Quarl's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Gatekeeper of the Necropo]

First!

Really creeptastic chords and melodies. Seems to suite the seasons weather with how damn cold and eerie this sounds. I'm loving that chorus. Everything sounds really full. The only little thing that I can think of doing is to have the attack on that chorus set slightly lower so it crescendos a bit like a real chorus. It's a dumb little thing, but since everything sounds so perfect I have only dumb little things to nit pick about. Another thing I like to try out sometimes is setting up two chorus pads then having the attack of one slightly off from the other one. Sometimes I'll layer several chorus pads over and over then de-quantize. Dunno. It really doesn't matter. The only reason I've gotten so finicky about chorus pad attacks is because my music major friend at berklee is always telling me that he hates the sound of synthetic chorus's. My ultimate goal with voice pads is to make jack cry with joy. Really though, this song is amazing.

S3C responds:

thanks for the review man! this is actually the third track you've commented on about mah choirs ;D. good advice about the attacks, but my attentions with this one were to make the choirs be a synthetic organ/keyboard sound, hence the instant attacks. I suppose during the second half it would sound better to adjust the attack levels so it meshes with the strings more nicely. But anyways, thanks for the review bud! helpful advice, and by jack you wouldnt happen to be speaking of candlejack because you know that's it's very dangero

[=Trampling Onwards=]

haha, reminds me of frank zappa on metal.

I loved the idea of the one riff thing. Electronic composers do it all the time though... it's actually kind of become a staple of the popular electronic genres. Find one cheesy melody, let it fly for a while, then do a break down and do it again. The drums in this song make that one riff work really well though. You really went all out with finding those syncopations while keeping the flow of the rhythm going. The composition was really cool. Great C:

Hades responds:

Yeah, I guess that it is a rather frequently appearing aspect of certain genres, which definitely isn't a good thing, but I can't really say I related it to those genres until now. :P Anyways, I'm glad you liked the drums enough to live through the single riff thing and thanks a lot for returning the favor of reviewing! ;D

[Awake - Supernova]

raaaawwrrrr

ahaha, 190 bpm? I only go to 180 when I'm trying to be dramatic and 182 is my tops to date. The track is insane, not for the casual dnb listener. The sounds are all interesting and clean. Honestly though, this tempo is fucking crazy. I'm gonna have to try it out sometime. You do it so well.

This song makes me really fucking happy. Nothing else to say :P

Rawrthaas responds:

:3!

yeah the song I mentioned in the comments is actually 200 bpm :o

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1kGyO 83HiU&feature=related

[Awake - Raven Song (preview)]

I've been hearing a lot of dubstep lately too...

Personally, I think it's just a passing trend. Don't get me wrong I love dubstep, but I feel as if the entire genre is just the introduction to a really crazy dnb track.

That aside I really liked this. The sounds are great, as are the background intangibles. The atmosphere is cool, the melody is cool. Really slick sir! There's just one thing I could have used. Slightly crazier drums... which I know you're awesome at. Seriously, you held back on this one. Para's smog step was nothing compared to what you're capable of :)

Rawrthaas responds:

I remember when I use to incorporate glitchy idm breaks into almost every single one of my tracks... I don't know what happened but I stopped doing it altogether after a while hehe.

You're right, I need to bring it back with the chopped beats :D

[SR - Shinra Corp Dub]

puppet...

haha, not a complete flop. It's a cool loop. It's got that original ps1 sound brazing elbows with that dub step sound. I'd like to hear this finished :P

[[TheDimension4] Wooden Town]

rawr

I'm actually not a fan of impressionism. I'm thankful for what it did to the art world in the long run. I'm just not a fan of the style. This is a cool piece you have here. I've just been getting into romantic composers so this is really the kind of sound I'm craving at the moment. There's really nothing I can say that could be even remotely helpful... curious though, what did you use to compose this? The dynamics gives off the impression that you played this but the sound quality gives off the impression that you're probably using a daw and midi controller?

floccari responds:

I use a Kawai Stage Keyboard with a Edirol Audio Midi Interface. On the software side I use Reason. The interface I use is a more high end one so you can use high quality instrument sampling in real time. So basically you get to have your surreal quality sound and still play it like a traditional piano. My compositions usually never make it to paper. Like the others on this album, this started as an idea in my head and improved through improvisation.

[-(Purple-Walking-Buildings)-]

mraw

Definitely a cool song sir. Given that you called it "experimental ambient" I can't really say that there's anything this song needs or doesn't need. There are a few things I would have done differently but those are subjective opinions that don't really help you out. Since your pointing out that bit about the bpm, I honestly would have gone a little slower. I might even have automated some tempo shifts to achieve some rubato. Other than that, this track is nice and chill. Beautiful :)

Tykwa responds:

I did too aswell lower the bpm even lower, and it indeed sounded even more mellow without an added repetitive, I do not currently know how to automate tempo yet, Well, I've never tried it, It's probably simple... Hmm ill see :)

[In Another Dream -KN]

meow

A lot of the elements in this track are really well practiced and the elements come together really well. There's just one thing that kind of gets me and it would be the snare. This song would sound perfect with a punchier snare sound. Try these: up the snare you already have in the mix, try out an ounce of distortion, layer it with some more snare sounds... experiment with it. Everything else in this song is really nice. It's just the lack of a powerful snare that takes away from the rest of the mix. Other than that, awesome song!

[Awake - Field of Dreams]

saucy

haha, "sauce beat." I'm floored... we'll... as floored as you can be without a four to the floor. Lame production joke aside, this isn't my typical kind of genre but even I gotta admit that it sounds perfect. The melodies are perfect, the mix is perfect, everything is perfect. Fuck yes.

Rawrthaas responds:

I just realized after like 5 billion years your icon has a skeleton in it :o