Quarl's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[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.

[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.

[Spiral]

Love those reverse perc pulses, glassy pads, and contemplative melodies. Those pulses @ 00:35 were powerful. You've compressed those sounds to a nice full atmosphere. You've found the edges of your sound field and can now work to that max volume. I love the experimentation and exploration, you have such an artful style. OH FAK, those breaks at the end were hella tight. WHY DID YOU END ON BADNESS?? GIVE ME SOME DRUM REVERB AND FADE OUT ON A KICK OR A SNARE SLOWLY RELEASING ITS REVERB, OR GIVE ME A PAD FADE OUT, THAT ENDING IS WACK. YOU WROTE SUCH AN AMAZING SONG BUT THAT ENDING, WHAT THE FUK, YOU NEED TO GIVE THIS A BETTER ENDING.

lol, sorry for caps but I just can't express with words how wack that ending is. You can do so much better than that sudden cut off. You got a day until Christmas. If this is really secret santa material, go back and fix that ending with some reverb or something. Move the end of track marker a little further away and give that outro a nice little cool down. You write incredibly atmospheric stuff, ending on a cut off like that is wack <3 <3

EDIT: you didn't disappoint me dear. This track is awesome. I'm like half a nueron away from trying to make an ending for this...

larrynachos responds:

I'd consider this song incomplete, I stayed up from 2-6am to make it cause I'm at my parent's for Christmas and don't have time to work on it further. Yeah the cutoff is lame as hell, but honestly it was a struggle just to get the track to the state it's in currently. I'd like to revisit it soon and give it the proper progression it deserves.

Thanks for stopping by and giving your thoughts Quarl 💕 I'm sorry for disappointing you :( Happy holidays!