ADR3-N's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Oh Brother [NGADM Round 2]]

I feel about this track essentially a mix between @creeperforce24's review and your own response to it. This has some truly exceptional moments which satisfy my ADHD brain. A revisit to instrument balance, clarity, and eq on some instruments and this would get close to a full ten from me though. I love the arrangement and colors chosen.

trixelbit responds:

I'm glad you enjoyed those high moments! I'll definitely be revisiting this to give her the proper TLC she needs to truly shine. Aside from mixing, there's ideas I want to further explore and refine here too.

I would also love to use this for a game, just need to find a good context for it.
A battle theme? Character theme? I'll need to ponder more 🤔

[Could've been something Neat...]

This is a great progression, and I love the synths -- Kawai K1v is actually one of my favorites.

Despite the short length I still think this is a worthwhile listen. I will be stoked to see if you ever turn it into a full track, so please ping me if and when! Great soundscape at the very end!

EppuJoloZ responds:

Thank you! The least I could do was to give it a clean mix so atleast this little dissapointing piece sounds great. We shall see where this thing'll head – will keep you informed!

[Zenology (NGADM - Round 2)]

I think the loudness is pretty much fine -- yes, it's brick-walled, but the majority of this genre is becoming that way. I think the fact that you established such clarity and balanced mix at this degree of loudness is pretty astounding.

At 1:26 however it is apparent there is just a bit too much compression; the sub is losing a bit of energy to the hard compression. I think just a slight amount less would help with the balance.

The various sections and changes in instrumentation throughout this track keep it interesting to listen to. Great work!

G2961 responds:

Thank you for your feedback! Yes, I totally agree that the mix is not the best, since my headphones broke, I had to use my terrible spare headphones. And sometimes I have such a problem that I hear that I did something wrong, but I can't fix it normally, because either my old laptop lagged so much (now I've built a computer with a Xeon E3 1240), or just bad headphones. It's not in vain that I've been looking for good headphones all this week.
Yes, to be honest, those headphones for $ 5-6 still do not suit me, since they have some kind of flat sound, or simply not enough high frequencies and bass. However, I had a very reduced budget.

[A Silent Mist]

Compositionally, this is a masterwork. Ranks among some of the best solo piano and vocal pieces I've ever heard.

However I have some similar comments about the vocals to @creeperforce24. They're mixed a bit like modern pop vocals at first, as opposed to, I guess this would be 80s piano ballad.

By that I mean, they could use manual de essing and some gentle treatment to roll off the highs.

It gets better as you go on, perhaps recorded in a different take with different position. Microphones are finnicky creatures.

But in general, the performance was wonderful overall, varied, emotional without sounding insincere. I think that's saying something!

Great song, great modulations, and great poetry. It doesn't get much better than this!

LucidShadowDreamer responds:

Wow, what amazing praise, thank you very much!

I agree (almost) completely with your points about the vocals. I have to get better at handling the mic for sure, but I suppose that'll come with experience, and following good advice ;)
Actually, I've got a slight lisp, so I'm pretty happy with the result, considering. I know it can be heard a bit in the end result, but I managed to get reasonably decent takes, overall. I did universally de ess a bit, but I probably should've paid more attention to individual lines, as you say!

I suppose the only comment I would have, is that I personally am not too much of a style purist (I know you're not either), so I think it can be okay to have a piece in a style of a certain era, with aspects from another, including in the mix. That said, I think in this case I wasn't able to achieve that smoothly enough! I need to get better at making the vocals sound intentional, both in the recording and mixing phase :)
I'll try some of your tips next time!

Btw, this has nothing to do with this composition, but I happened to notice you said "So I was advised it's best practice to normalize your audio to 0 dB headroom, just to make full use of the sonic space. If you've heard different, let me know." on CloakedSoup's submission. I am not secretly the alt account of CloakedSoup (fun as that conspiracy would be :O), but I thought I'd reply to that here anyway, as I've looked into it quite extensively.

I also agree that the standards that were recommended for different platforms didn't seem to stick so well, and the loudness war does seem to be over, with loud being the victor. All that said, in my understanding, mastering (/normalising) all the way to 0.0dB headroom can and does lead to issues in digital to analogue conversion (DAC), which is to say, especially older systems will produce artefacts and clipping if there is not a bit of headroom in the final version. -0.1dB will already reduce the risk a lot. If the mix is good though, the perceived loudness should already be pretty good even at -1.0dB though, which should be safe in almost any format. For that reason (amongst some other even more technical ones), although a 0.0dB master will indeed be the slightest bit louder, and work on many devices, I think it mightn't be good to expect that from all tracks, as they're at that point essentially guaranteed to sound bad on many systems. If the mix is good, it should work well regardless of that last decibel. Also, if one is listening to professionally produced tracks from many genres in the same sitting, I think the volume knob tends to see some action anyway ;)

Feel free to let me know your thoughts on this, as I secretly quite like to get into the technical aspects of music and sound quite a bit too <3

Thanks again for your uplifting review, it made me happy to read!

[FRACTURED]

Besides being a bit overbalanced IMO toward the ultra high treble frequencies, in part due to clipping and in part due to very fizzy synths and glass samples, I find this piece to be compelling. Particularly the drum solo in the middle. Very nice choice of chords, solid theme, and direction.

The sidechained synths in the final drop are just a tad loud, and I would like more bass/sub/snare presence, but overall, great work!

octaneuro responds:

Thanks for the criticism!
I'm pretty sure the reason for the mixing mistakes is because of my relatively-cheap headphones. I've been meaning to buy proper headphones for a while but I haven't due to being broke AF.

