Quarl's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Tundrata]

How dare you challenge my listening skills by tossing out a 3:35 time stamp. If I have to listen to relaxing chill vibes for three and a half minutes than I shall decidedly suffer. I'd have put some reverb on that snare drum. Probs would have tossed in an odd cowbell or gong.

That 3:35 drop at needs a pikachu sample. You can take this critique seriously or not. I'm just saying, a cute "PIKA" would satisfy my simp sample ass. That ambient section leading into it could have used a nice long dialog sample. I came to the realization recently that newgrounds has a lot of voice acting talent which could be useful for giving tracks a unique atmosphere. Do it :)

TeraVex responds:

I’ll add a Pika but only because you told me to! I struggled to find some good gongs/percussion for this, I really wanted to add some but I wasn’t finding any with the flavor I wanted... I’m probably gonna look around a bit more because I feel like it’d improve the tune

[DrUm aNd BaSs LoL]

This song rocks my socks, packs my glocks, and invests my stocks.

Father-of-Death responds:

WORD!

SUP QUARL!

[Centralia PA]

That intro reminded of what it felt like to listen to Boards of Canada in college. Super colorful chords and interesting choices. I loved that modest guitar. That note at the two minute mark was either too loud or could have been an octave higher? That's my constructive input. Legit perfect track otherwise :D

RazzmatazzMania responds:

Lmao tbh I was stressin’ about that note. I thought I turned it down more, but now I know I’m not crazy.
Thank you for the kind words!

[Side Hustle]

lol, that slap bass jazz drum kit combo reminded me of some old fashioned squarepusher. Check out his band Shobaleader One. Squarepusher is better than bass Jesus, IMO:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-j_D-O1vwM

Flashbulb can also give bass Jesus a run for his sheckles:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZD8N9tDDQT4&list=RDZD8N9tDDQT4&start_radio=1&t=0

No shame in working to pay the bills. I'm not sure where this luxurious idea of artists being rich comes from but it needs to stop. The dirt poor homeless artist is far more common. That's not a particularly good cliche either.

Don't feel guilty for writing about yourself. We all have lives away from the internet. I love knowing more about the people I stumble upon here. It may often feel like you're alone, tossing bits of your life onto a lonely internet canvas, but people lurk in the shadows. Those little scraps of life feed stalkers. OWN IT :D

After listening to this for an hour or two I started to wonder, did you ever consider writing a section of this song without drums? A melodic pad or arrhythmic break down would have been acceptable at the beginning, middle, or end. This track could have been at least three minutes long with an intro. Maybe four minutes if you copied the intro and pasted it at the end while changing one note.

:D

TeraVex responds:

Thank you! I do hear some Squarepusher in this! I've been thinking about making some mini tunes as part of a pseudo music journal series but I haven't really figured out how to approach it but your review has given me inspiration! I like the idea of the song extension too!.. Maybe I'll play around with that for a future extension!

[Run]

Lol, this is so cool old school. Reminds me of old Calyx and Timecode, early millenium. At that point the Moving Shadow label was transitioning between the old school dnb to more of a nuero sound. I stayed for the synth work that came in around 00:50. It was so CUTE. I just want to pinch the cheeks of that sawtooth wave reese.

HypercubeRecords responds:

Thanks XD

[Aurora]

This took me back to High School. There was a time when newgrounds was so heavily inundated with oppressive amen break samples and filtered Reese saws. That might sound like an insult but that time period shaped so many of my tastes in the last couple of decades that it is essentially a part of me. I kind of miss that period of wonder and mystery.

Track could use a little more polish but I'm not gonna try not to hound you for it. Couldn't tell if there was any panning going on. Might of been able to slip in some auxiliary sounds left and right to add character. Maybe a simple high pitched synth with a soft release?

On that note, moar aux percussion! Gongs, chimes, vibroslaps, some wood blocks... on that note, I haven't used wood blocks in a while. I'm stealing this idea...

SchattenDnB responds:

haha, no offense taken! i might actually work on a second version of this track since i'm not proud of how it turned out. But thanks for the response, means a lot.

