Quarl's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Your dissolving face]

rawr!

Alright, you asked for a review so here it is. Cation to the wind, I'm a dnb producer so I might not have the best advice...

Melodies: great! I loved em man. Maybe you could have put a bit more variety in the chord structures around 1:09, maybe the rhythms could have been different... thing is when they fist came in I was a little thrown off. Personally, I feel like electronic dance music is really hard to be creative with because of the amount of rules you have to follow to produce a track. Melodies are even harder/ near impossible to be creative with given you only have 12 tones to rearrange. A better combination of words for "creativity" in the music realm regarding melody is "self exploration." Dunno, you're a creative guy, so keep doing what you do and eventually it will all come together.

Sound quality/mix: ACE! Aside from the vox being a bit loud everything was mixed really well. All the sounds came through at good levels and with fairly good space. My only complaint here is in the dynamics. For instruments like the piano/ sounds that came in at around 00:13 there would be a benefit from slight changes in the amplification over time. Live musicians never play at the same amplification over time and in fact create tension by purposefully dropping the amplification over time. You can do it by changing the note velocities or you can find a way to automate the volumes. Dunno, look into that. It's a hard/ complex idea to tackle... in fact I'd say it's a really professional thing to try and get, but you'd benefit from it so try it ;)

Vox: If I were anyone else I'd tell you to lose them. They sounded kind of interesting when they first came in but they just don't "fit in." Granted, you might be able to change that. If you can figure out how to automate them to change their pitch over time they'll become less of just rhythmic tools and more like melodic ones. Another fun little thing I'd try is automating them to pan over time so they're not static in one location.

Dunno what else to say other than great song. It's always fun when I stop by here only to notice how much you've improved. You keep doing this and next time I stop by you'll be fucking amazing.

[Rig - Am I Cool Yet?]

mraw

When the track started up I thought you were going in this direction: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQp7Id 8iRA4

Yeah! Alright! Cool!

Great bass making technique. I've heard that one before though. It's really funny to hear the different stories of how people have made effective reeces. I remember in the lifted forums, someone made a really sick reece from recording raspberries being blown on his girlfriend. Nav told me how he took a bass kick once and played it next to itself a few hundred times in the sequencer to get a reece sound. Good times, good times. Nothing I can leave review wise to be constructive. Just keep doing what you do :3

Rig responds:

I love that video. I so should've done something like that.
THANKS QUARL :3

[[ solar ]]

rawr

Hmm, it's good... but I know/love the original too much. My personal philosophy is that nothing beats the original and it's damn tough to challenge Geier. I'm not sure if I want to leave an in depth review for this because you seem to know a lot all ready. Also, one problem I run into all the time with remixes is that it's really tough to get that original sound in there while balancing it out with your own creativity, so I know how hard it can be, but this is missing so much... more modulation/ less volume on the reece might help. Maybe even just less volume on the reece. Who knows, try taking off more of the high end on that reece. Play with that reece more. I think that's half of what I don't agree with. In fact... that might be all I don't agree with. I guess I should apologize and congratulate you on such a good song then immediately tell you to work more on that reece. Sorry :P

Dunno if you've heard Misha's Remix of Solar, but check that on youtube if not. Good stuff ^_^

boney-man responds:

yeah i've heard it... i like the original better :D

and i know about the reese, now that i hear this song again, that reese needs a lot of work... maybe i'll fix it and re-upload.

thanks man

[Aboriginal Malfunction]

opinions:

lol. That amen break never gets old does it? Nice rhythms and such, just uhhh, like the guy said before me, annoying melody and too short. However, I think what's annoying about that melody isn't actually the melody. It's the synth's characteristics. Try changing it up to a double sawtooth oscilator type, add some distortion, then layer on a sub bass. That's how I'd do it... then again, that's also how everyone else would do it right?

When it comes right down to it, the tracks pretty good and I think the only things that could be changed are good/bad via subjectivity. Keep on doing :)

[-:YRX:-ChaozPhantasy RMX]

aha. not bad but...