[Mr.Must3rd; ID 3 (NGAUC)]

Says it's over for him. Hooks me from the first chord.

While there are some gripes I know I'm going to have here, like a low master level, I'm excited to hear what you bring to the table as I write.

Things are getting a little sibilant by 50 seconds. I would watch that you don't get too sucked into the "everything must be crispy" bait as you mix. Often without realizing it, we can go ear dead and not realize we are adding too much high end to compensate for levels being off elsewhere. For instance, the sub throughout is quite low imo; I'm not hearing much of it in the center channel, but rather bass synths spread out left and right, which are over balancing it (I know you're there, sub line, because I can hear you at 3:01!)

The kick, bass, and snare should be very present in the mix, in that order. Hi-hats as virtually the only thing in their frequency range can afford to be much quieter than we think. Here, they are louder than the leads and bass at times. This is where having professional references in your genre can really help. Take one and pull it down to the same volume as your finished track. Strive to emulate the balance you hear in every way possible.

Beyond that, this is a great, driving track. I'd put it on a cyberpunk/midtempo playlist in a heartbeat. Keep doing EVERYTHING you are doing in that arena, composition and sound design. You are absolutely on point there. And don't get me twisted. This is a bop!

MrMusterd responds:

heck yeah!!! thank you a lot man! ill keep the sub thing in mind as I mix with VERY bass heavy cans.... though I should have used more reference tracks to compensate. thanks for the advice, as I've said this stuffs gold to me! always good to have another ear! :>

[Breathing Glitch]

Interesting choice of synths and arrangement, though it is a slowburner in terms of development!

I think your cymbals could afford to come down just slightly. As the only thing in that space, they are taking my focus away from other elements of the track. The bass consequently can afford to come up. The levels in the sparse arrangement at 1:31 are slightly mid heavy.

Your overall production is alien and ethereal, owing to that distorted theremin line. I would have appreciated a bit more wetness and splash here. It sounds comparatively dry and empty, despite the clear use of distortion, saturation, and delays elsewhere.

Certainly very interesting sound design and bold choices all around though. Nice work!

mjattie responds:

Thanks, I was going for a weird vibe. Agree with your feedback, appreciate it!

[A Marriage Of Convenience]

Great FX on that opening guitar, and nice spread. Wide without feeling inorganic. Synth choice is also great.

I have a little bit of gripes on hihat and cymbal eq/FX. The cymbals jump in and out, particularly in the right channel. I would apply more compression or otherwise manually control for slightly less dynamic range on the cymbals. The big crashes are too loud on the right, and the rest are about appropriate. You could also roll off a small amount of highs or alternatively, bring them up BUT turn the cymbal volume down.

I would also prefer a bit of stereo slapback on the hat and a bit more of a far-off feel. In general, the drums are quite up front, while the composition, synths, and vocal performance lend themselves to a bit of bombastic, epic, far off percussion. You might take a reference of something like Opeth, Nightwish, etc. -- particularly Nightwish, and see if you can experiment with emulating that balance.

I'd also like a louder and less dynamic master. The peaks of the waveform make for a lot of dynamic jumping around, particularly on heavy percussion sections with a lot of drive. The kick stands out well, perhaps a bit too well, as it sounds to be the lead instrument at 1:20 or so. The bass could stand to come up on larger sections and give some more fullness here. If you were to manage the kick and cymbals, you could probably afford to push the master harder.

Overall, you are improving by leaps and bounds each time I hear you. Wonderful vocal delivery, strong songwriting, and playing that is tight and controlled. Great work!

Mischa-head responds:

Thank you for the really helpful feedback! I was definitely trying to channel a bit of Nightwish with this one.

[Kuebiko, Pt.1 [NGUAC '24 FINALS]]

28 seconds in that downlifter or static sample is a bit high in the mix for me, but once you hit the drop, everything sits really nice in its place. I still might take it down a little but this tells me that it's got to be the master compression doing levels a little dirty. Under time constraints I definitely understand a little rough around the edges.

Great bass design. I probably would not stereo spread out your basses so low in the register. Generally 120 hz is where I cut off due to phasing issues that chorus and widening causes.

The switch at 2:17 is beautifully executed and that sound design is quite interesting.

How many basses did you layer on the drop?

Kz-N responds:

on both drops there are 6 unique basses, although it honestly mostly sounds like 3 or 4 because most of the time theyre stacked, also im not sure if maybe its an mp3 encoding issue but i everything <=115hz should be mono, but anyway thank you very much for your feedback, i really appreciate it!

[the city we dreamt]

I really enjoy the arrangement, choice of FX, and lyrical composition of this piece.

Something is off on the vocal mix. It has some very harsh T and S sounds, which, while tamed for the most part, still stick out against the instrumental. Also, there are some boomy plosives not tamed -- a manual hi-pass on those syllables of p, b, and so on will help rid the vocal of these; they are causing it not to sit as well as it could. In general, I think balancing away from the low end of the vocal, pushing it back a bit and actually giving more to the wet signal on it (sidechaining ofc to the vox) will help enmesh them.

In short, I would further de-ess the vocal, and to compensate also thin it out on the EQ. Performing at a quieter volume at this intimate mic distance, aiming for airy, scratchy, vocal fry may also assist.

The swallow and mouth noises also took me out of my element pre-drop.

I was disappointed that the song only lasted 3 minutes. I would have liked to hear that final drop repeat. However I would pull the key synths down slightly, as well as the organ/sustained pads, and again add a bit more air on the vocal. Some tonal separation on those EQs would do much good.

Otherwise I enjoyed it. Good work!

kiiri responds:

will keep working on my vocals! thanks for the detailed review :D