Quarl's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[AIM - I am but myself]

Quarl AIM 2022 Review
Composition/Structure (0-10), Production (0-10), Emotion (0-10), Relevance to Artwork (0-10)
Jinz, I Am But Myself: 10,6,8,10 (34/40)

"You think I wanted this body," are you intentionally trying to trigger my dysphoria with this illustration? I legit feel like the monstrous figure in the drawing by FrosstyArt 99% of the time. Excuse me for a moment, I have tentacles that need moisturizing. Great stuff with those reverse lyrics :D

Great illustration to convey body horror. The industrial sounds and mechanical synths fit the mood well. It looks like you made use of the full sound spectrum via that visualization but things are sounding a little thin despite that subby bass. I know that if I switch headphones, the AudioTechnicas are going to make this mix sound like sand paper (at the time of uploading this review I honored that statement by giving the AudioTechnicas a listen and sure enough, ear-bleedingly harsh high frequencies). I gave you really good scores on Battle Of Ships but my gripes as a fellow EDM producer will continue along to this work as well. I think you could have given this more umpf by boosting mid frequencies, all I'm hearing are subby basses and painfully aggressive highs. I'm just not as impressed this time as I was with your other tune.

I think you can focus on improving some of your mixing and mastering skills to get a more powerful sound. That's always a painful critique to get or give out because I know how hard composers struggle to unlock the skills necessary to max out their fidelity tools, often learning via experimentation because they don't get professional feedback or criticism. You wrote very strong music but I try to inspire hardstyle producers to challenge themselves by comparing their work to the mix quality that the pros in that genre are putting out. I'm always comparing my songs to the mix downs that impress me the most. I spent years trying to emulate artists like Noisia, Evol Intent, and Excision. Never be afraid to listen to the pros and compare that stuff to your own. It can really help illuminate the finer fidelity details in the mix that people have trouble identifying in their own work. YouTube diminishes playback quality but apps like SoundCloud lets artists upload music at maximum fidelity. I'm taking points off emotion as well because that thin mix is taking some power out of the delivery of that climax. A perfectly mixed tune can deliver emotions in a way that a thinner sound cannot. I wish I could focus a little more time on this review to really pin-point mixing and mastering issues but I got to keep moving forwards today. If you want, feel free to bother me later and I'll give this tune another listen to relay mixing ideas via private messages. Good luck with the other judges Jinz. Despite my criticisms I love what I'm hearing :3

[AIM - 4fh6gji84]

Quarl AIM 2022 Review
Composition/Structure (0-10), Production (0-10), Emotion (0-10), Relevance to Artwork (0-10)
CorruptModule, 4fh6gji84: 9,8,10,9 (36/40)

At first I was mad at you for forcing me to copy/paste that nutty title but I'm sure you were only referencing the original art, GOOD JOB! I can't get upset over that, so many musicians are naming their tracks after the art out of respect to the illustrations and I love it. Naming your work 4fh6gji84 is a power move, as if you're looking the audience in the eye and saying "you can't pronounce this shit. Fuck you, try."

I've been pumped by all the hot hardstep genres this competition has been getting, Drum & Bass in particular. The only problem I have with the style is that I write a ton of it and will potentially come down harder on people for things like poor panning data, drum programming, or how the style reflects the art. You made good choices in regards to finding some nutty art that obviously plays into your strengths. The illustration is both a throwback to medieval European gothic Christianity and a look forwards to dystopian capitalistic cyberpunk. You really couldn't have done a better job in picking an interesting design to work alongside. I'll point out a missed opportunity, given the ancient time periods this biblical nightmare of an illustration reflects, you could have taken advantage of Baroque era influences. A choir plug-in could have padded the intro nicely, I personally enjoy phat-female choirs. Put a square gate on the choir's envelope and you can turn an organic choir sound into some techy glitch. It's actually really cool to get synthetic rhythms and envelopes out of human voices. I suck at incorporating harpsichord and won't recommend it but some romantic era piano could have fit this sound nicely. Hell, sparse but bright piano notes with heavy reverb could have easily fit on top of this. I'm very progressive when it comes to blending styles and genres and would have respected this a little more if you leaked in some classical influences.