[0]

I never got around to dropping you a review. Those drums coming in were something special. Very creative, organic intro. Relaxing keyboard fiddling. Lol, that's a weird sub bass you have there. I like it <3

triplebarrel responds:

quarl 5'd one of my tracks my liFE IS COMPLETE-

In all seriousness, tysm!! I'm still speechless about the frontpage on this track, was never expecting to get one until this happened! Probably gonna continue experimenting with shit, I'm trying to get myself consistent in music production by teaming up with yelldow to release one track a day ^^

[Thought]

Loved those melodic explorations. Those instruments felt like they were searching each other out. Drum rhythms pounded. Those subtle ghost snares added a good bit to the over all groove. I think you could have gone a good bit harder on your aux percussion. You could have fit tambs, shakers, cowbells, more hi hats... and panned them all to find places for them.

On that note, panning sounds like what I'm missing the most. There's so much room left in the mix, every thing that falls mid to high frequency could have had it's own home.

I'm loving those bass rhythms and grooves. This track jams so hard. I only wish the mixing techniques were a bit more powerful. Good night love :D

Noisysundae responds:

"Ah thank you for another bunch of mixing tips, Quarl. Honestly, I was only trying to EQ the existing synths to occupy the highs. Completely forgot about the percussion. :P

About panning, I usually use slight randomization on note panning in FL, rather than just setting that of the synth. Perhaps I should drop this habit since most of my tracks are full of synths playing at once." — The Manager

[Qshunt - Dying Light]

EDIT: your mixing on logitech and gaming cans? Good shit Q. I used to mix on logitechs. They're great if they're all you got but terrible if you know you can have better. My heart bleeds for you :)

Sorry it took me a while to get around to this. You got on the front page though so it's obviously good :)

Pro mix down, big drums, catchy reese stabs, full sub bass... you're just showing off Qshush. Gotta point out, I think you could turn the treble on a few things down just a tad. I tend to overdo highs too so it's an introspective nit pick. My Senn HD 650s are at max volume so I'm really getting an earful of that sound. It's the only possible mix issue I'm noticing :)

I'm gonna nit pick the snare drags at 2:08 & 3:14. Those snare drags sounded really static or synthetic. I like to automate the volume of snare drags from low to loud to make them sound more alive. When played on a real drum kit, drags are a really subtle wrist movement so getting them right with a drum machine takes a little finesse. Those little fills might sound better without the drags. Maybe try using only one drag instead of three in a row? Maybe make the drags longer? Your choice QS. Hope that automated volume trick makes sense though.

The drum patterns in the second half of the track had me sold. The vocal samples were spectacular. Really creative ending. Thanks for hitting me up by the way, I hate missing out on great tracks like this <3

Qshunt responds:

Thanks heaps for the detailed breakdown!
I wondered about the highs a bit, too.
My audio interface failed a few weeks ago so this mixdown was done on logitech speakers and gaming headphones, also, I'm old and forget that my hearing isn't what it used to be haha!
I always have a habit of over emphasising the highs.
I might revisit the mix, tone it down a touch then replace the file.
Thanks again! <3

[Fite For Your Love]

There are some tight harmonies in this. Vocal rhythms are well done. I'm not super into hip hop but this is some really classy stuff.

HAHAHA, is that a chop from mortal combat? One of those background synth lines sounded like the synth used in the movie. Is it an FL pad preset or something? I use Propellerhead's Reason so I can't identify common FL sounds. I didn't notice the pad until the beat dropped off around the coda.

00:13, subtle mario coin <3 <3 I have on of those in my sample folder too ;)

edit: I'm bumping this on repeat.

BlackLynk responds:

I appreciate your attention to detail in listening to audio! In this track there is all of one stock preset from FL Studio and those are the orchestra's hits that you can hear VEEEEERY subtly at like 0:27. The rest are samples from packs from a producer community I'm a part of; kick and clap being the only instruments I created from scratch, I appreciate the listen and keep the beep boop love alive haha