Quarl's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[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

[Montage of You]

Lol, I'm getting Circa Survive vibes from this. Your voice is incredible. Damn good pitch control. Sorry to point this out but I'm guessing english isn't your primary language? What kind of accent am I hearing? Again, it's not important. I just love accents.

My inner critic wants to point out that the bass drum could be a little softer. A filter can trim those highs. Your mixer might have a treble knob, I use Reason. Not sure if you want this kind of feedback but I typically splice three separate bass drums through an EQ, Compressor, and stereo imager before sending the final sound to a drum mixer. So much fidelity control, drool*

Bass drums benefit widely from alternate note velocities too. I don't even think about it anymore, I just randomly grab bass notes and drop the velocities to create dynamics.

But I'm listening to this on my phone, so literally disregard everything I just told you.

[Cafe Byte [Electro]]

Pushing my buttons with nice funky chords, melodies, and hooks. Mix sounded a tad thin, maybe boost your bass a wee bit? Add a sub layer? Sorry, I don't like getting critical when I like stuff as much as I like this. Fatten that bass and this is next level.

[Tundrata]

How dare you challenge my listening skills by tossing out a 3:35 time stamp. If I have to listen to relaxing chill vibes for three and a half minutes than I shall decidedly suffer. I'd have put some reverb on that snare drum. Probs would have tossed in an odd cowbell or gong.

That 3:35 drop at needs a pikachu sample. You can take this critique seriously or not. I'm just saying, a cute "PIKA" would satisfy my simp sample ass. That ambient section leading into it could have used a nice long dialog sample. I came to the realization recently that newgrounds has a lot of voice acting talent which could be useful for giving tracks a unique atmosphere. Do it :)

TeraVex responds:

I’ll add a Pika but only because you told me to! I struggled to find some good gongs/percussion for this, I really wanted to add some but I wasn’t finding any with the flavor I wanted... I’m probably gonna look around a bit more because I feel like it’d improve the tune

[Kahiel Al Saqedi Tribute]

DANK. Funking hard. Not sure what kind of vibes you were going for but this could maybe use another layer on that snare. Some hi fizz 808 snare or something brighter to add? That's my only critical feedback. You ever think of using a vibroslap sample? Once you start using one you never stop. Intro could have made use of one. It's next level percussion :)

edit: also, a tamborine on the up beats could have brightened this a little :D