Quarl's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Heaven Energy]

woof, love that goofy rhodes upstroke chord bop! Reeses are tight, great sounds Dieswyx. I'm angry to be listening to this on a tablet with no bass but I'll get around to it with a better sound system asap. MY WEDDING IS THIS WEEK, BUT I'LL MAKE TIME FOR YOU BECAUSE LOVE.

Dieswyx responds:

🥺🥺🥺

[Let The Battle Begin]

Love the intensity Ketyri. That snare rhythm sounded lovely, would have loved to hear it just a little more. Only two suggestions I could think to bring that snare forwards is a combination of minimal sidechaining and some experimental pan data but most people probably won't care. I play the drums irl, call me biased. That rhythm was sounding feckin well programmed. I could really hear more of those dramatic snare dynamics towards the end. You brought life to that snare drum!

Maybe it popped towards the end because that last section has much less bass drum? The bass drum in earlier sections over powers a little with a long sustain, that drum might be a good thing to practice sidechaining? I'm not even sure what I would use to side chain it with. I don't even know anything- have been faking it for decades now. I'm a fraud. Don't take my advice for anything. I haven't looked at my credit score in a couple of years now, it's probably negative...

junipersona responds:

The snare isn't the focus of the track, but it does seem likely that at some point I will revisit this song and touch it up more

[AIM - Moments In Life]

Beautiful work AceMantra. Inspired melodies and composition. Suits the JRPG style and vibe from the art perfectly well. Every note works together nicely. If I were judging this year I'd have to discriminate all sorts of small ideas but a game designer or animator could honestly just stick this in the background of their project without any problems or interference. I hope you know that your work is really good and that someone out there needs your music for their projects.

AceMantra responds:

Thank you for the kind words, and stopping by for a listen! I really appreciate it. :)

[Racing Tides]

Had my headphones off tbh, was gonna just pop in and give you a five so I can go back to nursing my covid but I could hear those glittering piano arps from where my headphones were and I had to put them on. After giving this a few listens I'm thinking it's a little over compressed, could just be my clogged sinus's. Elements are all great though. Horns are fucking beautiful. Melodies are killing it. Beat is chill, giving attention to all the other elements. Everything is beautiful.

That aux percussive woodblock might be a little too loud? It's bigger than the snare. Beautiful tone though. I think the hi hat might also be a little too loud. Sorry, I'm only nit picking because I said it sounded over compressed and I can't just leave it there without pointing out one or two things that might help? I over fuck my own mixes all the time, I'm a damned hypocrite.

Next time I send my man to vegas I'm gonna make sure he brings home something better than covid.

Casper responds:

Definitely over compressed, it was even worse than this, got carried away with boosting my mids on the bass and making the drums punchy lol, I would have fixed it but the project is buffering like hell and my cpu can't take it sooooo.. I guess I'll keep this in mind for the next track lol. The chords are also way too stacked, some layers are probably not even audible, I mostly experimented with this track since It's my first actual attempt at an 80s synthwave vibe even if I tend to use the same elements in my regular beats. Compared to my other stuff the mix isn't as good as it could be but with 101% raw DAW processing power I think it's good enough lmao

[Débonnaire Inc.]

Sorry I didn't leave a review earlier, I'm a slob when it comes to listening to stuff but damn if this isn't some really slick breaks and licks. Loved the drum filtering! You gave every sound and instrument a home to chill. Brutal Daru <3

Daru925 responds:

Glad you enjoyed and thanks for the review!

[YendorNG - Return To You (Short Makina Mix)]

Track was great! I noticed that I was waiting for a crispier snare layer to pop. A nice snappy 808 snare drum or another clap would have made a good layer! A tamb rhythm could have given this a little extra color too! You found the edges of the mix for certain, that wave is phat. So many people don't find those upper limits of what the stereo spectrum lets them use. Vocals sounded a little "washed out." I'm not 100% sure what kind of post processing would help but it sounds like the highs are getting filtered off. I'd try to get those textures back with some light EQ or distortion... no guarantees that would get you that sound back but she has a very lovely voice, and she deserves her full textural range <3

The synth at 3:17 made me stop what I was doing, I loved that break down. That's a really fun lead!

YendorNG responds:

I FORGOT THE SNARE AAAAA. :MANIC:

I think upper frequencies are getting washed out because I tend to overdue it cranking up the lows. I went over this several times and found the higher frequencies were hurting my ears. I also have a head cold so maybe not a good time go through a quick and dirty master. :/

[The Glory Days]

She was a blackbelt in karate >:C

junipersona responds:

He was a something something I'm pretty sure this is from that one video game movie about Scott Turkey or whatever his name was

[Swelling Waves (of declining authority)]

Yeah, I'm feeling something special from this. Great exploration of ideas and hearing you push your vibes into progressive future territory is a nice surprise. Groove is something great, love all the sounds, pads, drums, and so on. Would love to hear more like this but you do whatever makes you happy <3

Casper responds:

Definitely gonna explore this style a lot more, making my own synth sounds was so fun. This was a pain to mix but also a pleasure to get the whole idea down, I haven't been this happy with a track in a while

[Rym Flare]

lmao, my fiance fell in love with 5 string basses recently. We got a Yamaha and a fretless Ibanez. What are you playing with? That extra string, you trying to drive your neighbors dog crazy with humanly inaudible frequencies?

Hyenaedon responds:

Mines an Ibanez, found a crazy boxing day sale so I just went for it. I love doing more melodic stuff with basslines so that extra high string is just perfect for more octaves and chords

[Transference (Original Version)]

Forgot you were around making awesome sounds, I hate how short lived my memory is. The mix is a bit better on this one vs Magnimonious but my mix downs are all over the place, I'm not judging. Really cool wet leads. Love how hard this is <3

Sinthology responds:

Thank you for stopping by on this one; this was one of the most fun tracks I've ever worked on