Quarl's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Sempiternal Rhapsody]

I love this piano work. Evokes that romantic era faithfully. About halfway through I started feeling a little light jazz vibe with those chord progressions. Very inventive. It's not often I listen to a piano composition that makes me say that given how many centuries that instrument has had to evolve but I felt like this evoked a little inspiration from all over the time line.

It's a relatively short piece for piano but you took it to a lot of different places in that eight minutes. It kept my attention easily. I'm glad your happy about it. I'm also happy about it. Cheers LSD :D

LucidShadowDreamer responds:

I'm glad you like the piece!
I do tend to vary my pieces a fair amount, which is something I sometimes get complaints about. But on the other hand, it's nice whenever people appreciate that fact, like you are doing now :)
I get what you mean with the slight jazz feel! I'm actually working on a way more jazzy piece atm, which is quite rare for me.

I wonder if entirely new ways of playing the piano will come up in the future! I find that surprisingly, there are always new elements to be found with just these 88 keys, some of them more noticable than others. Ofc, there's a physical limit to what can be done, and another limit to what generally sounds good. But I think the instrument is far from dead, or even belonging to the past.

Thank you for your review! Always a pleasure to read them ^ ^

[The Vow]

I'm not sure if you ever played Mass Effect but this evoked that soundtrack a few times. Especially around 00:38. I used to mod NGAP audio in college so I'll admit that I double checked the Mass Effect OST for lols. The instrumentation is so similar but that's not a surprise. Most professional sound designers have access to the same tools, sound banks, and libraries that every one else has. Also, contemporary "classical" music is allowed to evoke themes from genres that span a few hundred years. Because of that there's always a chance something is going to sound like something else.

It's not a bad thing that this sounds like Mass Effect. I'm just trying to justify the fact that I thought this might have been stolen for a quick second. Not your bad. Mass Effect is actually a really awesome OST to be compared to. Really great work backwards! Keep pumping out jams like this in 2017 :D

(Let's not talk about all the samples I've used over the years.)

backwardecho responds:

Thank you so much, Quarl!! xD Well, I haven't played ME but I do have those freak out moments now and then that I somehow just recreated part of a song which already exists (nearly all the time, it winds up being a cousin to an older track of mine. Of course, now you've made me completely paranoid that what if I saw a commercial for Mass Effect or walked by it being played in Best Buy or something and got a song snippet stuck in my sub-conscious that popped out a week ago in regurgitated sound!! =O)

Recently, I took out a loan to update my laptop, DAW and so on and I've just been giddy about creating music again, so I expect to be quite busy this year! I definitely look forward to what you have in store as well!!^^ <3

[Yubitsume]

I love it when people mix traditional Japanese instruments with contemporary beats. Unless I'm being ignorant and these are specifically korean instruments. Help me.

Really well done track. Was fun to hear it progress and evolve. You used the right amount of instrumentation that allows the rapper to get a good rhyme across while keeping the whole track interesting interesting. Loved it Nachos!

larrynachos responds:

P sure it's a koto or shamisen. Thanks!

[Atom]

I feel dumb admitting I don't remember ever checking out any of your work. Was really digging this. Takes me back to those old school cornandbeans days when Ian was super into Dragon Force. Some of the mixing elements in this are peaking the track. The distortion from the clipping is noticeable but all the elements aside from that is flipping sex sauce. Awesome melodies, slick breaks, over all good choice of instruments. Just work on fine tuning that mix! I especially loved that down tempo break down at the end.

Just plugged in headphones to see if I can't get to the root of that clipping. Bass sounds like it's in the middle where it should be. Maybe I'd have tried panning everything else a little harder? Not sure if you know this but panning an instrument creates the illusion that it's louder than it really is which allows you to turn the volume down on it and saves room in your mix.

If your not familiar with side chaining I'd make that priority homework. You can really clean up the mix by letting your drums slice through different instruments. I think Fruity Loops has a different name for it but side chaining will let you duck the amplification on one instrument every time that bass kick or snare hits. In drum and bass the drums are the most important part of the mix. So side chain it past the bass, pads, and a little on the leads. Again, not sure how it works in Fruity Loops but when you figure out how to side chain in Reason you basically start side chaining EVERYTHING.

I'm not sure what else to say but I'm sure that was plenty. Take it easy Nachos!!

larrynachos responds:

Completely overlooked sidechaining haha. I usually dont sidechain dnb tracks. I usually do it too hard lol. Still havent figured out how panning helps my mix though. Could you elaborate or link me to some decent tuts? Thanks for the review! It feels good to get some solid pointers. Cheers Quarl!

