Quarl's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[AIM - sursum=corda.EXFLOW_cls.PANDAEMONIUM::STORMFALL/.]

This was one of my favorite AIM tracks to judge. Doing some vocal work of my own these last five years has taught me to respect artists that use their voices as instruments. In many ways a vocalist is trapped in their own tones but the more you sing the more you expand your range and technique. You can accomplish so much with just your voice if you follow that creative vein. I'm also aware that you are an avid percussionist, you really put your soul into your work dearest.

I didn't take the time to read that essay you wrote about the track but I already knew that you put a serious passion into your compositions. You don't typically do something unintentionally which is a huge boon in a contest like this. It helps for a judge if you gush about your work and describe how it relates to everything. In fits of depression, sometimes I only write one sentence about a song and throw it up knowing no one will listen to it. This contest is not the place for a brief intro. In a contest like this, intention is everything. The judges have no way of telling if an artist just pulled a track out of their ass and picked a random work of art to display with it, or if they genunienly loved a work of art and tried to compose something original to it. The more information they can give about their work and why it relates to the art the more they help themselves here. You ummm... you wrote too much. I really hope someone read all of that information but again, it didn't hurt you at all. LET THE WORDS FLOW, ART IS FEELINGS, YES!! FEEL THE MUSIC <3 <3 <3

Let's talk about Chromatic Storm by Wuggynaut and why this track did glorious justice to that illustration. The drawing itself has an other worldly vibe. The choices of color were phenomenally potent. Is a world ending, or a new world being created? WHO KNOWS! Those colors were wonderfully represented in your arps. Something about those scales gave the song an etheral color to itself. There was a Final Fantasy X vibe I got from that, specifically Besaid village. Soft, pretty arps. I also loved the way you incorporated a second language into the track because it helped create a tone and a setting. It took me somewhere entirely unfamiliar. Language can create so many new emotions. Smartly done Tron.

The only thing I didn't entirely enjoy was the high pitched alien voices. Creating a quartet can be hard if you don't have a low register though. I use a loop station to create four tone melodies. I'm lucky I have a range that includes a baritone and can top with a falsetto, not everyone has range. It might have been worth trying to reach out to find a guy to hit a low register for that one part. Good luck finding men that will sing for you though, especially with language barriers. 4:30 had a lower tone I really liked... after going back I realized it might have been in that earlier part too...

BRING IT FORWARD. People love husky voices and that low pitch voice would have beefed that section up more than the high pitch voice. Bass is super important to a mix. People tend not to realize how many tones they can fit around a dominate bass line but the bass can really fill up a space and not take up too much priority in a mix.

I remember telling you once to lower the reverb on your voice so we can hear your sass vocals. This time around the reverb was perfect. Hell yeah.

Choice samples, thunder and rain. Was that a wet synth at the beginning? I always loved making water droplets with my synths. I think you get a slightly better tone with a sine wave synth. Use a quick chromatic octave jumping pitch bend, a short AF envelope, and some reverb for the perfect water droplets. Just saying, a good synth water droplet is something that can be perfected :)

If it was just a sample, boo.

Congratulations with your win Tron, all the judges placed you highly. You deserve this win. Keep doing things we love :D

Troisnyx responds:

Gosh, thanks for the thorough review and commentary! 💖

To answer some things you mentioned or asked—

1) I'm glad you heard the passion in the drums; it's been quite the vulnerability to me. Thank you.

2) When you get chance, simply for background purposes (and possibly future doujin related story purposes), please do read the essay — gosh, I can't believe I'm calling it such. There's so much in it that I would love to explain that might not just give context to this song, but also to a lot of Cosmocrystal related stuff.

3) I love the OST to Final Fantasy X. It's one of the first I've heard in detail. Perhaps the world / synth combination does bring FFX to mind, though it's certainly not what I had on the brain. 😅 The closest, in my mind, that this'd resemble, is that song that plays when you escape Macalania Temple and when you explore the first regions inside Sin.

4) I admit to the higher pitched throaty voices being less refined than they ought to be. That, I think, is down to poor breath control, something I feel I need work with. Those basses, I'm surprised I even reached them — I briefly reach G#2 in the lower parts of the choruses, "O let the rain etc." and that's my lowest note yet. I can't sustain it, I am ordinarily a mezzo soprano. Still, I'd be happy to train it more.

5) Water droplets in the beginning were a wet synth (specifically, the Droplets patch in Sytrus, so it is modifiable). I'll give your tips a spin though, for outside of vocals and instrument playing, I've never designed sounds before. I'd love to give it a shot!

I'd briefly heard from Jessie how highly you all placed me, and I was honestly surprised. Thanks so much once again.
Was granme ra chs hymmnos sos omnis yora! 💖

[Psychic]

Super original and unique! Cute samples, good breaks :)

KawaiSprite responds:

thank u mucho

[DV - Compression Calamity]

Gave this a quick listen at work on my phone. Glad I put off the full listen till I got home. Great stuff :)

When it comes to that "bricked" spectrogram there's good bricks and bad bricks. The sub bass seems to fill out those monochrome graphs so it's hard to tell visually what the fork is going on. Once you start sidechaining your sub bass out of the way it's like "lol, I have textures again."

la-yinn responds:

Don't tell anybody, but it's been over half a decade since I've sidechained anything so I've actually forgotten how to do it...

