ADR3-N's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[The Art of Staying Calm]

This is pretty fantastic. Man, I would love to get a hold of this and lay something down over it. Would love to know any equipment, virtual amps, etc. Just sounds great.

RobSoundtrack responds:

Thanks man! Some old stuff but i really wish i finished this out with vocals i had laid out.
2012?
I think i was using the Engl E530 preamp, into the back of a bogner power section, into a eminence 1x12, into sm57?
Guitar was probably Ibanez rg7320 with dimarzios.

Kinda convoluted, feel free to msg me if this is not even what you were asking lol

[ENtrance - Belgrade (Original Mix)]

This would be a fantastic mix if the mid and high around 4-10k were not so pumped up. Bring those down and my heart will be happy. Also, watch distortion on that piano part, or just distortion, period. There seems to be a little of it going on.

ENtrance93 responds:

https://soundcloud.com/mindlifting-records/entrance-belgrade-original-mix-preview

Thank you sir :)

[Soular Order]

This is pretty dope stuff. Probably would fit better in hip-hop though. It sounds like really laid back trap music. No real complaints here except I wish the sub bass were a bit louder and a bit more kick to it. Good work!

AnubisInc responds:

Yeah I understand that. Hip Hop people tell me that this sound isn't Hip Hop enough to be in the genre, and I get the same from EDM people, so I just post it as whatever lol.

[unconventional]

Interesting to start off. Sounds like engines warming up, sirens, etc. at the beginning, then -- woah, such pretty noises at 30 seconds. You won me. This just sounds dirty, filthy... I want to know what went into this, what DAW, what VST, and Christ, if I own them, I want a preset, to see what we're playing with here lol. That sounds like a lot to ask.

1:00 is intriguingly gentle, with those reverse vocals, calming, before returning to that nice gritty, glitchy feel. I really like it. I feel that chorusy (delay?) effect took away from the silky death that was going on here though. Sounded good on headphones but my monitors didn't like it quite as much. Kind of drowned out your perc -- or just sat on top or beneath it.

Interesting stuff!

XEFSketch responds:

Thanks for the feedback!

As far as your questions:

The daw is FLStudio, VST's: mostly harmor and massive. Presets in massive are pretty simple just using band-reject filters on wavetables crude, melofantic, scrap-yard and sonic to get a mouthy-like sound. Growling sounds mainly focus on the midrange when it comes to "articulating" a raw gnarly sound. I also made sounds in massive, recorded them in edison and re-sampled them in harmor using a Hz-unison of 9 to get a liquidy sound. I just play around with resynthesizing a lot. Other effects that add to the mouthy-like sound are phasing and chorus.

The vocals were granualized and stretched out, the reason they sound quiet and displaced is I wanted it to sound like they were being suffocated and trying to speak out through the mess of noise, kinda like the sun peeking thru the clouds after a storm.

[Sunny Day]

Interesting, and fun chord progression, but there's a lot of what sounds like perfect octaves and perfect fifths moving around, which generally doesn't feel great on tracks with leads sounding as if they could be a duet. It's late; not sure how I can better put that into words.

Velocity and modulation really could have brought out your chords here. As is, it sounds like slamming your hands on the MIDI keyboard -- coincidentally with pretty chords. The notes bleed together pretty badly. I would try for shorter decays and releases in addition to velocity and modulation. It kinda sounds like happy-go-lucky ukelele music. I've never been one for that sort of stuff but it has its place.

The kick and claps didn't bother me much, but I feel the leads buried them a bit. Would have been nice to see some hihats and crashes possibly, or even cymbal rolls, reverse cymbals, etc.

Overall, it was a fun listen but could use some serious check-up on the post production. Sounds like a demo in its infancy at this point.

If you've got another review request, I'm finally at the point in my life where I feel myself enough to enjoy that sort of thing. Lay 'em on me. :)

Hallow responds:

Haha, this is AGES old, from back when I had no idea how to produce and was just a former guitarist experimenting in FL Studio's demo. If I revisited it to flesh it out I would certainly have done pretty much everything you mentioned.

The "happy ukulele music" isn't far off - as I said in the description, I originally came up with the chord progression on guitar.

[TheFatRat - Monody (feat. Laura Brehm) [GTB Remix] DEMO]

Responding to your review request from around this time last year.

I have to say, Laura's vocals are probably the focal point of this song for me. Instrumentation could be stronger. I'm not feeling a lot of sub bass. Sort of feels like the high end and the mid chomp up the bass. Hats are pleasant, but I'm not really hearing anything but them, the vocals, and ... It just isn't meshing. Not that it's bad. It just could use some improvement. Probably would back down the hats a db or two and bring up the accompaniment, and maybe drop that bass arp an octave.

Dj-Gonzo responds:

Thanks for all the reviews you made. I respond all of them here because I am finishing this remix at the moment, and I feel that you'll see that "just sidechain" isn't anymore my production skill ;D.

These songs from 2015 are pretty inconsistent in their mixing, I was learning to use compressors, EQs n stuff back then, so yeah, I couldn't agree more with your point there.

Again thanks for reviewing all my requests, so, if you want to see my "evolution" as an amateur producer, I would like you to check out my 2016 songs, specially Alma or, by the end of this week, the final version of this remix.

Hope you enjoyed the songs I made, it's always glad to recieve constructive critizism :)

Thank you, EDM364.

>GTB

[Underly]

This is a catchy little loop. I especially like the simplicity and percussion. No real complaints here, but I would say this is probably in the wrong genre.

Random-storykeeper responds:

Thanks for the feedback! I was really confused about the genres on Newgrounds at the time I uploaded it, but looking back at it now, this definitely does not fit into the 'Ambient' category. I'm not exactly sure where it would fit, though. It doesn't seem to be proper in any of the other categories, but I put most of my music in "Video game", so I've just moved it there for now.

[M I N E C R A F T W A V E]

These are some interesting sounds, but my god, that high ass squealing makes it almost impossible to listen to them. It's weird. What programs did you slap in there?

Stardust-Nation responds:

I 'slapped in' Minecraft Launcher as the the main bass line, as well as Adobe Reader and Microsoft One Note for other stuff.