I half agree with slip streamer but he's being way too dick about it with out being helpful at all. First off, the amen break is great for learning how to slice a beat and rearrange it, but the amen break got old back in 95. People who are just getting into dnb love it because it's pretty obvious that it's a good sound, but I kid you not when I say everyone has had their dick up in that break. Seriously, using the amen break will get you aids... well... it won't, but I'm just trying to make an analogy here that we can laugh at and maybe learn something from. What I'm trying to say is that it's just been really overdone.

A better technique for drum programming is to layer different sounds to make new drum kits. In order to get a really good snare, layer around four other snares on top of each other. As you get better at this, you'll understand what makes a good snare. Typically try to get sounds that hit different areas of the sound spectrum. Start with a really typical jazz/funk snare for the mid frequencies, then get a really low sound (sometimes I use a bass kick and hide it in there.) Then get a really high sound like a 909 snare (sometimes I use cymbals instead but that takes a little modulation). Then I'll throw on an additional snare for character. Then use a compressor/ equalizer to cut/boost specific frequencies. You can do all this to your kicks as well.

Now for your description of paragons track as "breakbeat" and this as "drum and bass." Well that's sort of right, but paragons song was within the average bpm of a dnb song and was in fact dnb, specifically trance step. Now if I really wanted to be a dick I could say that this track isn't really dnb. It's breakcore. But all this is genre admiring is worthless shit. Adhering to genres will only help you improve at making said genre. When it comes right down to it, music is music and genres only muddy things up and get people to argue over and over again about meaningless shit. Take indy for example. Indy isn't really anything new. It's just rock music. Plain and simple. The term indy came from the idea that a band was independent from a label and therefor had to pay their own fucking bills. For some reason though people misunderstood that idea and started calling all music that sounded like rock "indy." Then "indy labels" started poping up. A complete fucking paradox. You see what I'm getting at? I'm pissed at how indy has come to be and it really doesn't matter at all. Fuck genres.

Ok, back to the review. Not a bad reese you have going. It's sounding really simple though. Modulate that beast. Pitch bend, automate the frequencies to cut over time, layer it with another less typical sounding reese. Make it shine. Experiment. What you have here is classic, but there's so much more that can be said and done.

A few little things that got to me: your voice at the beginning of the track. I can read thank you. I knew what I was listening to before the track even loaded up. It just sounds silly. Get rid of it. I listened to a few of your other tracks too... stop announcing your songs. The only reason I can think of why some one would do that is to protect their stuff from getting stolen, but I really don't think your good enough for that to happen to and for it to even matter if it did. Those crowd cheering samples were also really silly. Those belong in trance genres and they always sound really cheesy. Drop em.

Now, I know this may have seemed like a hard review, but I'm only leaving this because I feel like you have a lot of potential. There so much to learn, you just have to be active in your quest for knowledge. I'm sure you do this, but you have to try something new in every song you make. Keep learning sir and I'm sure you'll be able to cock slap slip streamer next time he stops in on one of your tracks.

Peace sir.

YouriX responds:

Aah! Now this is a review! I can learn from! Anyways! I didnt know i made Breakcore! That sounds pretty cool!

But back to the review as i read thru your comment you really put some attention to my Drum sampeling. Well I guess i should go back to the books as one would say, and do some seriues drum layering. But since i am kinda of a newbie to the DnB world i like hearing the Amen drums. But your right if i keep using it i might get aids :( *aids of unoriginalty!*

But uuuh i like anoucing my songs it sounds cool :P
Also the cheering effect i hardly never use it and i thaught it would be cool to add it.

But i am glad you took i mean really took your time to review and not be a dick about it and also since i kinda know you because like me your a Audio forum Elite a older one wich makes you more elite then me :P
I respect your opinion and will try to improve. I do want to be original so making my own drumloops would help me achieve that!

[/M: Floating on the Lawn]

rawr :3

aha, le sound art/electroacoustics/ sonic/ whatever you want to call it. I felt like I owed you for your kind words so I went and listened to all your stuff. I chose to hit up this one with a review though because I'm an art major and this kind of work tickles me more than the over saturated over produced typical dance tracks we've all grown to love and create. This kind of work is more honest to me. It's experimental. It hits a vibe that you really can't scratch with a melody.

