Quarl's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[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

[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!

[Dream of a Gondola]

Dream Of A Gondola, LucidShadowDreamer
Composition/Structure:9 Production:9 Emotion/Atmosphere:9 Art Relevance:9

You put those chimes in it for me, right? There are times when I recommend chimes to represent elements like twinkling stars or wind and it feels like you saw one of those reviews and was like "what happens if I take the lid off the proverbial salt shaker?" You chimed all the way from start to finish, hilarious. I noticed you didn't write as much as when I last judged this comp, was a little let down because I love reading about feelings and getting a better idea of how my music friends are doing. Sure, it can feel disheartening when that kind of stuff gets ignored or questioned but now I'm like "is LSD ok?" I'm reading into nothing but I had to take a break from my scoring just to say that you're an old favorite of mine, you're powerful <3

The art is kind of minimal, the sound reflects a minimalist approach. Since I have to really consider all sorts of things, you're going to hate me for this, I saw those square plateaus and was like "wish he used a square wave pad, cresendoing and decresendoing in the background." (Edit: post scoring, I'm hearing a lot of work on those background sounds I might not have noticed at the time. A pitch bend on the chimes... really wish you included some extra data.) Landscape implies that there might be wind blowing the tree branches and grass... the chimes could actually reflect that to a degree as well but I was already associating them with the stars. I've started using the phrase "low hanging fruit" to refer to foley sounds and atmospheric samples that could convey what's literally in the image. I'd have dropped some blowing wind in this here and there, maybe had some sections where it replaces the chimes entirely?

You have so much strength as a composer, I really hope you don't take too much offense to my scores but it felt a little too minimal for what I know you're capable of. The music was very restrained and hit me with one energy level the entire time. I suppose that arguably reflects the image but I've previously pointed out that some composers are not choosing work that challenges themselves. It's almost like the art is holding you back. I don't want to have to judge the art, the last thing I ever want to say is "pick better art" but it's a feeling I get sometimes in this comp and expressing it could be a little dangerous.

I do love your work and seeing your name pop up. I hope you find my crit reasonable and I wish you luck with the other judges LSD! Have a nice day :3

LucidShadowDreamer responds:

Hii!
It's been a while, so it's nice to hear from you :D

I feel a song description can sometimes be as meaningful as the song title. Therefore, depending on my intention, I will write more, or indeed, less. My approach has also changed across the years. Sometimes it's apt to explain exactly what lead to the creation of a piece (which I intend to do for my next one, which I will probably upload by the end of the week). At other times, less is more ;)

I'm okay, btw! Thank you for wondering <3
I hope you are good too!

I think your review is entirely fair. I didn't as much set out to pick a "simple" artwork, but I also didn't set out to win this year. As I wrote, I was on holiday at the time of composing this piece. I was in Portugal, which was super relaxing. So I wanted the artwork and my music to reflect that type of serenity! At the same time, I was certain that the relaxation is a fleeting feeling, and one doesn't know what lies beyond the horizon, so I definitely snuck a bit of ambiguity into the composition as well ;)

Some atmospheric sounds could've worked for sure, but I more or less felt that the harmonies and chimes already fulfilled a lot of those functions!

Thanks again for your review; I will look forward to future ones for sure, as they're always a pleasure to read :DDD
Have a lovely day, you too!

[[AIM] Vaarzuleth - Hekate]

Vaarzuleth - Hekate, V-Future
Composition/Structure:10 Production:9 Emotion/Atmosphere:10 Art Relevance:9.2

(Edit: art relevance score got rounded to 9)

Sick tune, just wanted to clarify that I mitigated a point from production because while the production is often perf, tip top, there are some sections where the drums sounded over compressed or too bright, too static or repetitive, etcetera. As someone that likes to introduce evolving drum kits I also run into this exact problem in my own songs. One minute the mix is perfect, then you change the pitch or a layer on the kit and it's a totally different tone. Going into each part of the kit and automating changes to treble, EQ, volume, pan... change whatever you need to change but it can sometimes become really easy to over-look what might sound grating on someone else's monitors or headphones. The bass drum around 1:50 in particular drives me so crazy that I kind of started to twitch. That two step pattern needed some bass drum fidelity automation love, the second kick in each pattern maybe less treble? You could probably get some faux dynamics by just automating that treble knob a tad :p

I wanted to take a full point away from art relevance because there were audible cues in the drawing that you just probably didn't think about. A percussion instrument could have emulated the rattling of bones, there are animals that could have been covered with samples of dogs howling or snakes hissing. I like to call that kind of audio "low hanging fruit" and it's crazy how many composers in AIM seemingly avoid the low hanging fruit. The choir patch kind of suited the eldritch vibe of the drawing but I only wish you took a few more moments to think of all the possible background sounds that would have fit, DNB is so awesome when you get cool atmospheric samples that tie the song up in a neat bow. That yelling at 00:15 is actually exactly what I'm talking about, that could be a spirit in the bones, credit where it's due. Nice reverb on it by the way: killer envelope. Couldn't find a different guy screaming sample at 2:07 though, ha. I pitch bend specific samples if I use them more than once to try and hide how lazy I am, HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE SEEN V-FUTURE? HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE SEEN?? >:V

I'm probably kind of biased but this is bass music that hits all the categories of the contest just right. I love that you did your homework on Hekate, it shows that you had your heart in the right place and you didn't just pick something cool that vibes with your style. I went through your catalogue because sometimes I can get a better idea of an artist's breadth and whether or not they challenged themselves. You got "the heavy sound," you kind of went with a visual that suit your skills and that's totally ok. Was just letting you know that I went that much deeper while judging everyone's tunes. I love this one so very much. Great work V-Future and good luck!

(Came back to this to try and work the score a little bit. Someone else might think that the fidelity get's washed after a while, I'm not going to complain about over compression but the song really hits one energy level the entire time and that could be a problem on successive listens. I have a bias for this kind of music, other judges might consider what I'm bringing forwards. I think you earned a really good score though.)

V-Future responds:

Hey, thanks a lot for the in-depth feedback. I tweaked the drum gain staging a bit, so hopefully that fixed the problem. Could you give it another listen and see if the drums sound less squashed and overly bright now?