Quarl's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Qubitstep]

Beautiful full mix down. All out assault with those pads and synths. Loved the sinewaves, growling saw pads, atmosperic melodies all worked perfectly together. Pushing that steel drum fill at the end was perfect. Followed it with a mario coin sample. I almost used one in my song but didn't want to anger purists.

Might have chained the bass kick a little more to the front or layered something with more mid to make it more pronounced. Sub bass is over powering the kick a tad but the waveform shows you still got some breathing room in there. Despite that minor nitpick the sound is perfectly pro. Great work Albe!

Albe responds:

Thank you Quarl! And thanks for the feedback too!

[Hyperborean Wanderer]

Totes could hear this in an RPG. WOAH, woah stop. You trying to push 32 bit snare drums past me on Pixel Day? Gonna have to fine you for using too much fidelity, send you to pixel prison.

Seriously though, I have so many fond memories I can't relive. Games like Golden Sun, Dragon Quest, Chrono Trigger... this gave me the nostalgia without having to open an emulator and get bored playing the intro to these classics. So much time spent looking at a tiny screen, making my parents angry on road trips because I was too interested in a Gameboy than in mountains and endless grass. Thanks for writing something that scratched the itch. I let it loop a few times <3

ChronoNomad responds:

You got me! I totally went ham on those drums, but I'm kind of in love with BiT BOX for all my Chiptune percussive needs. Arrest me and send me off to pixel prison, ossifer! (I always keep a Wild MissingNo. on-hand for just such an emergency)

I mean, once you've seen a couple snow-capped mountains and wide-open grassy plains, you've pretty much seen 'em all. Besides, who's got time for that kind of sightseeing when there are princesses to be rescued, final bosses to be vanquished, and worlds to be saved? I love every single one of those classic titles, and always will. Viva la Pixels!

Thanks for taking the time to leave a review, Quarl! Stay pixelated. <3

[Classic Overlord]

Not sure what you're implying by asking "how many well-known pieces can you find in this song?" Did you borrow midi, motifs from video games? Classical composers? Not sure what you meant by that but it sounds great. I'm guessing it's a squishy Swedish translation?

Including the FL video was a great touch. Love seeing the work people put into sequencing their ideas. I'm not holding the reverb against you, I suck at chiptune. It's so hard to stick to the confines of the genre when you have an entire digital audio workstation in front of you with sample libraries and effect units. I used a live kit and slapped digital distortion on it hoping no one would care... this will be our secret ok?

Track rocks. Legit classic masters would be all about the chiptune if they could time travel :)

Manderby responds:

Thanks! The well-known pieces are very small, somewhat hidden melodies from classical composers like Bach, Beethoven, Mozart and the like. I counted 14 references from 1:08 to 1:36 and maybe there are some more in the rest of the song to which I was subconciously inspired by.

Swedish translation? I'm Swiss, but thanks anyway. :)

And I will keep your secred very secure. Nobody will ever read what is written here. ;)

[iNESanity]

Was thinking this track had some Baroque to it, scrolled down and saw the sheet music. Duh, authentic notation.

Intro had that old-school sci-fi chip vibe. Atmospheric chip bliss <3 <3

Carmet responds:

I used to DREAD sheet music, but ever since I got into musescore, it's the way I prefer to write now.

[Silicone Ocean]

Got some mad nice trip-hop vibes off this. Waveform looks a little cruncy though. Maybe that sub could have been a little bigger? Slightly longer cut off, make it rounder? Just a personal preference, bass still sounds tight. Just nit picking it for maximum sub sonic sauce <3

Sinthology responds:

thanks quarl. Yeah the bass was extremely minimal in this; My original intention was to make this like an atmospheric neuro track with no drums but then it turned into this. I played around with complementary basslines but nothing I liked. I may revisit it when I'm not buried alive in engineering homework lol

[Vimori - Follow You]

Wasn't sure whether I was gonna get into this at first but the moment those vocals came in I was funkin in my chair. Tight track Rej. Catchy as all hell. Straight up fire. Rick Astley has nothing on this ear worm <3 <3

Vimori responds:

Haha, your review cheered me up. I am extremely grateful for the rating. Thanks a lot and I think Rick Astley will not mind: D

[From the Darkest Side]

Track is pretty good but that second segment from 1:40 onward was tops. Loved that plucky pad. Next on the list of skills to aquire is some sidechaining to get those drums punching forward. Snare has such a huge envelope, I'd start with just the bass drum. Slap a compressor on the lead synth/bass, then use the levels of the bass drum to control the levels of the synths via signal flow. A compressor unit should have a sidechain function. Would clean things up a bit :)

Not sure if you pan much but playing with that in the future gives you more space to work with. Someone once described it to me by saying that panning creates the illusion sounds are louder than they really are. You can pan things then turn their levels down a little. Makes more room for other sounds in the mix when everything gets it's own place in the field :D

Keep pushing Dieswyx, this work is really promising.

Dieswyx responds:

Thanks for the tips Miss Quarl. Although I could't fully understand, I know they will be of use to me in the future.

Thank you very much for your comments, I appreciate them very much. ^^ ♥

[Yes Man]

I had been meaning to drop this a review today when I gave it a quick listen earlier. Bass is huge, kit is awesome. I feel like there could have been a few extra aux drums like tambs, rides, cowbell... it's a minor nit pick though. This track has some of that old spor nuero vibe when he was hanging with the demoliton room. Love it Sinth <3

Sinthology responds:

Spor is my DnB daddy so this is a massive compliment

[Eien]

Nothing I like hearing more than clean IDM. A lot of brain dance has good vibes but lacks fidelity. You pushed the spectrum and maxed out the creative elements <3

Zerisan responds:

Glad you enjoyed the experience.

[Humanity]

I'm not an avid listener of ambient musics. I wouldn't assume most people are. The genre has a reputation of sounding a lot like someone found a good pad and left a brick on the keyboard. This was nice and short though, kept my attention, changed up often enough, and was very pretty. I actually kind of wish it was longer. Those sweeping square pads sounded lush. I would have dropped some saw arps into it, blips and what not. Maybe a high potamento sine pad, long cutoff?

I guess my personal beef with ambient is that it always feels like there is more that can be done to a track. I'm not taking off points though. Most of my feedback just comes down to preference. I got my enjoyment from this, and listened to it a few times :)

XORVUX responds:

Thanks! I like to think of ambient music in terms of layers, for which I say the more the merrier. Lots of different voices give you something to pick out through each chord. Saying that though, I was pretty conservative with this track. Couldn't think of much else to stack on top... But a sliding sine pad sounds really nice! Oooh, and some one-shots too? Both really clever ideas. I'm definitely trying that out next time :D Thank you for the feedback!