ADR3-N's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[The Big Bad Beastlands]

If the mix on this were fixed, it would 100% bang. As is, the hihats and cymbals are quite loud, the kick is hard to hear, and the snare is just barely peeking out. Beyond that, the elements in the mid-mid and low-mid could stand to be pulled out to the sides a bit to differentiate between near-notes. The horns uniformly sound like they're all balanced to the right, particularly.

I'm having a hard time hearing the bass and rhythm chugs.

Besides the mix and the twirly sounding attacks/releases on your horns occasionally trailing over each other unpleasantly, I think the writing of this piece is great.

I would turn up the master and see what could be done to clean it up besides. Good work!

6.6/10

Kman465 responds:

Yeah... I am a very rookie mixer. I’ve been trying to put in some more effort into it but growing pains and all that jazz. I got a long way to go I suppose. Haha

Thanks for the listen! I appreciate the feedback!

[Chunky's Song]

This somehow manages to have a lot of vibe despite the mix being close to destroyed. I would go back and clean it up, because it would make a smacking album intro or interlude. Extra half-star for personal preference. Sorry I don't have much else to say, just needs a revisit on the mix!

BlazeLOGC responds:

oh for sure, this was thrown together really in one sitting and I was more focused on the composition. 100% agree on the mix and thanks for the kind words!

[Nekomaton]

Mix is dirty as all get out, but your writing and transitions make up for this. You combine several electronic styles flawlessly in this piece. My advice would be to pull down the intensity of all your wet FX on average by 25% (except chorus -- you handled chorus quite well throughout)

What's going on in this mix is that reverb wet signal has too much low freqs in it, is too high up, delays are ringing out a bit too long with similar issues, colorized wet signals are giving their typical tin-can feeling and clouding the mid and lo-mids. You could also pan and spread these freqs more carefully for more spatial movement.

But in terms of composition, you're killing it!

EQ wise, more can be done to make room for your bass and rhythm synths. Sidechain too.

Besides, amazing work. 8/10

CloudNinja responds:

This is actually the best advice I have ever gotten since now I know what the actual problem is when it comes to mixing in some of my songs lol
You might have just solved a big problem.

[Aperture]

This song is a pretty crazy journey. In terms of structure, it's got it going on! Taking its sweet time without ever getting old, and that's an accomplishment!

My complaints are few and very specific. I would reduce volume of reverb on hi-hats and make it more subtle. Same with other percs. Kick could come up in volume slightly. Bass could stand to take more presence in the mix, and metallic percs less.

Master could also be louder

At points this sounds like very laid back mid-tempo cyberpunk style music, which I love.

At 10:22 there is one pop that I'm unsure if you wanted there. Sounds like an un-faded zero crossing from a sample clip entrance. That transition there could also use some smoothing.

The following lead I would turn down slightly and ping-pong delay harder into the left channel. It's also panned a bit far right. Not sure about the accidental shift at 11:33 into a new mode and out of the current key. It just doesn't sound right. And by accidental I don't mean unintentional. I mean what appears to be a raised 3rd on top of a 1st inversion chord, if I can remember how to talk about that correctly after 10 years out of school LOL

Sounds like parallel 5ths at 13 minutes, not sure how to react to that either. I feel a bit seasick ahahaha.

But for a 14 minute piece with otherwise clean transitions and writing, all is forgiven. Keeping up a groove that long is a straight up challenge!

8.3/10

BlighterProductions responds:

Hey dude, thanks for all the tips, and for your lengthy review. Also thanks for the 8.3, holy shit, first NGADM submission I’ve ever done and I get a score like that.

I’m a little surprised that I apparently managed to make a 14 minute track interesting without it ever getting stale.

I don’t really understand the term parallel 5th’s, if you could give me some clarification on that, that would be helpful.

Further on, thanks for the awesome comment.

[Five Nights at Freddy's]

It sounds like a lot of unrelated melodic ideas mashed into a single song, and I also hear characteristic Suno AI vocals, with intonations on the wrong parts of sentences and emotion sorta off-key.

I'm not sure how you managed to extract them semi cleanly, but Suno vocals just sound really gross to my ears, no offense. As someone who uses AI vox of my own creation via Replay AI and singing them myself, I understand the draw to pre-made AI vocals that sound basically already mixed and essentially write the melodies themselves. It just doesn't sound natural on serious material. Maybe for a funny meme it might work, but for a scary intense FNAF song, they aren't doing it!

The bass throughout this song seems to hold the same note no matter what is going on around it. I recommend learning some song structuring and chord progressions in order to make things more interesting.

I wish I had more nice things to say about this track. The mix is not too bad, for instance. It's just that to me, none of the other elements really seem to be coming together to give it vibe and groove. Definitely recommend going back to the drawing board and studying your genre of choice, which looks like dubstep, and seeing what makes it work!

CompXsco responds:

the only real reason i used SunoAI for vocals is I cannot sing for the life of me. if i could of chosen a different song, i would've used a song without vocals. thanks for the feedback tho, maybe if i'm invited to another one of these things, i will take this into account.

[STAR POWER]

I know you can get more crisp on that mix this day and age! The one drawback of 90s rap is the vocal mix spread, lack of thump, and layering of samples.

