Quarl's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Beauty in Chaos]

The drum and bass was ok but I came for the birds chirping. You're getting all avant-garde on us. Your next track better be a half hour of just recorded water running down a stream or we are no longer friends.

I'm wondering if something is holding the mix back, it sounds like the mid frequency range is in low supply. That mid range helps add power, this is all low/high.

God fuck, I love those birds. They go super well with that crispy piano. FYI, the bird sample ends abruptly at 02:40. Automate that channel so it fades out with the piano :)

larrynachos responds:

It was supposed to cut off suddenly with the bird sample but I exported with leave remainder instead of cut remainder >< There's something unnatural about it that I kinda like for this track though. I seem to always miss the mid range, maybe it has something to do with the headphones I use or the way I cut out frequencies. I'm really glad you enjoyed it Quarl!

idk if I'd describe this as avant-garde, I'm certainly not the first one to put nature noises in my song. But thank you! I do however have an alt profile @cx330 that I use for more ambient/experimental stuff :)

Thanks again for stopping by!

[Cartoons]

I've been keeping to myself when I listen to your stuff but I do love the goofy energy I get from your tracks. I get a real Rustie "Ultra Thizz" vibe but better quality and more consistent. The reason I don't drop reviews on your tracks is because I'm always kind of afraid it will come to surface that you might be uploading other peoples work and stealing credits for social points.

Don't take that the wrong way. The only reason why I suspected your tracks might be someone else's is because they are too good for this place. Newgrounds hosts a lot of amateur hobbyists but your work doesn't sound like it comes from an amateur hobbyist. Your style sounds pro. That's a good thing, damn my skepticism. You got a nice full mix down, good compressed bass, full drum kits, beyond creative sampling style, great melodies, and dank rhythms.

What programs are you using? Who inspires you?

KawaiSprite responds:

Thanks Quarl! I hope I can put any kind of rumor like that to rest because its all original. I actually never saw it that way before maybe because ive been doing this for so long that its all just second nature to me. idk. I occasionally post vids on my twitter of music im working on, actually here's this exact session: https://twitter.com/kawaisprite/status/1250274350873210881

I don't think anyone has really complimented me on my mixing, I really do put a lot of focus on making everything sound as good as I can get it, So i really appreciate that. I dont get that much.

Rustie is definitely an early inspiration. EDM music is changing and morphing so quickly, people like iglooghost, Sophie, umru, A.G. Cook, 100 Gecs are making types of music that ive never heard before so on a technical level that stuff is really pushing me to make something crazy and fun. Melodically speaking I'm a fan of many types of music but I do enjoy me some Jazz, City Pop, 80's synthpop, Indie Rock, drone, lo-fi pop, italo disco, hip-hop, rap, eurodance, videogame music, J-pop I could go on and on. But I think my main influences are Baths, Ariel Pink, Balam Acab, Toro Y Moi, Joe Hisaishi, Aphex Twin, Animal Collective, Neon Indian, Yasutaka Nakata, Iglooghost.

Im using ableton live 10 at the moment, but i also use reason 11 as a vst because theres so many good sounds in there. I have various favorite vst instruments like Massive, Korg Polysix, but i think alot of the sounds in this song are from Reason. Live 10 has a really great audio stretching algorithm that I tend to overuse to get some wacky sounds. The vocal chops are just me singing thru autotune but its all sliced up. the 808s are ones that I made as well as the snare. I try to not use hihats and replace that percussive element with something unconventional.

As far as being on Newgrounds I guess you could say that maybe I could be out of place but honestly after a year of being on this platform, I've realized that people actually care here. Even if my ambitions/future plans are unclear, I just like being here. I really want people to start taking the audio portal more seriously, but I also want it to expand and allow for weird unique interesting music to shine thru as well. As it is the audio portal is a niche little pocket but I think NG as a platform would benefit from it if musicians knew what kind of opportunities they could have being here.

[Trilogy II]

lol, your blog is pushing a track from 2016. Feels like yesterday, doesn't it? Perfect mix down. Gratuitous guitar solos. Sexy metal drums. Funny story, when I mix DNB, double peddle rhythms take up too much of the mix so I can't 32nd note a bass drum as well as you metal people do. 2:34 kicked in just as I was typing that and for a half second my brain wanted to caps lock. DOUBLE PEDDLE RHYTHM KILLING ME.

JDawg00100 responds:

Oh man I haven't listened to this one in forever! I miss doing these Trilogy songs. They are always my favorite to write, creativity overload. There's so many solos in the beginning haha. I'm surprised there is because I am definitely not a lead player lmao. I feel ya about the double bass, it can get a little crazy. I actually never use a snare and a bass drum hit at the same time when it's that fast.

But yeah I really like these Trilogy songs. My favorite is definitely Trilogy IV

[wtf2020]

Compared to Affliction, this song has a much better mix. All that nit picking on your other track goes out the window here. I have a personal problem with keeping up my quality from track to track. Sometimes I listen to something from one year ago that doesn't hold a candle up to my work from four prior. I'm guessing the tones missing in Affliction might have been a result of the stress from NGADM? I stopped competing many years back because I always felt that the pressure to try and be the best was useless. I'd put out work I wasn't proud of to just meet a deadline. Maybe I'm projecting my own insecurities onto Affliction?

This track is so dope. Killing it JD.

JDawg00100 responds:

And yeah i'm not gonna lie Affliction was a nightmare to finish for me. I started with the intro riff and for the next few days I just couldn't go anywhere with it. It's one of those riffs that you write it and maybe a month later you come back and make a song. So I just forced it and barely got done writing it before deadline I think. This song I let my ears rest a bit and started mixing later, which I don't really do enough.

Thanks for the review :)

[Affliction]

lol, I think every metal composer has started a track on that grainy filtered guitar at some point or another. Was listening to a chimp spanner track the other day like "yep. I've heard this filter before." It's always filthy though.

I'm wondering if this track could have used a little more bass compression to being those low tones forward. The guitar work is phenomenal which is why I'm noticing that lack of bass. It also helps that I'm wearing some expensive headphones :/

I wish I could get the same level of variety from my melodies and rhythms. I feel like most the time I just copy and past until I call it a day. Seriously great stuff JD. I love it when a track feels like it tells a story. This composition goes places <3

EDIT: I noticed that guitar at the intro was all the way to the left. I couldn't ignore it after that. I'm noticing a splash cymbal is hard panned too. I spend a lot of time panning but I usually don't pan something 100%. It creates an empty feeling because tones become unbalanced. It creates a lot of extra space in the mix but in a genre where your guitars are each creating unique tones, maybe go softer with that panning to help balance?

I don't know why I'm nit picking all this. Maybe those NGADM reviews below put me in this vibe. Let's just blame them. Your work is great as always :p

JDawg00100 responds:

Yeah for some reason I decided on keeping the bass low in the mix. It might have just been the way I recorded the guitars. I used IR responses instead of what I usually do. I haven't tried to go back to the way I recorded this song ever since, it's so much trouble and latency. I always try to record my guitars as tight as possible

As for panning I always pan hard left and right for the rhythm guitar, maybe have a fortifier rhythm in the middle (which I didn't in this song because I was essentially using two different tones for each panned guitar). That leaves me a lot of room for lead guitar, or my favorite harmony guitars. As for the drums I really don't mess with the panning of my vst. I'm so bad with mixing drums, I've barely got the parallel compression down

This NGADM I didn't really care an awful lot. Got pretty far by the skin of my teeth too. I've had some awful years, I stopped joining them after a few really bad years. So much so that the songs I made for those specific years I just really hate, I need to go back and listen to them after so long. But really I just wanted to join it to force myself to get back into making music, so that definitely did that for me.

Thanks for the review :)

[Brainzap]

Super tight brain dance kb. Fresh sounds, perfect mix. Wouldn't expect any less from you champ. That break down had me jazzing.

<3 <3

Kingbastard responds:

Thank you, Quarl. Much appreciated.

[The Pianist]

Short, to the point, clean. I think those drums could have used some tambs or rides to brighten up the track a little but otherwise the song really grooves. Why the fade out though? You could have looped the track a bit and given us something a little more substantial to listen to. I'm of the opinion that most drum and bass track can get everything across at a little over/under 3 minutes. Two minutes just felt awkward because it feels like your pulling out just as the song was getting to it's climax.

There's a reason people mention hating fade outs. It's not always a bad thing but for such a short track it sounded really premature :)

Edit: If this is going to be the only track you upload this year do us a solid and give us another minute in heaven <3

[The Waves]

Clean, low fi, classic, liquid. This has some really old school minimal vibes. Timecode/moving shadow era late 90s before things started getting grimy. Not gonna lie, I have a lot of trouble producing minimal. A simple kit, some sub, a lazy reese, and a nice melody... you got it kid. 100% new fan right here.

[Nintendo Switch Type Beat]

It's times like this I wish I still rocked Nintendo. This track is dope. Dandy kick triplets. Happy glitchy square lead. I see that ambient end is no longer just an experiment but a feature. Relaxing.

Seriously Protaganacho, this track is so cute and perfect <3

Edit: thanks for the video too. Seeing other people make music feels enriching. I usually just open my DAW and cry for a few minutes before opening Steam.

larrynachos responds:

It's really difficult to get the ball rolling on some tracks. If I don't get something nice sounding in the first half hour, I usually just quit. Luckily, the switch samples were plenty of inspiration!

Thank you for the review Quarl! I should have extended the actual beat part instead of immediately succumbing to making an ambient section and calling it a day, but I started getting self conscious about being on stream so I just wrapped it up lol (even though apparently the stream cut off before I finished the song loool).

Thanks again :)

[X3LL3N - Higher (FuzeNG RMX)]

Really warm vibes from this. Sassy happy melodies yo. I spent a few minutes nit picking the drum kit. Something felt off. At first that bass drum was too weak but when it goes to DNB it just pushed everything out of the way. Sidechain like "hi, I'm sidechaing." Do you layer your kick samples at all or is it just one phat sample? Maybe a second kick with more emphasis on mids/highs would make Quarl happy. Same with the snare actually. I know all you kids are into a ton of bass on your snares these days. It's cool, I get it. Punk rock dude. But give us older tone deaf people something to bite onto. I need some more mid/high from a snare because I listened to loud music when I was growing up. Feels.

Dynamics! It took me a few listens to realize those piano notes sound really static. Maybe give some life to that robo-piano with velocity changes. Emulating the velocity of a live piano drives me crazy. I don't know how to record dynamics proper in reason from my digital piano so I have to fiddle with numbers after the fact. IT SUCKS, kill me. I get lazy and automate the levels instead. It's not the same but I pretend it is.

Loved those snaps in the beginning. You're production style is tight. Clean. Pure. Keep doing you Fuzion <3

FuzionTech responds:

I used different kicks when making this. no I didnt stack them. I just placed them in an order. intro has that soft-like kick, the main has a hard hitting kick. and I forgot to post process the piano. my bad. and thank you for the comment