Quarl's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[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

[How to Take Complete Control of Everything and Everyone]

You've been here since 2013 and I never noticed? Shame on me, I give you friendships. I give you good feelings. Have this basket full of chocolates. Here are some flowers I found on the ground. You can have them.

Slick breaks, clean synths, jazzy progressions. I could nit pick little mix choices but I don't want to do that. Would rather praise this cool future trance jungle style. It's very unique. It's very good. I love this <3

Cacola responds:

thank you so much <3

[Villain Redux (feat. ThatJohnnyGuy)]

lol, "mad dark nuero roller." Whose been teaching you dnb slang? You have to be from the UK to use the term "roller" in that context. I didn't make the rules, blame Ishkur.

Didn't realize you were in New Mexico, where in? I've been fantasizing about getting a midwest newgrounds meet up together once covid fucks off. I'm in the southwest corner of Colorado. I'm not 100% certain where a proper midwest meet up would go, would probably open that up to conversation in the forums or on my blog?

But your track, it has a lot of that grimy energy from early darkstep. John's vocal samples reminds me of Powerman 5000's late 90's romp "When World's Collide" without the grungy guitars and high energy chorus. Crunchy drums remind me of a Sonic Adventure 2 stage called White Jungle. Track mix could be nit picked a little but that's just a given. Humans have such garbage ears, I wish I could transform just my ears. Become a cat girl. Move into the woods, sleep in the grass and eat fish heads. Yeah.

Sinthology responds:

Thanks, I had fun with this one. It could be louder, I tried pushing the master track more but it started to sound squashed so I left it be.
I feel like a lot of these little genre jargony words are like "squanch" and "smurf", you just say what's in your squanch and people know what you mean.

I'm in Las Cruces but I'm fairly mobile and like to drive to visit people. I have all of the antibodies from my vaccines so I might be making some trips soon. It would be cool to meet some fellow NGers :o

[Extrapeculiar]

Pretty good sound from garageband, I wonder how that program has evolved since I used it last in High School. Very well written track, guitar solos gave off a David Maxim Micic sound. Creative genre switch ups kept the track hella interesting. Almost a full 9 minutes, that's not easy to do. There are probably four or five separate tracks you could have pulled out of this but you refused to get repetitive and just kept going. Awesome work Chord C:

ChordC responds:

I assume that garageband was not as advanced as it is today, it is relatively easy to use, at least for me.

Yess, I generally don’t like monotone/repetitive songs, I prefer listening to songs that are ‘out of the box’. I was inspired by the band Dream Theater when making this song.

Anyway, thank you for coming here, have a good one ;)

[modus - Displace]

Clean, refreshingly unique modus style. You have a way of making an arp sound fierce, and those leads... woof.

iammodus responds:

Thank you! <3

[Master]

I'm happy you posted how old you are on your page. A lot of us legacy newgrounds users started at a ripe young age too. This totally takes me back to early jam sessions with the bands, friends, and rouges in highschool. It doesn't necessarily have a very polished or professional sound but it's honest and that's what I like about it. I'm practically in tears over here thinking about my old band mates. We would get stoned, hang out, and just make things. Had no idea what those early days meant, we were just scratching our instruments and yowling our songs aloud. It can be hard to pull a full band together but get a percussionist and this could turn into an Explosions In The Sky vibe.

I'd nit pick the shy vocals but it honestly feels really good to hear young unspoiled energy. It almost feels like I'm in the room with you all, I would totally be beat boxing to this. You've got an acoustic sound and another year of highschool? Force one of your friends to start beat boxing right now. It only takes a week to learn how to "BFFF" a good bass drum, "KAH" a good K snare and "TISS" a decent hi hat. Simple 6/8 rock rhythm would go "BFFF, TISS TISS, KAH, TISS TISS" or bassdrum, hi hat, hi hat, snare drum, hi hat, hi hat, then repeat one million times. Look, you don't have to learn how to play the drums. Just force the Asian kid to do it. That Asian kid is going places and you need to make friends with him right now.

FOUNDDEADINLA responds:

I should note that my music is all me—most my friends find my music too expiremental—and I've got fuller sounding peices as well (expecially on my blackgaze inspired earlier works), but this was an amazing read. I do hope in college I befriend a percussionist and form a band :). Ill have to try beatboxing on a future track too.