ADR3-N's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Cs - 'Baptism of Fire']

Right off the bat, I like your writing, but the mix is very, very dirty. Turn down that reverb, turn down that delay -- low cut those FX and every instrument that's not a bass to 250 hz or so. Right now all those frequencies are in the way of your kick and that octaved bass so that I can't hear it on phrases where we have that low saw. I feel like we're relying on sidechain to make sound mixing decisions for us in keeping that low end tight, and that's just not its strongsuit.

I would also say our leads are somewhat too loud. Or rather, everything else is so much louder than the percussion. I would turn all that down until you can clearly hear kick and hihats. It sounds like you're trying to get more overall loudness out of the track than it wants to give by compressing, as the outro is about as loud as the track was 30 seconds before it, despite subtracting elements. Try not to mix with any compression on the master. In fact I would even recommend turning your PC volume down as low as you can tolerate while mixing, in order to stimulate mixing things with clarity. Be sure to leave -6 dB or so of headroom before applying compression or mastering effects it will make life much easier.

Anyway, enjoyed the piece. That's a really catchy line you have in the low saws. :)

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

Csucskos responds:

Thank you! Without any modesty, I think this song turned out pretty cool melodywise and I'm also happy with the variety I managed to pull off, but it was just really lacking the punch. (It was boring.) I did not know what to do, and I wanted an experts review on it, thus I entered NGUAC... I guess I'm a real bum.

I applied your advice and it seems to be working. Now I just have to readjust the volumes, but it sounds more interesting as before (turns out, it wasn't as good as I imagined it to be). So thank you!

I'm not really sure about everything though. I wanted this song to be punchy and loud, as usually my songs turn out to be too quiet even on max volume on my phone :/ and this tune should bang! I don't know what the delays do (in terms of muddiness), I did not use them too much in the song, but just to be safe I turned them down a little. I like to use reverb on almost everything, as without it they just sound too sterile. So I usually slap it on every percussion and main melody element.

The hihats though should be in the background, as they are not at all interesting, I don't intend to change them. (Ohh, and why should I mix quiet? Don't I need to hear everything? I guess I can give it a try.)

Just to sum up: Massive thank you for the useful advice, it already helped a lot. I don't aggree with everything, but compared to before, when I just know something was wrong, but did not know what, now at least I have some leads to follow. Cheers!

[Spicy Flower]

Spicy flowers? I hear spicy chords :3

I absolutely am incapably of reproducing this genre, not because it's ridiculously hard or anything -- but because I'm not this damn patient. My critique will lie on mix. Bass is absolutely way too loud in the sub range here, to the point of pushing the whole mix out of balance at points. I would take it down at least .5 db

Also, those snaps, I would either take down, or take advantage of some sort of delay or reverb/glitching to have them present but not really sticking out that much.

I would also take your tin can drum FX and take those up some more. EQ them to be more sibilant. Be proud of those unusual sound choices.

3:02 is massive -- I think I hear some distortion in the 18-22 khz range. Watch out. But other than that, this piece has me sold. Great work!

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

Crazy-Unicorn responds:

Thank you for the feedback! :3

[Breath- Conceptual Themed Avant-Pop]

The breathing sound is driving me insane in the intro -- but I understand this is avantgarde pop. Other than that, pretty fantastic production, and said breathing sound eventually does start to work nicely in the production. You've got a lot to say, and it shows in even how you've used it. Great work.

Most of my critique will sit on mix. I want more of those hihats to come out. The breathing swell is louder than they are. Also, breathing swell is a little sibilant -- so are the vocals. I would probably compress the vocals more and do some de-essing.

Overall, sounds nice and professional. Bring out the kick and snare some more and you'll have a good, concise 00's sound. I would also chop off some sub 250 hz frequencies on any reverbs or non-basses you have just to make those basslines fit in a little nicer, maybe get 0.1 or 0.2 more dB to squeeze out of them.

Overall great piece. It'll be stuck in my head for a while.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

ConnorHeather responds:

Great feedback much appreciated will take everything on board for my next projects!
Thanks again!

[All Lights on Me]

Jesus Christ -- dnb videogame music. Scared me for a second there.

Your lead writing is good, great for VGM. I might actually just take an intro and put on before we get those abrupt dnb breaks with VGM percussion. It worked very well at 1:40 for you :)

I would probably take your lead and harmony down a little bit. They're loud enough that without the dnb breaks it's already hard to hear the bass. I might even take the bass and make a more involved part there. With just the two notes, it almost sounds like we have two songs against one another, one that's gotta go fast, and one that's just chilling in like, pokemon for GBA land.

The transition after say 2:50 or so into the B section of the song was a particular example of this, and the song itself is a very drawn out acquired taste. If I didn't have exposure to old videogame music, dnb, and blastbeat metal, I probably wouldn't be having a great time listening to it.

The naked section at 5 minutes is nice. I'm not sure why the breakbeats come back in if we're going back into an outro again there. It feels like we were going to do something and then forgot, as well as the chord tacked on the end, kinda feels the same.

