ADR3-N's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Like a Funk Machine]

Nice to see another mixcraft 10 user out in the wild. I don't have the time to leave a uber detailed review, but I wanted to say this is really catchy. What stops me from leaving a full 5 is the track appears unmastered, for one, and the levels of different instruments are a bit off, including some of the panning.

The kick and snare, as well as the bass for at least some of the track should be centered. Otherwise, things are going to feel quite unbalanced. Hihats and other instruments like being spread out, but on most speakers moving the bass around creates phase issues, or just doesn't sound as pleasant.

Your breaks also should be nice and loud, followed by your bass.

Then there are issues where the high freqs are a bit over pronounced. I know you said you're a deaf musician in your tags so I get it if you have severe tinnitus (I do too)

Maybe send your tracks to a friend for their thoughts on balance and EQ, or find a reference and try to match it by eye and ear? There has to be a way. I know Andrew Huang adjusted his monitor headphones with an EQ to compensate for his complex hearing loss.

Anyway, nice little groove. Keep doing what you do!

music69012 responds:

Thank you so much for commenting on this song, I really appriciated it and I also love the comment and what needed improving.

Yes, I am deaf, but wears hearing aids which is a slight problem with it. But I have just got a new plugin that can read the eq and also improve the sounds a little more better.

I can't wait to release a new project which is it upcoming soon! (no matter what, if i got through or not) I will already love to release new music and get good ideas on what should I do next.

The next project I am working on which I don't want to give a spoiler but can give you a genre. Cyberpunk style.

See you next time!

Feisty Fennekin

[Why Do They Build The Walls Like That?]

The master could be louder, and the vocal could stand to be more present overall, along with the rhythm guitar, but the playing, delivery, and treatment on the production is great. A little Youtube university on cleaning up mix mud and mixing in-your-face will solve 110% of that.

Overall I felt the mix/master was a bit muffled and held back but certainly an improvement from your previous works. Fantastic to hear you grow and change as an artist <3

92/100

Mischa-head responds:

Thank you!

[Remember To Stretch]

The quality of instruments selected combined with mixing decisions and quiet master prevents me from being able to give this a great score. It's a good piece melodically and in terms of structure. With a good mix, the instrument quality wouldn't even be an issue, since there are plenty of videogame songs that use such instrumentation.

I will say if you're going to have lots of repeat notes, you can stand to use velocity modulation to differentiate them.

I won't go too far into the details of what can be done to mix this better. That can be done via Youtubing -- lots of free education out there to get you on your way. What I will say is that the hihats and cymbals should be somewhat offset from the kick and snare, the kick and snare should be centered, and perhaps add a bit of reverb to the kit overall to help it mesh with the rest of the instrumentation. The bass should also be centered and at or near mono, and quite a bit louder.

The illusion of space can be achieved by taking your rhythm synths and pads, finding patches that sound similar, and panning them slightly separate from one another in opposite chanels.

Besides that, not bad!

66/100

ZuwerWS responds:

Thanks for the review, I'm kind of shocked you still gave it a higher score than I would, I know the mixing is really bad here, since there's basically none present, just some basic audio leveling, disabling or lowering some specific frequencies, and that's about it. I'm glad you liked the melody though, I still think it's my best composition that I did for jamuary.

[『The Final Destiny』]

The guitar and bass articulations in your intro are somewhat unnatural and overtly synthy, and I would recommend reducing pick noise if possible to compress and bring up your intro melody. The mix overall has a lot of low frequency noise from reverb wet signals leading into your build, and I think the vinyl noise could be tamed.

When we reach the drop, neither the sub bass, nor the side-chained color/pads are clear, and the bass is both quite busy and panned side to side every other note. Because we retain a lot of the same elements from the intro, it lacks a sense of progression/awe, despite none of the elements being very bad at all.

Your approach to panning the hihats and drums on the verse leaves the center feeling pretty empty, though it is unique.

The following build is where things get interesting, but again the reverb must be tamed, and I recommend subtle sidechain here.

