Quarl's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[H0L0 [Jamuary Day 1]]

Yo girl, use the drum signals to side chain literally everything and turn a few of those limiters off to find the edges of the spectrum. Drums can pop more... there's space in the far corners of the spectrum that are being clipped off from bashfully overzealous fidelity tools. I like to put a compressor on almost everything even if just to bypass them so that I have the option to put kick and snare signals through instruments. The sidechain feature will let your drums ring crisply and you can play with sidechain knobs until you get a fidelity you love! I'm pretty all over the place with fidelity but sidechaining is essential tech to get powerful drums.

An EDM track without sidechained drum signals is like a bear without a bicycle. Everyone loves a bear but if you put that bear on a bicycle, everyone will love the bear more...

Atmosphere is pro, loving the techy dial up noises and breaks. I usually only use drums to sidechain stuff but towards the end, that melody patch could have made some more room for itself by pushing aside the pads. Just like a bear on a bicycle...

I'm not sure how much you pan, my ears are faulting today from all the recent headphone usage but you can also clean up mix downs by finding space for everything. Bass tones and kick/snare patterns work really well in the middle but everything else can be biased to find lovely homes and spaces. I go ham to the left & right with aux percussion like hi-hats, tambs, and shakers. To get powerful reese leads I'll use a splitter to turn the lead into two signals than pan hard left on one and hard right on the other. People use that same technique when mixing guitars, I've done it on my pianos... it takes a little practice but that trick helps inch out some extra fidelity :3

Sorry to hit you with fidelity feedback on Jamuary day one like this but I'd love to hear what you can achieve with god tier mixing skills. Song a day challenge will give you some time to play with some of these ideas and maybe by the end of the month your mix downs will be tip top :D

milkypossum responds:

I appreciate this so much!! I am TERRIBLE at mixing and I wing it 90% of the time haha, I have noooo clue what I’m doing when it comes to sidechaining anything so I try to use panning to accommodate and atone for my sins lol 😭 I def need to actually sit down and try to play with the space in songs more and find a happy little space for everything though. I feel like I’d be a lot more confident if I knew what the hell I’m actually doing in terms of mixing!

[Never Enough]

Damn, this is a super tight track, hits nice and hard. I was complimenting Casper earlier today over some amazing trip hop... hit him up and trade beats, spit rhymes, DO IT <3

YasiinClemens responds:

Hell yeah 😎

[DUMB FUCK]

FUCK YEAH, LET'S GO 80s NOFX CLASSIC CRUNCH, SCOTT PILGRIM VIBES IF YOUR NOT OLD ENOUGH TO KNOW WHO NOFX IS. Mix is nutty but I'm in that disbelief mode that this isn't a live recording... you sure you don't use any guitars yo? This sounds so effing live, love it. You should get permission to redo Punk-O-Matic, that game needs a remix :p

Droid responds:

Yeah I need to work on the mix but I just wanted to get it out lmao

[NGADM 2022 Grand Finals Podcast]

Someone tagged me with saxophone AND I APPROVE. Haven't touched sax since third grade but I'm cool with it :3

It's touching to hear your voices, holy damn it's wonderful. You people are amazing and congratulations to everyone! Top shelf talent in every bracket and round! I'll come back to this recording again a few times to let the artists statements sink in.

LuckyDee responds:

Pleased to meet you, even though I might not have shown in my activity on Discord - or through this generic message I'm posting under all the judges' comments XD

But I had fun nonetheless and had a chance for a little personal development, so thanks for your contribution to that.

[And You Shall Know Release]

Definitely love the riffs, killer energy Banana. You know what I have to say about the all around mix down, same words from my review of Footnotes. Over compression, more room is available to give your instruments the space they need in the far corners of that sound spectrum. It's such a beautiful arrangement, just needs a bit of polish but getting that pro mix sound every time can take years and a lot of experimentation. Compression is a wonderful tool but it's something that needs to be used in responsible amounts. I'm taking away your car keys until you can work off some of that compression D:

Banana-head responds:

Thanks again for the review! I guess i do use a lot of compression lol, its mostly what i learned to use along with a bit of EQ. Ill be figuring that out with time.

[Footnotes On A Postcard From Nowhere]

Reminds me of an old Fall Of Troy sound and mix down, takes me back in time for certain. I think I'm noticing a few small things with the mix. Over compression: you got a relatively small brick. Also the bass tones go from almost overpowering to almost underwhelming at 1:47. Massive bass nerf @ 1:46, getting the compression tools mastered and maxing out the field would totes give you the extra space for everything in this very powerful jam. Finding the deepest corners of your sound spectrum can be a harrowing journey, I wish you the best!