I should probably get on that, now that I think about it lmao. But I bought / rented Serum through Splice yesterday evening and now I'm literally hooked to music production again. Don't understand the synth at all yet, but my god.. Such powwa. Seriously, I replaced my weed addiction with a production addiction and I'm loving every second of it. Who knows, give it a year or so and I might start to produce some legit quality shit. Like I tossed my dreams into a trashcan years ago cause it wasn't working out and now those dreams are back and they're like all buff and shit and they wanna kick my ass in that dark alley over there.. ~ _~

[d1]

I just mentioned side chaining in my review on "test." This track is dope and almost perfect. It would really shine if you used the kick and snare drums to side chain the bass and pads out of the way. EDM genres revolve around the drums. If you can make the mix revolve around your drums, you'll note a huge groove improvement. Right now, your basses are over powering a little :)

I'd also layer another kick drum on top of the other to give it some flesh. It's so phat, give it a complimentary mid kick or a shorter envelope? Up the pitch on that hi hat, IMO.

Really this is sick jass. I feel like I focus so hard on mix quality but my own melodies and rhythms are uninspired. You're writing some dope beats and some killer melodies. Killer.

Jassummisko responds:

Hi again!
Not gonna lie, my mixing in general is pretty shit so I really appreciate any comments you give.
Having the mix revolve around the drums sounds like a great mixing philosophy to go by.
Thanks for the feedback!

[test]

:D

Drum and bass can be a hard genre to mix for. It's a damn good kit but it's missing a few tones. Layer some more? The sub sonic bass frequencies are drowning the drums a little. I'm not sure how hard you're sidechaining that bass but I'd max it so that the kit pops through the bass. Then I'd probably add some distortion on that low/mid frequency synth you have and try to EQ some more tones out of it. It's a mad low energy bass but even low energy bass lines can shine and punch.

Forget everything I just said and look up "Diplodocus" by Noisia. Try and make this track sound like that track. Note how everything in that track pops. It's all about those finer frequencies my love, sick test <3

Edit: layer more and compress everything, then lower all the channels, control z a bunch of times, twist a bunch of knobs, then compress that, then layer a few more times, then compress it again. Was this helpful?

Jassummisko responds:

Hi Quarl!
I fucking love Diplodocus. Easily one of my top 10 Drum n Bass tracks of all time.
I'll look back into it and see what I can do. Thanks for the feedback!

[DV - Unreal]

I just gave your 2013 tunes a listen. Someone clearly figured out how to compress and mix in those six years. This is some damn clean dnb. Really glitchy styles. This is like if Tipper and Spor had a baby but Squarepusher was the real father and Spor doesn't know so don't tell him, shhhhhh.

la-yinn responds:

Hands down the biggest compliment I've ever gotten. My ego is blushing, damnit! Thanks a bunch. :-)

[MM7 : The Sabotage (Quarl's Pipebomb Mix)]

Cool industrial vibes. Crunchy mix. I loved how dark that intro was. I kept reading "followers" as "flowers." Kind of awkward mistake to make but can I please pretend Mother Machine has a flower garden?

Anchorwind responds:

Hmm... I'll try to weave that in somehow. Stay tuned.

[Sharks - Light (VIP)]

Damn clean dnb Mr. Sharks. Where do you find the time to make dope beats when you're swimming around the ocean trying to find food and a mate? I guess sharks don't sleep but still, pretty dope considering you don't have hands to make music with. What's it like making music with fins??

Sharks responds:

i ask humans to make music for me or i eat them

[Happy I'm Here [Lofi]]

Absolutely sexy down tempo jazz style. Love that piano and grainy atmosphere. Perfect snap sample. Was that Walugi laughing or? Anywho, this is dope. Slick writing DE <3

DreamEater responds:

Thank you again Quarl, I always look forward to your feedback! I legit thought about your comment on Ringo when I was designing this snare, so I'm stoked that it got your approval! Ahh I definitely see how you would get Waluigi from that, it's actually a warped Eustace sample from C.T.C.D. (THAT TOOK FOREVER TO FIND OMG XD). I never realized until this project, that 90% of that show has backing/ambient noise tracks for added spooki.

[Carnivorous ~D~ {NightCore Edit}]

Hahaha, it's the same song I just listened to but better. I'm a sucker for those filth basses. The pitch bent snare drums tickeled me. Hell yeah MR.

MRM3 responds:

Hahaha, thank you!!!
I totally like this version better than the original... I feel ya when ya say "I'm a sucker for those basses" yeah, totally agree.
Glad someone noticed the snares ;3
They're so cute, but they still pack a punch :DD
I guess closer to a Drum 'N' Bass snare... still love it ;3
Hell yeah, thank you so much for the awesome review, Q!! 😍😍🤩