You found the upper limits of the stereo field, many users fail to realize how much space they have to amplify things and as a result produce very quiet tunes that can only be amplified on a PA system. I love that you made a connection to the sidechaining and the illustration. This sounds more like a convenient side effect of your production technique than an intentional concept but I can still respect how much you wrote about the music. My biggest critique this year has been on users unwilling to express their inspirations and ideas. Some users wrote nothing at all. This competition is so impressively influenced by opinion and subjectivity that I just can't give top marks to those unwilling to get a little personal. I'd even respect language barriers if someone wrote a paragraph or two in a language I'd have to google translate. Thank you so much for that essay Corrupt. I only took off one point to "relevance" because I do feel you missed an opportunity to echo historically Christian music by going 100% grime and glitch. I'm not religious myself but I do have an art history background. Those Christian peeps wrote some serious bangers. You ever feel face melted by something like "Hallelujah" from Messiah by Handel? Woof, that song slaps.

I love the way producers these days use any random noise and say "this is a snare drum now." That snappy little thing for the first half of the track was inspired, truly wasn't expecting that hard dubstep snare for the second half. The track sounds a little too bright imo, I have a tendency to mix too bright as well. A fair warning, a lot of Newgrounds users use AudioTechnicas which I hate with a passion. Despite hating them, I have a pair of ATH-M50x's and put them on just to confirm a mastering issue. Often these headphones will take thin frequencies and make them painful, your track didn't give me pain but the track does still sound incredibly thin on them. When it comes to EDM producers I get really into switching up my headphones because EDM producers have a tendency to care about this kind of stuff. Mastering is something I talk about a lot because a cheap sound system can take your hardstyle bass frequencies and turn it into piss-style. Your track didn't translate well from my Sennheisers but since most people don't factor mastering into their work, it's something I only bring up to make you aware of. As you continue with your productions, try to get a diverse set of speakers and headphones so you can work towards making your sound as true to how you want it to sound on as many formats as possible! Car sound systems have unpredictable diaphragms, many people have lo-fi cheap headphones. I remember meeting a dubstep producer that showed me his work on a cell phone and it still sounded jaw-droppingly great. Mastering is obsessive compulsive but I have so much respect for people that attempt to understand the science of it. I have a lot of AIM tunes to listen to and just realized how much I wrote here. I love this track and hope the other judges can hear what I hear. This tune was exciting and fun to listen to but not without certain flaws. Have a wonderful day CorruptModule, keep glitching :3

CorruptModule responds:

you again! thanks for some more criticism lad. when I mix, I usually try and get an idea of whos listening to this. I have about 4 ways of testing it.

1 is the headphones that I use for daily use and Producing which are Skullcandy crushers with the subwoofer slider all the way down.

2 is a pair of Skullcandy indy fuel's which are just kinda airpod clones but they have somewhat a good balance to them.

3 is a dollar store headset. I use these to see how it sounds on the cheapest shit possible. also cus when I was a yee little lad I listened to music a bunch on headphones like those.

4 I listen in the car. I actually strive more for the song to sound good in the car cus that is one of my favorite places to listen to music.

those are usually the ways I listen to my songs before publishing them. mastering is an interesting topic. I believe it is the last hurdle to understanding music for me. I know if I can understand it my music will be top tier.

It really does make me happy to know that someone can study my tracks and tell me about them. I just don't receive feedback like this too often. thank you so much for this brilliant essay.
and to you as well have a wonderful day Qural.

[AIM - To Be Free]

Quarl AIM 2022 Review
Composition/Structure (0-10), Production (0-10), Emotion (0-10), Relevance to Artwork (0-10)
GlaceonDash, To Be Free: 10,10,10,8 (38/40)

Wonderfully inspired. When I saw the pixel art I was expecting some old-school NES chiptune in the style of Dragon Quest. The melodies could easily be exported to MIDI and slammed into some chiptune style synths to fit that niche nicely. You wrote wonderful melodies. I'm taking off a point because you could have slipped some basic synths into this to better suit the pixelated imagery while still adhering to your visionary orchestral sounds. This song could have managed the soft coo of a gentle arp in the background. Continuing with my minor gripe, using lazy envelopes synths could have padded the atmosphere. I respect the high-class romanticism you produced though, had a "Bitey of Brakenwood" echo. People are getting very inventive with how these illustrations are inspiring them. I feel like you could have wrote a little bit more to direct my attention but I'm grateful you wrote anything at all, too many users failed to understand how the authors comments are a chance to express intentions and inspirations. It's a tough contest to judge because people take their inspirations and go all over the place. I have a BFA degree and a background in art history so I over analyze how the music and the art is relative to one another. Even if you simply selected a work of art to try to compliment your strengths, I couldn't tell. The honor system is in full effect for this contest but I can't pick up on any dishonesty. The two points I'm taking off are entirely for my own disappointment in that you choose pixel art and didn't take advantage of that realm to any noteworthy degree. I'm a very progressive music maker and I love it when people bleed styles and techniques to make their own worlds and soundscapes. You made something wonderful but missed a small opportunity. Your music is high fidelity compared to the simplistic art you chose (please don't tell the artist I said that.)

