ADR3-N's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[NiTi - I.N.F.1.N.I.T.Y (NGRMC Remix)]

Nice long chord progression -- I respect you haven't taken the easy way out with this piece and just slapped on some 4 chord sauce, especially with the atonal portions to follow.

0:28-0:59, this lead section is a bit long for my tastes, and said lead is both screaming loud and lacks a lot of modulation to give it that breath of life.

Overall, lot of atonal elements, and it often uses samples which have become so cliche, I've deleted them from my library -- like that lex luger riser. There just doesn't seem to be any case where it sounds good anymore. Making your own risers is going to impress a whole lot more tbh. Though, these sounds are memetic; people like them because they're safe, so I don't blame you for popping 'em out every so often.

The only thing I really feel this piece is lacking is some sub to give your drops much needed oomph, and perhaps harder mastering compression. If there is a sub on your drops, while I was first listening, I couldn't tell it apart from some mild background noise in the coffee shop I was in at the time of writing this review. I tried turning it up some more to hear but the snare was uncomfortably loud in comparison to the rest of the track, so I turned it back down.

One thing I do like is hanging out on that major I chord. Gives an otherwise roaming piece a sense of home.

Thanks for coming out to NGRMC!

TodukenMusic responds:

Tbanks for your review <3

But, i didn't used a Lex Luger riser, i used a riser from Vengeance Dubstep Sample Pack Vol.1

And yes, I need to make my own risers for more originallity hehe

[Make it Hard (NGRMC Remix)]

Forgive the relative brevity/incoherence of this review; I did it on paper in a coffee shop slash book store, and now I'm rewriting/adding to it, lol.

Starting out, kick drum is too loud during your intro; perc in general is much too loud until the chorus. This sounds to me like your vocals haven't been properly compressed, along with your guitars.

Listening on speakers, they sound less thin than they had on my monitor headphones, but watch those high notes; I can feel you really reaching at points, sometimes overshooting or going flat. May check out some voice training by Ken Tamplin. Every issue you're having, intonation, overall volume, pitchy head voice/falsetto, his singing course addresses (and most of it can be found on YT, albeit more sparsely than in the DVD/online materials).

I can't tell if you're sitting or standing, but if you're sitting, definitely recommend standing to sing. It will make a huge difference in your air stream. Another few tips from the series -- you know how you laugh? From your belly, right? Breathe from there. Let your diaphragm, not your chest, drive your singing. Practice good posture, good tongue posture -- open up like the doc has you in his office with a tongue suppressor, so your singing resonates off of your palate -- if you're doing it right, it should make you feel like yawning -- and if you practice with scales, and I recommend you do, the staccato HAH-HAH-HAH-HAH method is the way to go.

This alone improved my singing in a single session, enough I feel the need to re-do every piece I've ever sung on tbh. You've got a good voice hiding under there. I can hear it peeking out. May be something to look into.

Now, writing here is pretty good; good chord progression, steady pacing, good variation of texture. Never too soft, never too hard. Guitars overall could stand to come up in the mix except for the naked section before 3:00.

Final chorus ends abruptly, bringing all the instrumentation back. I would have slowly pared it down to another naked vocal/guitar section. Bringing everything back is a signal, "We're going to have one last, long chorus," and then poof.

I will say the vocals, both written and delivered, sound very non-native to my ear -- BUT your chorus itself is viral. It's the verses that need more of a natural touch. As I was writing this review out, long after the song ended, it still hung in my head.

Overall, some minor gelling issues between synths and guitars, but otherwise I dig it.

Thanks for coming out to NGRMC!

TheMoebiusProject responds:

Thanks! Very helpful! This was done in only a day so yeah it is pretty rough. You are right about the vocals, Could have been better had I given it a little more detail and practice jaja I practically made it and recorded it as I went. Anyways, thanks for the review. Gonna make some adjustments and make it a full on song. Wish it does go viral :P.

[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!

[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 :)

[Supercell]

I nearly fainted when I thought I heard copyrighted Pendulum snare samples -- thank God I checked the reviews and it's just a sample pack.

This is crazy in a good way. My only complaint is slight sibilance, what sounds like really, really hard compression, and relatively no sub-bass to give those drums something to lock us into. I had to turn things down a bit to enjoy fully but still can't tell if that phantom pain in my left ear is from listening to this at 50% volume or not. These ATH-M40x's monitor headphones drive ridiculously hard and have a very flat response, no bass boost, so it's possible this may sound better on some commercial gear.

I'm actually listening on 8% volume right now and it's at the sweet spot between crisp and uncomfortably loud with that perc.

Compositionally, a great piece that keeps me guessing. I'm not a huge fan of the piano -- I could have gone for a more muted, foom-y lead with some delay, perhaps even an octave lower with higher octave doubled stab synths in places for effect. It would sound much more pensive and ominous. I do love the creative approach to sound design in general though.

That descending synth at 0:11 was pretty uncomfortably sibilant to me on my first listen. Maybe supplement it with a sine or ramp bass drop.

I think the piano leads may be a bit too loud, and perhaps that's why I'm not perceiving the bass as well. I took time for a second listen -- let's be honest, it still keeps me on my toes even after a third time through; you're very good with this, one reason of many I appreciate your genre switchups. Each time I noticed the piano leads, which don't really have an overarching melody, seemed even louder than the drums and bass combined. There's really nothing in that sonic space to compete with them either, so they seem doubly loud.

Other than that though, fantastic work. Congrats on the fp!

Quarl responds:

Woohoo, adr reviews!

Lol, 8% volume?? I must be deaf. I force myself to lower from max volume because my ears don't work that well and I dont want to make them worse. 8%, you ear saving person you.

It might be time I get some new cans. I've had the same AKGs for a number of years now. Id get some decent monitors but am currently living in an RV. The boyfriend and I will be getting a house soon though and 100 spare monitors will be the first things I buy.

Copy written Pendulum snares? They spam amen breaks, they dont own those fonts XD

[Sea of Love Tears 「恋水の海」]

That opening chord tho. Also, synths sound great there.

I could do without a lot of the reverb here -- cut low end, reduce wet signal, etc.

I'm impressed you managed to emulate the koto relatively convincingly. With a bit more humanization, modulation, and a less rigid gridded attack on each note, you might have me fooled. As is, it sounds like a pretty cool soundfont. You should definitely release a little preset file for us broke kiddos who can't afford giant sample libraries, heheh.

Compositionally, this is beautiful VGM/anime-grade music. Modulations in all the right places. Traditional flourishes. Dynamic contrast. It's great. The only real complaint I have is the slight lack of contrast between sections.

Otherwise, right up my alley, but I can definitely hear the time constraint in this piece. I was hoping for a solid B section in here. Still, gorgeous piece nonetheless.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

Tennon responds:

Thanks for the review, will consider those in my VIP track