Quarl's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[/Tilt/ - <b>p-horizon</b>]

I love these melodies, the perc is amazing. Cool fills and that's a very dank bass line. This track is awesome, it really goes all over the place. I know this is labeled under "video game" but it feels like a prog genre, so many sounds are getting merged together in this.

A personal feeling, that snare patch is kind of heavy on the highs. I switched my headphones knowing the AudioTechnicas I have would accent the highs more, and they were painful. Literally, physically painful. A high end pair of headphones has more bass tones that could cover them up but that snare really hurt on something cheaper. It's not always affordable to carry more gear but I splurged a few years ago on something $300+. Recently my fiance got a $115 pair of AudioTechnicas and I'm realizing how harsh highs can be on his pair of headphones. I've seen a lot of people on Newgrounds recommend AudioTechnicas so I'm kind of surprised. People that listen to this might get turned off because the song is literally hurting them. The track is really great on a better pair of headphones but consider saving up and treating yourself to a different pair of headphones to give your mix some more diversity.

Love that synth section at 1:07 <3

I really hope this review doesn't come off as critical. I only share this with you as a peer, with utmost respect. Different speakers or headphones will have diverse results and it's my least favorite part about making music :C

EDIT: I switched back to my Sennhiesers, then back to the AudioTechnicas to make sure I wasn't crazy but unfortunately those highs pop so harshly on the ATH-M50x that they physically hurt. I'm sorry to break this to you, no one wants to unknowingly hurt people visiting their page. Audio can be dangerous and this is probably bad news, but mastering requires diverse monitors D':

[Let's Go! Neko-chan]

WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!! DID YOU WANT A SERIOUS REVIEW POINTING OUT ALL THE FLAWS? WELL IM NOT GONNA DO THAT. THIS IS SUCH ADORBS AND I LOVE IT. I WANT TO CUDDLE THESE MELODIES. DID YOU INCLUDE THOSE LAST TWO SOUNDS JUST TO MAKE ME GIGGLE LIKE A BABY? I GIGGLED LIKE A LITERAL BABY, GOOD JOB :D

Sorry about that caps lock, something about the tune is affecting me. Maybe if I try listening to it again...

OH MY GOD ITS SO CUTE. WHY DOES THIS SONG MAKE ME WANT TO WATCH ANIME AND DANCE? WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME? AM I GROWING WHISKERS? FUCK, THIS SONG IS TURNING ME INTO A CATGIRL. I GUESS I'LL JUST LIVE WITH IT, IM A CATGIRL NOW. MEOW
(=^ ◡ ^=)

[Different Story]

Clean, smooth, relaxing. You got such nice style Casper. One of these days I'll have to download some lofi tone generators and make some white noise. I love how the distortion caused from playing a record has become an entire genre despite that being literally the worst aspect of vinyl records. What was once an annoyance from over-playing your favorite records is now a romantic fizzle that belongs to hip hop at large.

Sorry I don't follow rap/hip hop, are there contemporary acts that are really dipping into the lofi sound? Honestly, if I called myself a rapper in this day and age yet never touched a lofi track I'd probably hate myself D:

Casper responds:

Thanks for the review:)
I've noticed that in the hip hop industry even lofi beats lean more towards trap. I know cymatics have this problem with some of their drumkits, the snares sound like low-ish quality trap snares which doesn't make them lo-fi (i have about ~50 gigs of drumkit so I'd know lmao). Even the sad guitars I hear in a lot of tracks can be made into regular trap beats if you take away the detune and the various fx, without having that big of an impact to the overall song in my opinion. I remember in 2015 when ChilledCow (now the infamous LofiGirl YT channel/music label) started making the 24/7 livestreams and heavily popularized the genre. Nowdays It's hard to distinguish between what it was supposed to be and what it is now since It's so oversatured and a mix of other genres that now include vinyl crackle and tape saturation and labeling it as "lofi". It's something I struggle with since I do want to have my own style of it but can't help but feel that there's no use in even trying when the competition is 500 times bigger. Whenever I scroll through artist's news or on hip hop subreddits it's discouraging seeing all the new albums and new releases while my interpretation of this genre is in no way unique and sometimes I wonder if what i do is too effortless and too simple. Lol, kinda deviated from the topic there. I guess rappers hop on lofi beats because that's what the cool kids listen to these days and it's really easy to make in most cases, with free plugins being very high quality.

[2022 NG Skank Podcast (mixed by CRY.NN)]

I'd have made a version of my track minus the voice monologue if I knew it would end up in a mix but I'm still happy to hear it in there. There's so much talent on this mix, hot damn <3

[Forget Me Not (A vent piece)]

DON'T GET DOWN WITH YOURSELF UNLESS IT'S FUNK SLANG, DEPRESSION IS METAPHORICAL QUICKSAND.