I have to keep moving forwards today but please have an inspired day Glaceon, and keep pumping out amazing material :D

GlaceonDash responds:

100% Agree that I could have gone with a chiptune/synth sort of thing.

Most of my choice to not do that was because I had already done a lot of synth focused stuff earlier, and wanted to switch back into the less synth-y style.

Thank you for such a great review!

[AIM-Death Dance]

Quarl AIM 2022 Review
Composition/Structure (0-10), Production (0-10), Emotion (0-10), Relevance to Artwork (0-10)
DigitalProdigy, Death Dance: 10,9,8,2 (29/40)

I'm going to preface this by saying that I love the song but I don't feel like you managed to convey the vibe of the illustration at all. The image you choose emulates a Daguerreotype which if you were not aware was the first publicly available photographic process widely used during the 1840s and 1850s. Honestly, it's a very cool piece of art. My 2011 Alfred University BFA degree and history of photography credit thanks you for putting this illustration in front of me. I also appreciate that you took the time to write some information as to why you felt the image and the music was relative, I've been harping on people to gush more about their creative process. You noted that you "went outside your comfort zone" of "traditional classical" but you might have been best suited to stay inside of that genre for this image. The time period of the Daguerreotype lends itself to romantic era composers like Debussy, Chopin, Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky, Liszt, Shubert, or Beethoven. You could have written a somber classical nocturne but in the triple tempo of a waltz to reflect the dance element present. The waltz with it's triple count was considered dance music back in the day, don't ask why, everything "dance" is duple now a days. I'd have respected classical a little more than dubstep which lends itself to more colorful contemporary styles of design and illustration. I bet you weren't expecting an art major to be a judge for this contest, so I'll respect what you've written on the submission page and give you some "relevance to artwork" points entirely for that artist's commentary. Thank you for writing that up, it shows awareness. I'm still giving a you low score for relevance because I feel my critique is valid.

The production is great but there's still room in your field to compress forwards a little more for additional volume. Professional dubstep manages to find the limits to how much sound you can stuff into a PA system while still sounding crisp and perfectly mixed. You got a little more room in the mix but you still managed to convey amazing ideas wonderfully. I really do love this song, that intro was inspired. Musique concrète meets contemporary grime. Honestly, keep pumping out inspired music despite my gripes. You have serious talent and vision.

Always upwards DigitalProdigy.

DigitalProdigy responds:

Again Thank you so much for that professional review. An art major judge ouch!!! I didn't know what type of art piece it was or the time it was representing, I guess a little more research about the art work will be much needed going forward.
I am trying to work on the volume of my music, it seems to be on the low side, every time I try to push the volume up a notch it get distorted. That's probably because I am a musician after all and not a mixing engineer, even though I been mixing my own music since forever. Mastering is another art in its self, so as I might think I have the mixing down to a science, mastering is an art i am still tying to learn.
Again thank you so much for taking the time to review everyone's music and enjoy the rest of your day.

[AIM - Vacuum]

Quarl AIM 2022 Review
Composition/Structure (0-10), Production (0-10), Emotion (0-10), Relevance to Artwork (0-10)
arbelamram, 10,10,0,0 (20/40)

As mentioned in my review of Lost Fundamentals, I'm getting on the case of everyone that doesn't write enough about the creative process or their inspiration. It's a little unfair that I'm making myself write up essays for every contestant, genuinely listening to everything, and even throwing my own money into the prize pool. For a competition like this, the more you're willing to say about your work the better. By not saying anything about your work you've left it entirely up the the judges in how they interpret something. It's worth noting that music doesn't always speak for itself despite how "good" it is. I'm actually a little angry that your work is so beautiful and crisp but that you didn't have the awareness to realize that this contest is about "inspiration" in the artwork of others. Had you of just spent a minute more detailing the illustrations you selected I might have been convinced that you gained inspiration from it but I'm not even convinced you've looked at the illustrations. I have to accept the possibility that such an incredibly talented producer might have chosen art at random to try and nab a prize or internet traffic. Take a little more time to engage with the community via your author's comments.

