Quarl's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[DJ Seuss - Made Of Sunrise (Echoes)]

That drum kit was so huge at the intro. I know how other people feel now when they get assaulted by a snare the size of Jupiter. I always loved huge snare drums but the dnb crowed has moved towards phat high pitched snare sounds.

I'd have maybe sped the drop up a little. I automate so many BPM changes, it can really help liven up things from time to time.

It's a great track Floyd. Something felt a little low energy about it though. Might have just been the overall mixdown to be honest. This has all the elements of a tight banger but is missing something... maybe more panning? Auxiliary Tambs? A ride cymbal? Vibroslap? Dunno, some samples of wild animals?

Regardless, jam on Floyd :D

[Killin' Void - The Escape Plan]

Super chill. For some odd reason I wasn't expecting such a relaxing drop. Thank you for giving us some easy to listen to breaks. Great vocal chops. This is some victorian era high class shit. Why'd you tag other artists though? Are they inspiration or a sample source? Seriously, great tune :p

[Thought]

Loved those melodic explorations. Those instruments felt like they were searching each other out. Drum rhythms pounded. Those subtle ghost snares added a good bit to the over all groove. I think you could have gone a good bit harder on your aux percussion. You could have fit tambs, shakers, cowbells, more hi hats... and panned them all to find places for them.

On that note, panning sounds like what I'm missing the most. There's so much room left in the mix, every thing that falls mid to high frequency could have had it's own home.

I'm loving those bass rhythms and grooves. This track jams so hard. I only wish the mixing techniques were a bit more powerful. Good night love :D

Noisysundae responds:

"Ah thank you for another bunch of mixing tips, Quarl. Honestly, I was only trying to EQ the existing synths to occupy the highs. Completely forgot about the percussion. :P

About panning, I usually use slight randomization on note panning in FL, rather than just setting that of the synth. Perhaps I should drop this habit since most of my tracks are full of synths playing at once." — The Manager

[Qshunt - Dying Light]

EDIT: your mixing on logitech and gaming cans? Good shit Q. I used to mix on logitechs. They're great if they're all you got but terrible if you know you can have better. My heart bleeds for you :)

Sorry it took me a while to get around to this. You got on the front page though so it's obviously good :)

Pro mix down, big drums, catchy reese stabs, full sub bass... you're just showing off Qshush. Gotta point out, I think you could turn the treble on a few things down just a tad. I tend to overdo highs too so it's an introspective nit pick. My Senn HD 650s are at max volume so I'm really getting an earful of that sound. It's the only possible mix issue I'm noticing :)

I'm gonna nit pick the snare drags at 2:08 & 3:14. Those snare drags sounded really static or synthetic. I like to automate the volume of snare drags from low to loud to make them sound more alive. When played on a real drum kit, drags are a really subtle wrist movement so getting them right with a drum machine takes a little finesse. Those little fills might sound better without the drags. Maybe try using only one drag instead of three in a row? Maybe make the drags longer? Your choice QS. Hope that automated volume trick makes sense though.

The drum patterns in the second half of the track had me sold. The vocal samples were spectacular. Really creative ending. Thanks for hitting me up by the way, I hate missing out on great tracks like this <3

Qshunt responds:

Thanks heaps for the detailed breakdown!
I wondered about the highs a bit, too.
My audio interface failed a few weeks ago so this mixdown was done on logitech speakers and gaming headphones, also, I'm old and forget that my hearing isn't what it used to be haha!
I always have a habit of over emphasising the highs.
I might revisit the mix, tone it down a touch then replace the file.
Thanks again! <3

[Fite For Your Love]

There are some tight harmonies in this. Vocal rhythms are well done. I'm not super into hip hop but this is some really classy stuff.

HAHAHA, is that a chop from mortal combat? One of those background synth lines sounded like the synth used in the movie. Is it an FL pad preset or something? I use Propellerhead's Reason so I can't identify common FL sounds. I didn't notice the pad until the beat dropped off around the coda.

00:13, subtle mario coin <3 <3 I have on of those in my sample folder too ;)

edit: I'm bumping this on repeat.

BlackLynk responds:

I appreciate your attention to detail in listening to audio! In this track there is all of one stock preset from FL Studio and those are the orchestra's hits that you can hear VEEEEERY subtly at like 0:27. The rest are samples from packs from a producer community I'm a part of; kick and clap being the only instruments I created from scratch, I appreciate the listen and keep the beep boop love alive haha

[2000.1]

This is some super relaxing progressive liquid. Would you mind if I try recording a few jazzy piano solos for this????

KawaiSprite responds:

Go for it

[Inktober #6 - Listerine]

I saw a tag for ADR, is she not getting credit for making that back track? I hope you talked to her at least, she really floored me with this when she put out the original. I wanted to do the same thing when I heard the instrumental version but then I remembered I can't rap.

Nice clean vocal recordings Cyber :)

Edit, just reach out to her and let her know you couldn't resist using the track. Your both contacts of mine and I'd rather see this marked as a collab :)

Edit2: sorry love, I didn't see the related audio tag on mobile. It looked like a "recommended audio" link so I glazed over it :p

Cyberdevil responds:

Yeah it seems she hasn't been online for a while now, was talking to her at the time I started writing this, sent message and project invite shortly after but no response since. The original idea was maybe she could mix my verse here, but really wanted to get this out at the time it was done so... hopefully this is good enough. :P Alas thus not entirely ADR3-N level production quality, but maybe there'll be time for something yet...

The instrumental track's linked to in the sidebar for starters at least. Official co-authorship hopefully popping up soon as she's online to accept it! If she approves...

And thanks. :) Glad the clarity's alright!

Edit2 response: linked/recommended audio do float together a bit! No worries. Do hope she's alright; back on the Grounds soon too...

[Concrete]

Tight amen breaks. It's cool to see someone ripping it up in Reaper. Between that and LMMS, which is doing which? I'm not super familiar with either DAW :)

Rakshal responds:

Thanks! I use LMMS for arranging and mixing, then put the tracks over into Reaper for mastering since I'm not super familiar with how to arrange things like melodies and pads and such in Reaper.

LMMS is stupid easy to use and is the first DAW I used so I'm the most familiar with it. Though LMMS isn't great for arranging drums on a piano roll since there isn't a MIDI to piano roll sampler, so chopping even fairly standard breakbeat patterns can be really time consuming.

[followin the sun]

lol, I saw the country tag and had to check it out. Good stuff kids. Probably the best country I'll hear all year. Probably the only country I'll hear all year :o

LunacyEcho responds:

honored to be your country fix for the year!!