ADR3-N's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Remembering the Fallen]

First of all on a year where people were talking about not being able to take 40 people to light the beacons for the towers -- when they didn't mind 400 painting BLM murals, when they don't mind 4,000 protesters and riots in the streets, it warms my heart to hear this touching piece dedicated to those who died that day. I was six years old. I saw the police officers and firemen running into the towers. I saw the people jumping from the windows. I saw the first responders in the rubble. Many died that day, and many died from chronic illnesses from the dust kicked up, years later. Many aren't alive to tell their stories today, and they should not be forgotten.

Your writing is tasteful, moving, and has its own sense of self, a rarity. My complaints would only fall on maybe mix. Reverb is somewhat overpresent, and I think the transients of instruments such as the bass drum and snare could be brought out just a bit. Sustained strings may sound better a bit more dry, though dry is my personal preference. I would also like a bit more pronounced articulations. Your trumpet solo was very well written and perhaps could come a half dB up to the front.

In short, the piece hits a place close to me, and is a much needed reprieve from the animosity of today's world. Thanks for that, and thanks for coming out to NGUAC! <3

potato-stick responds:

Thank you for your comment. I totally agree that the double standards when it comes to public gatherings are pretty outrageous and seem to have zero basis on logic. With that being said, I am glad that I could create something that shed light on the importance of September 11 and to try and honor those who lost their lives.

I completely agree that I need to work on mixing. To be honest, my main focuses have been orchestration and composition, and I've heard from a lot of judges that this is showing. I've only started pretty recently, so I'm tackling things one thing at a time and mixing just hasn't been a high priority yet. I am sure that as I continue to progress, mixing will be the next thing on my list to get better at.

[NaNo - Happy pluck]

I agree with @trunotfals, it's quite loud -- I had to turn it down. I do think the compression is pushed a bit too hard. The track is characteristically tinny, and the hard pushing is evident on quieter sections where we have low pass -- and then distortion is introduced by being pushed too hard. I can hear it on your pianos as well. I'm not really able to hear your sub despite nice balance between treble and mid.

I also find the drop somewhat repetitive.

I would like just a little bit more of that tonal reverb -- which I don't often find myself saying -- on your drops. It feels like a deep sidechain, but like that high shimmer is missing. Even as someone who normally hates that aspect of production for being a bit overdone in most pieces, I feel it's lacking here.

Other than that, the piece is very solid and cohesive. I enjoyed the listen.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

[Be Gay Do Crime]

Speaking as a VERY queer pro-law and order capitalist here, who once identified as trans and very much thinks the western world is the best place to be gay anywhere on Earth, I could get down with "Be Gay Do Crime" as a slogan somewhere like Russia, Saudi Arabia, China, etc. If the US penalized gayness with prison time and I hadn't been able to get prep myself when something happened to me from the Gilead program (WOW that stuff is prohibitively expensive, thanks insurance racket, Pharma, and CDC/FDA regulations making it impossible to get low cost meds out!), I'd be right there with ya.

It's so rough with the gay community and minorities especially, higher rates of deadly STD exposure, probably going to be higher now that California has basically made it legal to knowingly give someone HIV, changing the prison term to 6 months and the charge to a misdemeanor. Granted, prison where the disease spreads like wildfire due to a certain kind of mistreatment of gays there is probably the worst place to have HIV infected individuals, if you don't like HIV spreading.

Then you have countries like Russia that have made it illegal for people in the US to adopt their orphaned children -- which there is an epidemic -- just because we've legalized gay marriage, and they have anti-gay propaganda laws. I was and still am a huge fan of T.a.T.u for daring to make a whole music video in the 90's of two chicks making out, and perform here with a shirt that had to be censored from Хуй войне meaning Fuck War to Жуй войне meaning Chew to the war live. To save their careers I'm pretty sure when the group broke up they both had to pretend it was gay propaganda and they have somehow reformed their ways. Though Yulia to this day maintains she loves Lena, and the tension between Lena's religious upbringing and confession and Yulia's bisexuality was palpable in their interviews, even if Lena may have had to play it up to keep from attracting negative attention from the Russian government.

Anyway gay counter culture has always been a big part of my life. It's only recently I became so disillusioned with the left for telling us gays how to think, like we don't check enough oppression boxes to say we don't like the idea of forcing everyone to go to workplace trainings to tell them how to treat us. To me, being gay shouldn't make us more special than anyone else, and I had constantly this ... stubborn feeling the left were always going back and forth between patronizing us only to ignore our needs, claiming we have to stand together, and then bashing down anyone who doesn't 100% agree with doxxing people for thought crime and burning down ironically majority minority communities... Or preferential racial favoritism, replacing one supremacy with another, etc., etc. The feeling that after so many people, I -- and the larger gay community, would be next. Like what happened to the TERFs, trans-exclusionary radical feminists, who are on board with everything until you get up to trans females.

All that said I think you've made something really interesting.

