ADR3-N's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Kalais]

Really not liking the almost atonal, random piano and strings going on here. The progression feels neither here nor there. HOWEVER, the drums are pretty well spliced. Love me some breakbeat. Panning is what takes all the fun out of it for me though, and I'm not really able to enjoy the track. Outro and intro are also strange. Sounds like two decent pieces unfortunately laid atop one another.

sapoman responds:

One of my big influences is Aphex Twin. If you get them, you get me. Thanks for the review!

-PS Random? It is a clear progression to me.

[Cs - 'Ambistep']

Those bells are really harsh in the higher octave at the beginning. They are however a nice foundation melodically for your intro. Your drum loop is absolutely killing my attention span, and that pad is far too loud, however. Your drums should cut through your piece just slightly -- enough to drive it rather than stand on top of it. To accomplish this, make sure you compress them well and get a solid sound that doesn't bleed everywhere when you apply FX to it. Believe me, you will want to use FX.

Volume leveling and compression is your biggest issue here. It makes an already so-so track sound very imbalanced and slightly boring. Bring that pad into balance with the rest of your track. As open spaced as the arrangement is, we WILL hear it! ;)

Overall, this would be a much more interesting and satisfying piece if mixed better with an overarching melody rather than just harmony and arps. It ends up sounding more like a backing track and less like a competition piece!

Csucskos responds:

Thank you for your opinions. And I have to say this was my whole target when I entered the contest. Getting opinions of other people.
I believe that in music: Familiar=Friendly=Safe=Good and Unknown=Strange=Scary=Bad. Because I have been listening to this track for quite a long time, it has been familiar to me. So I thought it is a quite nice piece and good for the competition. I had some doubts about the track so I entered to the Death Match with this piece to get further advices how to improve it. (And I didn't count on winning.)
All in all thank you for the tips. I am now working on this piece to improve it. EQed a little, but not too familiar with compression so that needs more researching. Lowered the overall volume and hopefully balanced the pads, the drums and everything. The pads and the bells were the main "melody" resources so this is the reason they were harsh. So added a new quite strange melody line. Maybe it will fix most issues. Not too sure about adding a chorus because of the slow pace of the song, but would love to hear your opinion.

[The old World]

The analog sounding synth in the beginning is fine to my ears. Reminds me of some older pieces I used to listen to. This percussion is just not working for you though. It's practically without rhythmic center, and does not help the relative melodic center of the piece progress. Rather than supporting the structure of the track, it divides it.

However, I do like your use of FX. Without it, this track would be relatively unlistenable for me. As an experiment, it's interesting, but melodically, compositionally, and sonically, it's just not doing it for me. That being said, if you ever need a constructive/critical review, hit me up.

SlaughterClub responds:

i AM NOTSAYING its the best track in the world but ...( rhythmic center, ) relative melodic center your use of FX. sonically theses are probley the reason you do like it LOL

[Rex: Origins Rap]

Your verses are perfect, and the mix sounds great on speakers, but it falls flat on headphones, which is weird. Usually that's the other way around. Your flow is standing out above the instrumental, which is good, but that mix is very raw and flat. Needs a lot of doctoring with EQ, compression, etc., in order to sound good.

What you've proved with this piece is that you don't need fancy VSTs to make entertaining pieces though, so full stars for effort, minus half for upload quality and mastering. Really was torn on giving you a higher score, but for the reasons mention in TaintedLogic's review, quality dragged it down.

That said, if you can make this your gig, master it better, and take yourself seriously enough to do it well, I see a bright future.

Kwing responds:

Thanks! I allowed my rapping ability to go way beyond my knowledge of audio mastering so I guess it's no surprise I got a critique like this.

[flap]

I realize this is a chaotic mood piece. While not entirely avant garde, as it does have some elements of traditional chordal music, I still am not able to assess which feelings you are conveying with this piece, and it all sort of mashes together, stock loops, incomprehensible intro, wacky tail, and all.

The eq on that kick, as well as the electric guitar synth are ear piercingly treble-y in my ears, which lends a lot of the piece to sounding less like art/thought and more like slapdash. It just doesn't sound musical to me. As a fan of a lot of musics which are deliberately unmusical in order to convey feeling, I think that should mean something. Of course, music is subective.

Beyond that, my own thoughts could be summed up pretty much verbatim with TaintedLogic's review. What put me off most with this track was the jumble of seemingly incoherent thoughts. That may have been what you wanted to convey, but it was an unpleasant acid trip for my ears. Perhaps I'm just missing the point.

With music, in general, you want to at the very least consider that your audience can relate to what you're trying to say in some fashion. Otherwise your music becomes virtually meaningless to everyone but you. Since music is a form of communication, this is sort of the undesirable equivalent of tooting one's own horn a little too hard, and we can stroke our own egos to the point we think this is what we're supposed to do all the time. Always question if your expression is going to be remotely understood, and if it's worth sacrificing intelligibility to ignore what the mind subconsciously expects.

That said, if you want a review, PM me any time!

xxxZigZagxxx responds:

Ouch, ouch, ouch. Well, I guess it takes a couple reviews (or 5) like this for me to realize maybe what I was making wasn't as fun, great or revolutionary as I'd thought. This'll still be fun for me to listen to, but I suppose it won't be fun for most others. I tend to like music that represents a jumble of incoherent thoughts, but I'm probably the incredibly small minority, I suppose? I've always tried to make music that makes me happy and hope it resonates with others, but I suppose this one didn't. There really aren't people who enjoy music like this except me, I guess... and I suppose there's the possibility where I'm so blinded by the fact that this is my own work that I can't recognize that if it were someone else who made it I would almosg projectile vomit? I hope that's not the case because then, if so, how can I rely on my own judgement of my own work at all, especially the judgement needed to edit your own work on the fly? Scary thoughts. Anyways, I appreciate your opinion as well as the other judges' opinions, and if anything it allows me to appreciate the fact that even if it resonates with me, it may not resonate with others. It's just frightening to think that I may be near entirely blind.

However, it may comfort you or surprise you to know that a vast majority of my work is based on melodic and chordal harmony rather than dissonance. This is a step out of norm for me, something I used to be proud about... I suppose now I can just be privately proud instead. :)

Cheers
Zig Zag

[Some Loop 01]

Interesting, but not really what I would call a song. The bass is not really in sync. Also not sure what's going on with the piano, but at the least, it's an idea. If there were drums or some other progressive elements and more material, I'd give a higher score.

BraydenGD responds:

Heeeeey it's EDM364!
It's not really good since I used a horrible DAW for this (Soundtrap). I might make a remake of this tune one day if I have the motivation to, since school and crap is in the way, and I have 1 odd week left of it.

Thanks for the review and criticism, really appreciate it.

[F*** you]

Nice concept. Preset instruments were not the greatest. Mixing was okay.

SimpleCubic1497 responds:

thanks i'll work on these....NUTS! ok sorry i'll work on the instruments..
thanks for feedback

[Procyon Assault | Finnsfolks]

Short but cool. My only complaint is the drum samples sequenced hide just a bit in the mix. The loop is flawless, and the mix is suitably loud. As for dubstep, it could have a bit more wobbling, but otherwise, I enjoyed the listen!

Finnsfolks responds:

Thank you. I should say that I intended it to be short for the sake of being looped to follow the original. And I called it dubstep for two reasons: 1) Tempo, and 2) this may get another version soon where I make it a full song. But until then, I'm glad you enjoyed this one. :)