Quarl's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Icryke]

Cool amen break chops. Voice pad was tender. This had a nice ambient vibe to it, despite the eccentric drums. The mix needs some work but the rhythmic and tonal elements are working for you. It's awesome when people can take the harsh sounds of the amen break and make it into something loose feeling or happy. The sub bass really helped give it that ambient feeling.

I guess if you want to try filling up some more space you could add some extra pads or samples. There sounds like a lot of room for more mid frequencies. Maybe some water droplets, bird songs, chirping sine waves, arp pads are just a few ideas that came to mind. Panning synths, leads, piano melodies... this mix has the room for it :D

Rakshal responds:

Thank you for the advise! I do tend to make things a bit too on the minimal side. I am probably going to try to use songs I like as references for how to fill out a track better. ^.^

[BJ - Bleeding Nature]

Woof, nice loud mix. Bass could be fatter/subbier, drums a little smaller but you def got that loudness thing down. The drums don't seem to hit as hard when I use low fidelity speakers like laptop or phone, so the mix problems just come down to whatever speakers a person uses. I happen to have wasted a lot of money on speakers, amps, and headphones to master tracks. Seriously, despite minor mix qualms this rocks hard. Loved all the jazzy down tempo vibes. Horn sounds were sublime <3

GhostlyDoobies responds:

thanks man, i'm glad you kinda picked up on what i was going for here. struggled with the bass, since i fitted so much, so relied more heavily on the kicks.

[Rain Dance]

I second the "I just wish it was longer" feeling from wilbert. This track has a great breakbeat vibe to it, just ends way too soon.

You can always fluff up a track 30-60 seconds with an ambient intro. Just take what you already have, copy & paste it, then subtract the drums and move it to the front. You can also drop those ambient pads minus the drums at the end to earn another 15-30 seconds of track.

Bonus round, add another 30 seconds by copy and pasting the second half of the track but add a 2 OSC lead or another pad of somekind. A decent 2 OSC could be a high portomento gliding sinewave and the other OSC a quite triangle, square, or sawtooth. That pitch bending effect from the portomento would sound great in this.

I seriously have no idea how you manged to write something so cool and then only let it loop for a minute :p

St0mpy responds:

Wow I really never thought this one would be felt this way. I'll take your notes and consider them for the future on other tracks like this. You have all inspired confidence in myself to make more songs like this with longer "storytelling".

[PixCotton]

"Frontpaged, January 24, 2021," at least you should be getting an influx in traffic. Honestly, there is so much great PixelDay content I'm getting lost trying to view it all. I'm noticing a lot of artists did the last minute thing. It's like we all collectively were like "fuck, today is Pixel Day. Time to get to work."

FYI, white people can pick cotton too. It has a racial connotation because of American slavery. I wouldn't have even mentioned the race thing if I were you, can still change that. Personally, I like Pixel Cotton, gives a really fluffy vibe. Could have alluded to cotton candy but you had to mention race and now all I can see is a bunch of sad African Americans in a field getting whipped, YOU DID THIS TO ME. THANKS CHRIS.

Track is great by the by. Has an old school funk vibe flowing to it. Arps twinkled something nice, track changed up every few bars to stay interesting. You flowed from one melody to another in regular change ups. This is some inspired work. Thanks chris :p

chrisbasso responds:

listen hereee Quarl, I was like half asleep writing that description, as soon as i thought of the title i was like what if someone misinterprets that for something it isn't but you're not wrong, i was just overthinking it, either way should've probably not put that in lol. Anyways glad ya liked the song <3

[Curtain Call on the Beach! (Pixel Day 2021)]

"Use this in your game! Please! I just really want to make music for your game!... Please! If I keep asking I'm gonna start to sound desperate or something LMAO ;^)"

I legit asked if someone would use my music in hentai themed anything. Begging gets us nowhere. I keep seeing animations and games that use commercialized music. We'd have better luck making music for newgrounds content creators if we ironically got off newgrounds. Someone might even start uploading your music for you! Wouldn't that be awesome?

TeraVex responds:

Lmao I make all this music and I just think to myself "Gee how cool would it be if I saw it in a game like this?" But now I've gotten to this point where I think to myself hmmmm maybe I'll just make a game and then make some tasty beats to put in it! Galaxy brain fullproof plan

[Underwater Bitz [Pixel Day 2021]]

Loved all the ideas coming into this. Breaking up the rhythm from time to time felt super organic. The house vibes meeting dubstep were nice and clean. Had some old Metroid atmosphere to it.

