if that's your thing.

Mix wise I think the drums and bass need to stand out more. That mostly just means turning everything else down until you can clearly hear everything. Some people recommend mixing in mono to achieve a cleaner sound profile and cutting down on reverb as much as possible.

When I was working at this stage I would then render the file at -6 dB and see if I could find a free mastering service. Helps if you want the raw product out without spending a day on the master channel.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

4203 responds:

Yeah, I struggled a lot with the mix, and my instrument choice is not that great xD
I considered a lot at the breakdown, thinking it's a good idea but now it seems not quite... well, at least I got something good out of it.
Thanks for the tips!

[Wertw - You Are Not Alone]

Piece sounds great, with the exception of what sounds like over-reverbing and those double or triple kicks that I actually can't tell if they're separate percussion samples in the background due to reverb. Muted like they are, they kind of, and don't take this wrong, sound like me farting in my blankets and trying not to be heard. No offense intended. But if you have some cinematic percussion down there, bring that up and be proud of it! I have a hard time hearing both that and your kick on your smaller sections with less sidechain. Mostly just sounds like a case of other instruments being way too far up in the mix, up to a dB, and muddy verb.

For verb instances, I almost always low cut up to 250 hz and try to keep the length and amount as low as I can to achieve the sound I want. For things like snares and percussion, you can use a technique called gated reverb. I will also scoop those frequencies out of most things that aren't a bass or percussion instrument for the purposes of saving space in the mix and eliminating low mid and high wash over big sections. That would really help you here.

Also, this piece is pretty long. You could probably stand to cut one drop by half or so. I remember thinking in that midsection as I was writing critique that the same section had been playing for quite a while without much variation.

But other than that, really enjoyed the listen. Good work :)

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

Wertw responds:

Thx for the review dude! I'm gonna try to improve all that stuff you said, glad of take part in this, hope that the next year I can do best and kill 'em haha

[Fizzy Frost Ice (NGUAC 2020)]

Some nice polyrhythms going on, everything building off of itself until the drop. I can't really say I'm a huge fan of that section or the one following. That's a little disjunct for me, augmented chords. Then we go back into the drops.

I find myself thinking, there's got to be something different with the drop we can do, in terms of lead writing. And I really think that is where you stand the most to gain from studying. You know how to use samples and structures. But we go from major chords with stacked intervals on the verses and intros to a monophonic drop on diminished intervals, to augmented stabs. I'm trying to put them together as one cohesive thing in my brain and it's not really working.

You might find some videos from Signals Music Studios on writing melody and harmony a good study -- they're not bogged down in music theory too much, so if you don't know it, it won't stop you from learning, but I think it will help you get the cohesive, weird vibe you're going for, without making what sounds like parts of three different songs and putting them together :)

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC, and congrats on the front page!

chris-marcell responds:

thanks for you review, i realli appreciate tht!

[Fury Dearg]

Default Kontakt drums? Not bad. I would probably recommend some freebies like X-Crash and Cymbalistic to flesh out your cymbals, or a paid library like Metal Factory Drums. There's also a few nice free kicks out there like Dark V2, and some snares like Saudade. If you want to hear all of the above, I use them on all my compositions of late. These drums, not to be rude, on metal, sound like childrens toys that someone else threw in the woods -- unless you haven't touched velocities between double hits, and then in that case I 100% understand and weep with you.

I'm also a Shreddage user -- great work on your leads. I actually want to know what tutorials you used, haha. Intonation wise sounding if not 100% real, at least very musical. Your lead writing sounds close to what a guitarist would want to play, I feel.

As for the mix, that's where the hair pulling comes in. I really want to hear a double tracked L and R rhythm throughout. Not having it sucks the power out of the mix I feel like. Compare 18 seconds to your choruses, where the way the solo and strings are mixed, and when it sounds like compression may have been applied, and the rhythm is just not there anymore, or sounds like it's been dropped in the left channel to make room for the strings like at 1:59, sucking all the power from the mix. I promise, the strings are high enough they will be heard -- more so if you cut off that gnarly ringing 250 hz and below that isn't needed to make them sit nice in the mix.

I would doubletrack your lead as well, panning up to maybe 35 percent left and right each, different heads and cabs, depending whether you're using shreddage's in the box or not -- if you are, take the shreddage FX off, pop on a head and cab of your choice on one of the instances, be sure to humanize, switch sample bank, etc. Bingo, nice double tracked lead. I'll sometimes throw delay from each into the channel the other plays on, or send both to the same reverb or delay on a send track.

Strings I would pan in more of a surround setup. But I realize here you were making space for lead. Just remember they most of the time are taking back seat in the mix, due to the nature of their sound. Listen to how bands like nightwish will mix their orchestral parts, maybe even Epica or Amberian Dawn.

And beyond that, where is the bass? I can't even really hear it I don't think.

Other than that though, fantastic listen. Really enjoyed it. Good work!

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

verjamon responds:

Thank you for the review, and sorry for not being in the other rounds of NGUAC, computer problems.

This was a really primitive project in mixing terms, i have a pair of cheap headphones and it was before attending a mixing online masterclass.

I'm glad you liked my work with the lead guitars, i actually had to make a lot of time with the guitars, i wanted something natural but uncanny at the same time, but that's just subjective, most of the sound of the lead is EQ and virtual amps in a clean sound on shreddage, i personally used guitar rig 5 in this one but now i'm into Amplitube 4.

