Quarl's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Toxic]

"Dubstep is sometimes related to danger." My mom told me to stay away from three things growing up. Drugs, strangers, and dubstep. She is no longer a part of my life.

Great track by the by. Could have pushed and compressed things a little more, that wave shape is kind of thin. I'm not sure where to start in the mix, instruments are sounding pretty well mixed. Maybe boost those drums a tad, up the sidechain signals to help those kicks and snares cut to the front. Things are sounding pretty mono. You could pan things like mid to high drums, sound fx samples, and pads further which would give the illusion that they are louder. Panning lets you turn things down and make more room for more elements like lead synths, pads, and basses.

There's a lot of good stuff going on in here but get those fidelity tricks under control and this could melt a dance floor.

SuperSoniker responds:

Thank you very much for the comment, when making this song I only focused on making epic grunts, but in the next attempt I hope to improve and add more elements like the ones you mention, I appreciate your advice :)

[Fuck It All (and fuck you)]

Dank, I feel totally fucked. Thank you :')

*check the voice actor threads and forums. See if you can get some throat singer to drop some pig squeals on this.

djt820 responds:

Still waiting for our toilet collab bro

[Cold Climb - The Fall]

That percussive sounding synth lead hurt my ears when it came in on those high notes @ 00:22. Had to turn the volume down. Since this was for a game I can basically guarantee the programmers turned the volume down and made it a non issue but please, think about my tinnitus.

From a production stand point, those high freq noises could have been drowned out with some bass instruments, amplification automation, booming drums, filters or some other non sense but I bet the programmers were happy all the same. Track is a dope little ditty. But again... fak those high frequency notes. My ears are still ringing :C

[Bacon Lord]

You gonna make this full length? It bops mad nice. Might help to add a tiny crisp snare layer for texture, shakers, tambs... the usual suspects as far as auxillary percussion goes. Cowbell? Make this longer Czy, all your tracks are too short :]

That popcorn, hot butter era pad got me loving this <3

[Qshunt - Vortex]

Can't pick out the vocal sample, sorry. Track has some of that driving pendulum two step. A tamb might have brightened up that rhythm a little but that's the best crit I got for you. Loved that break down around the 3 minute mark.

Again, I can't pin point the vocals. Only 90's trance artist I can name is Aqua. Sorry :/

Qshunt responds:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqSYFSvicJw&ab_channel=ohral_tv

[Moon]

I'd have tossed this under drum and bass instead of dance. Has that IDM vibe. I almost never go below 180 bpm but I'm guessing this is somewhere between 165 and 170? Sue me, I could be wrong :p

Those guitar sounding pads had an old school Minus The Bear sound to them. Loved those glitchy melodies. Fluid ambient break downs and pads. Loving it Ruko <3

Only constructive crit I can give you that there was plenty of room in the mix for random background samples. A mario coin or sonic ring with reverb comes to mind. People will avoid recognizable samples for fear of copyright retribution but if you have the project files you can always change those kinds of samples out for something less obvious. Mods will usually turn a blind eye to minor sampling, just be up front and responsible about it.

There's good sampling and bad sampling. Sampling is complicated. A friend of mine tried to pass off Aphex Twin's "Flim" with ambient noises tossed on top as his own. That's some BAD SAMPLING. Had he chose to make his own song first and then sprinkled tiny identifiable nosies on top? That's better sampling. Always be prepare to defend your work or change a file. I use to love Noisia's track "My World" before they had to change the vocals because they couldn't get the rights to use the Motown recordings. The version on their album "Split The Atom" never hit as hard, IMO.

Sorry to gush on sample use but it's such an integral part of what we do. I can't tell you how many times I've opened a sample folder and laughed because it was 90% amen breaks passed off as "pendulum" or "skrillex" drums. lmao.

[N.L. - CyberRosa]

Heavy, lush, sounds great. I might have punched the initial drums a little more forward (0:00-0:30) but all the elements mesh perfectly. The drums get a little more powerful after that first section, dank. Mix just comes across a little too bright at times, might counter that by making the bass a little more prominent? Not sure what to say other than make this longer. Track is fucking awesome <3 <3

NightLover responds:

Thank you, very appreciated ^^

[Waves]

Intro had a nice, soft, lush pad. Old school amen breaks, but clean drum samples and engaging rhythms. The ghost snares and bass drum grace notes were fun to grove to. I got an amen break arm band tattoo, the sheet music glides around my fore arm. I got nothing but love for the amen break.

