Quarl's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Bleak Prospects]

I didn't feel any ear pain but I'm 35 and my ears are probably already damaged. Love this sound by the way. Love it, fun squishy synths! Drums have some phonk to them. I'm actually in love with this. Only crit is that groove killing pause @ 1:24. Ditch that gap D:

[Good Bad Times (With Tori) [DEMO]]

Absolutely beautiful <3

prodtytd responds:

;-; <3

[Eye for an Eye]

Oh hell yeah, I haven't heard anything new from you in a while. Glad I swung through, track is cool, fresh. Sounds way different from your usual sound, very experimental compared to the sound that usually fits you. This is gonna make me go back and listen to some of your older tunes because it just stands out so much in comparison :3

Edit: I totally get it, the demotivation hits hard sometimes. Rant to me all you want, I get it.

Casper responds:

Thanks, I've been on this "do random genres" thing since 2024, but after the mall collab I stopped making music. I got demotivated cause I achieved my goals but now I'm doing it purely as a hobby. Before, I usually had a song out every two weeks but now I wanna do whatever. Who knows when my next track is gonna be, maybe 10 years from now... Ok no, I am planning on releasing an album of sorts this year, with a little twist to it. If you wanna listen to some of the stuff from 2024 that I released, I suggest "Distant", it's a DnB track that I enjoyed making.

Lol, sorry for the rant, I haven't done this in a while. I'm gonna come back to trip hop stuff... sometime, but I just wanna do whatever for now lmao. As for this track, it was something impulsive. I decided I wanna do phonk but I did not expect the mix to be so good, especially after this much time. Thanks for swinging by:)

[No Man's Land (Demo)]

Love the melodies and atmosphere, great sounds design Snikio!

Snikio responds:

Thank you so much!!!

[飛翔 (wip)]

totally love this :3

[Kingbastard & Myheadisaballoon - LUV]

Old bastard. 20 years goes by fast, don't it? Great tune :3

[shteppi - high speed techdeck escape 2005]

Hell yeah, class. Fun breaks, classic samples, pad is a little loud, bass is a little flat but what can you do? I love to point out the same mix issues I deal with on the regular, hypocritically. Track is short but you knew that. You posted a shortie with full intention behind it and I respect that. This has that jazzier violence recordings sound from Hive, Keaton, and Gridlok: sick.

[Lotus Vale [Electronica x Breaks] | Free Game Music]

Loved the groove, tight drums and melodies <3

JensVide responds:

Ah thank you! The drums are a sped up loop, cut up at some places to create fills. As for the bass I tried to imitate the bass sound in "Silhouette Dance" from Ridge Racer Type 4, but have a different type of groove.

The melodies really came by themselves, when I was making the song I heard that flute melody in my head. The guitar is improvised the whole way through.

[She is dead. You blame yourself but others tell you it is not your fault. Deep down, you know you ca]

Came for the title. Still reading the title. Technically stayed for the title. I love when a song title is too long for my browser. Track has some slick indy hip hop vibes. Loved those crunchy drums <3

[AIM - A Lifetime Later]

A Lifetime Later, masterakuma99
Composition/Structure:10 Production:9.5 Emotion/Atmosphere:10 Art Relevance:10

Before even listening to the song I felt compelled to write up a review. It might reveal a bias to be honest but I had the opportunity to meet Grant Wooley in 2016. He was a very chill person, kind, and talented. I have a drawing of his in my sketch pad from 2016. I still follow his work on Facebook, his landscapes are bliss.

I'm grateful that you weren't afraid to pursue the "low hanging fruit," so many people seemingly miss the opportunity to reflect their chosen art with "atmospheric samples." I'm talking about the bird and water sounds at the beginning. It's such an obvious thing to do and so many people are like "NO. I'M GONNA WRITE SOME GENERIC DUBSTEP, HELL YEAH." Even within bass music genres the option to sample machinery, animal, or atmospheric noises exists so it's a really stupid flex. It was a slight let down though that you only introduced the track with that and didn't bother to reintroduce the idea at a later point. I love a reoccurring motif or theme outside of the melody and revisiting it could have sustained a little more ambient time to the work (though 3 and a half minutes is fine.)

At the end of the day a lack of reusing or introducing more atmospheric samples was the only thing I felt like nit picking. I'm satisfied with this, it's both minimal and perfect. I had a purely technical question to ask, as a drummer myself: there is a white noise that reminds me of the rattle of a snare's resonant head (the wires). At times it just sounded like white noise and I almost took off a point until I started to assume it was attached to the resonant head. How did you program those drums, they sound lovely and authentic! It's not some super technical blast beat but there was a lot of creativity as far as percussion is concerned and it still suits the nature of the art. Someone else might find the decisions distracting but my ears flipped right up.

Goodluck masterakuma99, I'm just now remembering you from the last time I judged AIM. To have remembered your name years later from the one song, your work must have stood out then too! Cheers!

masterakuma99 responds:

Thanks for the review once again, Quarl. Two years ago I also entered the contest and you gave me a really positive (i think even perfect) score. Glad you still remember me and enjoyed this track as well :)
To your question: The short answer is 'a lot of effects'. I love manipulating sounds through any means possible like a maniac. When I play guitar for example I use all kinds of things as picks. Coins, paper, sometimes even forks lol. I also like to experiment with all the effects and plug-ins I have. Specifically for this case there are three different drum tracks playing (in some passages) at the same time, all layered on top of eachother. I wanted the mass of drums and percussion to be a singular unit, existing only with eachother. Each one has an eq, saturator, plugin called vinyl from izotope, reverb, a tiny bit of distortion and another eq. Then all of them are glued together with multiple compressors to give them that lofi roughness. I think that is why it sounds like white noise/very faintly like an actual snare. Layered and compressed with other stuff makes it this sound that fits right into the instrumentals.
Thanks!