Mix sounded a fair bit over compressed. Might be something on the master out? Someone recently mentioned to me that the default in FL is to limit the master out. Turning off one button will give you way more room to mix with. I use Reason and when I started in Reason 4 they had a similar function. The limiter was automatically turned on and it took me like 15 years to realize that.

Happy PixelDay XTeckmo! Can I call you Teck for short? Te???

Teckmo-X responds:

To be honest this song was made in under 24 hours. I wanted to make sure I had something to present for both Pixel Day and the VGM Contest this year since I haven't taken part of these events for a while. I got the inspiration from 1788-L, Gluk’oZа (ft. ST) Ju-Ju, and "Fairy Fountain" from Zelda. As for the mix I do agree. I have always been aware of the limiter in FL Studio but I always choose to keep it on. The reason for this is that every sound in my songs goes through a huge amount of processing and with the limiter there I can finish adjustments to the master volume after I'm done. It also helps against higher frequencies that might override lower pass and high pass sounds, especially in basslines where every sound counts. I've tried a few other DAW's but Fruity Loops just hits that really good spot. Happy Pixel Day! and yes, you can call me Teck :)

[Chalice of Malice (Pixel Day 2021)]

Exciting boss music. Well written melodies. Driving drum line was hella adrenaline pumping. Those reverb saw pads broke up the tune in a way that jumps from the chiptune restrictions that a lot of people try putting themselves under. I liked that trance vibe it gave off though. It was like hearing a tuba in a metal song. Someone like David Maxim Mixcic wouldn't even bat an eye.

Writing long, droning reviews like this lets me listen to the track multiple times. By about the 15th time this track looped it became my theme song. This is now MY boss music.

You compressed the track really hard, not sure if there's a reason for that. Game coders could apply sound effects and game noises in left and right channels and it would actually be a really cool use of panning to help create space in the audio field. Again, sorry for this rambling review. 50 TIMES LOOPED, I HAVE BECOME ONE WITH THIS SONG.

ConnorGrail responds:

Thanks for the thoughtful comment! I have no restrictions, just pure chaos is my goal. I do like the idea of David Maxim Micic hearing this, love that stuff!

[Bitburst]

lol, happy pixelday!

Glad you decided to participate.
Mayhaps with less reverb you could fit all sorts of aux sounds into the mix? You could try playing with arps next time to get some more of those classic video game sounds. Arpeggiators ran at quick speeds give you nice full VG sounds. Some sweeping sine wave synths with high portamento or pitch bends could make bird like chirping atmoshpere.

I don't want to focus on that kind of stuff though because the last thing I want is to come off as critical. The track is nice and relaxing. Doesn't have the polish of a producer like Albegain but I can hear the passion in this. You got a nice waltz 3/4 tempo going. That's not a natural time signature for most people but I always love it when people gravitate to it. Absolutely lovely Ara <3

ARAMort responds:

Oh yeah I def could've done more. I kinda threw this together to cram it into the timeframe of pixel day and I didn't take the more iconic chiptune sounds into account. I'll write this down for the next pixel day lol.

[My Collection!!!]

Lol, "I'll try being more bold with the sidechain in the future." Respect, it's such an awesome feeling when you finally take the time to start sending signals all over the place to control levels. It's not always necessary depending on what your mixing but it's like cooking with chives, oils, or spices. You never stop adding them to your meals and eventually you wonder what things would even taste like without cumin. Sidechaining is like cumin.

Track bounced something nice. Drums were all perfect, melodies flowed nicely with that chord progression holding things together. Outro was smooth AF, was expecting a blocky insta cut out based off the waveshape but that reverb and long cut off pad was tasty.

Awesome groove Prutte :D

Prutte responds:

Thank you so much for your lovely comments! Made me smile like crazy! <3

[Qubitstep]

Beautiful full mix down. All out assault with those pads and synths. Loved the sinewaves, growling saw pads, atmosperic melodies all worked perfectly together. Pushing that steel drum fill at the end was perfect. Followed it with a mario coin sample. I almost used one in my song but didn't want to anger purists.

Might have chained the bass kick a little more to the front or layered something with more mid to make it more pronounced. Sub bass is over powering the kick a tad but the waveform shows you still got some breathing room in there. Despite that minor nitpick the sound is perfectly pro. Great work Albe!

AlbeGian responds:

Thank you Quarl! And thanks for the feedback too!