You have a wonderful day arbelamram, salutations.

arbelamram responds:

yet again as i said before, i was hoping my music will speak for itself, not matter if its good or not.
i express my thought in sound and not words.

just for giving u the idea of what inspiration it made me, u can see the my main and signed work is lofi beats and chilllhop,
the relevance for to this piece was the vacuum air sound the rolling in your ears while driving super fast, taking the whole grimmie approch to dubstep riddim delivery to epxress "going to war" kind of vibe.

and again thank u for the perfect score on the production, mucho appricated♥

*Edit* rereading this comment, im still kinda shocked tbh...
"nab a prize or internet traffic","even throwing my own money into the prize".
i dont want your traffic or your money fam,
as u can see in my profile i take part in this competition for alot of years and enjoying this competition and creative space like anybody else here

seeing how materialistic all of this got(over 200$???).. ill be fine staying in my underdog spot♥

[AIM - Lost Fundamentals]

Quarl AIM 2022 Review
Composition/Structure (0-10), Production (0-10), Emotion (0-10), Relevance to Artwork (0-10)
arbelamram, Lost Fundamentals: 10,10,5,0 (25/40)

What's going on with all this top tier DNB in the AIM contest, so many users are getting creative with one of my favorite genres. I'm a little upset you didn't say anything about your work though. You're surrounded by peers on Newgrounds and we love to know more about each other. You could include inspirations, aspirations, feelings, ideas, anything that can help guide us into understanding your intentions because in regards to the theme of the contest music doesn't always speak for itself.

You choose Zelda fan art, and gave us high-class DNB. Having said nothing about your work, it comes across like you weren't inspired by the art much at all but instead wrote to your strengths. Since I'm being asked to judge "emotion" I'm taking into consideration that you didn't really prove you felt anything relative to the illustration. This painting was the perfect excuse to slip in that overused Navi "hey" or some Link grunts from Smash brothers (massive Nintendo sample libraries are easy to find via google. I use them all the time, other contests will punish you for copywritten sounds but we're a little more laid back with AIM.) It kind of sounds like some sword swipes @ 1:14 but those are so uncreatively sprinkled on top of the track, it feels like an after-thought. As a drum and bass artist you could have taken some token LOZ sfx and pitch bent them, reverbed them into the atmosphere, or just made melodies with the classic NES sounds. I'm so surprised because this is intensely good DNB but it just feels like it misses the point of the contest. Hopefully this doesn't come across too harshly, I do wish you the best. Have a nice day arbelamram, and salud!

(Edit: Check Moonway Renegade by Noisia for a good example of how to sprinkle samples like those I mentioned into a DNB track. It's an old favorite of mine...)

arbelamram responds:

ive just reread all the rules and didnt saw it was a requirement to add a description for your work, ive hoped my music will speak for i self.
throughout my year here on newgrounds no one ever referred any comment to my descreptions
i usally answer just when asked :)

as for the relativity for the Art piece,
the piece was originally based on the OST from breath of the wild on the song called "riding" which is played when u ride a horse.
after working on it i wanted to recompose the melody to fit the color tones of art piece.
yet my general direction of only to compliment the idea of the art
and not focusing on the fact its game.

and i really happy you enjoyed the production level itself♥
thank for your time to write this feedback ♥

[AIM - The Silence of Winter]

Quarl AIM 2022 Review
Composition/Structure (0-10), Production (0-10), Emotion (0-10), Relevance to Artwork (0-10)
Curuff, The Silence Of Winter: 10,10,10,10

Oh wow, a very different approach than the majority of the other contestants. Less-is-more, smart. The intentional fizzle and pops fit the pixel animation well with old-school feelings, high-class atmosphere. Many users are finding those animated illustrations and using it to their benefit, motion is attention grabbing. There really aren't many music competitions that reward the function of visuals. It's actually hypnotizing to watch the gentle snowfall on the illustration page along side this song. It's such a whirlwind of simple emotions, sadness, happiness, knowingly somber self-reflections. Great job Curuff, this is inspiring. I will mention that the fuzz got a little grating after a while. Noticed that the fuzz kind of evolved into a whirlwind towards the end but you might have benefit from managing that switch-up a little quicker or more frequently? Maybe some kind of rest from it during the melody? It's a very small issue. This is wonderfully minimal but expertly executed. You totally stood out with that poem too. Many users have different styles and ideas but I've been harping on others to write more about their own work or their inspirations. You're clearly very inspired and need not take that bit of advice. This is one of the shortest reviews I've written for the competition because the work really managed to speak for itself. This is a stark favorite of mine amongst a sea of amazing songs and artists. Bravo Curuff.

