Quarl's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Project 1]

Lol, this has a child-like feeling to it. It's as if a kid sat at a piano with a basic understanding of rhythm and just kind of hit random stuff according to that feeling. I emulate that feeling every day. When I sit in front of a piano I don't work with sheet music. I improvise and compose based on what my hands randomly decide to do. Granted, it's not totally random. I've been doing this for a long time and have developed an understanding of tonality, structure, and rhythm. I took drum lessons in middle school and piano classes in college but I've always aimed to preserve that child-like wonder of discovery. Music just isn't as fun when you know what's going to happen the entire time.

This track is a wonderful little melodic adventure. You don't have to know what you're doing to make good music, but it helps. You don't have to have a reason behind every note. People will nit pick every little thing about your music. Fuck them, and just keep enjoying yourself :)

BroHighVlady responds:

Thanks, :)

[The Messiah]

As the years dabble on, deciding what genre to put things into becomes kind of irrelevant. To be honest, I'd trow most my drum and bass into experimental because that's how I feel about it. I've tossed things into ska without thought because why not? Genre isn't as important as simply enjoying what you're doing. Genres are just recipes for artists to follow. Eventually you can splice together specific genres for your own amusement. I follow a progressive metal composer that will mix polka with heavy guitars because why not? Genres are just recipes you can spice however you like so long as you get the core ingredients together.

This reminds me of Lavender Town from the red/blue pokemon OST. Somber, dark, moody. You achieved a perfect atmosphere for telling a story. This would work well in a game or movie. Church organs hitting the chord progressions, a guitar for leads, church bells helping along those organs... everything worked well. The gunshot ending was an inspired moment. The work shows good promise for all sorts of compositions you may produce in the future.

Since you're open to criticism, some good instruments to pad the song with might include string orchestras, vocal chorus (MIDI instruments), and percussion. This track is lacking any percussion sounds, which is totally ok in regards to what you may have wanted. There is room for huge orchestral drums, toms, chimes, cymbal swells, bass drum swells, crash cymbals, shakers, tambourines... I'm a percussionist myself so of course I'll notice something like that. Again, percussion isn't essential. The artist ultimately decides what to do and why to do it. I just figure it might be fair to mention :)

I just went to see how long you've been uploading here, The Messiah is kind of an old track at this point is it not? For whatever reason you decided to share this specific track with me, I'm sure you've learned much about music since this was made. I got tracks I'm still proud of from 10 years ago. Just because everyone gets "better" at making music as time goes on, it doesn't mean that those early tracks don't have value. Sometimes those early tracks can really stand out against the newer stuff.

Thanks for sharing this with me Vlady :D

BroHighVlady responds:

Thank you for everything. <3

[CRY.NN - A Diabolical Journey Across the World]

lol, the female vox reminds me of an old track called "We Want Your Soul." I grew up with a remix version though so, this thing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxRuOE2rg9Q

It's impossible to find a high quality version of that track because everyone uploads a compressed version. Talking about the quality on YOUR track now, I know there is unnecessary compression by looking directly at the newgrounds audio visualizer. Newgrounds creates a waveshape that we can look at and I can immediately tell there is something needlessly compressing the export because there is space at the top and bottom of the waveshape. A certain amount of compression is a good thing but I got this track on max headphone volume and am totally unphased by it. That extra room would normally force me to turn the volume down a little and enjoy a perfectly mixed track at say 80% volume. I can't notice any distortion from the compression with my ears because you did a great job mixing but I know it's there is more space in the field available for amplification.

On that note, my ears are telling me they like the end result. I just know that the track could be louder with no bad distortion by looking at the waveform. It's a convenient little feature newgrounds offers, start looking at other peoples wave shapes and nitpick what you like or what you don't :)

I'm in love with the hardstyle vibes you're putting out. This is some awesome musics. I only got that minor criticism for the final export because everything else is perfect. Find the fidelity unit that is over compressing the final version and try turning it off or minimizing the compression. Knob twiddle for a bit, compare and nit pick differences between exports. If you're worried you might ruin the track "save as" first so you have an original version and one to play with.

Final words, just know that the newgrounds visualizer can give you some basic loudness data just by looking at it. IMO, Demonicity is on newgrounds and he's my go to example for perfect mix downs. He leaves good space in his mix where needed to fit a DJ set format, but when his chorus hits, he gets that full range that the sound spectrum offers with no bad distortion.

Sorry I'm not dropping in to say "this is perfect in every way." I really do love all the elements. I'm only being super critical on one minor thing to try and get perfect tones out of you :)

edit: why wasn't I following you already? I follow everyone...

CryNN responds:

I was quiet shook by the looks of the waveform in the tab too. Thanks for the tips and critique. Helps alot ;D Oh yeah im in contact with him too. Thats a +
edit: might look at my latest release. thats a huge difference in the master right there o.o should be like that?