But A for effort for this one. I know programming this had to be ... fun, haha.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

colorsCrimsonTears responds:

Thanks for taking the time to drop a review,
it's definitely appreciated.

Thanks for the advice.
I like loud music so it's hard for me to tell when it's TOO loud. Oops.
But I am trying to learn to mix everything better.

I too come from a background of listening to old game music. Probably one
of my favorite genres.

I have a consistent style when making tracks, and part of it is
a repeat of the start but without the backing instruments. It's just kind of a thing I do.

Anywho, thanks again for your time.

[Alone Together (A Covid 19 Love Song)]

You had me at sharing TP.

Actually what keeps this from being a hit with me is the range of the vocals. They might even work well with the autotune and other FX if just sung higher, say like a blink-182, not even aggressively, even as flatly mixed as they are.

Beyond the vocals, which I won't touch more than that, I can't really hear the bass much, and the guitar seems to be mostly just 8th notes. Might want to spice that up some with some simple palm muted chords. Nothing fancy. :)

Drums sound your standard e-kit. So, garage band. I would try to get a better kit if you can. The cymbals don't sound too bad, ride is passable, but the hi-hat is frankly ass. I recommend something like Cymbalistic if you can't afford to buy a synth... As for snare there is Saudade snare, Black Noh, Cherry, and several other good free snares. And I'm trying to remember if Dark V2 is the kick I use. Plenty of options

So yeah, the biggest gripe I have, I just can't get behind talk singing in a low register that can't quite decide what pitch it wants to be on a punk song! But the lyrics are great. I really encourage you to revisit this up an octave. Show us your real voice!

And never stop writing. The more you do, the better you get. We live and we learn. Never stop pursuing your passion, especially if it's as funny as this :P

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

codemonkey77 responds:

Thanks for taking the time for the review man, going to keep rocking and go for it again next year!

[Even tho idk]

Interesting intro. This mix is super low and low mid heavy. Treble is really subdued, bassline is super loud compared to the vocals -- at 1:06 this is particularly pronounced, as that lead in the low mid range is louder than even the percussion.

So, in order of loudness, I would set my track up drums, lead vocals slightly louder than bass, just enough to be heard nice and clear, and then auxiliary instruments.

So, you've got a great hook here, but I'm having problems hearing it clearly with those acidy vibes. Bring those drums up, bring those hihats out. Clean up your low end -- take 250 hz and below out of everything that isn't a bass, especially reverbs, and including the vocals -- but I would use a multiband compressor for that.

Lacking clarity on your vocal mixing. I'd like to hear more of your 5k to 10k. You can use a de-esser to eliminate any complications that might bring to the piece. Vocal mixing is definitely something to work on, particularly on that YEAH in the intro. It distorts pretty rough. That could be a recording issue.

But very cool and catchy idea. I like it.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

CHiLEDAWG responds:

i appreciate it man, thanks so much for the clear and honest feedback <3

[CDJeremy - Bassy]

Interesting writing here, and switching between two basses. I find the second really points out where the first is lacking. If you like that sound, I'd mix them to the point they had a similar response.

0:58 I'm having PTSD from sound font piano sounds. I would swap to a synth, say from a free instrument like SQ8L.

Actually, I really feel here that available synths to the arranger is where you're suffering the most. You've got good idea, structure is good, mixing is passable.

The biggest issue with mixing I hear is drums not cutting through the mix. They should be the loudest part of your track, point blank. They've got to cut through everything else, because we're not attentively listening to them... until something sounds off. I will say your transition crashes are at a good level though, and this does not mean to turn drums up. It means the opposite, to turn everything else down until you hear them properly. Then you apply your master FX, everything sounds clean, and presto. Feel me?

I also would clean up any reverbs you had and leads/other synths by chopping off 250 hz or so and below to make room not only for your bass but your kick. You're not listening to a lead to hear those frequencies, although when playing off by itself they don't sound bad. When they're in an ensemble, they're constantly getting in the way of the bass frequencies you do care about.

Anyway, enjoyed the track. Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

CDJeremy responds:

Wow, that was the longest review I had in life, you analyzed everything, and I love that...

I probably had all those errors due to lack of practice or pluggins, I will try to improve on it

It was a pleasure to participate here since it is my first time doing it xD

[Afterimage]

I feel like with most of our chords here, your leads are only one octave above the tonic note of the chord change. That leaves not a lot of room for groovy progressions.

Now, what you have going for you, your structure forces it to be somewhat moving, even in the chords themselves want to just kind of sit there. So good job on that! That's an accomplishment. Keep with this structure. It works for you.

Now, by 2:14 we get some chords, but that disappears quickly. I would have at the very least repeated that twice.

You might try learning about chords in general. A good channel to watch on YT is Signals Music Studio. There's only so much you can do with one note.

3:50 is a nice change and ambitious compared to the main chord progression. I feel like this should have been your drop, period. Repeat that second section we have for your drop again, and Let 4:36 be the end of your song.

