Quarl's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Chained Promises]

Just wanted to say I loved this. Great atmosphere and textures. I'm a little confused by the prolonged silence at the end, clip that a little before the judges come around! Looks like there is more space in the mix for extra tones and textures but even with all that extra space the track really holds down strong. Good stuff Wolfgang :D

WolfgangMiakoda responds:

Genuinely wish I could fix that silence, but I’m out of the country atm. As I mentioned in the description, it’s a rendering error; FL Studio sometimes has this weird tendency to just add 30 seconds of nothing on the tail end of a project, and I have no idea why it does that. Unfortunately I was strapped for time, so I won’t be able to fix it until I get home

[Hardest technology punk]

THIS ROCKS SO HARD. Buddy Rich wishes he could drum this fast. Had to listen at a really low volume but the visualizer shows a surprisingly phat wave shape for a drum solo. You could probably find a way to fit a bass in this :)

Thomas-Collins responds:

Hello lady AIDS ....
This song is a remix of the song, TBE "created by TBE-punk861 but in a different way and longer than the original, and this song is good I recommend 9/10.
Link of the original:
https://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/887

[Pixel Plains]

Sweet melodies, drum fills, patterns, and lovely harmonies between instruments. Very professional stuff Ketyri <3. I'm only gonna nit pick a minor mix detail, I'd have sidechained everything tonal just a little bit to allow the kick drums to pop some more. I may even include the snare in that sidechain signal. Only a sound nerd like me would nit pick something like that though, very minor detail to point at. Some of those lead synths sound like they hit with more emphasis than the kick drums. I'm really listening to those kicks, wishing they could punch a little harder. While a side chain signal would max the fidelity, another mid freq bass drum layer might also help? I usually have three bass drums layered regardless of genre to create a nice solid kick sound and I'll use one or two of those layers on off beats to create the illusion of velocity change ups in the drum rhythm. Those off beat bass drum kicks are a little less powerful than the kick that falls on the first count but since they're included in the side chain signal they'll still pop a little bit more.

Track would bounce nicely as a video game menu screen or background track. If you ignored my main crit you'd still impress a programmer looking for music or anyone else for that matter. All the classic elements like rhythm and melody are perfect. Again, only a sound engineer is going to nit pick anything and to that extent you're showing off professional skills. Compression is letting you take advantage over the full range of the spectrum. Track is perfect, don't let my nit picking take away any pride you might have for this ditty. 10/10 :')

junipersona responds:

When I made this track way back when I didn't even know what sidechaining was.

[Animation Industry Podcast 122: Michael Surrey Shares His Big Break Into Disney And How He Worked Hi]

This interview melted my face. Amazing sense of rhythm. Sorry, I don't know how to review podcasts :'c

terryibele responds:

This was great. I hope to keep my sense of rhythm in future episodes :D

[I Wanna Know You (lover) {First run}]

I remember seeing your name one hundred years ago. I'm 100% certain I downloaded some of the earliest stuff you uploaded. Glad to hear you're still rocking out. This track has some serious Radiohead vibes, all it's missing is Thom Yorke's silly vocals. Could jam to this all day.

It's hella short, jam tracks like this could be a solid ten minutes long. Not that I'd recommend repeating things for ten minutes but I'd have loved if this was a bit longer. A few new drum rhythms would spice things up good. That's my only constructive criticism. Love it pitbull J <3

pitbulljones responds:

You're an ollllld name wow! Thanks for the kind words. i agree with extension, just need to find the hook.

[March Towards Freedom - Into the Astral Skies]

It's got a romantic garage band feeling. I can visualize some young punks getting together, smoking some skunk weed, and grunging up the music together. Full love, reminds me of what I thought was the best possible genre of music at one point or another while growing up. I don't trust anyone who didn't have a punk rock phase :')

MercyfulDeath responds:

Ay thanks bud, truth be told the garage feel is exactly what I aim for with a lot of the shit I do. My favorite decade for metal and punk was the 80's, a time where the genres exploded in a lot of garages of disgruntled youth, that element is what makes it so attractive to me, the fire and reckless abandon of youth, which is exactly what I try to capture within my stuff. Thanks for the writeup b, I appreciate it.

