Quarl's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[AIM - Pyromancers Village]

Artist Lost, Pyromancers Village
Composition/Structure:6 Production:6 Emotion/Atmosphere:8 Art Relevance:10

Getting right into my review, I totally felt the relevance to the art work. Your song suits the illustration perfectly well. Instrumentation echoes the vibe; the song and the art practically belong together. I had to go full screen to notice the figures in the drawing but it looks like a peaceful community of exotic creatures spiritually in-tune with nature. Your choice of instrumentation seems notably intentional, it really sounds like the society in the drawing has it's own folk sound that they come together to enjoy communally. It's as if this is the tone of their tribe, 10/10 art relevance.

Production and structure got hit hard when I scored. I can hear a consistent pop from what I can only assume is where your looping something? I've only ran into that exact sound when chopping samples where the sound wave is anywhere other than 0.0 but apparently you can also get it while recording if bursts of air hit the diaphragm of your recording apparatus full-on. Whatever is causing it, you gotta fix it. It was so consistent that it kind of ruined the experience. It's a very repetitive song which is well and ok if the media is being made for a game or movie but I'm left wanting so much more. Every community has one musical try-hard that dreams of becoming the next Mozart, where is that try hard soloist in this composition? A single powerful instrument or voice punching through the drone could have been colorful. The song feels almost sad and monotonous, like this community has been droning along to this sad tune for a millennia. Most indigenous cultures develop a drone like style of music but it often relies on voice, think Gregorian chant or mantras. A simple MIDI chior could have peacefully droned in the background, there's a space in the mix for it. Wouldn't have helped the monotony too much but a climax might have benefited from something like it.

On that note, energy levels stay the exact same from start to finish which is where the composition/structure score suffers most. This song is 100% drone with no build ups, climaxes, surprises, tone changes, solos... I can listen to it a few times but I couldn't live in this village with this music constantly murmuring along. I would pack my bags and find a new furry community somewhere else.

I hope you find this review helpful in anyway. Your music is fine, inspired, and beautiful. Since it's a competition I'm leaning hard on the crit but I still loved listening to this and you nailed whatever it is you set out to accomplish. Just keep this review in mind for next year because there is so much potential in your skills. Good luck and stay strong.

[AIM 2024 - the emo machine with a side of cigarettes]

Yoshiii343, the emo machine with a side of cigarettes
Composition/Structure:6 Production:6 Emotion/Atmosphere:10 Art Relevance:10

Happy to hear your work, glad you're still kicking your indy-rock stylings. Right off the bat, full scores for relevance. Looking at the art I'm perfectly imagining her playing the first 2/3rds of the track. I've been learning guitar for a little while and that whole first section sounds like a little loop peddle jam. Having grown up around a lot of that sound it's just romantic AF to me. Unfortunately the genre can sometimes encourage a lo-fi mixdown. I'm taking particular offense to the fact that the last section sounds like a highschool 3 piece post hardcore band recording on a cheap 8 track mixer that was gifted to you when your parents realized the equipment they bought to make mix tapes for their spin-classes could better serve their kid's music endeavors. Gotta make what you love any way you can but you're not in a highschool anymore. You've been doing this sound such a long time that I'm wondering why you don't sound like David Maxim Micic by now (totally unfair comparison, his stuff is mixed tip-top.) Your drum rhythms are powerfully written but the mix makes it sound tiny. You might have been better off for this contest dropping that last section in favor of something else. That last section will inevitably effect production scores across the board and you know it... but it's also the section that's giving me massive emotion, contrasting with the slow build up. It's almost like the girl in the drawing is imagining that section in her own head, what she might sound like if she had some friends to play with. SAD EMO FEELINGS YO D':

Dude, "how i wished i could go back to those days." I know that feeling so hard at this stage of my life. While I don't wish I could go back, I just want to find some random people to make a shitty grunge band with and it's impossible. I would play any genre on drums or piano right now but the creative process has become a lonely, self-reflective grind into a computer screen. Your entire creative process and the songs you've made are relatively existential to my own experiences. I feel lonelier having listened to your music which is a very powerful confession. I just want you to improve your mix techniques at this point so your ideas can go even harder.

One last section because it feels like I have to explain the composition/structure score. You have always been very experimental with structure, it's kind of a Newgrounds thing. Alot of artists here aren't writing to formats, formulas or popular expectations and it's inspiring to have that sandbox feeling when you're structuring a song. That last section powerfully comes out of nowhere though. In EDM you have something called "risers" which are sounds that help transition sections into each other. In post-production you could have used some guitar feedback or a cresendo to help change the vibe from section to section. At one point or another you loved Explosions In The Sky, DON'T LIE TO ME YOSH. YOU LOVED EXPLOSIONS. RECALL HOW THEY CRESENDO INTO POWERFUL CLIMAXES. WE BOTH KNOW, THOSE MOFOS HAVE THE BEST CRESENDOS D':

Ultimately, I know you have it in you to write some of the most romantically powerful indy vibes. This isn't your best work but I don't want that statement to hurt. Your mixing skills have plateaued for a long time, I share that issue in that I haven't looked up new production techniques in ages. We all have our comfort zones but I'd love to hear you punch through this invisible fidelity wall that's holding you back. You're my hero Yoshi, now eat this senzu bean so you can come back even stronger than ever. We're going to teach those anime villains a lesson when we show up to the next fight with muscles coming out of our muscles >:C

Yoshiii343 responds:

hey quarl, thanks for the review!

>"you're not in high school anymore"

true. i guess the music i make is just my way of grieving the care-free teenage life i never had or wished i had. but you know...could've, would've should've...

