ADR3-N's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[I Am, Are We?]

Very cool this was made with a bass. Makes me want to pick mine up.

Writing wise this is great, very unique sound. Lyrics are poignant. Vocal delivery is not bad.

Mix wise, I find some choices I don't necessarily agree with. For your verses, I would have a right and left vocal about 23-40%. On your choruses, the vocals are very, very clippy sounding. I don't know if they were recorded with red line levels, clipped, distorted, or compressed, or if they clipped on mix down. Sometimes that happens. That would be the first thing I would fix if you were to go back into mixing this track.

Secondly, it doesn't sound like your vocals have a lot of compression on them. I would turn those buddies into sausage casings and maybe use a transient shaper. Multiband compressors are good for this, and you can cut down on the frequencies below 250-300 hz to both save room in the mix and get a little more mileage out of the compression. right now it just sounds like you turned them way up.

I also would apply chorus or delay, to taste. Cutting reverb sends down and making sure the low end on reverb gets cut will usually improve the clarity.

For your choruses, your lead voice would probably do well centered, with those reverbed doubles pushed off to the side about the same amount as you've done your verses. I'm not sure if I'm left ear deaf, or if this song is just very heavy in the right channel with your vocals.

Very cool effects with the whammy btw.

Also, I find it VERY hard to hear your drums. That doesn't mean necessarily turn them up so much as it does turn everything else down. I would mix my tracks at about -6 dB of head room or at 20% or less volume on my PC. You'll find you tend to make better mixing decisions that way.

Anyway, fantastic job with this piece. It's like djent, but alt rock. Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

SkankyMojo responds:

Thank you so much for the feedback. 🤓

[DeLoreans]

So punky it hurts. My only critiques are going to be mix related.

I would apply a little more compression and reverb deadening before processing (ERA-R is a good plugin for this) to your vocals. They could also probably come up by about .2 dB but compression might fix that.

Your 2:30 little bridge sounds great. Then that spacious sound dies out when the chorus comes back in. That tells me either you yeeted those synths down, or compression is killing your sound. Make sure your synths come through the chaos by shaving off low end on guitars, vocals, and indeed the synths themselves. The magic number seems to be around 250 hz.

Your kick sounds really boxy, like it has a ton of 60 hz. I might sub it out for an airier kick or turn it down some, and play with the EQ some to get a cleaner sound. As is, it's a little muddy.

Also, I felt robbed we cut out at 2:53. Let that note ring out, dammit! :P

Otherwise, pretty banging track. Can't wait to see what you come up with next! Thanks for coming out to NGUAC

AjSkull responds:

Thanks for the feedback! The ending actually cuts out fast because it leads into another song.

[Abstrack - Together]

Nice soft, subtle intro. I'd have appreciated just a little bit less ghosting on those snares just to let that happen at some point later in the song.

Otherwise I have very few points of critique other than not liking a super deep sidechain so early on in the song -- before we ever hear a drop. Also, your transitions are very sibilant. That's fine on my monitors, but it might be really airy on a pair of commercial headphones, which tend to have a bellcurve sound.

I'm not a huge fan of such long reverb tails on your snare. It's creating a real high washing sound.

I would also turn down your lead and harmony synths down about a dB. They're so much louder than your bass and percussion that I'm having a hard time getting into the groove. 1:50 is an example of just how much louder they are, as well as 2:02. That's really out there compared to your bass and percussion, and it doesn't ever seem to come on.

The tempo of this song could probably stand to be just a little faster. 5 to 10 bpm

The slowing down outro was a nice touch. I would have liked to hear a I chord on the end, just ringing out for a second or so.

Good work!

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

Abstrack responds:

Thanks for the feedback! I might revisit this song later with these issues in mind.

[Green Grape Goes Groovin']

Interesting name. Fade at 50 sec was unexpected.

I know what Massive preset you have past there ;) My favorite personally

I'm not really able to determine what is going on here structurally. You have three or so grooves that don't really seem to interact with one another a whole lot.

I would actually turn down your other synths minus the bass. They're covering up your drums.

