Quarl's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Paralysis]

Legit. I love shorties. I used to try and make 4-10 minute bangers but I've learned to just be happy with little things more and more. Brevity can have just as much value and potency.

Everratic responds:

Thanks for the review!

[Sunlight]

Holy shit, this has some old school newgrounds drum and bass vibes. Sounds like something Rawrthaas would have put out back in the day minus one really hard amen break sample. Add a cliche amen break and you have jungle GOLD.

Not that I could convince you to open up an old song file. I have a hard time digging through old tracks, myself or others. Could you give me a couple tracks that your proud of for me to listen to?

Shout out January 2009, go listen to Rawrthaas right now and drop harder breaks :D

https://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/206536

ADR3-N responds:

Oh God all of my old material is literally the worst. I think the only thing that did well was Acceptance, Attrition, and Skyfall. And I had no idea what I was doing. Hardest break, probably Overdosed. Some of the better writing I've done, Flight or Clear Skies -- they're basically the same song commissioned by two different people. I've been thinking of revisiting that one with metal in mind what with some decent lead writing going on... Claustrophobia is an avante-garde piece... Non-ethanol and Byzantium are pretty much companion pieces, trap. Wave After Wave is a video-gamey techno piece with some swang. Song of the Dragonborn is the Skyrim theme as elevator music. Everything 2017 to present I'm fairly okay with except for I Need a Hero, which I need to go and redo with the leads sitting lower in the mix.

Basically every piece over a year ago is going to have serious mix issues excepting some of my trap. I don't know how to stress how much I had no idea about that stuff LOL. I could probably open those project files but the problem remains that I no longer have any of the instruments I made them with bahahaha

Thanks for the recommendation! Send me a PM with some of your old stuff in return, eh?

[JUSTIFY THE HEAT]

lol, up that BPM a little, change up the hi hats and you have a super aggressive drum and bass. You have serious strength with your synths. What tools are you using to make those growls and basses?

There's so much going on in the background here. Sweet pads and samples ^o^

ActualElf responds:

Thank you Quarl

I hadn't had the thought about an up-tempo version but I hear it now in my head, I've been listening to so much really modern dubstep lately that the inspiration kinda flushed into this track and took it in that direction.

Most of my sound design is done in Serum, the LFO shaping and workflow really works for me. I feel at home using it and like I can make deliberate decisions as opposed to stumbling around in synths where I don't know what I'm doing lmao. I tend to find it harder when I can't visually see how I'm modulating a sound.

Post processing wise there tends to be multi-bands (OTT), saturators, various free VSTs and I've been working on a "Big Phatty" effect rack that is going pretty well but I have yet to use in a song.

The basses in the section from 3:14 were written really weirdly, making each bass and recording them to the same audio track, I'm mid transition from my old laptop to my new PC so those CPU limitations still had a hold of me for this song.

Thanks for checking in, always happy to hear from you <3

[Since We Fell Apart]

Hell yeah N-3RDA, I wasn't sure if I was going to like this when the track started up because I immediately picked up on the digital instruments. Plus I was thumbing through a new book. You were competing with David Lagercrantz's "The Girl Who Takes An Eye For An Eye." About halfway through the song I put the book down and started the track again from the beginning with my headphones on. Then I looped it a bunch of times.This track kicked fire.

My only gripe is how the track just... starts. Do something about that. Create some atmosphere. Maybe add a sample of a passing train or a dog rubbing it's but on a rug. Anything would be better than nothing.

The writing is great. The rhythms are spectacularly all over the place. All inside 4/4 but it's not like anyone cares. You can do a plenty with the standard duple or triple meter. The sound of digital instruments stop mattering really quick. Hell, after a few listens I forgot what real instruments even sounded like. Loved this a lot <3

ADR3-N responds:

Yo! Thanks for the review, and the tip! I really need to work on my intros. Isn't as glaring with vocals, but I can never really seem to get an intro I'm happy with, ever.

Fun fact #1, N-3RDA is actually one of my old nicknames, but like, with an A where that dash is because I'm not that cool. 2, there are one or two instances of 7/4 up in the first couple minutes of the track. I forgot where, but I had written most of it in 2/4 and deleted half a measure by accident. Ended up liking it because it made for a pretty sick drum solo.