I think probably the strongest section is your outro. This is where I get the most sense of motion and clarity. The rest of the piece, as you can hear by the reverb on the end, is overcome with a lot of sustained harmonics picked up by the verb. Wherever you have reverb, I would turn it down by as much as half or 75% on the wet signal, and low cut said wet signal as much as 250hz. These frequencies sound nice on a solo instrument, but across the whole mix and in an ensemble create a smokescreen around all those beautiful cinematic sounds I felt you wanted to cut through the mix. A clean sound makes a statement.

The piece is quite repetitive, though I sense you're pointing out the ongoing struggle you feel yourself facing. I think now that I relisten that part of the problem may be the cinematic bass drums having so much verb to them naturally. There's a plugin called ERA-R which can be used over top of samples if you find no way to otherwise divorce them from it. Sidechain could be applied here if it has not already, lightly, or KSHMR Essentials Kick for quick emphasis of transients and compression. The free version of this plugin worked wonders for me even with less than stellar drum machine emulators.

There is quite a lot of unresolved tension, which of course was intentional. Beyond wanting perhaps a couple more laid back sections peeling back the layers, that's all I could ask. Otherwise, kept me interested until the very last second, just on the knife edge and still wanting more.

Great work. I really enjoyed the listen. Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

Also how do you pronounce your name again?

zybor responds:

Thank you for your awesome deep thoughts and advice. :O

I agree with you on the left's problems when comes to lashing out queer people with shit like cancel culture and infighting. The left, despise they promised to provide safe space for marginalized people, they still happen to embrace the toxic culture of cishet capitalist society, which makes matter worse because now you have both left and right toxicity compounding the already struggle of surviving as a queer person in this society.

While I also find disappointment and disillusionment at the left, I though see the good side of anarchist culture in compared to like Marxist and ML tendencies that tend to reduce everything they see down to class, and the fact that Marxists believe queer culture as "idpol" or identity politics. Anarchists on the other hand view queer culture is one of their cores of liberation through intersectionality, and anarchist value both individualism and collectivism. When I started out I was a left-anarchist, but overtime I see that anarchy transients leftism. You can be an anarchist and queer without labeling yourself as leftist. Also, being anti-capitalism is not unique to leftism, many anarchist tendencies like Egoist and post-left tendencies reject the left for the reasons that you and me listed out. Though, still, I recognize the good side of both left and post-left, and I'd try to find a common ground between those as anarchist to also flourish queer identity as free as I could, and I work harder to help liberating any queer who still stuck under oppression, whether they're in Russia, China, Saudi Arabia or any other part of the world where queer still being oppressed.

[10 Pieces of Bread]

I think the bassoon and bass could come down slightly in the mix -- a dB or two.

Cute use of 808 tom it sounds like.

This piece is lovely and bright.

I would prefer snare to interact more with the left channel or sit in the middle.

Phrasing in this piece is strong, and so are movements. Reminds me very much of Disney scoring. My favorite moment would probably be 2:24. I was not ready for the end at 2:33 and would have liked the entire ensemble to have a nice 2 note stinger on the end with the 1 and 5. So, quarter rest, quarter rest, eighth rest, 8th note, quarter note stinger.

I really loved throughout your lead writing. Very pleasant little piece.

I also disagree that the strings should have had more reverb. The bright sound I feel is very appropriate.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

[A Journeys End [NGUAC 2020 Final]]

I feel your sub hits in the intro could use just a bit more of a decaying feeling to them, like distant artillery.

Otherwise, this piece is beautifully atmospheric. I would prefer just a bit less reverb on those smacking cinematic percussion hits, not because it sounds bad, but because it sounds like it's in a completely different space than the rest of the piece. I would also emphasize transients and higher mid frequencies so we can get those stick thwacks in, sounding more in line with the foley it sounds like you've laid on top of the piece. I can't tell if it's vinyl or rain, or sands falling.

Overall, highly emotive piece. I really especially like your use of that sub impact, sounds like -1000 dB drum to me a bit. Though the piece could have ended for me easily at 3:25 or before. I felt the piano rollup to the new major I chord was a bit of a cheese move. I say that with absolutely no offense intended. We just got home from our long trek, and suddenly fall into bed happy, the same as before we ever thought to leave? That sort of thing.

But wonderful composition aside from that. I very much enjoyed it.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

[Ataraxia]

Liking the 6/8 feel we start off, going into regular 4/4. Your rhythmic variation, use of samples, and diverse sound palettes are what shines in this piece.

Mixing varies at times. I would pull down your snare between 0.5 and 0.2 dB for your drops. It's just a little bit ear piercing -- but thank goodness it isn't hiding! That would sound worse. Your kick before 2:13 could stand out a bit more, and I actually think before 2:35 as well. May try something like KSHMR Essentials Kick, the free version, to enhance that transient some more.