[AIM - Megablock City]

Quarl AIM 2022 Review
Composition/Structure (0-10), Production (0-10), Emotion (0-10), Relevance to Artwork (0-10)
ChordsInMotion, Megablock City: 8,7,7,8 (30/40)

Woof, you picked a very ambitious work of art to convey your ideas. Kamikaye makes work that's incredibly detailed and high fidelity. You might have better served your style with some super detailed pixel art but I can respect the ambitiously photo realistic sci-fi imagery. Unfortunately, I feel like the image has a lot more depth than the music. The melodies are all very alive & inventive but the drums are static, lacking, and low fidelity. The rhythms are explorative and fun but try out some of the following techniques to get more life and depth out of your drums:

Velocity data: as I've mentioned to many of the other contestants drums are most emotive when you play with the levels. Volume is one of the few tools a drummer can use to express emotion. The patterns you wrote are wild and unpredictable, which is not a bad thing. Personally, I love a crazy drum pattern. Crescendos and decrescendos could help deliver that wild energy a little better. Slapping an automation lane onto a drum's volume knob allows you to make gradual shifts overtime. Taking the time to change individual note velocity quantities (0-127) is also an option, there's a lot you can do with volume to breath more life into the rhythms.

Panning data: (At time of uploading this review I think I hear more panning data but let's pretend I was tired when I wrote this and I think I was focusing mostly on the drums at the time) I suppose the entire track feels a little static. More directional data can help engage listeners. Bass is typically mixed center field but all those thin pads and high frequency drum elements can be panned harder to create more depth and illusion of space. Mid to high range textures really pop when you play with that pan data. Automation lanes can be used to teleport a sound from one location to another. Though we only have two channels, those shifts in focus from left to right are engagingly magical when employed expertly. When things get too static, a track runs the risk of becoming boring. Panning data powerfully creates the illusion of movement that even a drum kit benefits from. Exciting!

Layering: Takes practice but additional drum layers can give serious umpf to your drums. Face-melting genres of EDM have such colorful and diverse snare drums, kicks can thud and fizzle. The kit samples you're using are very old-school techno but I keep directing my attention back to the image while thinking that the resolution of the illustration should be echoed in the music somehow. A clap snare or crisp 909 would fit the genre and mood nicely. More auxiliary percussion could have helped: shakers, tambs, cymbals, auxiliary hi-hats panned in combative directions, vibraslaps, cowbells... there's a lot of percussive diversity that could be explored. EDM genres benefit from creative drum sampling. Most DAWs let you record from the hard drive these days but even a free program like Audacity can take sounds from YouTube videos straight off of the hard drive, then you can select and export the best samples. Or maybe what I'm suggesting is unethical sampling and illegal, don't report yourself, this conversation never took place.

Away from the drums I wanted to point to the strange envelope of the song. It's a pet peeve of mine when a track starts or stops immediately. With such strong synth work I'm surprised you didn't opt to crescendo into and out of things. Some reverb can help an outro, literally any instrument can decrescendo a track respectfully with a little reverb. I'm a little confused by how immediate the attack and release of the track happens to be. It feels like you shot yourself in the foot a with that.

Something that I wanted to mention off the cuff, it feels good to recognize one of the contestants from Jamuary, hello Chords. Sorry if this review is at all disappointing but I see you, and you are loved. I hope you have a wonderful day and salud!

[AIM - Skypunks]

Quarl AIM 2022 Review
Composition/Structure (0-10), Production (0-10), Emotion (0-10), Relevance to Artwork (0-10)
LordAndiso, Skypunks: 9,7,9,10 (35/40)

This comp has been getting some top quality DNB. It's unfortunately a genre I have to identify a bias for. I was waiting for a more potent snare drum to take over the hard hitting sections but the snare you gave us was comparably weak against the rest of the track. A lot of other DNB producers at the moment make use of a punchy pitched-up snare drum. I'll post a low-fidelity YouTube video you could sample for snare layers, most mods would be none the wiser:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUUx3GeZa_g

Pitch-bent up and with a quicker cutoff, these might slap nicely in your tune. Building a layered, punchy snare drum can take a lot of practice but you have so many good elements in this song that I had to zone in on what I felt was the weakest element. When making drum and bass, you want to make sure the drums are perfect. The melodies are beautiful, the instruments are lush and colorful but that snare drum is uncooked kale. Fatten it up a little, it needs to slap >:]

Despite my massive issues with the snare drum the track still manages to compliment the art nicely. The art is bubbly and alive, the chibi characters are well echoed by those colorful melodies and "minion" background gibberish. Those fun chipmunk voices at 1:05 could have been reused within the track and pitch bent a little now and again for diversity. It was a really cute motif and you could have tied the structure together a little better with some more of it sprinkled about different parts of the track. All in all you wrote such a perfect little bop...

