Quarl's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Implant]

Tight drum loops. Probs a tad over compressed. That bass kick hits so hard it sounds like it clips stuff, might also be the hi-hats working at the same time. You got that loudness thing down pat though :)

You side chaining that sub bass at all? Letting the bass drum counter the levels of the sub would let you fatten both sounds up, juicy. Toss in some liberal panning on the hi hats to give off the illusion they're louder than they really are then lower their levels to make some room. You could also fit a shaker or tamb and pan it into the channel opposite the hi hats. It sounds like there is some white noise when the drum kit plays... not sure what that is, might be a shaker :)

Damn, I love how experimental it gets. I usually don't recommend people put silence into tracks but I liked that fuzzy silence at 4:40. You could have slipped a sample into that spot there but, meh. This track reminds me of old Violence Recordings with Hive, Gridlok, and Keaton. Keep bumping the breaks :D

edit: six minutes long? Calm down there LazerBrain, you're flexing on the rest of us with our 2 and a half minute romps.

LaserBrain responds:

Hello, thanks again. I resampled all the drums through an old tape deck, that's why everything is clipping. I'll take notice of the side chaining. Violence Recordings is class, thank you. Cheers

[Botched Break]

Despite wanting to move away from dnb I always find myself moving back towards it. It's a tough genre to move away from for some reason.

That drum kit sounds like it could be massive with more side chaining forward. Kicks sound pretty clean, but I'd toss a snare signal into the sidechain too to help those snares pop a bit more. Maybe the snare can be crispier with an 808 layered in? Your breaks are going so hard but with some cleaner fidelity this could rock as hard as anything else out there. I'm really feeling those breakneck drum lines...

Last crit, maybe a tamb or shaker rhythm panned to the left or right a tad would add some action to those drum rhythms?

A friend recently mentioned that the master out in FL has a limiter/compressor default turned on. I only point that out because I ran into a problem with Reason where 90% of my tracks were getting needlessly compressed and the problem was fixed with one button. Default fidelity units can ruin you.

I only mention all of this because I want you to experience the same second guessing and self loathing that I feel every time music happens. I want you to write music that kicks so much ass that you have to keep making it to appease the inner demons. Do it for the demons Morty. Do it for the demons D:

larrynachos responds:

"Do it for the demons Morty" made me laugh so hard, thank you for that.

I'll try layering the snare and sidechaining it, thanks for the tip. I always start an empty fl file so it doesn't throw a limiter on the master or anything, but I did throw ozone 9 elements on the master with the default preset because it does a good job of evening things out and bringing out the best in each element.

I guess my main problem is that it takes too much setup to hit my musical flow state. I always start each track like "what" and usually either fizzle out or diddle with a neat preset or drum pattern until I eventually slide into it. Coming back to a project gets harder each session, and I can only do 3 or 4 before I just start duplicating and call it a song. I try to watch tutorials and music production videos, but I don't really take much away from it or use it in practice. I guess I'm very aimless when making music. Right now my inner demons are like "make music, or a game, or something else, or don't. But also you have to do something right now MAKE SOMETHING MAKE MONEY"

Thanks for stopping by and listening :)

[Icryke]

Cool amen break chops. Voice pad was tender. This had a nice ambient vibe to it, despite the eccentric drums. The mix needs some work but the rhythmic and tonal elements are working for you. It's awesome when people can take the harsh sounds of the amen break and make it into something loose feeling or happy. The sub bass really helped give it that ambient feeling.

I guess if you want to try filling up some more space you could add some extra pads or samples. There sounds like a lot of room for more mid frequencies. Maybe some water droplets, bird songs, chirping sine waves, arp pads are just a few ideas that came to mind. Panning synths, leads, piano melodies... this mix has the room for it :D

Rakshal responds:

Thank you for the advise! I do tend to make things a bit too on the minimal side. I am probably going to try to use songs I like as references for how to fill out a track better. ^.^

[BJ - Bleeding Nature]

Woof, nice loud mix. Bass could be fatter/subbier, drums a little smaller but you def got that loudness thing down. The drums don't seem to hit as hard when I use low fidelity speakers like laptop or phone, so the mix problems just come down to whatever speakers a person uses. I happen to have wasted a lot of money on speakers, amps, and headphones to master tracks. Seriously, despite minor mix qualms this rocks hard. Loved all the jazzy down tempo vibes. Horn sounds were sublime <3

GhostlyDoobies responds:

thanks man, i'm glad you kinda picked up on what i was going for here. struggled with the bass, since i fitted so much, so relied more heavily on the kicks.

[Rain Dance]

I second the "I just wish it was longer" feeling from wilbert. This track has a great breakbeat vibe to it, just ends way too soon.

You can always fluff up a track 30-60 seconds with an ambient intro. Just take what you already have, copy & paste it, then subtract the drums and move it to the front. You can also drop those ambient pads minus the drums at the end to earn another 15-30 seconds of track.

Bonus round, add another 30 seconds by copy and pasting the second half of the track but add a 2 OSC lead or another pad of somekind. A decent 2 OSC could be a high portomento gliding sinewave and the other OSC a quite triangle, square, or sawtooth. That pitch bending effect from the portomento would sound great in this.