>"Your mixing skills have plateaued for a long time"

mixing has become such an afterthought for me that im legitimately considering outsourcing it.
coupled with the fact that i've stretched the free drum library the best i can just exacerbates the problem

the whole sudden section change is simply because i like to surprise my listeners >:)

i jest. i can't make that guitar feedback sound consistently enough, and even then, it feels really cliche to me unless if it's a part of a riff

/shrug

now im just making excuses
again, thanks for taking the time to write this. it means a lot.

[AIM - An enemy that is slightly more than dangerous]

DumbOctopus, An enemy that is slightly more than dangerous
Composition/Structure:9 Production:6 Emotion/Atmosphere:10 Art Relevance:2

You did good by picking a piece of pixel art that benefits your chiptune style. I kind of take small issue with the source of inspiration being just a bunch of concept pixel drawings for bosses when there are so many pixel works to choose from that would have better conveyed your music. This is relatively perfect MegaMan music from the NES days. I'd fully expect to hear it in a side-scrolling game from that era but to really drive home my issues with the relevance you should have considered including different sections for all the different bosses included in that image. If you had just gone with some regular old Megaman fan art, it would have better served the relevance by being more specific. The song feels like it would only suit one or two enemies from the source drawing. It's a great little jam but am I going to battle each enemy in that image with the same music? Is it static music for a boss rush, one after the other?

One thing I always say when I judge this contest: use the artist's description space to really drive home how the art inspired you. Doing so can really remove a judge's ability to claim that a song is uninspired. One lone sentence feels incredibly uninspired and dishonest, how did this art move you? Your music in particular isn't speaking for itself, though that's definitely the end goal. You only get a 2 there because I'm in a bind wondering if you made this song and then just picked a random pixel image from the art portal to try and wedge your way into the comp. After listening to some of your other tunes, it's all chiptune. I'm not convinced that you were at all inspired by the source material as opposed to just picking a random pixel thing to match a general vibe. Feel free to say otherwise, correct me.

Given the genre, another judge might be a little more forgiving of that mix down but I'm not going to be. It's a relatively small sound for contemporary gear in 2024. The original Gameboy had four sound channels: two square waves with adjustable duty, a programmable wave table, and a noise generator. I could imagine your sound coming from the tiny GameBoy factory diaphragms but my Sennheisers are THIRSTY for contemporary mix techniques, which you have no excuse of avoiding if your using modern equipment with good fidelity tools. Chiptune can be so much more than this. You can still make chiptune appear high fidelity with the right amplification, compressors in the right spots, or louder drums. This track would have sounded great in 1990 on my Gameboy but you're totally allowed to use all your contemporary tools to your advantage in 2024.

It looks like you have something over-limiting the sound on the master out forcing you to unnecessarily lose range from the available sound spectrum. Could just be the program if you're using an online service? Going by the old tech it actually sounds true to the time period. The visual artist used a method called famicube, which I looked up and it's a general list of rules to follow to make art in the style of certain game systems. If you did something similar, mentioning it in the artist's description could only have helped you. I don't even know what program you're using and as an old regular on Newgrounds, I like knowing what my peers are using. You have a space when you upload music to include your software and gear, you can make a template so it only takes a second of your time. I would have loved to know more about your ideas and what kind of technology is driving it, regardless of whether it's a DAW or a free online browser tool. Everyone has their tools and techniques...

The music itself is good and I'd like you to continue doing your thing which is why I'm handing out a 10 for Emotion/Atmosphere and a 9 for Composition/Structure (song could have been a little longer, 3 minutes for a contest track is i.m.o. bare minimum, hence I stole one point there). There's just a lot to have to consider for this competition and I'm not totally impressed with the presentation or convinced by the "inspiration." Do what you will with this information and keep making the music you love. My feedback may seem totally useless to you but I'd love to hear you try and expand your music language past chiptune to better inform a larger body of work that includes various genres, styles, and techniques. I'll post this review later but on 5/1/24 I wished you luck with the other judges and may you have wonderful days! Peace and love DumbOctopus <3

DumbOctopus responds:

Thanks for the review and pointing out some mistakes. I must admit: I should've explained how exactly this track is inspired by the art.
The only thing I totally disagree with is comparison to Mega Man. With all respect, this track sounds barely like Mega Man music for several reasons, and wouldn't fit at all in a Mega Man game.
Thanks again, even though I didn't win, I was happy to participate in this contest :D

[Night chaser]

Loved those breaks. Pads working the background like crashing waves coming and going, drums doing all the juggling. Short but beautiful ❤️

[Tunnel Vison]

Perf.

SchattenDnB responds:

Thank you so much for listening!

[Qshunt - Comfortably Numb (Vocal Mix)]

Super clean, loved that kit. Aggressive but chill, fun breaks, cool vocals, sick instruments, relaxing melodies. Pro :3

Qshunt responds:

Thanks Quarl!

[Black Sheep]

Lol, always loved the Brie Larson version. Cool remix :3

[Ghost (Breakcore)]

Drum breaks sounding nice and techy on my phone. Now my phone won't stop begging me to be connected to monitors. It's a slippery slope. One minute I'm giving my phone what she wants, next thing I know she's downloading skynet and asking to be plugged into a war head, I'm sorry. That's my excuse. I don't want my phone to take over the world...

[Sazzy Boi - Texcore Thing]

Looks like gabber is back on the menu <3

SazzyBoi responds:

YEAAH!

[X3ll3n & BARY - Cybernetic Pressure]

yes sir

X3LL3N responds:

yes sir