Overall, very relaxing piece to listen to, good use of samples, good structuring -- I would appreciate a bit less reverb on most everything, especially naked sections, but that's me as someone who from using it lazily in the past has come to hate it. Very much enjoyed your presentation here, and looking forward to hearing more from you. Great work. :)

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

[The Concept of Time]

I would take the heavy reverb off of your mysterious ticking noise, and also by extension your brasses and drums. Back it down and shorten the decay. It sounds like with either compression or something else, the low end is getting muddied by it.

Originality wise, I am noticing a lot of cinematic tropes, as mentioned by other judges. That 7th to octave violin drag being a particular offender. However, I do feel like the track as a whole has been pretty well executed, and sounds close to, if not industry standard. It just so happens that from watching so many film trailers, film score for the pure virtue of film score has for me lost its epic sheen. So despite being well crafted for the most part -- aside from reverb, your leveling and use of instrumentation is quite good -- I don't get a lot of excitement or wow factor, and it ends up sounding very much like something I've heard before.

That said, I think it's great you can pop out a piece like this in 2 weeks, and am not the slightest saddened to see you on the front page. Congrats on that btw. There's a lot to be said for being able to imitate the world's most well-renowned composers in your genre. Great work. :)

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

KevinMueller responds:

Thank you for your review! And thanks for the tip with the reverb. :)

[Alabaster]

Super original transitioning here. I wasn't quite expecting the move into the intro here.

Sound design definitely has a lot of cool factor here and brave choices. Getting a follow from me if for nothing else other than exposure to interesting ideas.

Now, structure itself I feel could probably use a bit of work. When you come in with the bass at 1:13, I was expecting more of that. It's so disjointed from the rest of the track -- and sounds very good, mind you, that I wanted to hear it more regularly. Repetition legitimizes, after all. I was expecting to hear it at 1:44 again.

2:03, that snare sample you're using, metallic sounding, could use more velocity, panning, or modulation so it didn't clearly sound like the same sample.

2:30, lots of interesting breakbeat feel going on.

Looping that snare, I'd have liked pitching it up gradually and more obviously from the outset. The ear very quickly picks up that we're looping and fatigues. Constant motion.

That said the rest of the transition barring the long hold was very well done, and I was expecting one final chorus. That's where the structuring portion falls short for me most glaringly.

Otherwise, song is mixed pretty well. Overall I would want more snare, about one to two dB, more kick, less reverb. You could probably bring your leads out by an additional dB, and your bass throughout up as well -- it's fine on sections that aren't super droppy, although throughout those sometimes percussion samples get just a little bit too loud for it to sustain.

Very interesting and stand-out piece, taking a lot of risks for good payoff. You've got a really unique sound and I appreciate that. Looking forward to hearing more of you in the future.

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

Zerisan responds:

Thanks for the review! Understand that you expected another chorus at the end, but I personally like to go for more unorthodox layouts.

[Incise ~ Starburst]

Mix wise, I think this pretty muffled sounding, with a LOT of reverb, which I feel takes away a lot from your sound. If you're using Nexus, I know that every patch has a ton of reverb on it for whatever reason. I would, if you insist on having so much reverb, sidechain it by a lot, take the wet down a lot more, and further apply low cut while looking at the spectrum analysis, usually to 250 hz for me. Too much of it gives a very full skull feeling when listening, or not being able to get enough loudness.

Lead writing I very much enjoyed, and your progression as well. Nice long progression with interesting chords, and unusual choices.

Percussion I think goes between muddled and laying on top of things. For instance, your clock ticking, and the snap up to 0:50 are laying on top, not really meshing. Your snare on the other hand despite sidechain is sitting inside of the mix with a layer of what sounds like low pass on top of it. If you're going to do that, I'd take your snare and kick up by a couple dB at least and tune both to the tonic, possibly the snare to a harmonic that sounds good to your ear. Each snare has overtones and can sound more pleasing when in tune.

Beyond that, I do like your writing. It's nice and fresh. I feel with the mentioned changes, especially the reverb, you will be able to make better use of the space in your mix and be more satisfied with them overall :)

The rest of any commentary I could have would fall somewhere between @mutty99 and @trunotfals, especially regarding the saws and transition. Sometimes a simple transposition does work very well, as it does here. I might have ring modulated the transition FX sample to hit the new tonic, myself, or portamentoed it, something, but that was quite literally my only gripe. Nice work!

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!

[The Beginning]

I find myself agreeing a lot with trunotfals.

Some exceptions I wanted to note -- on your intro, a lot of that reverb I know is necessary for transitioning into that nice sidechained synth line. I feel like by the time that cuts in, you should be able to safely drop it down. Right there it covers up your percussion, which is muffled. It might help to tune your kick to the tonic of the piece.

That said I really like how laid back this piece is. It's really relaxing. Just would cut back your verb sends by a lot throughout. In the intro they cause your vocal samples to almost distort trying to stand out.

Other than that, really enjoyed the piece. I think you could stand to maybe try ... there's a plugin called IRID, which is makes reverb out of the harmonics of whatever lead you run through it. :)

Thanks for coming out to NGUAC!