I seriously have no idea how you manged to write something so cool and then only let it loop for a minute :p

St0mpy responds:

Wow I really never thought this one would be felt this way. I'll take your notes and consider them for the future on other tracks like this. You have all inspired confidence in myself to make more songs like this with longer "storytelling".

[PixCotton]

"Frontpaged, January 24, 2021," at least you should be getting an influx in traffic. Honestly, there is so much great PixelDay content I'm getting lost trying to view it all. I'm noticing a lot of artists did the last minute thing. It's like we all collectively were like "fuck, today is Pixel Day. Time to get to work."

FYI, white people can pick cotton too. It has a racial connotation because of American slavery. I wouldn't have even mentioned the race thing if I were you, can still change that. Personally, I like Pixel Cotton, gives a really fluffy vibe. Could have alluded to cotton candy but you had to mention race and now all I can see is a bunch of sad African Americans in a field getting whipped, YOU DID THIS TO ME. THANKS CHRIS.

Track is great by the by. Has an old school funk vibe flowing to it. Arps twinkled something nice, track changed up every few bars to stay interesting. You flowed from one melody to another in regular change ups. This is some inspired work. Thanks chris :p

chrisbasso responds:

listen hereee Quarl, I was like half asleep writing that description, as soon as i thought of the title i was like what if someone misinterprets that for something it isn't but you're not wrong, i was just overthinking it, either way should've probably not put that in lol. Anyways glad ya liked the song <3

[Curtain Call on the Beach! (Pixel Day 2021)]

"Use this in your game! Please! I just really want to make music for your game!... Please! If I keep asking I'm gonna start to sound desperate or something LMAO ;^)"

I legit asked if someone would use my music in hentai themed anything. Begging gets us nowhere. I keep seeing animations and games that use commercialized music. We'd have better luck making music for newgrounds content creators if we ironically got off newgrounds. Someone might even start uploading your music for you! Wouldn't that be awesome?

TeraVex responds:

Lmao I make all this music and I just think to myself "Gee how cool would it be if I saw it in a game like this?" But now I've gotten to this point where I think to myself hmmmm maybe I'll just make a game and then make some tasty beats to put in it! Galaxy brain fullproof plan

[Underwater Bitz [Pixel Day 2021]]

Loved all the ideas coming into this. Breaking up the rhythm from time to time felt super organic. The house vibes meeting dubstep were nice and clean. Had some old Metroid atmosphere to it.

Mix sounded a fair bit over compressed. Might be something on the master out? Someone recently mentioned to me that the default in FL is to limit the master out. Turning off one button will give you way more room to mix with. I use Reason and when I started in Reason 4 they had a similar function. The limiter was automatically turned on and it took me like 15 years to realize that.

Happy PixelDay XTeckmo! Can I call you Teck for short? Te???

Teckmo-X responds:

To be honest this song was made in under 24 hours. I wanted to make sure I had something to present for both Pixel Day and the VGM Contest this year since I haven't taken part of these events for a while. I got the inspiration from 1788-L, Gluk’oZа (ft. ST) Ju-Ju, and "Fairy Fountain" from Zelda. As for the mix I do agree. I have always been aware of the limiter in FL Studio but I always choose to keep it on. The reason for this is that every sound in my songs goes through a huge amount of processing and with the limiter there I can finish adjustments to the master volume after I'm done. It also helps against higher frequencies that might override lower pass and high pass sounds, especially in basslines where every sound counts. I've tried a few other DAW's but Fruity Loops just hits that really good spot. Happy Pixel Day! and yes, you can call me Teck :)

[Chalice of Malice (Pixel Day 2021)]

Exciting boss music. Well written melodies. Driving drum line was hella adrenaline pumping. Those reverb saw pads broke up the tune in a way that jumps from the chiptune restrictions that a lot of people try putting themselves under. I liked that trance vibe it gave off though. It was like hearing a tuba in a metal song. Someone like David Maxim Mixcic wouldn't even bat an eye.

Writing long, droning reviews like this lets me listen to the track multiple times. By about the 15th time this track looped it became my theme song. This is now MY boss music.

You compressed the track really hard, not sure if there's a reason for that. Game coders could apply sound effects and game noises in left and right channels and it would actually be a really cool use of panning to help create space in the audio field. Again, sorry for this rambling review. 50 TIMES LOOPED, I HAVE BECOME ONE WITH THIS SONG.

ConnorGrail responds:

Thanks for the thoughtful comment! I have no restrictions, just pure chaos is my goal. I do like the idea of David Maxim Micic hearing this, love that stuff!

[Bitburst]

lol, happy pixelday!

Glad you decided to participate.
Mayhaps with less reverb you could fit all sorts of aux sounds into the mix? You could try playing with arps next time to get some more of those classic video game sounds. Arpeggiators ran at quick speeds give you nice full VG sounds. Some sweeping sine wave synths with high portamento or pitch bends could make bird like chirping atmoshpere.

I don't want to focus on that kind of stuff though because the last thing I want is to come off as critical. The track is nice and relaxing. Doesn't have the polish of a producer like Albegain but I can hear the passion in this. You got a nice waltz 3/4 tempo going. That's not a natural time signature for most people but I always love it when people gravitate to it. Absolutely lovely Ara <3

ARAMort responds:

Oh yeah I def could've done more. I kinda threw this together to cram it into the timeframe of pixel day and I didn't take the more iconic chiptune sounds into account. I'll write this down for the next pixel day lol.