We all have existential moments of doubt and anxiety. I prefer to think of you as someone made up of 100% energy and exuberant talent but y'all got layers. I only have one Discord recording worth of material to gauge your character with but I feel pretty confident that your an amazing person with a lot of cool things in front of you. Creative people have so much on their minds but often times lack a means to express their complex feelings, so they make drawings of amputee/tentacle hentai to cope I guess.

I can definitely hear the musical inspiration coming off Kikuo's video. There's a lot of variety in style and influences. I can actually pick out so many little things, it feels like your music echoes his very strongly. It's good to have a role model that can do it all :D

I really liked this, I love solo piano. I'd ask if I could grab the file MIDI for a small collaboration but I understand you are feeling complex things right now. You have no reason to doubt yourself, but if you keep telling yourself these things you'll start to believe them. Don't give into that self loathing, give yourself a hug and hold up your chin. You're a strong composer and a treasure <3

[Goated with the sauce]

Dank. 10/10, would put a quarter into a machine to play this in a honkey-tonk tequila bar if only to see the confused expressions on everyone's face that this song was somehow in the juke box...

[Sailing Okeanos]

Gorgeous orchestrations, strings hella dank, perc nice and full. Electric guitar? Damn. I will be totally frank with you, the synth was the weakest thing but please forgive me for nit-picking that? I'm a little dubstep, you're a little baroque. We have our differences but I still love and respect you. This is such an amazingly strong piece. I could never get orchestral sounds and harmonies to work together this cleanly <3

That high buzzing arpeggio might have been too much stimulus? In your shoes I might have patched something much deeper, just a general tone. A bright synth like this might have decent bass textures you can bring forward with a distortion unit, an EQ, and a filter. With automation lanes on the filter's Freq & Res knobs, a very simple low tone saw synth can do so much more.

I'm so flipping biased. I guess another way of putting it would be that you can program a synth to sound like anything. An arpeggio like this sounds like an arp, I KNOW YOU, YOU WOULD NEVER BLEMISH YOUR HANDS BY PROGRAMMING AN ARP but it's totally ok if you do because those arp machines create classic retro video game sounds and other neat tones that are valuable. I'm so saturated on EDM at this point, a simple saw just doesn't blow me away.

The only reason I say all of this is because your one of my favorite composers here, and hearing some juicy synth work in your music would literally kill me. I would die. I would die six times.

LucidShadowDreamer responds:

Wow, thanks you for leaving such a long review!

I totally agree. It's a bit of an old song, and I didn't spend enough time making it. The later half of the song is most certainly more lazy than the intro, and it's also simple, yet the mixing isn't very good. It does have the right energy more or less, but there's just such a lack of finish on the details.

I hope you're doing well :)
I'm looking forward to when I have the time to make some new stuff for NG, or upload pieces from some of the projects I've worked on :D

I have a few other oldies to put up first though ;)

[In2 U]

Damn clean beatbox recording, sample or home made? Mixing that with the pop vibes are really inspired. Super clean, love this <3

BurningSexuality responds:

Sample, and thanks yo. Glad you like it.

[Jamuary 2nd 2022 - "Eden"]

Sounds are hella fresh, love hearing birds in music. There is a fun music conversation that revolves around how birds of different regions may have influenced tonality in human music and vice versa. Regardless of it's origins I love hearing birds make their way into music.

I'm glad I stopped in on this page to really listen to the full six minutes. I actually let it loop for a while. Love the perc, bass is nice and lush, pads are well done, chords inspired. Honestly, this track has a lot of love on it. As someone that builds stupid big drum kits, I love hearing people take a more gentle avenue. Always loved smashing my drum kits, it took me so long to learn how to drum with sensitivity. I got a lot of respect for percussion that vibes as well as this.

Just when I'm about to compliment something another wonderful element get's added to the funk. This is really inspired, I love it Vodou <3

TheVodouQueen responds:

Tysm!!! Glad you really enjoyed it! :3 ♡

[Jamuary 2022 (Day29) - What Comes Next]

LOL, brass instruments have such specific ranges. I was surprised by Spazkid at the Newgrounds office when he pulled out a trombone and was like "I can play six notes."That might be an exaggeration off my poor memory, I'm doing some reading right now on trombone and realizing experienced players have a greater range. I really wish I stuck with the sax in Grade school, it's one of my favorite instruments to hear played virtuously.

There's been some great music this month but I gotta hand it to you metalblinga, this track is so relaxing that this song jumps to the front of my list really quickly. It's just a chill bop. Personally, I like to get a drum loop going first, then will jam on top of it, then shave recordings down into separate parts. This definitely sounds like a track that was composed on top of a really good loop in a similar fashion. Killing it with that sax <3

metalblinga responds:

Thanks Quarl, I appreciate it! <3
Saxophone Is my favorite instrument to listen to, it's so soothing :)