Quarl's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Existential Emptiness (Full Album)]

I came for the title but stayed for the fun frequencies. Celestial hits nice. The titular track Existential Emptiness had some really slick breaks. I love the sonic explorations <3

I'm not gonna give up a long review because this is a full album but with a little more polish on fidelity you'll have a pro sound. Things like melody, percussion, arrangement, pads... all these things are inspired. Fidelity is the last push and it's a tough one because every explorative track needs a slightly different balance or mixdown. Was talking to another producer the other day about having a wide range of mix quality from track to track, inconsistent mastering. It's just part of the game. A formula will work for a minute but the moment you start experimenting or trying new stuff you have to adjust your techniques.

Drums are kind of my favorite thing to work on, I think your drums can be a little more prominent in the mix. Not sure if you got much sidechaining going on but I like to send the kick drum and sometimes the snare signals to various compressors attached to other instruments. That kick signal can then control levels of the chained instruments. A chained kick drum signal will momentarily mute the bass or a pad... when listening to Existential Emptiness in particular I felt like those drums could have punched through the mix a little more and side chaining the drum signals is key.

There are a lot of drum techniques, not sure if you use MIDI or drum loop samples but I prefer the freedom of MIDI. Dropping other people's breaks into my tracks never jived with me but if you use them you can actually sidechain stuff using a secondary muted drum kit. Just quickly MIDI up the core rhythm the sample follows, then send the signal to compressors attached to other instruments, then mute the sidechain drum machine before it gets to the master. I use Reason's spider merger/splitter to multiply drum signals for sidechaining but I'm sure most programs let you split a signal with their own tools. Regardless of whether you use full break samples or broken up MIDI samples this type of stuff can be fun to play with and folds back into what I was saying about needing different techniques for different situations :3

Regardless of which drum techniques you use you can still layer new drum sounds on top of those. I love the sound of the drum samples on Celestial but they're a little lonely. I'd add some aux percussion like tambs, shakers, toms, cowbells, vibraslaps... there is a world of percussive instruments that can help add life to that groove! Then there's the classic layering, most my snare drums can be two or three samples deep. I got a work flow where I take the snare samples from the drum machine, send their signals into a merger, then I send the combined drum signal into an EQ unit, compressor, limiter, stereo imager... sometimes I bypass the fidelity units but this signal flow lets me get snare samples all on the same page. From the drum machine I can change the pitch or tone of individual snare samples, the end goal is to make them all work together, as one! It's a little convoluted at first but I've been doing it for decades now and this is just the way it is now :3

Automation lanes can provide some rhythmic life with a little dynamics, I quickly draw peaks and valleys for hi-hat and shaker rhythms when I don't want to play with their individual note velocities. I'd also add snare reverb every few measures. End a measure with some reverb on a snare just to see what I'm talking about. You don't want to go too crazy with snare reverb, this isn't the 80s but a little snare reverb automated in once or twice a track... beautiful mix trick.

I said something about keeping this review short. I was lying D:

MixxyHD responds:

It really was a huge criticism xD but I'm still in shock about the frontpaged...

I made this album for a whole year and it evolved as it went along. Existential Emptiness was made in 2023, probably halfway through the year and I was in that phase of very rapid evolution, I could have improved a lot and done a lot more, but at the time I just didn't think that way... Even so, I managed to finish my album and this project is finally going to get some recognition.
A thousand apologies for not knowing how to react to your incredible criticism of my songs, but you've given me a lot of ideas for my future songs and projects! I hope you had a great time listening to my album. That's very special to me <3

Anyway, thank you so much for the criticism and the comment!!!

[NGPR #4: Quarl]

*Comment why you think NGP fcked up real bad! Theories in the comments!*

So, my theory is that at around the time I guested on the show it came to light that one of the hosts was masturbating on their side of the microphone for an entire season. Despite flying under the radar the thought of it made the work of editing really awkward so yall just kind of drank heavily to get through the hardships. The feelings never numbed though so the Newgrounds Podcast team turned to harder and harder drugs until you collectively hit rock bottom. Times got really hard, Shal had to sell his mint condition Golden Girl Doll collection. Through some kind of Christmas miracle, Tom Fulp got you guys back on the straight and narrow. You spent time working out, hitting the gym, Droid got his masters degree. It was a complete 180, everyone was happy.