Then there seems to be a ton of guitar buzz, most noticeable at 00:44. I ran into a similar issue with my mixing board, had an active channel doing nothing but putting the fuzzies on my headphones. Gotta find that buzz and CUT IT'S BALLS OFF- I mean mitigate the buzzing. Sorry, that escalated very quickly. I was just trying to be funny and helpful but managed to get really weird really fast. If you do want your guitar to keep it's balls then that's on you but they really don't help at all and can lead to stray guitars running wild in the neighborhood. No bueno D:

Banana-head responds:

Thanks for the review! These latest math rock songs ive been posting are due to the fact that my bandmate recently gave me a small mixing class teaching me the very basics (trust me, i didn't know anything before this). About the buzzing, yes that's a problem i can't seem to find a way to fix. It's mainly in the bass track and it seems to be coming from the bass pickups itself? Idk for sure. The buzz seemed to be coming from all over the spectrum last time it checked it, but ill definitely be working on fixing that.

[Sunset on another planet]

Glad you love the sounds, gotta write for yourself before you can write for anyone else! Crisp sounds, lovely contemplative melodies, cool stuff sandman. I'm not sure I was as into the mid section synth but there were some cool melodies! I'd have done some goofy synth modulations via automations, a filter + frequency and res knob fuckery but then you just get dubstep. Who even likes dubstep anymore, haha! LAME!

wait... i still like dubstep :'c

SirSandman0 responds:

lol thx. The synth has a voice doubler applied which makes it sound "goofier"

Also dubstep is completely out of style IMO... but I still like it.

[lost winter]

Sequenced, lost winter
1]Technicality 2]Production 3]Composition 4]Emotion 5]BonusPoints
9,10,7,10,10 x2 = [92/100]

What happened to that nuerofunk you were gonna floor us all with? You said on Facebook you were going to nuero the fuck out of us. "i just get so bored" BOO THIS MAN AND HIS DECEPTION D:<

Gotta do what makes you happy and stick to your guns, I get it. It's working for you in the house scene so go hard and get that house DJ street cred. I can totally relate to getting bored outside of your preferences, I honestly got a little bored just now. Eight minutes is a long ass time to keep the energy levels the same, despite that break down halfway through which didn't do anything to wake me up. I think you could have pushed the tempo harder which would have added some energy, suspense, and cut the length down just a little bit. One of the harder aspects I have with up tempo genres is keeping things interesting the entire time. A loop happens so quickly at 180+ BPM, DNB is perfect for people with ADD but eventually it gets hard to introduce switch ups. You seem to go in the opposite direction entirely with a track that just climbs for eight minutes but kind of goes nowhere.

I give out high scores, no one needs to tell me that I'm easy with tens. I still respect the mix down, the focus on what you love, and the epic length of the production but I came down kind of hard on composition because I've told you before that going extra long isn't the flex you think it is. If there were 64-100 extra competitors it would be a little insulting to force judges to spend that extra time nit picking a genre that they don't listen to regularly, but this is the final round. You're the only person who regularly pumped out the maximum length.

I've mentioned in private conversation that I'd love to hear you blend in some of your other music skills. Despite playing some mean guitar and piano you stick to classic "progressive house", a genre that honestly stopped being progressive in the 90s. You could eventually become the slick house guy that fuses rad acoustic guitar licks into his tracks but you stick to old school sounds and styles that don't vibe as fresh as genres like future or color bass. It's cool that it is working for you elsewhere, but Newgrounds has always featured eclectic artists that absorb new ideas and styles.

I was really hoping you'd go outside of your box a little but I'm also happy to see that you made it to the final round. Growth can happen in an instant, but it can also take decades. Every year is a chance to reinvent yourself. I think I know a little too much about you and that might have came down in how I scored composition, but that insight also affected technicality. My least favorite metric I choose to judge was "technicality" because I have no idea what people are doing on the other end of their computers, but I know you're hiding technical skills you haven't even begun to tap into. I sheepishly gave most people tens on technicality based on how much of a factor my ADD became. You were fighting my fiancé's network group meeting for my attention, sad times. If you had slipped in a quick guitar riff my attention would have snapped back into your track like-"HE DID IT. HE ACTUALLY DID IT. THE CRAZY SON OF A BITCH DID IT."

I respect the desire to try writing some nuerofunk for the final round, that's a detail none of the other judges had. Would have loved to hear it. I wish you the best with the other judges but I will bring up the electro-acoustics one last time because I think your signed work would also benefit from it. Mix in some of your live sounds and play on top of tracks for fun. You're an incredibly clean house artist but some live recordings could breathe new life to your work! Sit in front of your computer with a guitar, wear some headphones when you have your DAW open, and try recording with your phone for a start. You can upgrade a mic later, just think about it. Do me a huge favor and look up French Kiwi Juice's live stuff, I'd love to hear you do something similar! Shame us all with rad technical skills!

