Quarl's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Dread {pt.3}]

Perfect theme music for anything that happens as a result of rolling 1. I had a cool tattoo wolf familiar in my friends campaign. Rolled a 1 and shot it dead with my bow. I still cry about it. The church organs perfectly portray that feeling of "oh shit" when someone in the party runs into a trap and gets blown up.

Epic campaign music. I'm guessing you broke it up into parts for a good reason? I just listened to all three parts and when played together they make a wonderful classic arrangement. I'd have posted them as one large track and shrugged about the length, have such a hard time writing music longer than three minutes :p

[Catgirl Adventures]

Oh em gee, this is some super slick future dnb.

You did an awesome job pushing that sound spectrum. I wish the snare had more punchy mid presence. EQ fidelity units could hit the tones or a specific amount of distortion bleeding through an aux send to gruff up the tone.

God those synths are squeaky clean. Loved the vocal samples. Melodies were expert. Amen breaks were smooth. Cute bit crush digital distortion on the drums. This is such an awesome track to experience. You really let the song change up every few measures. Did I say how much I love those melodies? Well I also love the drum rhythms.

Thank you for writing this :)

[Symbiosis]

I wasn't certain I was gonna get into it with that chip tune intro but you really hit the turbo button at that minute mark. Despite it's influence on everything here, I'm not as into chiptune as many other newgrounds users. I'm glad I looked past that and waited. The reese basses didn't fuck around. Loved those techy drum lines and sparse 32nd note snare patterns.

Baha, nice liquid switch up halfway in. I love this track so much. I won't lie, the mix needs a little nit picking. I think you're limiting the sound a little too much which is crushing some of the special tones that only exist in those higher registers. I tend to fuck up my own mixes pretty often, so don't listen to me. I go too heavy on high frequencies and don't notice on my monitors/headphones until I take the final export into my car.

This track is awesome. Juicy little arps <3

[Exhaling Noir]

I love the broken free flow rubato. Can't program midi to sound as alive <3

[Set Them On Fire]

Ouch, this hits nice. Crazy good Demonicity <3

[bloom]

This is some pretty cute music. That glistening triplet scale @ 00:36 hits kind of loud out of nowhere but gave the track the feeling of playing a video game. It sounds like a power up I guess :p

That instrument could have led some pretty lead melodies but it always kind of acts as a pad instead. It's not what I'd have done but I like what I'm hearing <3

I'm on phone speakers right now but the wave shape is showing that there's room in the field for other elements or instruments. It can be hard to squeeze the right tones out sometimes but fidelity units hold all the power...

Sorry if this seems at all critical. This would fit in really well with many a videogame or cartoon soundtrack. I just want other artists to enjoy the same level of overthinking that I feel. I want to cherish the moments of indecision with you :D

trevor8 responds:

thank you for the incredibly thorough review! i have never had anyone look at my waveforms before (i am a little embarrassed). i honestly thought i was on the cusp of blowing everything into an indiscernible mess if i added another track, but i see what you mean with the triplet, i obsessed for a while last night whether to even keep it in, but it might be fun to experiment a little with expanding it, although i fear the patch in its current state would bear too tinny and harsh to carry much more burden. sorry if i am rambling a little, i do like criticism and feedback is always appreciated and implemented! thanks again!

[Killhouse]

woooooof, perfect hard hitting track to get down to. I'm guessing I can hear some mario fire balls, or some familiar video game sound :]

[HeadCracker]

Unf, I hate that I crossed by this on my phone because those glitch sounds are coming through nice and crisp. Gonna have to add this to my favorites and come back with headphones for some sub sonic pleasure listens <3

[EDIT] Got around to headphones. I kept this to myself but I could tell on my phone that the bass could be pushed harder or layered more. The waveform visual produced by the NG player produced a bunch of negative space which I've been trying to fill up with subbier, rounder bass layers. Pure sinewave in an oscillator, add compressor, EQ the lows forwards... sub sandwich :D

[modus - Sector Five VIP]

Some dance music aficionados might get a little tossed at the rhythmic change ups but I'm loving the techy break downs and chin-strokingly smart syncopation. Was looking at a comment that used the word "disjointed," and I get that. Was listening to "Beyond The Satellite" by Prolix recently. That track had a good balance of offbeat nonsense but he brought the groove back every few measures and I think a lot of DNB fans like that dance floor capability. Gotta give them something solid to groove to every so often. Predictability, controlled chaos. Toss the groove out the window and suddenly all the jump up kids are like "I hate it." I veer more towards IDM and breakcore, so naturally I love this.

Gotta give you props though for passing a sound that's way cleaner than the typical producer of either said genre. I've been listening to your music lately and while I might not fall in love with everything, all your tracks are tops clean. Your music went through the wash twice.

Was that a fucking pikachu at 1:59? It might not have been. Sometimes when mixing songs I hear shit that's not happening. Certain frequencies sound like my boyfriend so I rip off my headphones like "WAS THAT YOU? TOM, ARE YOU IN THE HOUSE?" You ever hallucinate to audio like that?

iammodus responds:

Controlled chaos would be the perfect term for what I was trying to achieve. The track as a whole was pretty dense so the mix was the number one priority. Glad it shows!
And that's not Pikachu - just a tapestop effect! Kinda see the similarity now that I think about it though

[Pufferfish]

Jaysus D: