Quarl's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[DV - Compression Calamity]

Gave this a quick listen at work on my phone. Glad I put off the full listen till I got home. Great stuff :)

When it comes to that "bricked" spectrogram there's good bricks and bad bricks. The sub bass seems to fill out those monochrome graphs so it's hard to tell visually what the fork is going on. Once you start sidechaining your sub bass out of the way it's like "lol, I have textures again."

la-yinn responds:

Don't tell anybody, but it's been over half a decade since I've sidechained anything so I've actually forgotten how to do it...

I should probably get on that, now that I think about it lmao. But I bought / rented Serum through Splice yesterday evening and now I'm literally hooked to music production again. Don't understand the synth at all yet, but my god.. Such powwa. Seriously, I replaced my weed addiction with a production addiction and I'm loving every second of it. Who knows, give it a year or so and I might start to produce some legit quality shit. Like I tossed my dreams into a trashcan years ago cause it wasn't working out and now those dreams are back and they're like all buff and shit and they wanna kick my ass in that dark alley over there.. ~ _~

[d1]

I just mentioned side chaining in my review on "test." This track is dope and almost perfect. It would really shine if you used the kick and snare drums to side chain the bass and pads out of the way. EDM genres revolve around the drums. If you can make the mix revolve around your drums, you'll note a huge groove improvement. Right now, your basses are over powering a little :)

I'd also layer another kick drum on top of the other to give it some flesh. It's so phat, give it a complimentary mid kick or a shorter envelope? Up the pitch on that hi hat, IMO.

Really this is sick jass. I feel like I focus so hard on mix quality but my own melodies and rhythms are uninspired. You're writing some dope beats and some killer melodies. Killer.

Jassummisko responds:

Hi again!
Not gonna lie, my mixing in general is pretty shit so I really appreciate any comments you give.
Having the mix revolve around the drums sounds like a great mixing philosophy to go by.
Thanks for the feedback!

[test]

:D

Drum and bass can be a hard genre to mix for. It's a damn good kit but it's missing a few tones. Layer some more? The sub sonic bass frequencies are drowning the drums a little. I'm not sure how hard you're sidechaining that bass but I'd max it so that the kit pops through the bass. Then I'd probably add some distortion on that low/mid frequency synth you have and try to EQ some more tones out of it. It's a mad low energy bass but even low energy bass lines can shine and punch.

Forget everything I just said and look up "Diplodocus" by Noisia. Try and make this track sound like that track. Note how everything in that track pops. It's all about those finer frequencies my love, sick test <3

Edit: layer more and compress everything, then lower all the channels, control z a bunch of times, twist a bunch of knobs, then compress that, then layer a few more times, then compress it again. Was this helpful?

Jassummisko responds:

Hi Quarl!
I fucking love Diplodocus. Easily one of my top 10 Drum n Bass tracks of all time.
I'll look back into it and see what I can do. Thanks for the feedback!

[DV - Unreal]

I just gave your 2013 tunes a listen. Someone clearly figured out how to compress and mix in those six years. This is some damn clean dnb. Really glitchy styles. This is like if Tipper and Spor had a baby but Squarepusher was the real father and Spor doesn't know so don't tell him, shhhhhh.

la-yinn responds:

Hands down the biggest compliment I've ever gotten. My ego is blushing, damnit! Thanks a bunch. :-)

[MM7 : The Sabotage (Quarl's Pipebomb Mix)]

Cool industrial vibes. Crunchy mix. I loved how dark that intro was. I kept reading "followers" as "flowers." Kind of awkward mistake to make but can I please pretend Mother Machine has a flower garden?

Anchorwind responds:

Hmm... I'll try to weave that in somehow. Stay tuned.

[MM7 : Her Initiation Ceremony]

Damn, this has some really old school jungle vibes. Around the Late 90's/turn of the millennium the DNB scene started seeing some really grimy almost industrial breaks from the Moving Shadow label. Moved up to 170-180 BPM this would fit right into a Timecode mix.

Aside from that, I just wanted to say that I'm loving the spook vibe from this. Cool vocal samples, good break beats, classy synths. Cool track you have here. Stay cool Anchor :)

[Tokyo Machine - SPOOKY (FractureClutter remake)]

Damn, great quality out of this. Loved those melodies and instruments. Boss double time change up towards the two minute mark <3 <3

[Sharks - Light (VIP)]

Damn clean dnb Mr. Sharks. Where do you find the time to make dope beats when you're swimming around the ocean trying to find food and a mate? I guess sharks don't sleep but still, pretty dope considering you don't have hands to make music with. What's it like making music with fins??

Sharks responds:

i ask humans to make music for me or i eat them

[Happy I'm Here [Lofi]]

Absolutely sexy down tempo jazz style. Love that piano and grainy atmosphere. Perfect snap sample. Was that Walugi laughing or? Anywho, this is dope. Slick writing DE <3

DreamEater responds:

Thank you again Quarl, I always look forward to your feedback! I legit thought about your comment on Ringo when I was designing this snare, so I'm stoked that it got your approval! Ahh I definitely see how you would get Waluigi from that, it's actually a warped Eustace sample from C.T.C.D. (THAT TOOK FOREVER TO FIND OMG XD). I never realized until this project, that 90% of that show has backing/ambient noise tracks for added spooki.