The 2nd drop also suffers from the same issues as the first, but add to that that the drums are too far stereo spread, especially the snare, which is panned to the left. Only the braahms or saws maintain presence in the center, when I think it should be the other way around. I feel as if despite wearing headphones, I'm sitting across the room from a sound system because of this.

The track would have much more power if you were to put the kick and snare in the center, sidechain and otherwise cut down those reverbs, and bring the bass into mono below 200 hz.

Sound design wise nothing is bad at all. Your arrangement, drop cadence, structure, and melodies are all good! What harms this piece is being overly stereowidened. I can hear the characteristic phase all over the master. So despite being loud in terms of waveform, it sounds quiet and far away.

Drop 3 and 4 also suffer the same way as earlier.

Something else that is uniformly happening on all of your drops is, the color noise and rhythm synths are much louder than they should be, and verb is all over the place.

In order of loudness, you should have kick, bass, snare, rhythm synths, lead, cymbals, pads, and hihats. The difference between the kick, bass, and snare relative to the rest is going to shock you, as they should be the absolute loudest, and the rest differ slightly less in volume as you go down the list. I wish I could explain this better, but I would have to give you a reference. I'm sure there is something in my own work that I could think of off the top of my head, but you would be probably better off selecting your own genre reference, something you really enjoy.

Overall, this is a fantastically written and nicely varied piece which despite the mountains of critique and gripes with mix I had I certainly enjoyed listening to, especially that kick frenzy at the end which reminded me a bit of terrorcore lol. No matter what, keep making music, and don't let anyone's comments get to you. You're a star <3

71/100

paranoidkid2580 responds:

I forgot to reply this lol

but tyty

[Less is More (Cambio)]

The overall sound profile of this is pretty mid and low mid heavy, with lots of reverb noise that can be cut (low frequencies can distract from the finer details of your mix where you actually want the listeners' attention). I recommend some study of mixing and production through YT university if you catch my drift for your favorite genres.

The spacing of your percussion is also not what I'm used to hearing from cinematic tracks. It's certainly very wide and spacious, but I would generally not recommend spacing out toms what sounds to be 70-80% like it's the 50's-70's. This is a technique I only generally see in N64 soundtracks (occasionally) in modern years and can be a bit jarring.

Your track also ends somewhat abruptly.

The melodic elements however are well enough developed. I would suggest some study of song structures from your genre of choice for spacing, as I did not feel a strong sense of progression to a climax, or an ebb and flow of energy so to speak.

However I do laud you for the unique approach to every aspect of the song. This shows attention to detail and emotional attachment to what you're doing -- pride and a sense of care for your work!

Overall, 66/100

Good work!

DaxCamdaxian responds:

You seem to be a person who knows a lot about technique and music production, I have noticed that many musicians and people that know about how to mix and stuff tend to be very blunt with their comments towards songs that are mixed with experimentation and innovation in mind, your criticism is completely valid and I really appreciate that you have taken the time to analyze my song... but I think you criticize it from a very technical angle, very square, and I don't like that, i think we are missing a point here

[Wanna Be With You Dear]

Shreddage is one of my favorite E guitar synths.

Some things I would recommend, spreading out your guitars more -- double-tracking the rhythm with the A and B options in Shreddage, and panning them 100% L and R respectively with slightly different amps or cabs. This will help create an illusion of space.

The mix and arrangement somewhat harms the feeling of space, despite nothing being terribly wrong with your E guitars. Having used Shreddage for 10 years I can identify the single notes in the high octaves chugging along at slightly different velocities. I think more FX was needed there, more modulation. I can easily identify repeat notes, and it sounds a bit naked and clean. Sounds balanced slightly more to the left channel.

That said the arrangement is great, it just sounds like a few of the guitars are out of balance, either hiding in the mix, not doubled, or just slightly too loud without having been panned strongly enough. Other than that I have no complaints.

Also, the master is very quiet for such an energetic and happy track!