[Yuletide Memories]

Despite how you feel this was really well mixed. It sounds like you really brought the instruments forward in this. Is that from compression? Whatever you did I have a bias for it and I like it. Excellent arrangement, instrumentation, mix. Those sleigh bells were super smart. I didn't even realize how long this track is. It morphs around a bit and stays really interesting. Great job and happy holidays lsd :D :D

LucidShadowDreamer responds:

Thank you for the review! :3
I really 'cheated' when it came to mixing this. I had to do the quick version, which entails using Cubase 9's new Maximizer on the "modern" setting, and just throwing that on the master track xD

The good thing is, these orchestral insturments I used, although not the very best on the market, are still quite good out of the box. They tend to be panned already, and they generally work well together. Since I made the arrangement so simplistic (considering the time I had, there was no choice anyway), I didn't run into the issue of having to separate intruments in the mix, because of them being layered on top of each other.

All that said, I'm still fairly certain this could sound even nicer, if I spent an hour or two messing around with the EQ, and some additional stuff :)
But sometimes, less is more!

I'm glad you like the arrangment. It was pretty much improvised, based on my intuition :D
Since I've played this piece for many years though, I am very familiar with it, which made the entire process much easier.

As for the sleigh bells, I had some problems getting them to sound balanced :V
Since I used them in a rhythmic manner, but the piece follows no specific tempo and changes all along, I decided to drop them after using them for a short while. I spent way too much time adjusting all the notes in the piano roll so that they would fit together!
They are still not perfect, but I'll pretend that it's "humanization" ;)

Thanks again, and Happy Holidays ^ ^

[Wonderfuland]

KingB, cool stuff! Glitch, chopped samples, sassy funk bass line. Love it son. Glad to hear your still making some really slick tunes. Perfect track :)

Kingbastard responds:

Cheers man, appreciate the comments:)

[Lovely Kitten - Falling]

Damn, this is some Kill Paris level dubstep. Great job. I'll compliment you some more after I gripe that intro.

As someone that uses a piano in 100% of my own songs, I'd be a total hypocrite to say it was tired, unoriginal, and cliche. I hate piano so much but never out grew using it. I feel like you're better than that. The melodies were all well done but for me dubstep has never been about a focus on the melodic qualities of a song. Rather, it's been the tonal qualities and synthesis engineering. You flexed a lot of synth muscle. Awesome awesome awesome. The track is invigoratingly fresh, satisfying, novel. I just wish the motif didn't "crutch" along on a that cliche piano and orchestra vibe. It's an opinion coming from someone that hypocritically falls for that exact same issue on every track.

You should keep pumping out some heavy bass tracks like this. It seems to suit you really well. You're a natural. You deserve a trophy.

[Nosferatu Tales]

I didn't find it super halloweeny or spooks but it was still a nice listen. Really laid back and easy to relax to. Catchy cords. Good resolves. I could see this played on a loop at a party. The track could easily erk out 40 minutes unnoticed. Unless that drunk girl shows up and demands we play the spice girls. Ughhhh, I hate it when she plays the spice girls.

S3C responds:

thanks Quarl! how are things holding up on your end

[Broken World]

Can't believe I didn't drop you a review. The whole track is great but I'm wondering what the creative motive was behind losing that "horrible world" sample to the drums at 00:20. I could hear a liquid track letting that sample play out all the way and delaying the song for a few more measures before kicking the drums back in but you decided to get right into the track instead. In doing so that sample gets momentarily over powered. I'm not sure if the track would really be at all better or worse if that sample were played with but that's really the only problem I have. The drums are sexily mixed, all the pads are perfect, bass isn't obnoxious. This track is gold :)

YakovlevArt responds:

I like your review!

So my thinking was it'd be cool to let the drums hit right as he says the title. It wasn't something to think about heavily, but i feel like letting the sample play out and then hitting the drums is just so overused and often times feels like it's there to fill the silence. I wanted it to feel like it was part of the track more. Honestly it wasn't a major decision and mostly going off the rhythm of the vocal mixed with the drums.

[An Improv on Life]

I love the lo-fi crackling going on in this recording. No bullshit, just authentic melodic exploration. I'll watch the video next. The technology definitely gets in the way a little but gives me a nostalgic college vibe. Spending hours in practice rooms with pianos, recording to garage band on my lap top. Thanks for giving us this shadow :)

LucidShadowDreamer responds:

Thank you for listening and for reviewing, Quarl!
Yeah :) While the sound certainly isn't the best, the authenticity is worth something, in the very least.
I'm glad that this did something for you ^ ^
It's really fun to spend some time playing on real pianos at the university, since I only have an electrix one at home :D