I really like whats going on here, but I agree with rig. I'd like to hear some more out of the sound spectrum. OVerall it has a bit too much of that hi fuzz. It's good for a bit but like rig and I are saying, a bit more variety with those sounds. While the entire track was generally a bit of an experiment, perhaps you should consider going back and adding things intentionaly. A sub bass might be a nice little addition. I notice some infrasonic sounds, but some more would be pleasant.

Overall, great! Keep playing around. Keep sonic art alive!

Mich responds:

Thanks for the nice review and the tips here!
I'll keep those tips in the back of my head if I go for something like this again :)
This time I just used the standard 4 samplers in FL, so yeah
I'll add more variety with different samples, and perhaps add some synths too next time.

Thanks for reviewing! :)

[Nav - The Chimes (NG Edit)]

meow

Sure is a lot of zero voting going on lately. Good thing we have millions of fans and are untouchable gods on this tiny website called newgrounds. Peons will bow before our might and hand over 10 fives for every zero. Yes sir. Gods.

Since you can't be arsed into making a full dnb track I won't feel arsish to leave a blatantly non-helpful review. Besides, you know more than me. I just look prettier.

Nav responds:

lol

[Jungle on Strings ft. DJ]

rawr

Great song. Just one thing that can use some work. The dynamics. Lets hear those drums change up their velocities every once in a while. It makes the drums sound more organic and live. A nice little technique I use is to slap on some delay with the hi hats, then accent every other note. The delay if kept in sync with the tempo of the track will create instant dynamics. Another good technique is to always make sure the kick on 1 is always stronger. Live drummers have a tendency to accent the first kick. Drums arn't the only sounds that can benefit from deeper dynamics, but those semi arp synths could have used some velocity change ups.

Other than the dynamics this is a really great mix. Interesting panning on the lead synth.

winKoneR responds:

Thanks for listening, reviewing and valuable advices ! I love dnb, but in making it, I suck :) This is maybe first better one ;) Thanks one more time !

[Just Another Number]

meow

WEEEEEEEEEEEEEE, here goes.

I might recommend dropping that synth lead towards the beginning in favor of a slightly more complex piano line. Or you should try adding some more reverb to it/ cutting the high frequencies... just an idea though. Cool drums... hi hat rhythm can use some 16th notes to add a little flavor/zing. Melodies are working pretty good. Have you figured out how to automate synth modulations? Cause the synth that comes in around 1:42 would sound hot with some filtering or some sort of slight changes in it's characteristics over time. Wait... there it is. It just came in too little too late for me. There's that piano. Sitting in the back. Not where I'd put it, but it has a cool thang going.

When the aux percussion comes in later: shakers would sound better if the syncopation was different... actually, here's a really fun technique to play with... try slapping your hi hats/ shakers with some delay. You'll notice that writing interesting rhythms gets a hell of a lot easier because the delay will create automatic dynamics. Just accent every other note and don't be afraid to throw in a few off beat hits.

I could be more helpful but I'm really fucking tired right now. Long day. Sleep needed. all in all great tune. Not what I'm used to hearing, a lot of things caught me off guard. While the review seemed pretty objective, keep in mind that I'll probably like it more tomorrow when I'm not drunk on tired. Peace sir.

S3C responds:

oooh happy happy joy joy what a pleasant review. thanks!

i'm rather inclined to agree with most of your criticisms:

-i might trash the synth at the intro in favor of a more developed piano, as it does add much anyway, right?
-I agree, the drums could use a tad more flavorizing (mmmm)
-Automating the synth sounds like great idea! I just got caught with working the other instruments and departments that I forgot to fiddle around with the main lead line...hmmm
-My intention for the piano was to just be a color to play simple motifs in the background, nothing more really :)
-Good tip about the shaker rhythms. I actually used that delay technique on the main drum kit once the portamento lead comes in, if you can hear.

Wasted or not, this was still quite a helpful review that I'm appreciative of. Thanks Quarl! And I have been keeping up with your work- I shall review it tomorrow or the day after when I am drunk or tired. Peace sir!

[=[0con]= Night Life]

yummeh

Dem some hot beats. Can I have sum moar?