ADR3-N's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Sicarius771 - Supercharged]

By 40 seconds, I think that quarter stab chord could come down in the mix. It's giving the impression of no breathing room.

Some comments on mix. The percussion is pretty muted sounding. Like I'm wearing ear protection, in comparison to those spacy highs. The longer the mix goes, by 1:33, we have lots and lots of reverb that doesn't let up. It also sounds like we have a piano synth that's doubling the bass, which I would cut. That's the overtones I was hearing on the reverb.

So, I would cut 250 hz and below on instances that aren't bass or percussion to clean up and make room for it to sit, shorten reverb tails, low cut to 250 on those reverb sends as well, and drop the send some.

Your percussion, particularly that gong, is either buried, in the case of kick and snare, or broom falling down a staircase in a warehouse scary loud. I think this is trying to compensate for when other instruments, like pads and leads on the sides, are also way too loud. Go back and see if you can get a handle on this mix, and make sure two things are good -- can hear the percussion well, can hear the bass, and can clearly make out the lead. Drop those instruments on the side down much, much lower. They're making the song sound like a high wash.

I love the composition, the mix is the only thing holding back my 5. Or at least like a 4.5. You've got a great mind for dnb writing. This would be a total banger with the mix fixed up on so there weren't these big discrepancies in loudness. Keep making music!

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

Sicarius771 responds:

Awesome, thank you for the feedback :)
I’ll keep all this in mind and do better next time.
Also good job with the judging and dedication, I saw that there was a whole lot more compared to last year but you all kept going, you guys deserved that extension :)

[Runa - Black Hole]

Intro reminds me a lot of Mass Effect. What was the name of the mallet sounding synths you used for arps in your intro?

My only real critiques are going to sit on the mix. On your orchestral and synth orchestra, as well as other instruments, there is a ton of unneeded reverb. I would not only cut the send down some, but also low cut up to 250 hz or so. Having all those frequencies with compression going on will push the mix out of balance and force you to mix top heavy. I'm hearing that here. The mix is very sibilant in the 15-20khz range. Even the high fizzle reverb is out of balance.

I find myself actually wanting a lot more low mid, talking range frequency out of your bass throughout. That's the range where it's crowded out. Percussion also has a hard time sticking through the mix. You can try to push it through that wall with sidechain, or you can just drop levels of other instruments until they push through well. By 4:47, they are drowned, and there is some not quite clipping -- sounds like a limiter is on, and we're getting distortion trying to keep levels down. Compress those drums. For a spacy feel you can probably apply gated reverb to the snare. Sidechain if you need to, but all those other levels are just too loud for them to compensate for.

Other than that, beautiful piece. I really enjoyed your rhythms. Thinking outside the box in a time signature always makes my day. Great work!

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

Runanova responds:

Thank you very much.
I went through a lot of difficulties with the mastering because of the number of elements and i now understand the problems.
About the synth, it accidentally made a "water" pluck and decided to split the high and low frequencies into different parts.

Thanks again for the feedback!

[omnicide]

Rhythmically, I like where this piece is going -- chord progression on the intro could use some work. Maybe study briefly chord progressions or song structure. There are plenty of great youtube channels online for that but Signals Music Studios is probably the best for this. You'll probably want phrygian mode or something like that.

Now, beyond that, my critique is probably going to sit on mix. We've got a very nice, but also very loud bassline that's covering up our percussion and even our lead. I would bring it down .5 or so dB although.... I see it might be a compression issue. When we get to the section at 2:42, the harmony is pushing lead and bass out of balance. In that case I would also take your individual instruments that aren't bass or drums, scoop out a low cut up to 250 hz or so to make room in those spaces, and do the same with reverb wet signals. You can also turn down reverb somewhat to remove a little of that reverb wash. Then, reajust levels as sounds good to you.

A technique you can try on your snare to get that extra grit is an oldie but goodie, gated reverb. All you need is high ass reverb and a compressor. Check it out and try it -- it'll go nice with this synthwave, dnb fusion you have working for you.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

rat9352 responds:

awesome review, will def. experiment w what you suggested. cheers! :)

[AWAY - Sleepwalker (QWAZDYN Remix)]

There's a lot of artefacts sounds on that acapella -- might be the vocoded line in the back, that sounds granulated. When we get to 1:00, I understanding we're moving into a build, but the sound is pretty tinny, to the point of sounding obnoxious. When we get to the drop, it's super distorted and really sub heavy.

