Quarl's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Neon Sky]

If ParagonX9 was still writing music I'm sure their contemporary dnb sound would be something like this. Hella throwback to the old video game dnb sound Newgrounds helped popularize but with some modern mixing twists. Looks like the track is being unnecessarily compressed. It's either a limiter on the master out or a compressor/limiter on every instrument. I learn towards the first. The degree of foot shooting that goes into over compressing can usually be fixed with a button press or two.

A lot of producers avoid mixing bricks because of the negative aspects that can come from over compression but then they simultaneously over limit themselves and they never find the outer limits of what they can compress to. It's really confusing at first but EDM artists should mix a few "bricks" just to learn where that fine line is. The track still sounds great though, amazing work. Beautiful melodies, textures, and drums. I'm currently sharing an office and can't let this track rip. My open back headphones would interfere with my fiancé's conference call, they have speakers on the outside of the cans to create more space and atmosphere in the sound, depth. The downside is that anyone can hear what you're listening to :C

Cheers Takobai! I'll have to dig into some of your other tunes later today when I have the office to myself :3

edit: furry? the heck is that tag doing XD

TakobaiMusic responds:

Really appreciate the feedback and comment. I will admit I still have a lot to learn about using a limiter and compresser. I currently have my project/template set in way that each instruments goes to indivial busses (One for basses, one for leads, ect) then I do compress on the bus THEN again slightly on the master with Ozone. I will try to hold back on it.

edit: my previous works are less of the vibes, im still finding my mark but I really LOVE this vibe/genre with this current track.

[Route 411 [Jamuary Day 3]]

yoooooo, I got an emulator for my tablet just to play Heart Gold/Soul Silver. I wish some more of the old DS games included the pokemon-following-you feature, they're so cute walking around after you. I've wasted some serious hours of my life trying to pull certain stats from the starter pokemon. Despite codes, cheats will only let you set the stats and genders of wild pokemon you encounter, not the starters. HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO GET A GIRL SQUAD WHEN THE STARTER POKEMON ONLY HAS A 12.5% CHANCE OF BEING FEMALE? I ALSO NEED THEM TO BE MILD OR RASH FOR SPECIAL ATTACK UP, PROBABILITIES ARE SO SHIT~UGHH.

Great song milk. My only crit revolves around the fact that route 411 doesn't exist in HG/SS. The only place route 411 exists is in Pokémon Light Platinum, a rom hack. SHIT YOU FOUND OUT I LOVE POKEMON-DON'T TELL ANYONE. DON'T TELL THEM. SHUT UP. I LOVED POKEMON BEFORE THEY WERE COOL WHICH IS IMPOSSIBLE BECAUSE POKEMON HAS ALWAYS BEEN COOL.

milkypossum responds:

Yes! I miss the following feature so much! I get so nostalgic for all the 2D pokemon games haha! I actually couldn't think up a decent random number for the theme and ended up using my bday (4/11) instead! I did see that it was a rom hack route but I chose to ignore it bc the only other number that came to mind was 69 lmaooo! Also WORRY NOT, YOUR SECRET IS SAFE WITH ME, DEAR QUARL!!!

[alone.]

Loss can be paralyzingly depressing. Beautiful song. Piano melodies are lovely and the singing is lush. Sorry I wasn't following you already, that's been remedied. Sassy pads. Wonderful tune heyopc <3

[WHAT NOW (Jamuary Day 2)]

I wasn't aware you were doing the Jamuary thing. Great work Bary! It's a little short but the hop and effects are top notch pro. I'd revisit this one when you got more time, you could extend this in to a floor melter :3

[Scope [Jamuary Day 2]]

Woof, love the techy vibes. I never played much bomberman, except the odd 2D experience growing up. I'd sooner expect the influences in this to be MegaMan Battle Network. Techy drums, cool vibes. I'm still gonna raz you for that limiter or compressor you got crunching the sound a little short of it's potential but getting that final range of tones took me years to figure out and I still fuk it up all the time with over amping stuff. This one sounds cleaner today though, loved it milk. Hella chill dnb <3

[New Born]

Beautiful track. Drums are super dry but I love hearing less common tones and textures. Absolutely glorious melodies Dieswyx. Cool break down, I'd love to hear some drum modulations but I venture that IDM sound is just something I'm a little more into. I started programming a second snare drum on my Alesis rim trigger to switch up a monotonous snare tone which makes drum fills lush when the snare drum evolves. In Reason I give the drums their own mixer and chain it to the other mixers via a bypassed filter inbetween that can be switched on and off for automated tone filtering, freq and res knobs...

I love the energy Dieswyx, love it. You have a really chill style :3

Dieswyx responds:

Your reviews are always worthy. Thank you very much. Glad you like it! <3<3<3

[Breakfast Pirate Tango (Day 2)]

CHAOS D:

Dank day two track. Mix is probably about half as goofy as the melodies and patches, track is prog AF. Frank Zappa woke up from his death slumber just to bop his head to this. (Actually, I think Frank Zappa hated synthesizers and EDM for the majority or entirety of his career but I bet he'd be doing digital stuff today if he lived to see the advent of the loop station.) Love the time sig, my thesis work revolved around atypical time signatures so I got mad respect for anyone that can work the flow beautifully :3

[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