Quarl's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Realm (NGADM2021)]

I've been waiting patiently to see what everyone in our bracket brings forward, I'm happy to finally hear your track Diossel. Very gentle, very atmospheric dnb. Lush pads and strings. Those sensitive little keyboard melodies are essential. I love that you chose a fractured snare pattern for the rhythm instead of those big jump up two-step patterns common in the scene.

I'm also glad you wrote a little bit about your time getting into music on newgrounds, a lot of us older users share similar origins. I remember collaborating with Fox Stevenson here when he was 12. Emperor was here for a minute under the alias "Parathile." Spacelaces had an account here. I hope one day I'll be able to say "I lost to Diossel in the NGADM and now he's BIG." I won't have to wait long to know if I get to say that, but I really do love watching people grow. Regardless of what the future holds for us, I'm rooting for you D. Good luck and let's hope the judges know good music when they hear it :D

DiosselMusic responds:

Thank you, I'm very excited to know that people like my music, it makes me feel happy, I really appreciate it.
Thank you very much!!! ^^

[dududu-du]

Loved it. Mix down could probably be a little more fine tuned but I love the elements all coming together to make some really grimy filth <3 <3

Edit: since you're asking about mix I'll toss out a few ideas. Fair warning, everything is awesome I'm just nit picking things. I'm at max volume listening to this but I like having the option of turning the volume down. Theres more room in the mix to push a few instruments harder. People worry about over compression but you might listen to your track on another set of speakers and realize this sounds different. Bass is great but given the genre you might be able to push it a little more. Snare drum falls a little flat sometimes. Maybe experiment with another snare layer more in the mid range? A clap or 808? I'm really splitting hairs here but I do feel like certain tones are missing. Maybe some more aux percussion? This track would love a vibraslap or a waterphone.

I can't tell how much panning is going on but I think you can really push left and right further. Panning creates the illusion that sounds are louder than they actually are. By getting braver with mid to high range panning you can then turn those sounds down a little and make more room in the field for other sounds. Things to try panning with include pads, aux perc, and various sfx. Favoring a left or right side can also lead to issues but you can always find ways to balance the mix. Just takes some playing with :)

I've been advised to keep bass frequencies mono or in the middle. That includes the kick drum. I like to put a small bias on the ghost snare but the bulk of the snare layers stick to the middle. Then use them to sidechain sub bass frequencies.

Again, you did an awesome job. I only came back around because you asked. I'm always willing to clarify stuff :)

djhoohaa responds:

Thanks :) i thought i did a really good job on the mix lol. what aspect of it should i look into? or just a bit of tweaking over all?

Edit: Thanks, i really appreciate your time and reply
Nice, loads of ideas here. i am pretty lazy with panning but mainly due to when ever i have tried it, i dont get the results i want lol however i do try seperate the hi hats a bit. ive never thought about just panning certain frequencies of a sound before. that sounds fun to experiment with. ,Also just had to google what a waterphone is, i kinda want one now.

[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

RosesWolf 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

[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