I'll work on the mix of my next songs, and thanks again for your review. =D

[Endless Innocence]

Great playing. Any critique I'm going to have is probably going to sit on mix or recording. I would probably compress your guitar and cut out some reverb. That low end is really boxy sounding, particularly when the bottom E is resonating. I also catch the occasional contact with the body of the guitar.

But sounds absolutely great.

I would back off here and there with the twittering of the birds. It doesn't feel like it's in the same space as the guitar -- feels like a very dry, possibly not even stereophonic foley. So it clashes somewhat with your playing.

But fantastic work. I have a lot of respect for lyrical acoustic :)

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

Thomastique responds:

Thank you for the review!
I'm still learning a lot about mixing so I agree with you on that.
But I couldn't do anything about the birds because I recorded it in the forest so all of those sounds got caught in my microphone 😅

[The Zatesee- The Other Record]

I think that piano might be out of tune -- until, wait, what happened to it? Velocity?! Was velocity not being edited that whole time?

Interesting touch with the acoustic guitar. I would edit that velocity and humanize just a little more. Sounds really surgical here.

Elements coming in and going here have been either super smooth or REALLY jarring. I question the choice of that fantasia like instrument we hear through 2:27.

Also, quite a feat to get someone to listen this long without a drop. I would caution against it most of the time. The clap build is really dragging on. I would have no more than 8 bars, then get to the point. We've gone through so many sections by now, we can have that nice spacy warble on a bridge or something :)

Bass here on that drop is noice. Smooth, happy boi noises. Mixing is a little dirty. I might compress it harder, maybe sidechain somewhat to make way for the little clappy. I do feel the drop drags on about twice as long as is time efficient for the piece. Maybe three.

Nice use of the sample, and guitar section. Writing isn't even that bad actually, for it, needs probably some actual mute noises -- or a palm muted eighth note between those chucks. That ringing sounds awful as a guitar player ngl.

But compositionally, piece aint bad at all. Nice work :)

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

Ohmterra responds:

Thanks for your review. I could have done a lot better with this, but I kid you not, I pushed garage band to its limit with this one. I lost track of time when making this which is why its so long. And the guitars are actually built into garage band somehow. Again, thanks for the review.

Zatesee

[Empty]

I don't say this often, but I think your snare might be too loud when it's first introduced

Also, not really liking your hi-hat sample that much. I would use a soft 808 for a subtle composition like this.

Probably the biggest thing here is levels. You're getting some distortion and clipping when those strings come in at about 2:10, which are much too loud.

This track is super long, also. I feel there are sections which could be cut, such as that first one with the strings. But I'm at 3:33 atm, so I'm not sure what else you're going to do with it so far.

The piece overall is quite relaxed, with a lot of sections like 4:50 and the surrounding 30 seconds that are just almost dead air. 5:17 I would have completely faded out. By 6:46 you have a nice cool little section that would have gone well. I would have gone into that, skipping over our big empty sections since there are not a lot of moving elements here. By 8:50 we've gradually been getting more and more naked. I probably would have completely faded out again maybe even a minute earlier. 8 minutes is still a real whopper of demanding attention from a listener.

Cool that you can do stuff like this on mobile though! :)

For improvements, I think the best thing you can do is find a song structure you like or composition you like, and create a template with markers, then work with that for a while until you feel where pieces will naturally want to move and breathe. Maybe some lead writing. I like the elements as you brought them together here, but building up to them felt like a long slog of fade in and fade out, and I ultimately just lost attention. I had to refocus more than once. At one point I wondered had you accidentally rendered a kick line from that naked section I mentioned to close. Thankfully no, haha.

But anyway, thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

TheSMMusic responds:

Wow, I can see you know a lot about music production. I don't know very much about producing. Actually, I just put instruments together until I like the result. I also don't pay much attention to the details. But I'll try to follow your suggestions in my next songs :D

[AIM2020 - Lord of Naxxramas]

Wow, I remember when EastWest used to be the holy grail.

Composition wise, this is really great. I feel the composition itself would be best served if it were written in FL, all the pains that would be to do. For some reason, every instrument I take into something like printmusic doesn't really alter velocity between instances of the same note, or intonate properly. I'm hearing a lot of that here with floppy attack on the organ, not any real humanization going on. If it were at all possible I would put ensembles or trios on those staccatos so they don't sound like a lone cellist, if that makes sense.

As for EastWest falling out of style somewhat, I would see if I couldn't get my hands on Kontakt and Spitfire's free LABS libraries, Native Instruments' starter pack, etc. There are a ton of free Kontakt libraries that will blow your mind out there. It's a sin not to take advantage imo.

Beyond that, enjoyed the listen.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

NativeNiles responds:

Thx for the review, I'll look into those libraries you mention.

[Silver Lining]

Wow, was not expecting that big open up into 45 seconds or so. Nice, driving chords. Great transitions.

My only critiques will probably sit on mix. The mix as a whole is really sibilant in the 16khz and up range, mostly on that intro is where I notice. I think this might be compensating for the way compression will round off highs. Be careful of that. There's also a huge jump up in volume for some of your sections. I ended up having to turn the track down when the drop came in. Take care also with your reverb that you don't get a low mid wash from 250 hz neglecting to apply low cut to individual instances.

If you still want that spacy sound, gated reverb is a great option.

Other than that, great, smooth listen.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

Solize responds:

Damn that's really constructive feedback, thanks!