Cheers Wild Keizer <3

Sequenced responds:

I have a mid grade studio microphone and it sounds great, no need to upgrade for now lol.
Prog tracks are around 8 minutes long. It's not a flex, it is what it is. A lot of tracks I am releasing in the next few months are pushing the genre forward, with a different more "quirky" sound.

Maybe its because you're not fully wrapped in the prog scene to fully see. But that is ok. I think a challenge for you (as a judge) is since your brain is use to super versatile D&B music, is to listen to these songs you hear for NGADM with a blank slate, and judge it and the quality and musicality of its own merits. how it compares with other artist of said genre. I say this because the final round is tough when no one is making the same genre.

I think a great challenge for next year is, have everyone decide on one genre to make in the Final. Or pull it out of a hat and really force people to be creative. That way, you can objectively judge all 6 tracks fairly.

Another thing, is to have judges judging with the SAME criteria. Some of the things listed in the sheets dont make sense to me. If judges refuse to adapt, fire them and get new ones.

Anyway, as far as techincal, this track had 65 channels, a multitude of effects and automation. This is the type of genre that seems " simple to make" but open up the project file and the immediate response you get is "wtf". Polishing a house track to be this type of quality is an art form. And learning how to translate mixes into well mastered tracks that sound amazing in clubs, as well in a car listening environment or basic headphones. It takes years to master this.

I just heard masters of my latest EP and I am just dumbfounded how much the past couple of years I have improved on just mixing alone. I want to get REALLY REALLY good at it and that way I know I can be super comfortable being experimental.

Hell, with this EP, its got a 4 minute intro before the drop. with sadguru vocals, polyrhythms, off sounding effects, yet it all blends so well.

I respect your opinion. I just think you should focus on judging the music as it stands out with the rest of the genre. This is club music. Not really NG listener with headphones music. If I end up winning I can retire and become a judge, and really help push the quality of judging for this contest.

[The Final Resolve - NGADM 2022 Final Round]

Spadezer, The Final Resolve - NGADM 2022 Final Round
1]Technicality 2]Production 3]Composition 4]Emotion 5]BonusPoints
10,9,9,10,10 x2 = [96/100]

I bet you want praise for getting this far? I bet you want to be called a good boy? You want head pats? WELL TOO BAD SPADE. HEAD PATS ARE RESERVED ONLY FOR PEOPLE THAT GET A PERFECT SCORE. YOU MISSED POINTS IN COMPOSITION AND PRODUCTION BECAUSE A LOT LIKE ME, YOU SPEND WAY TOO MUCH TIME IN CAPS LOCK. Give your high action maximum velocity dubstep drums a rest and use a different snare like... once. The track was practically begging for a high action jazz snare or some pitchy koan sound snare to counter the energy. The track went extra hard, which wasn't a bad thing but if your idea of switching up the drums revolves around lowing the volume on them then I might recommend expanding on your drum programming a little. Toss on some pitch bends, add a filter and screw with freq/resonance knobs, toss in a vibraslap, some guiro, switch up the hi-hat rhythms, add some tambs... do literally anything else because the drums were probably the most boring aspect of the track. I hope you don't take too much offense; the track was splendid as usual but it's such a noticeable failing here that I almost took off an extra point. I didn't but I almost did >:C

I think the length of the track had me forgiving some aspects, you really went hard into this contest. I might have mentioned earlier that the score sheets had you sitting at number one seed? Congrats for leading the contest as well as you did. Others might say the judges had a dubstep bias, maybe we did? Honestly, I would have loved to of heard some experimental grindcore or maybe some accordion math rock... but this was definitely a year for EDM artists to go extra hard and your style capitalized. Shout out to the orchestral artists that made it this far as well but EDM artists have that small advantage of finding all the tones in the spectrum and making use of them advantageously. Perhaps too often though, EDM tracks can get very boring when it's just a brick of constant action so I'm glad you get yourself outside the box. Honestly, I'm a little surprised you didn't slip in one screaming woodland creature towards the end for old times' sake. I'd have chortled over it quietly.

Edit: I went back to your track a few times while listening to Uxvellda's track and I think a small oversight might exist in how you started the track with a mighty (but corny) phased synth patch. I like to get to the action quickly when I write so I know the itch to come out of the gate strong, but you might have benefit from using a little less at the beginning? I think it's fair to point to Uxvellda's track, he opened with some strong orchestral drums before hitting me with those big boring repetitive dubstep patterns. Despite not having the diversity in the dubstep drums that I asked of you, he managed to counter-balance them with some very atmospheric orchestral sounds. You both had incredible sounds coming into the end, but I felt Uxvellda was slightly stronger :C

Regardless of my issues (of which I have many issues totally unrelated to your music) I wish you the best Spade, and good luck with the other judges! Excelsior!