[Violins]

Super hot chord progressions and melodies. Vocal recording/fidelity is tight. Mad creative funk future hip hop jam vibes. I love this track, hella artful and masterfully crafted. Adding to my favorites :)

I noticed someone else didn't like the pitched up vocals. Personally, used to hate that vocal sound but it became romantic after 20 years of hearing it. Some songs sound amazing with them. IMO, maybe you can make those vocal clips a little more sparse? They still sound good at certain parts. Those kinds of samples make sections like 1:18, 2:17, or 2:33 fire and ruin sections like 2:40 to the end. Would personally remove them from the first 39 seconds, during the violin solo, the small samples at 00:49 and 2:00, then maybe a few other spots?

Let's call the pitched up vocal samples a motif. Motifs don't have to be constant in a song. A personal romantic favorite of mine, Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 is famous for introducing the motif early, then never introducing it again as the larger movement progresses. Echoing a motif throughout a work is expected, but some motifs are just better when they are sparse :)

Fuck, I love that violin solo followed by that slow downward vocal pitch bend. Seriously love it when people get creative with their recordings <3

GameBoyFireworks responds:

Damn, just want to give you so many props for how detailed this critique is. Thank you so much!! I'm going to definitely go back to the lab with this and keep in mind what you've said here. Again, thank you so, so, much! ❤️

[Time to Soar]

It's unfortunate I'm in a situation where I have to listen to this on my phone. That wave form looks nice and well rounded. Can't wait to hear this on some diaphragms that can produce some low end frequencies. Melodies and rhythms are all on point, hella bouncy <3

I guess you can cry about not getting a critical review. Whatever kind of music you set out to make in 2014, you grew into something to be super proud of. I wouldn't necessarily call it a "unique" style and sound but it's definitely a mature style, well thought out, and honestly better than a lot of other stuff out there. Don't let that get to your head though, the world needs role models without huge egos.

Love that clean synth slow down at 1:46 with all of my spleen. Final build up and drop at 4:11, woof. I'm glad you are as happy as you are with this track. I got a few musics that made me feel the same way so I'm happy to share in your joy. Write that funky music Spade :')

Edit: in regards to not being the most "unique sound and style" that's probably not a bad thing. Unique doesn't always translate to good :/

Spadezer responds:

Thoughtful reviews are just as cool as critical reviews, and more fun because they don't have negative comments lol.

Yes I understand about what you mean with unique styles. I've always made it my goal to want to make what I want to make, even between both songs. This also has meamt that I can range from a bunch of genres I'll say with what I've made, which could range from heavier electronic, to lighthearted chipstep like styles, funk, and whatever else is in between. This song in particular though also kind of gravitates to what mostly takes up my playlist on Spotify and resonates withe the most so being able to recreate it, while there genre itself isn't unique, I would think is also a skill of it's own. Not to say I can't put my own spin on it lol

[Human Being, Machine Doing]

Tight noises King. Crisp drum samples, creative panning, tight glitch rhythms. This is what I love to hear from techy idm but I'm not as into the pure ambient sections. Those ambient spots set the tone of the track nicely, intro was great. I just wish there was more of that 4:12 - 6:00 in comparison to all the ambient that surrounds that section. There's like four minutes after that 6:00 minute time stamp I'd have just cut or saved for another track. You play dangerous games by trying to steal 16 minutes of my life King xD

Kingbastard responds:

Thanks for the review, much appreciated. This is a continuous mix of an EP I made back in 2017. There are four tracks mixed into one long piece. The EP is here if you'd like to listen separately;) https://kingbastard.bandcamp.com/album/error

[i made a song using only a soviet era drum machine]

lol, love the creative choices. Can relate to a couple of them. Recently used audacity to change the speed of a track substantially. I loved the new tone but there was a good bit of fidelity loss.

I'm so over critically naming songs. My highschool rock band would name stuff like "The Song That Starts And Stops Alot" or "The Song In Seven Eighth Notes." Cool to hear some very specific hardware get used. I wasn't familiar with the Elista. I would have so much hardware if I had a place to put it :P

ADR3-N responds:

I actually find myself falling in love with emulations of older hardware, done right. It allows me to pack all of that gear and warp it to my heart's content -- and really when we're recording, what are we really doing but digitizing analog. There will be funny things like artefacts and such, but I think emulations give old technology new life. :)

That said I'd love to play with the originals, just to hear them for myself