[Brutely Butchin']

Lol, sounds tops awesome. You got room for some pads and instruments though. String ensembles, violins, soft airy synths, choir, sine waves... sky is the limit. Drums could benefit from some new layers. You can get nice and fat sounds by layering new samples on top of your others. All of my tracks have 3-4 snare drums that layer to make a new snare drum. You can use the drums interchangeably, solo one for an intro or break down, bend pitches for funzies...

I'm only tossing ideas in your direction. You got something fresh here and I would love to see your style evolve :D

ToasterPower777 responds:

Thanks for the feedback ^^ Only reason i didn't go into that much depth was becasue this was for a short that had to be made in 2 days so i didn't have too much time
Glad you enjoyed it otherwise tho ^^

[All Gun and Flames]

Lol, haven't seen someone producing with LMMS in at least a minute. Very creative story and coinciding musics. Surprise ending, I'll try not to spoil it for anyone else.

ToasterPower777 responds:

I'm glad you liked it^^
Also yeah i mainly use lmms because it's really good for a free software

[Farewell And Goodbye]

Loved the honest heartfelt piano melodies. I feel like you could have played with the note velocities a bit to get more alive sounds. I play piano and have midi controls but when I write melodies I always remember to try to vary loud and soft note velocities as if they were being played for real. Rubato also gives piano a more human sound. Some melodies can drag out or be a little off beat and that small detail can create so much life.

Track is so long, I have no idea how many times I listened to this loop. Due credit for making a five minute track. I remember on the first listen that the dubstep/DNB drums punched me out of nowhere. I'd have faded them in with a filter or something to soften that up and then introduce the full power kit at a later climax. Maybe the intro could have used a softer jazz drum kit? The drums here are so powerful. I was expecting this to go full nuero skrillex.

It's still a great track. You're writing great melodies and progressions. Drums, despite sounding like the wrong genre, are powerful and full. There are some great ideas here and I can't wait to hear more :D

TrandafirTeodora responds:

Thank youuuuuuu!

[Deeps of Europa]

Avent-garde, musique concrete. Love the atmosphere from this. Cool scifi vibes and sounds. Actually reminds me of the original Mass Effect trilogy musics. Simple synths and distant growling pads. I got nothing critical to say about this other than stick a compressor on something and amp up the sound levels a little more. You got plenty of room in the field for more noise :)

BlueTuxedo responds:

Oh thanks you, i made this after i heard a ping sound in FL studio library, and my mind after that cracked and i got flashbacks from game Barotrauma so decided to make something ambient about it. The game atmosphere itself is dark and scary if you look out of a window in submarine, if we also include scary monsters that swim around it becomes more scary.. but it all wipes out because game have a voice chat! Haha

[Calmedo]

lol, you got a fun little style evolving over here. You got the right idea for using hi fi sound samples. The drums hit nice, the bass is big and round. I'm getting some armature vibes from this but I'm also hearing good potential. A string ensemble or violin section could have sweeped in at 00:33. Another good instrument would be a simple sinewave synth with automated pitch bends and curves. Bird chirping samples is not a new or original idea but some bird songs might give this track some positive character. Wind chimes could also accomplish the same task. Some tambs and shakers could have helped tie up the rhythm into something that resembles are more contemporary beat. I love drums that are a little unpredictable but a good rhythm has a lot of different sounds working together and against each other to make a solid rhythm. As a drummer, I tend to zero in on drums. There are a lot of ideas in this track that could benefit from more aux percussion.

Thank you for sharing this with me Blue Tux. I can't wait to hear more from you :)

BlueTuxedo responds:

Thanks you for giving criticism on my song! I actually started to making music like not really long ago, like a week or so? I'm making it for fun when I'm bored, i love that someone likes my song's.

[Cabin]

I'm guessing this is also coming out of cakewalk? Wish I knew more about the program so I could offer suggestions for where to take your sounds. You've got a nice young but flexible style of writing melodies that can evolve in whichever direction you want to take it. All I'm hearing right now is the limitless potential of someone finding their voice :)

Catalystl responds:

Thanks for the review!

This track wasn't made with Cakewalk, I used some other program called Brel's Midi editor, which was a lot clunkier to use.

Cakewalk Pro Audio 9 is old and outdated, and so is its sound system, but its easy to understand. It just involves using SoundFont files (which contain many .wav files) to change the sounds of midi instruments when they're played.

I kinda like old programs more than new ones because they're just easier for me to learn, even when you can't look up how to do anything in them.

[Sawce]

I love hearing the early music that people make. In ten years you'll be producing some heavy future jazz musics and only the real fans will say "remember Sawce? Damn we're old now."

I think you got some room in this for some more instruments and techniques but the fun thing about digital musics is that you can always open an old file years later and hit it with new knowledge. There's room for basic sine wave pads, string or violin ensembles, Rhodes Mk II, saucy clavinet melodies, tamb and shakers...

That was a really interesting choice to put so much reverb on the hi hat & clap snare. That effect takes the place of potential aux percussion in the mix. I'd have traded the reverb for more percussion instruments like tambs, shakers, more hi hat layers... track still funks something nice. I'm just trying to get those creative juices flowing a little :D

DaVaP responds:

You think i know all this man i just go 'tune bangin' and ship it