Quarl's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Jamuary 2nd 2022 - "Eden"]

Sounds are hella fresh, love hearing birds in music. There is a fun music conversation that revolves around how birds of different regions may have influenced tonality in human music and vice versa. Regardless of it's origins I love hearing birds make their way into music.

I'm glad I stopped in on this page to really listen to the full six minutes. I actually let it loop for a while. Love the perc, bass is nice and lush, pads are well done, chords inspired. Honestly, this track has a lot of love on it. As someone that builds stupid big drum kits, I love hearing people take a more gentle avenue. Always loved smashing my drum kits, it took me so long to learn how to drum with sensitivity. I got a lot of respect for percussion that vibes as well as this.

Just when I'm about to compliment something another wonderful element get's added to the funk. This is really inspired, I love it Vodou <3

TheVodouQueen responds:

Tysm!!! Glad you really enjoyed it! :3 ♡

[Jamuary 2022 (Day29) - What Comes Next]

LOL, brass instruments have such specific ranges. I was surprised by Spazkid at the Newgrounds office when he pulled out a trombone and was like "I can play six notes."That might be an exaggeration off my poor memory, I'm doing some reading right now on trombone and realizing experienced players have a greater range. I really wish I stuck with the sax in Grade school, it's one of my favorite instruments to hear played virtuously.

There's been some great music this month but I gotta hand it to you metalblinga, this track is so relaxing that this song jumps to the front of my list really quickly. It's just a chill bop. Personally, I like to get a drum loop going first, then will jam on top of it, then shave recordings down into separate parts. This definitely sounds like a track that was composed on top of a really good loop in a similar fashion. Killing it with that sax <3

metalblinga responds:

Thanks Quarl, I appreciate it! <3
Saxophone Is my favorite instrument to listen to, it's so soothing :)

[Alienlike (Ronatapes1)]

OUCH THIS IS SO GOOD. ABSOLUTE GRIME. I LOVE THESE MACHINES, CAN I CUDDLE THESE SYNTHS?

CryNN responds:

bwahahahahha

[basskicksnare]

Yeahhhhhh, front page FOD. Love seeing your music there. Today, front page Newgrounds. Tomorrow? Front page Nobel Peace Prize.

Father-of-Death responds:

xD lol

[27 Jan - We can always try again tomorrow]

Another great composition Leavesz! I love it. The little chromatic slide at the end says "yeah. We're done here." Cutting the track where the artist feels it needs to be cut is legit. In 44 seconds you managed to tell a neat little story with this. It would make a wonderful segue on an album between two larger songs.

Since you want those suggestions, I'd have quickly tossed in a string section. Some low tones could be made from a simple few notes. You can even copy/paste the piano part onto a violin instrument, then delete all but the core few notes that paint the general chord progression. I feel like there's always room to patch a quick violin section and record a simple progression.

A few others have realized how well a dulcimer works with a piano. A lot of the "guitar" sounds in my work is just a dulcimer patch.

There just isn't enough time in a day but if you had it, percussion. I get bored with orchestral percussion patches really quickly but it costs next to no time at all to drop in a few cymbal swells, bass drum swells, a gong, some güiro scrapes... I only use stock orchestral patches from Reason which is probably why they get boring after a while but you can manage some more drum diversity with fidelity units, pitch bend wheel, reverb... honestly stock sounds can be ok with some work :3

Ummm... my last bit of suggestion is to save this file, back up everything you can. You never know if ten years down the line that you might feel like opening this up again and recycling the melody for a separate project. This is gold, and recycled gold is still gold :D

[Hysterical Notions]

Honestly, a thin mix down like this creates a great "tired out" vibe. We're all feeling stretched right now with this Jamuary song a day nonsense. I feel like this mix down is hella relative. I love that bubbly pad sound. Bongos just slapping away. If you looped this for ten minutes instead of ending after one, I wouldn't care or say anything against it. I'm so worn out right now, this track basically sounds like how I feel. Stretched, chewed up, wrung out, but still funking away. Slapping those bongos, chin up high.

Casper responds:

Was considering sleeping but im not giving up, just 339 more daysss jk i would literally physically diee

[25 Jan - Not lo-fi hiphop]

This is very creative, I love those "square" envelopes on those instruments. Fast cut offs to volume knobs give off a glitch vibe. I feel like there could have been a little more of a transition between the glitch intro and that middle section. Maybe the chord @ 00:18 could have sustained on it's own for a few seconds before going into that next beat? For something like that you could just chop everything in half down the sequencer with a razor tool, move half the midi to the right one or two bars and just extend that chord for a little longer. Ultimately you can decide whether that kind of thing is worth doing or not but I love putting a small rest on the beat by sustaining things for a measure or two. Transitions can build up a lot of tension in a short amount of time before the new part brings the release to that tension.

I loved the three distinct sections. It sounds a little like you wanted to write three separate songs out of this idea but couldn't settle on the rhythm. I think all this needed was slightly emphasized transitions but just my opinion. Great work Leavesz :3

[Jamuary 2022 (Day24) - Don't Look Back]

I'm surprised any of us are still posting stuff everyday. Great tune by the way. I'd have changed one note just to say "I finished this today" but there's literally no reason to do something like that. I love how chill this is. I have so much trouble keeping things simple but I have a lot of respect for music that just is. This doesn't need to be anything more, the melodies are lovely. So modest and pure c':

metalblinga responds:

Thanks! I appreciate it :)

[On The Case]

Authentic vibes, first computer I remember was a 95. I feel like old computer games get glossed over a tad by sexier retro Nintendo/Sega gems. I remember playing computer games in the 90s that had no right to be called games because they weren't fun at all but we played them because we got a floppy disk at some random flea market and it said "games" on it AND WE LOVED IT.

You remember Encarta Mind Maze? Renaissance style trivia maze, each room had a question? That shit was my jam.

Edit: forgot to mention how much I love this track <3

tripledigit responds:

I'm glad you like it! I put a ton of work into it.

I used to play the games that came in cereal boxes. Disney did that for a while. I had a skating game from An Extremely Goofy Movie, a first person exploration game for Atlantis, and a game for Dinosaur that was a collection of mini games/activities.

[Soulless]

Sad vibes today, don't diss your own music! Everyone has their own funk that grows and matures. Self promotion can be a depressingly existential sadness but you can't let it get to you. Who is this rapper by the way?

Unrelated but do you listen to DreamEater at all? I don't think he raps but his lo-fi tunes are tip top. He's one of my favorite Newgrounds producers :3

Casper responds:

Listened to a few of his tracks, outside of my own music i don't really listen to lofi though. I just updated the description to include the link, its natjamesworld which is a guy I found on looperman. I don't think I'll ever get my sounds clean enough or unique enough or whatever enough for them to be standalone tracks that people can just listen to, it'll always be about improving it and getting feedback but I shouldn't care, it's only gonna drive me more insane