ADR3-N's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[For Them (NGRMC Remix)]

That initial fantasia-ish pike reminds me of a song I used to listen to -- swear I can't remember the name, but it was a remix of some Tinashe song. You'll know it if you've ever heard it.

Now, our intro is quite long, 2 minutes. Not a huge issue, except it gives me a lot of time to focus on the articulations and rather centered panning of lots of your orchestral synths. At 2:16 I'm confronted with this airy timpani; there's so much reverb on it, that's just about all I hear.

With better libraries, this could be a banger. Do note there are tons of free libraries out there if you're willing to spring for Kontakt, and if not, there are also tons of samplers/romplers out there for you to make these libraries yourself. As is, the strings at 1:16 sound extremely washed out, depending almost entirely on reverb for any sense of breath; this leaves them sounding muddy, also.

3:15, that lead is up way too high in the mix, and too dry. The rest of the instruments themselves are far too reverbed to pick out clearly.

Rubito piano sounds fine to me. Perhaps a hair late, but one could always drag that first bit out a little more to cope.

Overall, very imaginative take on the piece. Changing the time signature and genre, twice? Who'd'a thunk. :P I was also very pleased by your chord progressions in general, especially 3:00 to close.

Thanks for coming out to NGRMC!

SplatterDash responds:

Hey, thanks so much for taking the time to to judge my piece! I really enjoyed getting your feedback on this, especially since this was the first time that I tested out a couple of free VSTs, including DSK Overture and Orpheus. Because this is the first time I used them, some of the sounds (mainly the strings and timpani) may have sounded a bit off. I'm hoping I can get a better sound someday with this.

I can honestly agree, 3:15 was a challenge with the lead. I wanted the melody to stick out, since the glass piano was being drowned out by everything else, but the device I used made it stick out either too much or, when I tweaked it, too little. I actually had the same problem at 3:27, and that of course didn't work out as well :p

I've been getting tons of comments about the intro being too long, and listening to it I can understand why. The reason why I made it as long as I did was because I was inspired by a piece called Atlas, which can be found here: https://youtu.be/Bw2Up2BRRII I know how I could improve that intro in the future, though, so hopefully I can improve that easily.

Thank you again for the review! Decided to take a different route and do something different with the melody, so I figured an Eb melody in 7/8 would do. Really glad that you enjoyed this, and I'm hoping that I can get used to more VSTs. Maybe I will even come back to this and make it better :D

[Dynamisis (NGRMC)]

I'm thinking your kick needs some more 808. As is it sounds almost like a low tuned snare bottom mic. It's also a bit too loud in the beginning and hard for me to differentiate with the other elements.

What little else I think I have to say about your perc could probably be best summed up in Quarl's comments about samples, particularly how that clap-snare sounds good, but doesn't quite cut it as a snare itself. It'd make a better top layer.

Compositionally, this is a very interesting take on the melody itself, largely aided by an almost otherly chord progression. I'm a bit confused by the choruses such as 2:23 where it doesn't really feel like we're in our home key, and the overarching melody itself is just a visitor from another dimension.

I'm also pretty sure this is somewhere in the realm of house rather than synthwave. Synthwave is fairly 80's-ish in its presentation. This is much more modern.

That said, not bad. I dig it.

Thanks for coming out to NGRMC!

MRM3 responds:

Oh. My. Goodness.
I'm so sorry for the late reply!!!
I had a whole responce typed out 3 times, no less, and apparently the tab got closed or something, and it didn't register.
There are those things in life that make you want to kick yourself repeatedly, and then keep on kicking yourself.
I totally agree with the "needs more 808" part, wow, this would be so much different if I had made it now. xd
I changed it to "house" after you had said that.
The clap snare could definitely be added to.
On the subject of the Chord progression, I am vastly inexperienced.
Thank you so much for the review!!
And I will definitely be participating next year (given that NGRMC is still around next year)
:3

[H4D_2_G0 (NGRMC Remix)]

Sounds kind of like an RnB instrumental to me, minus the glitches, which are occasionally too frequent for my tastes. Initially I didn't like the super slowed down tempo with the obvious artefacts, but it slowly grew on me. I would have preferred you recorded this with your own instruments or synthesized it yourself -- sounds much better and more organic.