Worth noting is that the track feels a little repetitive. It's easy to get to a point and say "heck, I'm done" but I've found there's always more you can do to a sound. Some familiar auxiliary samples can help break up repetition. A poor example might be Mario saying "Let's Go" or Luigi saying "WOAHAOHAOH!!" I call it a bad example because of copyright laws but you have to admit, Nintendo mascots would sound good in the background of something like this.

I don't say this as if sampling is a crime. You have good sampling and bad sampling. When you admit to using samples sparingly, a lot of mods will turn a blind eye to it. IMO, that's a fair use of sampling. No one's going to bark at you if you use a vibraslap or chimes from a youtube demonstration video. Fact is, no one would notice that. Most won't get upset if you're honest when asked about it. Sampling is... complicated.

Additional thought, that sub bass could have been pushed a little harder. It wasn't as noticeable on my PA system as compared to my headphones. I've had success with layering a slap bass on top of subs, then adding some distortion to boost bass frequencies while muting the highs, then EQing the two instruments together. Slap a compressor to the final sound for good measure.

Hope this helps a little. Honestly, I hate sounding critical when I actually love it. I just think this needs a little more character to really stand out as a phenomenally flawless jungle track <3

ksdmusic responds:

Omg thank you. I may Upload a "reworked" Version of this. But thank you so much for the feedback

[POLY - A Year Where Decades Happened]

Happy to see you on the front page love. This sound has an accessability to it I don't get from some of your more atonal work. Keep pushing yourself dear :)

Anchorwind responds:

It's always good to hear from you. This piece is one wherein I would never be satisfied with it. I started with what I thought would be a direction and then "but this" "and this!" "i should fix this" "no i don't like this now..."

Over time I think we get better at understanding life is an incomplete story. Whether we do well with accepting such is an is a different matter. Polish people have a nice summation for it: Jakoś to będzie (ya-kosh toe ben-jay) - to worry without consequence because things will work out in the end. In the Army we had a much more blunt way of putting it. "Shit'll buff out."

I hope we all can emerge the other side of this rollercoaster, heal, and somehow be better as a populace. We've learned some hard lessons.

[cat go bye bye dead time]

Wish I wasn't on my phone right now, this sounds mad cool. Adding to favs to give this a legit listen later on my fender passport.

Unf, thanks for the full sample at the end. It's always awesome to hear people take random fun sounds and abstract them.

Cool off beat patterns. Original snares. I hear nothing wrong on my phone. Damn... my headphones are so far away right now :'(

EDIT: on my headphones, mix is a little bare bones. I'd let that snare punch forward more. Not sure if you use your snare drum to sidechain ever. Depending on the track I usually just use the bass kick to sidechain the levels on the bass and pads. Adding snare signals to the sidechain flow can help on a mix like this.

Lol, that panning on the hi hats. It was a nice touch to hear on my Sennhiesers. I avoid automated panning back and forth like this because on particular speakers you can lose entire sounds and ruin the entire track. Granted, I'm talking piss poor speakers. Often times I use automation in panning to just move a sound to a different area when the track changes. Let's say the chorus hits and suddenly a panned sound is drown out... automate it to immedietly pan somewhere else with more space.

Could use some more aux percussion my love. Shakers, tambs, rides, cowbells, vibraslaps, güiros, wood blocks, rain sticks... heck a gong might sound nice in here. These are just my own thoughts though. Track is still dope. I just like to push NG audio peeps to go harder with their drums :)

valdamaer responds:

Yo thankyou!!! Starting from the end, I didn't add too much extra percs cos it was just a little few hour challenge with friends. I probably could have gone a little more imaginative but eh, next time I make a release like this, I definitely will try! I totally get the thing about autopanning, I'm just not super good at getting stereo width yet so that's kinda the only rabbit in the hat for me.

Weird about the snare, I have a separate sidechain click controlling the sidechain on all the kick hits and snare hits, might have just had to turn the snare up a little, but c'est la vie. Also in terms of bare bones, I was kinda going for that minimalistic Burial vibe, but at the same time I guess I could've added some things which would've made it a little fuller.

Thanks for your feedback and critique, I hope you stick around for more :)