ADR3-N's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[A Fighter's Song]

You are coming out with damn near a whole album this competition. Great job, and great spacious chords. I think your mixing is sounding a bit better each time.

For this track, your vocal performace is great. I think the backing vocals could be compressed harder and brought a bit more to the front

best mix, 1:39

The bass drum is not sticking out heavily as on other more mid and top heavy sections. I think it could be brought down just a bit still

Vocal FX are also sounding better.

Great atmospheric lyrics.

Mischa-head responds:

Thank you! I've found the deadlines really motivating to get things written, and all the feedback has been really helpful. Really glad I entered the two audio contests.

[Run Away]

WILD dance track. Sounds like a DJ set all its own, which is an accomplishment for an original! Lovely blend of various styles of dance music. It works fantastically.

Could have a bit more clarity, but when you have a time constraint such as this, that's understandable. Great show of skill!

KayozKun responds:

Thank you so much for the feedback!

[Listen]

All I have to say is your percussion is a feast for the ears. I think the shakers could stand to come down some more due to their repetitive nature, but this is a groove. Nice!

Kassich responds:

Thank you for the review and for all your work in judging! I'm sure your ears are tired! Also, I agree on the shakers level now listening to it again.

[The Sky (NG Exclusive)]

That's quite a long intro! Surprised me. Also a nice pleasant chord progression there. We will wait to see where it goes. At times it reminds me of my heart will go on ahaha.

Now at 2:09 we have a transition into a more classic electronic mode. Sounding olskool. I think the white noise could come down some, as could the hihat -- give it some time to get up to speed before introducing the full volume hat.... wait, it appears to be getting louder. Kick is subtle until drop at 2:57. Recommend keeping it balanced rather until then.

At 3:10 it's a bit hot on the mixer, sounding like brick wall limiting. I would actually increase low cut on delays and reverbs here. The mix doesn't have that full head headache giving quality to it luckily but it is close by 3:54 and 4:29. The introduction of piano is a plus. sounds like it's clipping at the mixer though a bit. I hear a sharp dip at 4:42 that was not meant to be there as you drop down for your transition.

Otherwise, enjoyed the track. Great work. Outro is well done. Wow, what a monster track

Olindel responds:

Some easy errors that could have been avoided with a full month worth of work but in the end the track isn't as bad as what I expected it to be. Thank you for the feedback and glad you enjoyed!

[Drawing the Curtain (NGUAC FINAL ENTRY)]

Such a beautiful piece, and very tastefully written. I don't have much more critique beyond that there are a few swells in which the mix gets top heavy, and the piece as a whole could be just a tad louder for ease of the listener. Beyond that, wonderful

GlowBoyMusic responds:

Thank you so very much. I do appreciate your feedback. I will take your advice into consideration, too!

I loved being a part of this amazing competition. Full of incredibly talented and amazing people. And I am proud of so many of them.

— Glow

[Geekum - Too Long]

Really interesting piece. Does sound very KH like. I think it's in the wrong genre though -- hip-hop would be a better fit.

Your 808 is distorting it sounds like at the mixer level, not prior to it. This is presenting an odd effect where it almost blows out the rest of the mix. I think if you were to mix quieter, then apply compression, some of the inconsistency in leveling would sort itself.

I think you could do a bit more subtle treatment on the panning of your hihats, or add space to them like the rest of the track by applying a very small pingpong delay. I also like to treat them with action tremolo.

Snare also is hiding in the mix relative to 808 and hats.

Recommend removing a lot of the reverb wash off of your synthesizers. They also contribute to a muddy sound. You can dial up the low cut to help with that.

geekum responds:

thanks for the feedback! im fairly new to mixing and have mainly focused on composing since the start of my career and I appreciate the tips :)

[Remembering Our Journey]

Piano pieces are not my specialty despite a background in classical music. What I can say about this piece is that it is fairly wonderfully mixed and has excellent technical transitions. Lovely work! My only bone of contention is the chord at 3:00 exactly.

Everratic responds:

Thanks for the review! I'm glad you enjoyed it :) That suspended chord sounds wonderful to my ears, especially when it's resolved, but I understand.

[4th Entity]

For 8 hours, this is a grand slam. I couldn't do something like this in 8 hours, no way.

At 46 the mix is muddy, as is to be expected with such a time restraint, but I encourage you to revisit this for certain.

1:06 the snare is actually a bit too loud, and the kick is a bit too distorted. I may drop the pitch on the kick or tune it differently. Same with snare. Could even change it out for one that's in the same or complementary key.

In terms of melody and driving beat, this is a smash!

The only thing holding it back is as mentioned, not a lot of time lead to mixing issues, such as the leads being somewhat too quiet. Perhaps this will improve by backing off on compression and adjusting levels somewhat? It's sounding almost like I have something between my ears and my monitor headphones, like a big fuzzy earmuff.

Either way, really enjoyed it!

entropicvoxels responds:

thanks a lot! i'm definitely trying to improve on my mixing and mastering, sometimes i overcompress my songs and a lot of elements end up sounding quieter than they should.

[Gazing Ball]

Never heard of this composition software but praise your chord progression and approach to milling those keys through the chords. I would caution to use less reverb but genuinely surprised a mix in audacity sounds this good. If you do this well with it I would recommend trying Reaper, which is much more capable of suiting your needs. Also surprised to hear Wavetable sound this good.

I think the bass could be more centered than it is. It's washing out and causing a low hum wide in each channel. I would also change out your percussion instruments or apply some sort of filtering FX such as sample rate change to soften them to fit the rest of your composition. They feel flat in comparison to the spacious keys, choir, and tubes. Great closing chord, very satisfying.

Ellietonin responds:

Thanks! Aria is a relatively archaic midi editor that I dug up from the reaches of the past. At the time, the closest thing I could find to a tutorial was a video in a language I didn't speak that briefly mentioned it. This being said, it's very intuitive and a great peice of software. I'll probably always use it.

Audacity is actually a lot better than people give it credit for, and that's good, because to be honest, it's the only DAW that doesn't break my brain. I do have a bass-to-center plugin, but I forgor to use it this time.

Percussion is a bit difficult for me because I do everything through either the wavetable or soundfonts, and there isn't much selection on my device as far as that goes. This being said, the wavetable kit is actually pretty good in the right contexts, and I use a lot of sampled breaks which tend to add a lot of flavor as well.

[Superior Magnetic]

Gorgeous vibe at 53 secs, and great solo. I think the clarity of mix could be improved significantly however, less reverb, a centered bass, or double track two basses out to the sides, who cares. This one is already a wild step into the unknown. Great atmospheric work and chords. Sounds very much like FF13-2 to me, which I dearly loved.

Cresince responds:

I'm gonna have to look at those basses, they are centered on panning but i think stacking them gave an off center effect I will have to explore. Thank you for your mixing pointers as always! Now I have an FF OST to check out as well :P