Quarl's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[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.

[Just Move - First Upload in 15 years :)]

Had to look into your older work to see if I recognized anything. Was happy to see those early experimental noise tracks. During my short time as an audio mod in college those tracks might have got you banned from uploading spam. Every mod had their own style but it's basically impossible to tell how someone is going to grow and evolve. Just Move is a far cry from those humble origins.

I didn't actually recognize any tracks from your catalog. I'm guessing you remember a time when the audio portal exclusively played ParagonX9 samples on the front page? Was looking for something from that era but you seem to have sidestepped the larger EDM phase that hit newgrounds at that time and stayed true to hip hop. There's some seriously great stuff in here. Newgrounds let another good artist slip through the cracks. Not that it's anybodies fault. There are so many social circles here it's common to have two similar artists writing music for each other without any notice to the larger moving and happenings around them. Hope you stick around Miggles :)

Miggles responds:

Yes, I think I will. Thanks fams! I remember how lively the community was and I'm glad it still is thriving. There's a ton of talent here that definitely needs to get more shine.

[Critical Meltdown]

Track bounces nicely. I think you guys had a little more room to boost the sub bass with a compressor but aside from minor mix down nit picking this track rocked both styles in a way that didn't sound out of place or strange. Would love to hear another collab like this :D

spiritmusic responds:

Thanks Quarl, Im always looking to improve as an artist and take advice whenever I can

I appreciate the feedback <3

[Tunturi]

Lol, another Reason producer. Love seeing others in the program, it can feel lonely surrounded by all these FL people. This musics reminds me of the house we'd get here back during the introduction of the audio portal. It's a romantic sound and I'm loving it. I'm gonna nit pick the mix down a little because it's what I do :p

Track could hit harder, it looks like the master out is being over compressed somehow (the visual shows the wave is cutting out well before peaking). Usually over compression leads to loudness but this kind of compression just leads to limiting your audio field, less room for sounds to exist in. You're basically masking 5 to 10% of your canvas with negative space.

Check the master out, Reason used to have a default "Mastering Suit Contaminator" which would set up the final out signal with certain fidelity settings. The maximizer in the combinator had a button called the "limiter," turn that shit off or bypass the unit entirely. I've always preferred the mclass compressor over the limiter, simpler UI. If you don't know what I'm talking about, it might not even be there. I have a lot of files going back to Reason 4, I think the default Mastering Suit was tossed to the side in older versions but you can still program one. In anycase, set up the final signal going out with a few fidelity units on the way to the amp. I always have an equalizer and compressor on that final signal for mastering.

Feel free to hit me up in the future for any fidelity talk, Reason has great tools to get the most out of your sound systems. Just gotta know what your option are :D

EppuJoloZ responds:

Yeah, I get what you're talking about! I actually don't use the MClass Mastering patches, mostly my mastering is done with VSTs. It's nice to see more Reason people here too, I just effing love the workflow of that program :D

Also thanks for the feedback, I know that mastering/mixing is my weakest point at production at the moment, and your tips are really helpful!

Glad you enjoyed the track too! <3