Also, there is a loooot of low rumble reverb going on, which makes it very hard to hear the tonality of each individual instrument. Other than this, the mix is fairly clear, but the sample itself is up fairly high relative to the other elements, and I can hardly hear the bass. Solution, low-cut your reverb.

1:42 feels almost like a filler, or outro, though 2:02 does sound pretty nice to my ears. Much better than the main section actually. I was somewhat sad not to have heard the theme continued to the end with the re-introduction of the RnB elements.

Also, the track itself looks like it's un-mastered. No compression, etc. Not a huge complaint since I myself am not a fan of the loudness wars, but can't argue compression itself is the magic mix glue.

That said, nice chillout piece. It actually made me sleepy, haha.

Thanks for coming out to NGRMC!

GoodL responds:

Thanks so much! I totally feel where you're coming from on all points. I appreciate it!

[Volcanic Pyramid]

Short piece, but fraught with tension. Wish there were a proper outro. Interesting.

DrunkGecko responds:

thnx

[Mechanical Flight]

Interesting melody here, but I'm noticing a theme here, overly wet FX on 4-step arps. I do like the diminished chords though!

DrunkGecko responds:

i'll work on dat moisture ;3

[She's Like LSD]

Hmm, I pretty much agree with Paranoid's review, except for one point -- it's not that your drum samples are super loud -- it's that they're boxy in the low mid range and really dry sounding. Maybe a gated reverb on your bongos would fix it?

DrunkGecko responds:

dude, i really apprieciate your reviews :D
thank you so much for taking the time to help me man! if you ever wanna work on something together lemme know, you seem nice :)

[Mechanical Factory]

I'm not really seeing any overarching melodies, percussion, or anything here aside from your arp. Doesn't necessarily sound offensive, but just not very exciting either.

DrunkGecko responds:

I'll work on it
Thnk u ouo

[f*ck]

I like the idea here but this sounds pretty unbalanced. Normally the problem with new dubstep makers is the percussion -- not being able to hear it specifically. What this sounds like is the percussion is too loud over the drop, no side-chain, and backing pads too reverbed up.

Turn that reverb send on your pads down, cut the low end on it, and bring them down a little.

Kick and snare are okay until 0:24 where you can see we have some peak distortion. If this is just an idea you're doing some light mixing on, you can clap an emergency limiter on it as a bandaid but I recommend just avoiding it at all costs.

I try to mix everything so that the entire track peaks at no more than -6 dB on the master channel before I even touch it. This approach totally avoids the peaking problem is why, mostly. That and when you do apply compression -- which it sounds like this piece has not had, you also avoid over-compressing, to some degree.

Now to side-chaining, if you haven't had any experience with this, I recommend plugins like fabfilter C2 or sidekick6, but you can do it by hand if absolutely need be. Basically, you have your bass line, and whenever your kick/snare hit, you duck your bass and sometimes other synths so the kick/snare don't have to push THROUGH the low frequency noise to get to your ears. It's so prevalent now that a lot of people use it, even in genres like metal.

I also note the lack of a sub under your wobble synth, and the wobbles themselves aren't compressed. Something to work on.

That said, good dubstep standard composition going on. I'm excited to see you improve in the time to come. :)

TheVillagerPlayer responds:

Thank you very much for your advices :)

Dubstep is a music genre that iI haven't already tried it was my first time.
I made this in one hour because I was bored and I actually wasn't expecting anyone to listen to this. I'm ok on the point that the pads have too much reverb and low end .
I actually have experience with sidechain, I tried to do the compressor method, lfo tool, kickstart and gross beat, I also used automation clips on the volume (not in this) and I didn't think to add it so thank you vor the advice once again. I'm ok with the entire comment, you're right but I had two problems during the making of this music:

- I don't have a good computer and my cpu was dead at like 11 tracks on the playlist

- It was my first time experiencing the serum plugin and I didn't know how to create growls

btw I'm not english so if my response may have grammary problems (I mean It's still a problem) but I don't speak engliah fluently

Thank you very much for giving me good advice :)