And no matter what happens, never stop writing. The more you do, the better you will get. Every finished song is an accomplishment!

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC! Excited to hear from you in the future :)

BlueNexus responds:

Thank you for the feedback!

[BlighterProductions - Quasar]

Intro is very subtle. Dig.

I think the perc comes in just a liiiittle too heavy. I'd take down the hihats about half a dB. Maybe more. They're quite loud compared to the rest of the track by the time our bass comes in.

I may also space out what sounds like claps somewhat more and possibly reverb those veeeeery lightly.

The next section to come in is so abrupt sounding due to how quiet the piece is. Might take that arp down by a dB and low pass filter it.

We also have a lot of low frequencies. Make sure any ensemble you have, the instruments aren't in each other's way. I.e cut the low frequencies of higher instruments or non-basses to crisp them up and get them out of the subwoofer's way. 250 hz is usually the magic number. There are tutorials and lots of free plugins for this like ReaPlugs which will let you see the frequencies you are working with as they come in.

I would still take down those hihats more as we get to 3:47 and take the arp down a bit more until we get those wide swells in. I like that btw.

There is some synth that has a lot of tingling ringing in what sounds like the 18k or so range. It's like tingling change in my ear and I don't really like it.

The radio noise also could probably come down -- the tuning SFX. And I would give it a ping pong delay.

You're talented at creating atmosphere for sure.

I think JBL headphones might be coloring your sound some. Commercial headphones tend to add a lot of bass or alter mids and highs to get people to think they're somehow better than others, when really the issue is inferior audio quality. I use Audio Technica ATH-M40x studio monitor headphones. They give a good representation of how a song will sound all around and make for a good reference headphone. I would try to mix songs so that they will sound good on the average sound system, as well as the extraordinary, since not everyone has the luxury of JBL, beats, or any other great setup we might like to have represent our music. :)

Great work, and thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

BlighterProductions responds:

Hey ADR3-N, thanks for your constructive advice. I would like to answer on some of the points you mentioned:

-You shouldn't take the JBL thing literal, it's only since I use JBL headphones to create my music, and I tweaked them to the JBL headset perfectly, which is perhaps why it sounds different on other devices. You couldn't know this, but thanks for letting me know. It's only more helpful to know these things.

-When the second drop comes at 228 seconds, I didn't even realise to the point you notified me about it that there is a little too much of a 'significance' (if I wrote that correctly) between direct attack and swelling attack.

-The tingling is caused by resonance in the so-called ''Droplet''-synth. It's an instrument I frequently used in my newer songs (Natrium Flow, R136A1, Discothéque to name a few) and also with my headphones they're decreased since JBL headphones are automatically equipped with a lower frequency equalizer that causes more bass.

-''You're talented at creating atmosphere for sure.'' Thanks a lot, and I only joined the NGUAC to learn some new stuff in music on NG. And I reasoned that, since this is my most popular, and also one of my best songs, this would make for a good submission (not trying to show off or so).

There are still point in your comment that I can't really agree with, but it's nothing personal, more something from my point of view. But comments like this are always welcome in my comment sections.

-Signed BlighterProductions

[ZUN - A Tiny, Tiny, Clever Commander(BegissoR's Remix)]

Right off the bat, I would cut the reverbs on your organs and intro substantially, chop off everything below 250 hz. It will do loads to clean up your sound. Same with all your sidechained reverbs throughout. It will help so much with your transitions and sidechain sounding clean. Right now despite these blazing fast rhythms and great structure, that sound is making it hard to get into your bass groove, which is what DnB is all about!

Also, compliments to great use of that sample. My heart. <3

But yeah, I'm really enjoying the theme itself, but noise from that verb is distracting me even from your transitions. Before 2:44 is pretty rough. That kick build also seems to be close to distorting a bit. Might dial back just slightly the compression there.

Bass is sounding good before 3:16. Past that I think we are pushing the limits of just how hard the track can be compressed before the bass suffers. Make sure to clean out room in all your FX chains and instruments for the bass to lay into. Eg. cut frequencies on leads, pads, and other synths below 250 hz. Cut reverb aggressively because those boxy sounds just don't add anything to the song unless it's a completely naked sound out there.

Bass wise your squelching growl could use actually some 1000 hz or so I think. And the lead and other synths could come down a bit more so I could hear it in the mix. Cutting those frequencies will help. You may even apply a chorus to it.

I might even cut the attack and release on your sizechain just a little so that it's shorter. There are some places where it gets a little hard to make out bassline and other synths because it's so deep and long. 45 seconds or so and on is an example. I also can't really hear the bass well there because it's a sine wave. You might try a ramp in that section.

I would say the offbeat stabs at 2:40 or so and the lead are also a little too loud. Maybe .5 dB.

Otherwise great, fast, furious remix. Love it. Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

begissor responds:

Wow, never expected such a big respond, thanks. I always highpass everything that isn't a bass as you say. Reverb is a problem, yes, will fix in my new works. Also I have problem with sidechaining dnb, variative dubstep drums and etc.