Part of the digital instrument issue is like I mentioned earlier, not knowing how the hell to use Real Eight properly since its velocity triggers are NOTHING like Shreddage. Subsequent use has been a bit better.

Glad you liked!

[W.M.B.B]

Nice housey beats Elf. Those synth leads had some old school jungle vibes. With a harder crunchier snare instead of a clap snare this could be a Noisia level beat. You ever listen to Noisia? Their house music is unique as phuck.

Seriously digging those lead synths :D

ActualElf responds:

I adore Noisia and sometimes listen to their music purely to alter my production approach, hyper focusing on all the layers as I listen and trying to re-create them in my head fueled by a need to understand and learn.

I love that their approach seems to be half perfectionist, analytical hair splitting and the other half as lol whatever let's see what happens.

Thank you as always Quarl <3

[Eerie Robot]

Damn seq, this is tight. Jammy down tempo. Kind of had more of an Armenian vibe than 1930s but I'm really scratching my head with this years robot day requirement. Did music even exist back then? I'm pretty sure everyone was listening to big band jazz in that era... what the hell does Duke Ellington have to do with robotics?

Sequenced responds:

who needs music when you have memes

[To Save You]

I'm with sequenced on the mixing & mastering but you will always hear that crit from techno snobs. Great work you two. The strings were epic as fuck. Smart move to have two authors working on this given that the artwork seems to have a hard duality.

I had to speed through it a second time when I noticed that lovely piano melody at the end. Was that the only part to feature a piano?? Maybe the mix would have been fuller with some underlying piano chords or little piano motifs through out but given how intentional everything seems, perhaps it was decided not to do so? Either way this is a smart piece and I love it :)

LucidShadowDreamer responds:

Sure! We're always happy to consider serious mixing advice, so that's great. The violin we used is just something else (Embertone's Joshua Bell Violin). The rhythmic strings are Native Instruments' Action Strings, for the most part. We probably used like a million plugins.

Fun story. We went through maybe a hundred artoworks from our own favorites in order to figure out what we both loved, felt inspired by, AND knew we could allow our own styles to shine through. We both feel like this artpiece is perfect in all those regards. There's some crazy good art on NG for sure.

I (LSD) felt like I wanted to include a little homage to what I'm perhaps most known for musically; the piano. There's something natural about playing an actual instrument (which hopefully adds to the emotion). Composing with a computer can certainly be great too.

There is some piano at one other part, but it's only light and a bit hidden. It's easiest to hear between 3:07 and 3:12, slightly to the right in the mix, playing the same melody as the violin. Other than that, we didn't feel the piano fit the other parts that well. The mix is probably not as much an arrangement issue, as a production one. We'll work on that some, after the competition. Thanks for listening, and for the neat review!

[Let Me Out of America]

Loved that intro melody. Upbeat with a few jazzy sour notes to get my attention. The work you put into the melodies here is superb! It got a little hectic with the vocal samples around two minutes tho. Side chain those drums to the front and drop some of that hi emphasis! Wait... what was 3:44 about??

I also felt like that kit was kind of flat. Drum and bass usually puts a fat emphasis on a huge kit. To be honest, the whole mix sounds thin to me. No worries, I still love the track. I just wish there was a nice round subby bass holding things down instead of that lo to mid slappy bass. Heck, a round sub layer can fit on top of what you already got :)

Very experimental but enough tonal familiarity for me to still groove to it. I can tell you put serious work into this. I just wish every moment was as clean as the first two minutes.

Great work Cacola :D

Cacola responds:

Thank you for the compliments and criticisms!There were a lot of ideas put into this track, so not all of them were flawlessly exuecuted, lol, but I'll take all that into consideration!

3:44 I dropped the volume to fuck with your expectations to create tension to transition from slow to fast drums

[Catacombs-Metaljonus]

I just wanted to chime in to compliment those drums as well. Sexy down tempo rolls and fills <3

Metaljonus responds:

Thanks man! I just acquired getgooddrums and I am loving the power these have to offer.

[Thunderdome]

Damn tight Danman. I really liked the pace of the percs. The strings had really strong dynamics too. I loved the way this changed up so much. Super colorful textures. Pro.

Danman87 responds:

Oh hey, Quarl! Glad to still see you around here! Happy you liked the track, thanks so much for leaving a review! :)