Also would have liked an outro, maybe just that Massive slapback synth on the end.

This amused me, and nothing about it is particularly bad at all. In fact, it's got a pretty solid groove. I just found it hard to get excited without an overarching lead or clear structure. That would be where I'd wanna go next. You might check out some nice channels on YT like Holistic Songwriting or Signals Music Studios. And don't worry, the more you write, the more interesting pieces of music will come to you, so keep going!

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

Tapestoppa responds:

No Problem and thanks!!

[Cubiks - Neovitalism]

Very nice, interesting chords in your intro. Sounds like everything is super chorused though so there's this really spread out sound, in a thin way.

Now, I really like the bass notes you've chosen. I would take it down about .4 dB

Really interesting rhythms on your percussion. Reverb or something is making them sound really muddy though. I would say everything but your hihats could stand to have more crisp high end from 8khz up to about 18khz.

This is super trippy but repetition legitimizes.

The only chord I don't particularly like is 2:32. Change a note or two around in there subtly and I think it'll do what you want.

Overall I really enjoyed it. Interesting choices, a fairly pleasing sound design. I would recommend cutting a lot of those reverb sends or choruses down to size some. Your synths already have a very spaced out vibe. Chords are naturally already there. Bassline is the cheese to the cake if you feel me. It's like house meets dnb.

I would like to hear a bit more of your drums. You can try multiband compressors or compressors in general on each individual instrument lane. There are also transient shapers which you can look into, some of which I'm sure are even free.

Anyway great work. Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

CubiksPlus responds:

Woah, Thanks for your feedback :D

[Suns3t]

Nice, functional intro. I would say by the first half-repetition of chorus, we should get a bassline going, something like a D, B, F#. Not having that bassline makes me feel like I'm not really going anywhere, despite the rest of the song otherwise being quite well written, if minimal.

That said, take this song, experiment with just adding some quarter note basses, and you will have a great synthwave feel. That DMaj chord just sounds juicy with some bass.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

c0mc1ol responds:

I definitely agree that the song is way better with a bassline and yes, I was going for a minimal type song because I didn't really have much experience in fl studio but I am trying to get better. Thanks for sending some feedback and criticism though!

[Lost Energy]

Interesting effect with the detuning going on here. Feeling good as we bring the intro in. I was expecting a quicker intro, but I'm not complaining by 0:50.

Mix wise, I would bring up your percussion by 2 dB... Or just bring everything else down.

This is a little pleasant sunset driving groove. I really like it.

For your snare, I can't hear if you're using gated reverb or just delay. If you're using just delay, look up gated reverb. It will help the grit of your snare so much. Then you can cut the delay wet signal and feedback down some. I always recommend cutting reverb and delay signals as much as possible due to their tendency to muddy up a track.

I would have skipped that stutter and re-entry into the chorus before 3:13 or so if we were going to fade out and have gradually faded over two choruses or so. Where would that have taken you, maybe 3:30 seconds? That's not bad. So I would either cut the intro and do that, or leave the fade completely off and just let it end on a nice I chord.

Anyway, really enjoyed this little groove. Nice work! Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

BrandonTurner responds:

I'll definitely look into gated reverb! Getting the snare to sit right with the delay was a pain and definitely could have been better.

Thanks for the critique, I'll keep all this in mind during future projects! I appreciate it!

[Abendmusic - Wilderborn]

Some muddy chords here, and mix is reverb heavy, but the structure is sound, and writing knows where it's going. Honestly, I would take the reverb tails you have going here and cut them by about 25-40 percent, depending on instrument. It's very low end heavy and washes out the great writing on your percussion.

By 2:12 I'm not hearing a lot of variation of texture. That section, the lead is particularly synthy with ... it sounds like a high portamento on the tonic. I think you could cut most of it out and the piece would stand well.

I don't have a lot of critique beyond that. The piece is solid and a good listen. Great work. Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

Abendland responds:

Hi ADR3-N
Thanks a lot for your thorough feedback! Helps me a lot to improve! I appreciate it a lot, thanks for your time!
Cheers, Chris