During this period of happiness you burnt the hard drive containing all the show data. It took you a really long time to remember that there was a cloud back up but honestly your hearts just weren't in it anymore. Despite masturbating, getting addicted to drugs, getting clean of drugs, and accomplishing everything you ever set out to do, uploading digital files seemed insignificant now. What was the point of it all? Who are we? What is reality? After grappling with crippling existentialism it became clear what needed to be done. The team put down the peyote pipe one last time to start uploading episodes and so here we are today: harder, better, faster, stronger. Work it. Make it. Do it.

So how close is my guess?

[feverdream </3]

This is a lot of fun! Melodies are romantic, the pulse goes hard. I wish there was more breakage like around 2:12 but you do you. I'm not on good speakers right now but the wave doesn't look as full for the breaks. Without hearing the subsonic sounds I'm guessing that big four to the floor kick drum was filling up massive amounts of space. That dnb section might have had some space to get compressed a little forwards? Wish I had my headphones right now, I wanna know if there's a sub bass doing work :'c

I'll come back to this later for the melodies <3

[Free Bass Loops Bb pack demo]

...and I will stuff these into the decades old Soro folder. You make great resources :p

sorohanro responds:

More to come in the future ;)
You always make awesome stuff out of them.

[Shopping Spree]

I wanted to get something together for the mall collab but failed to do anything because lazy. Love this melody, chords are magic, beat holds down the foundation perfectly. Not sure I agree with a house groove being certified "mall music" but it grooves really nice. All you need is Marc Rebillet in a German grocery store screaming in the background @ 1:30 and it's 100% funked up <3

Casper responds:

I guess "house" itself is more so club music, the song's instrumentation is more mall-y haha, i liked the rhythm and how it fit tho. I wasn't too fussed about making it tradionally mall or whatever, just went for something funky and fun, made the first part during jamuary and the switchup at 1:30 was done like one day before the deadline lmao. Transition is a bit rushed but I actually think it fits in the context

[Andromeda]

I can really hear that BOUNC3 influence in the melodies. Mix is tight, track is a lot of fun! Powerful stuff, classic dance sounds with a contemporary mix of techniques. Got nothing bad to say Synami, great track!

[Quantum Ooze]

Headbanging, funky, hard. I'm not gonna bother nit picking anything, you know what you're doing Nacho. If someone steps into your life with advice about how you're doing music feel free to take that with a grain of salt, including this statement. You've come really far over the years and I'm getting floored by your stuff.

[Qshunt-Schism]

Clean, massive, unique, love it Qshunt. I usually just favorite your stuff but why not give a little extra today? Love your sound <3

Qshunt responds:

Thanks heaps Quarl!
I've been out of action for a bit and a touch demotivated. I've got so many projects on the go, and I've been unable to finish most of them, so this was a bit of a diamond in the rough that I was quite happy with.
Cheers for commenting. I rarely get comments, but I get hundreds of downloads. :S
It's a bit off putting sometimes. :(

[bitching at the wind]

Indy vibes, I can hear that classic goth sound though. Singing reminds me of an Interpol sound I grew up with. Reverb isn't too over powering, the reverb on the snare in particular gives a texture of that 80s sound but I'm hearing indy vibes again. Drum rhythms are creative and sound live where in a lot of those old goth tunes had somewhat cheesy rhythms and often electronic kits.

In regards to indy, I'm one of those angry kids that got pissed when the term indy got picked up and misused to describe a genre instead of it's classic means to denote independent acts that were totally on their own and without the support of a label. I mean, indy labels are a total paradox in that respect. Due to that, I won't neg you to change the genre. Indy isn't supposed to be a genre AND I WILL DIE ON THIS HILL D:<

It's great to see you still working on your music chops, you're doing your own thing and I love it! Never stop Mr Rick. You're making a fun riot with your music :3

RickSteubens responds:

thank you quarl sweaty, preesh. Funnily enough it started with the shitty drums after listening to tom waits, it evolved from a grungy thing into more of a type o negative feel by the end. Also def agree on the indie thing, call it what it is: navelgaze lmao