Quarl's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[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 :)

[Nicotine Caffeine Alcohol]

I could do meth to this. I've never done meth but if this song came on and someone handed me meth I'd probably say "ok."

Mix probably could have been filled out a little more but I'm hitting a phase in my own work where I'm just mixing brick walls, so ignore me. Any issue with the mix is easily overshadowed with amazing creative ideas and sounds. Super creepy grime vibes.

Cowbells D: this track needs cowbells every other measure. Also, actual cow samples. I'm not even kidding. A literal cow like "MOOOOOOO" before the drop at 2:07. I'm not sure how open to comedic elements you are but sometimes a dark track like this can benefit from an out of place sound gag. Noisia was great with them. Their track Canonball has this wonderful sample @ 4:30 of a woman detailing her sexual attraction towards a much older man. Or their track "Shitbox" off their Split The Atom EP. It's a tiny segue track but it sucks so much I laugh at it every time. It's just a dinky 20 second song hiding between tough bangers.

If the cow idea @ 2:07 doesn't float your boat try a triangle instead of that silence. An old user here got me away from using pure silence ages ago and I've never looked back. Every time I hear absolute silence in someone's music I think "a vibraslap could have fit there" or something similar. Just a thought my love :)

Sorry for all these extra words, the track blows me away. Needs more cowbells though xD

[Slow Motion]

I'd pay $5 to hear a version of this without the modulations on the voice. Under all those effects I think I can hear some good singing. Some vocalists go super hard on things like reverb. I kind of prefer the less is more approach.

Taking this one critique to another level, I noticed that I couldn't enjoy the back track as much because of how in my face those vocal effects were. Peel back some of those fx and the entire mix will benefit :)

Final take on this one critique... I get the feeling people are afraid of their voices. I did the same thing in highschool by overloading vocal recordings with effects. You paradoxically cannot progress with vocals unless you are willing to hear yourself and open up to critique. I have so much love and appreciation for anyone willing to use their own voices. I'm not implying that you have vocal shame... but honestly I hear some really nice sounds lurking under those noisy frequencies. Such lovely sounds :o

ADR3-N responds:

If you'd actually venmo me 5 bucks I'd do it for ya! It'd take me a couple hours to work around the compression and redo everything and I just in general am so lazy ordinarily wouldn't. I could just leave the raw vocal on top with some compression maybe, and the vocoder harmonies beneath, but most of what you're hearing is a distortion plugin and some slight pitch correcting

This track I felt like experimenting with different timbres, I'm almost whispering at points. I have three takes, some of which I had to edit out from the party going on in the next room. I wanted to see how hard I could push vocoders and distortion to get a different sound, like song for my mama type vibes. The talk singing shame was like off in the corner making it hard to mix. I'd be down to pull a redo

[Pico - Friday Night Funkin' OST]

Get out of here with this super clean mix down. This is TOO CLEAN. I'm legit angry... can you put a filter on the master out to make this sound poorly mastered? Thanks.

[Nebula]

This has been playing on and off from my favorites list today. These synthesizers are just so succulent and juicy. I had a small problem with wanting the hard dubstep parts more than the soft surrounding sections. I know what it's like to musics though so I totes get it. This track is amazeballs. I just have so much ADD and had to keep myself busy between parts by writing you a heartfelt review :)

UNF, SECOND DROP YESSSSSSSSSS. pay off.

[Incineration]

I keep thinking "can't wait to hear this on headphones" but am stuck with a kitten in my lap and don't want to betray it's trust. I will get down to this later on my PA system. I want to know what those lows sound like :D

This ending is way cooler than it has any right being. I'm gonna have to ask you to add some vuvuzela samples to make it less cool. K thnx.

baryiscool responds:

vuvuzela samples it is