Spadezer responds:

Lol. If you didn't have a reason to complain instead of saying it's perfect, I would be concerned. I underestimated how passionate you could be about drums. I can't say you're wrong though. However, as someone who prides themself in being some sort of a drummer, it cuts to the core. You were probably more focused on the drum samples used compared to the rhythm of the samples I'm assuming, but here I was thinking that adding some high hats at the end of the project was a little extra.

I agree with the sentiment about the genre tendencies for this contest. This contest usually is a yearly battle on being the most populated with either EDM vs orchestral artists, and I think there were more orchestral people last year. You give me an idea to maybe try ADM or UAC by attempting other genres I'm not used to. I don't know if I could do orchestral, but I really think the metal side of the community needs more presence in these contests. I want to see more PirateCrab artists. So maybe I'll attempt to lead the change I want to see in this community/contest. The final round in this contest was interesting just looking at artist's genres. You had two very similar moving orchestral artists, two epic style dubstep artists, and a rare house guy along with a frenzied compositional wild man who reminds me of older NG EDM/chiptune guys.

It's fun being compared to Uxvellda. I new even going into the semi-finals that we'd be going in with similar styles. I find their sound design inspiring so there's definitely a chance to get ideas spurred on just by their style. As to how I've handled the intro, that was a direct consequence on how I went about drafting ideas into the song. The first thing you hear is what inspired every other part of composition in this piece, so I naturally and unconsciously had the song flow in such a way that I introduced the main idea/motif right at the beginning and built from there. Doesn't happen all the time but I do have that tendency.

I always appreciate your feedback :)

[Super Bright Colours]

Zechnition, Super Bright Colors
1]Technicality 2]Production 3]Composition 4]Emotion 5]BonusPoints
10,8,9,10,10 x 2 = [94/100]

You've really outdone yourself, pushing that everchanging melodic style to its limits. Another judge may come down on you a little harder for what sometimes seems a little too random and sporadic but the only time it really bothered me was at 1:30. That little record scratch just felt very out of place. The transition would have been fine but that sound didn't endear itself to the switch up. A softer riser might have been welcome. I'm so cliche, I'd have wrote a crescendo portamento sine wave synth with a long cut off or an orchestral cymbal swell. That's just my thing but I stand by the idea that you could have found or engineered a nicer sound. I noticed you used it again later, that's a good technique that can sometimes strong arm a bad idea into becoming a good idea. Repetition is a valuable aspect of music but again, the record scratch is so lo-fi compared to how wet and alive those melodies were. A low rumble could have handed those sections off to each other, a single string instrument rising and falling, a car driving by (sample or otherwise), a choir patch... I can think of a ton of sounds that may have been a little more inspired than a record scratch.

It's a good thing that's the one thing I'm super focusing in on, all your other decisions are spot on. I took two points off production because the mix wasn't necessarily perfect but you almost have a top notch mix. Things were a little quiet. Addressing my EDM bias, the drums could have been side chained more to the front. Sidechaining doesn't have to be super noticeable, but the drums could have slapped a little more prominently. You worked with a sensitive future kit and I liked it but maybe another layer could have gifted you with a soft kit towards the intro, then a slightly slappier dance kit for the later half sections? A nice big kit would have matched the stronk of those synth patches!

*Stronk: adjective- not generally comparable, comparative stronker, superlative stronkest. Internet slang, humorous, nonstandard. Deliberate misspelling of strong.*

Given how pleased I was over all with your drum programming I might have wanted them in the song a little sooner. That initial section with those dulcimer sounding strings might have benefit from a modest four to the floor? Maybe a gentle snare on counts two and four? Loved the bird samples by the way, felt like you were specifically calling out to me and saying "hey Quarl. I put some birds right here. Give me a perfect scor-" WELL I CAN'T BE BOUGHT WITH BIRDS ZECH. I ONLY GIVE OUT ONE OR TWO PERFECT SCORES A ROUND AND GIVEN THAT THE MAJORITY OF EVERYONE HAS BEEN ELIMINATED you had a much higher probability of getting a perfect score this round BUT YOU DIDN'T AND THAT's totally ok BUT NO ONE GOT A PERFECT SCORE THIS TIME AROUND and that's still ok. Music contests are so heavily influenced by the whim of the judges, so I hope you're happy with making the final bracket and I will certainly wish you luck with the other judges! A few of us were rooting for you and your unique style. Have a good one Z!

Zechnition responds:

Hey Quarl! I put some bird foley, AND footstep sounds, so therefore I clearly deserve perfect marks, without question. Please reconsider your choice.

Sincerely,
That Bird Foley Guy

(also thanks for the feedback about drums, I didn't realize & will definitely do that!)