...but that snare drum. Most the points you lost in production will be focused on the simple fact that the snare drum is failing to tie the whole thing together. It's not a bad snare drum during the lighter sections but it lacks the drive and power I anticipate from a DNB kit. Even gentler subgenres like liquid benefit from a solid snare drum. I need to move along and judge a ton of other tunes but realize that you almost wrote a perfect song. I'd have come back to this tune several times more with the right snare drum because of how much life you put into everything else but the one issue stands out so much that I'm not certain I'll come back and listen to this later. That's a huge issue, disappointment is a bad reason to remember a tune for. Good luck with the other judges Andiso, I do wish you well!

LordAndiso responds:

Woah! thats really cool. I've got alot of stuff to learn.. thanks for pointing it out.. helps me a ton. :)

[AIM - Psalm Palms]

Quarl AIM 2022 Review
Composition/Structure (0-10), Production (0-10), Emotion (0-10), Relevance to Artwork (0-10)
BusanBlack, Psalm Palms: 9,7,9,7 (32/40)

Before having listened to the track, I'll make sure to point out that you can always gush a little more about your music when you're writing about it. The people on this website are your peers and we love to share ideas and inspire each other. We have a lot of global artists so sometimes conveying ideas in English is impossible but I also understand when a user sticks to their native language and I can manage Google translate. Never be afraid to express yourself, our work can give us a sense of existence, accomplishment, and meaning. I like to know more about the people I bump into here. Other users also helped connect the illustrations to their music by writing small stories, which is a little overboard but it only helped them defend the idea that the illustration and the music were somehow related to each other. Everyone has a different style or approach but I'm left to interpret what yours was. Guilt the judges into recognizing your intentions with a small manifesto.

The song itself is very chill and written with love. I noticed that you played with panning data,
a lot of other users failed to make use of that stereo element. Panning has all sorts of advantages, disadvantages, and functions but typically the bass gets mixed into the center to give structure to the sound field. Thinner frequencies and textures are better served with a panning bias. Another artist uploaded chiptune and I was very forgiving with production issues on them because that genre lent itself to being a little thin. You have a progressive mix of styles and sounds so it's a little hard to pinpoint my production criticism. On one hand, I can respect your creative integrity in sticking to that hip-hop drum kit and funky bass line but maybe the entire track could have benefit from the same level of energy? It's like the track wanted to be half chiptune and half RNB but even chiptune sounds can convey high fidelity.

The image is nice to look at and the music is comfortable to listen to but you definitely could have taken advantage of the authors bio to better direct us with some more words or ideas. I'm not 100% convinced that the image and the music belong together. There are birds in the image and you could have used chiptune blips and bleeps to convey bird song, or literal bird song samples. Sinewaves in particular are very flexible for that kind of thing. Some digital distortion on the drum kit might have better tied the jazz kit into the pixel setting of the image. The melodies are very peaceful but the drum kit comes across a little amateurish and stylistically at odds with the rest of the track, and 8-bit drum kit would have played into this track nicely. Given that the drum samples have a live drum vibe I'm torn in how robotically they were presented. A drum kit benefits from dynamic changes to volume, as a drummer myself I can point out how a drummer conveys control with volume. Velocity is one of the few tools a drum kit can use to convey emotions. Again, by making the drum kit digital you might have better fit the chiptune vibe while needing to think less about things like dynamics. It's a great song but it sounds a little at odds with itself and the illustration.

I'm going to point out that there were some great artists and musicians in this competition, worth giving your peers some listens if you haven't yet. You have a wonderful day Busan, keep writing great stuff :]

BusanBlack responds:

Thank you for the insight. I honestly feel foolish for not putting in a description of how the music and art were related. That's completely my bad. I was going for the hip hop chiptune type sound but it still needs work. I originally never listened to chip tune music until recently and so only just got into the mix of chemistry. There is always room for improvement and I'm glad you were able to provide me with such detailed input. I honestly only know a small amount of what you are saying as I am still learning about music production but will nonetheless look it up and continue improving. Again, thank you for taking the time to write me an amazing critique!