I'd like to hear more of that string loop in the back as you hear at 2:43, a louder master, more of that bass, and more punch on the kick and snare -- can make that happen in Pancz (free percussion processor)

The vocal mixes sound like they're done with dynamic cardiod mics -- the kind you see on a karaoke bar. The mix on them is pretty dirty, heavy on the 150 hz range, and could use cleaning in something like RX10 before processing through the vox chain. All 3 vocals suffer from this muddy quality and could use stronger, more impassioned performance. However, I will say you got the vibe of the 90s right with this. It just happens to be one of my least favorite things about 90s rap LOL.

The bass at times clashes with another element in the organs or guitars, I can't tell which, but it could be fixed surgically by hi-passing other elements to sit just-so on top of it.

Flow sounds like a freestyle in terms of delivery and as such can be hard to follow, but lyrically it is witty on all accounts. "Vanilla off the balcony" is a particularly hard OOF that jumps out if you know your artist history.

All in all I'd give a 8.2/10, but for personal preference I'm voting 4.5 ;)

HvCMiniRayzor responds:

love and appreciate da feed back and honesty, but also thanks for lending an ear. we defiently wanted a more raw feel, like listenin to a fucked up cassette from that time but I for sure feel u when it comes wanting a better mix 💀, and im surprised u understood the mindset of the sound for da time as well.☮♥🎴

[The King]

That intro feels like we stepped into the 70s for a sec, and then into reggae lol.

Recommendations -- more kick volume, mono-ize and center bass, applying uniform compression to it. It sounds like compression is a bit hard on the master, causing the leads and other instruments to blow out of proportion when there is no bass or other elements. Very little dynamic contrast to this piece.

Interesting FX however. That's probably the best part of this piece.

I would swap to a more dynamic ride cymbal. The attack is machinegunning a bit and not quite breathing with the rest of this psychedelic piece. Alternatively you can apply filters or modulations to it, gates and etc to approximate hit variation.

Other than that, cool piece!

6.8/10

CielOuvert responds:

Thank you. There are terms mentioned here I have absolutely no idea what is. Mono-ize? Dynamic contrast?

But I'll look into them, always looking to become better.

[0i00 - 1.5life]

No issue with the title. A title is a title :)

Nice transition into 46 seconds

Mix is a bit boomy/гудит немножко. Думаю, из-за слишком много реверберации. Надо резать низкие частоты ревера чтобы сохранять баланс.

Мелодическая основа трека очень приятная. Драма есть, четкие темы и конкретные идеи, and excellent choice of leimotifs. Very well written.

The only aspect where this track falls short are mix and master, which are best studied by one's self and not from a NG review -- but I have a channel I found which you may appreciate, in Russian no less -- Звукарь Бомбит. Канал очень хорошо описивает обычные проблемы в мастеринге/смешивании на русском яызке. Думаю что поможет))

Извини за то, что много раз сменила язык в процессе писания отзыва. Я чувствовала себя как будто английский и русский физически боролись за место в мозге, пока я обдумывала комментарий.

7.6/10

zeroizerozero responds:

Спасибо огромнейшее за полезный отзыв и рекомендации! Полагаю, этот канал как раз то что мне очень поможет

В тебе боролись два волка... хаха)

[It Does Not Die]

Writing wise, this is great!

In terms of drums and guitar synths, I would say you've 100% outgrown the ones you currently have. Today there are free alternatives for drums you can use such as Krimh (free ver), although if you don't have Kontakt and you're willing to work with a multisampler, I released a free metal drum kit or two called Take My Cymbals and Saudade Drums Remastered respectively. I also write a magazine for free production resources every month.

Now back to the song itself, the cymbals are quite loud relative to the mix. The kick and snare, as well as bass, could all come up substantially. The rhythm guitar should be properly double-tracked left and right, and you could do with a better sounding amp on it as well. There are free ones available such as Liver6, Stevie T Amped, and Grindmachine -- the 1.0 and 2.0 should be somewhere lying around on the internet.

Now, to double track that guitar you'll need a different synth instance playing the same or similiar midi. Otherwise it'll sound jank. But the idea is 2 guitars playing the same line, one perhaps humanized/quantized just slightly off -- and each hardpanned one to the left 100% and one to the right 100%.

Regarding bass, it doesn't really matter that much whether you use a synth bass or something free like Ample Metal Ray. What does matter is that it is supporting the guitar part excellently and just a little quieter than them so as not to stick out like a sore thumb. There are some free amps for these as well but they are hard to find in my experience.

Beyond mix, stellar work. This reminds me a lot of the work of @Lashmush in his early years -- an amazing talent at the time only limited by his tech. He was one of my favorite artists years ago (still is), and gave me an appreciation for this kind of sound. I have high hopes for your development in the years to come. Keep it up!

6.7/10

TrandafirTeodora responds:

Thank you very much for the review!
This is my first time trying to mix properly, so the feedback is appreciated!

[Night City Lights]

I was nervous when I heard that N64 WaveRace sounding slap bass, but this is interesting for sure. I think something is going on with your perc. The beat wants to swing, but the perc doesn't sound like it's on board.

If you want to make Vaporwave, I recommend studying Nu Jack Swing or 90s pop R&B production. Will make a big difference.

This beat sounds a bit cluttered to me, and at points that brass synth is going out of key. Recommend simplifying the arrangement a bit and refining the volume levels of each instrument such that the kick and snare stick out appropriately.

I do like your transitions and choice of vocal sample :)

6.5/10

Lunar48 responds:

Thanks you for your recommendations :3333333333333