Otherwise, great work!

78/100

ValerianWitch responds:

I only been doing rock and related music relatively recently so there's still stuff I have to learn about it. Thanks for the kinds words and feedback.

[One Btn Bosses: Revolution Resolution]

crazy good composition and olskool videogame feel, hampered only by percussion samples at points sounding weird, namely cymbals. They sound almost... flanged or chorused somehow. Really weird feeling.

Recommend bringing up kick and snare and reevaluating space in the mix versus your favorites out of this genre. Reference, reference, reference.

Wonderful composition though. Might be the best I've heard all day, and I've been judging for a while!

ComposerEvans responds:

Thank you very much for your constructive criticism! I'll take some of these points into consideration.

Glad to hear you liked it! :)

[Out of Place]

These are my shortnotes from NGADM judging -- and before you read them, I want to say besides that, this song is friggin fantastic! Great emotion, great vocal performance, atmosphere, and groove!

----

vocal could use more crisp
hihat needs to come down, it's the loudest aspect of the mix and sounds too clean relative to the rest of the mix
bass can come up a bit and have more presence
snare could use a bit crisp in the 5k-8k range
bridge has REALLY dirty mix with rhythm guitar suddenly way too heavy in left channel

----

Those are the entirety of my gripes. Besides that, perfect!

Ajtastic responds:

Thanks for the feedback! I appreciate it! :)

[NGUAC2024 - Elimination]

That section around 3 minutes is crazy good writing -- what a lead riff!

With a more professional mix and master, this would make a solid 4.5 out of 5 for me. Since this is not my primary genre, I won't spend too long explaining, but essentially, what I'm hearing is a fantastic demo track. From the waveform, we see that it is not mastered, and the distrubution of volume is somewhat uneven.

In general, the drums are hard to hear throughout with the exception of the hihat which is a little too loud. The bassline could also benefit from more volume and presence. It sort of hides throughout as well. Leads and samples tend to be very pronounced to compensate for the loud hihats. Besides a few samples really jumping out in terms of volume, it otherwise isn't bad. It's just quiet.

Snare in particular really hides in the mix with few exceptions. It seems to be intentionally turned down at points like 2:20.

Great writing, great ideas. Was a real pleasure to listen to!

MutatedBacon responds:

Thank you for the feedback!
Yeah I was touching up this track when I was on vacation, which is probably why the mix is so sloppy. I'll use the points you made to revise it!

[~Time~]

My main gripes with this piece are vocal performance and vocal mix, and reverb mixing decisions. The vocal is not very present in the center, sounds like it needs to be de-essed manually or via plugin, and is not very uniform in volume. It also is somehow out of tune on lower notes with the instrumental. Whether this is because of detuning of the synths or otherwise, it's noticeable for me.

The vocal additionally may have sounded better with a doubled higher octave.

Lyrically, I'm having a hard time understanding the vocals, partly due to mix, partly due to what sounds like cramming the lyrics into an unusual (for those words) rhythm. This is somewhat common in trance so I'm willing to forgive it!

The bass also due to the level of compression, lots of reverb, and arrangement also does not shine as well as it could. I recommend reducing the level of reverb and reducing the low-mids of the reverb itself through hi-pass/lo-cut, changing the arrangement of your piano (the chords in the low register are a bit muddy), and potentially even changing out those keys for another instrument entirely.

Are those nexus keys?

Basically my entire review could be summed up to, good ideas hampered by a muddy mix. Still, the melody is catchy, and I love this genre. Really takes me back. Keep up the good work!

7.2

ImmyShack responds:

Finally, some actual criticism!

Other than adding an EQ (vocal preset from EQUO) to boost the high ends I haven't changed anything in the vocal.

The lyrics are nonsense, hence why I didn't add them in the description. Just what Dooky Mackey (credited writer) had been drinking?!

The piano preset comes from nexus, I wrote a double octave piano to add background in the bridge between lead section #1 and vocal section #2.

I'll see what I can do, thanks.