What sound driver are you using? I noticed the same kind of sound when I was mixing on Realtek High Definition audio. It heavily compresses output so you can't really tell what you're doing.

I have to say I'm not a fan of the super distorted double of the melody or the gradually increasing speed for transitions. 3:38 just sort of feels like pitching around the track. I don't know if this is a trend in modern edm.

The glitching on the outro isn't bad though.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

QWAZDYN responds:

thank you for the feedback! i really appreciate it :) I've been using DirectX drivers

[Another World (Humans)]

Lots of interesting elements here, super clean, icy percussion, and smooth chord progression.

My only comments are going to be mix related. There's a boxy low wash in your chords, particularly evident by 2:05. You can probably take care of that by low cutting up to 250 hz, or touching on it with a multiband compressor. I feel you've compensated for the wash with making your percussion somewhat tinny, but I would personally probably have taken the opposite approach.

Other than that, great work. Really enjoyed the listen. :)

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

PromisesMusic responds:

Thank you very much for the comment! I hope and be in the next round and I really tried to put all my effort into this song and the ones on my album to bring it my best.

[Stalker]

Interesting slapbacks on that percussion in both channels. The overall mix sounds pretty muddy though, like reverb and delay has been used to make space on a pretty dry mix, or dry instruments. What that creates is a lot of muddy attacks on sustained instruments -- which granted, I absolutely abhor synth strings that aren't hyper realistic. I'd prefer to use 80's pads or something.

Now, I do like what you've done with the human percussion. That's probably the nicest touch on your track.

Riff wise, this is a solid piece. I think you just need to find some instruments that work for you, study mixing a little, and you'll be in a good place as a producer.

If you have Kontakt, Spitfire LABS is a nice, professionally sampled free library. There are plenty of percussion instruments like mini Naal, tincan percussion, Egyptian Darabuka, Clingfilm frame drums, the E string weird string bowing library, Egyptian Ney flute. Lots and lots of free instruments and libraries. Native Instruments also released a huge starter pack of their flagships and some libraries to work with them for free. Then there are some free vsts such as Ample Sound's taylor nylon guitar and ABPL bass synth, which work pretty well for more real-instrumenty applications.

Then there's synths like Psymon (just simon says sounds, but it sounds good to me), some commodore 64 emulators, SQ8L, Dexed, tons of others. If you want a list of those I can see if I can look through what I got.

Mix wise, clarity is your biggest issue. On those instances of reverb and delay you have, I would move the low cut to 250. Getting a big low wash. And if that doesn't clean it up more, I would drop the signal down. Also sounds like there's not a lot of high end on anything, beyond your ah chants.

Beyond that, enjoyed the listen. Reminds me of oldschool mortal kombat levels.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

PandaThePanda responds:

Thank you for all recommendations! I will take a look at all of them as soon as possible. Mixing/mastering has always been something I stuggled with but slowly gotten better at, but I guess I should take a week to do some extensive studying to really get it down for my next track.

Thank you again for your in depth analysis! All love to ya <3

[-Stoopid-]

The idea for this is pretty cool, oldschool even.

Some notes. I like the sample you've chosen, and the ... sounds like either a tight delay or ringmod, but I can't quite understand it. Might compress it so that the consonants are more out there.

Your drop suffers from a thin, airy quality, though I like the idea of the tone overall. I would throw a bass under it.

Mix wise, percussion at times is buried. Make sure at all times, your percussion is the loudest element -- proportionally so, so it isn't obnoxious -- in your mix. The human ear doesn't listen to it first, so it has to work twice as hard as say, even one random piano note strung somewhere in the song. We'll hear that, but we might not notice the snare unless it's an offbeat, backbeat, or funky rhythm.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

Hzrdous responds:

Thank you so much for the honest review! I love when people give me comments like these! My mixing does need a major overhaul so as of now I am practicing a lot more in the mixing scene. But I will make sure to take what you said into consideration! Thanks for the review! And no problem! I'm glad I got the chance to join!