Quarl's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Midnight Feeling (Jamuary2022)]

Sleepy jams, love the simplicity of it. Incredible music doesn't always have to be an extravagant affair. Drums rock solid. That melodic sample pad is perfect on this. Or at least, I'm guessing that synth patch is based off some heavily modulated sample? Whatever it is, I like :3

Only constructive crit I might make would be to add a few atmospheric samples. Birds chirping, waves crashing, wind chimes, a loud crowd, some traffic. Something like that would turn this into a classic. This track has some hella romantic vibes, dank, wish you liked it as much as I do. Give it some time, you might come back to this track in five or ten years and laugh at how much it's grown on you <3

DiosselMusic responds:

Im glad to read your comments :)
and about the atmospheric sample... i was about to add vinyl sounds, but after i added it i said to myself:
hey, this sounds bad
I was trying for a while to get it to work but then I gave up lol
Sometimes I get a little lazy looking for samples, I always end up using the same rain sample

[Thoughts]

Old school hip hop vibes, RJD2 ghostwriter, lo-fi goodness <3

I love what can be done with a good drum kit and some nice samples. To be honest, I'm actually more interested in the drum rhythms and textures than the melody samples. Just pointing out a drummer's bias, beats get my attention fast :3

Casper responds:

The melody isn't that special, i was too lazy to write my own stuff lmao, i always focus on drums a bit more, over this period i learned how to compress and eq them properly (well for lofi i also turn down the project's sample rate sometimes when its boom bap drums instead of rims and stuff).
Thanks for the review <3

[2022 - Loop #1]

Just wanted to let you know, I voted 5 because you told us to in the Jamuary thread. I'm such sheep D':

Screch responds:

Excellent..

[Jamuary 2022 (Day4) - Flat North]

This takes me back to Alfred Uni, 2007-2011. We composed sonic art and music using analog Doepfer synthesizers. Your synth patch has an analog sound and style to it. I love a good patch to make the machines sing their weird songs. Bless your heart KamskiSketchi. This is cool : ]

Kamskii responds:

It's nice to see that this song brought you back some good old memories. I'm a big sucker when it comes to synthesizers, and seeing your warm comment makes me want to keep experimenting more with using synth patches for future tracks. Thank you and best wishes Quarl!

[Road Merchant]

Love that melodic syncopation, hella groovy latin grooves. Those güiro wood blocks and string slides, swoon. Very mysterious little jam. That stand up bass holds that off beat melody perfectly. I think the shaker could use a little more dynamic sensitivity but it's not noticeable until about 00:33. The shaker notes all come in at the same velocity but a live performer would be all over the place, getting tired and whatnot, so sometimes shakers will benefit from volume automation. You only have to draw one or two peaks then copy/paste the automation a bunch of times. The MIDI can also carry velocity data if you'd rather get dynamics that way. Volume is often times the only thing percussion has in regards to sounding "emotive."

You ever see the cowbell SNL skit? Put Will Ferral on those shakers. I have a fever and the only prescription is more dynamics, baby <3

LoveBelow responds:

Thank you for the kind words! I'll definitely be working on dynamics in my music. It's actually one of the things that I want to focus on this year.

[The Dungeons' Garden]

Simple 3/4 but the melodies are all well written and everything comes through expertly. It took me a long time to realize that music doesn't have to be complicated or layered to be amazing. This would be a wonderful piece for a sound track and would work with all sorts of media. I'm tempted to ask if I can try sampling this tomorrow and layering some more orchestral stuff on top? Your call, I wouldn't scribble on top of your work without your permission : ]

That instant cut off at 00:50 is the only thing I'm gonna nit pick. Move that end track marker a little more to the right and give your coda some breathing room. You could rubato the melody down a little and end on an emotive decrease to the tempo. You could do it using the MIDI but if the instrument patch doesn't rely on samples you can also just automate a slowdown via the BPM. Certain instruments will distort their pitch when you automate changes to the BPM but that's not always a bad thing.

Hopefully that made sense but if it didn't, toss the MIDI in my direction so I can try some stuff with it tomorrow. I love writing in 3/4 and will co-credit you on a remix :3

[LIFELINE]

This has some really chill pop electronica vibes, but those vocals are hella awesome. I always envy people that can write and sing great leads. Channeling some MGMT? Maybe not, I have no idea what's cool with the kids anymore. Whoever you're listening to is giving you echos of talent, good musics :3

Usually I like big powerful snare drums but this one scratches a little on hi-fidelity headphones. Turning the snare down some could fix that but you could also try lowering the treble on it, using an aux send to filter/shave off some of those highest frequency noises. I love the snare textures, they just a little loud. It's the only feedback I'm gonna nit pick, I love this track a ton. This is some good song writing :')

Droid responds:

I am going to fix the snares right freaking now because I forgot to mix them!!!!!!!!

[The Year Of Doing]

Chill vibes, big sounds. do what you can to keep up on the song a day challenge, you're clearly very talented :)

vermeen responds:

thank you so much! prompts like these are the bane of me but i'll keep chugging along

[Jamuary - Day 1]

Could just throw this into audacity and amplify, would take only a minute to get some more volume on this. Track rocks by the way. Has a certain quality to it, perfect background music. Great chord progressions, cool drums. Just gotta give us the OPTION of listening to tiny music instead of forcing it on us :p

Siege13 responds:

Yeah sorry i haven't been home basically all day, so when i get home im gonna try and fix the levels and reupload it!!

[X3ll3n - Secret Santa 2021 [WakerLink's NeuroFunk]]

lol, waterlink getting all "this isn't nuero." He's not wrong, this sounds more like jump up or tech step with that two step drum pattern but these are all subs of DNB so I don't see the problem really. Mix is great, everything is powerful and well put together. When I think nuero I toss Noisia to the front of that pile. This sounds more like Pendulum pre Hold Your Color, imo. Kids these days have no love for jump up.

I'm vibing to this, thanks for this musics :3

X3LL3N responds:

Thank you very much for the compliment !

I would have liked to make Neurofunk like Bastion's remix of "Stomp" by SubFocus, but I did not have the knowledge or the technicality for it. So I did go the Pendulum "Plan B" route for the drop and tried whatever would sound good for the rest of the song.