Quarl AIM 2022 Review
Composition/Structure (0-10), Production (0-10), Emotion (0-10), Relevance to Artwork (0-10)
UncouthkidAC, Rock 'N' Roll: 10,5,10,10 (35/40)
Damn, you and Yoshiii343 got that teen grunge-indy-angst vibe down perfectly. Scott Pilgrim meets the Pillows FLCL OST. Your song brought a huge smile to my face. As someone that used to play a lot of acoustic drums for noisy youth bands I can respect the genre. Truthfully though the fidelity is going to make this hard to listen to on repeat. These high frequencies are scratching my ear drums painfully and makes everything sound a little too thin. Affording the equipment and space for high fidelity live studio sounds is a painful hurdle. You got wonderful song writing chops and I'll give you high points for everything except production. If you play a live set at a venue, ask if they can record via the mixing board.
How many mics are you putting on that drum kit? As an EDM artist I can tell you that auxiliary percussion like hi-hats and crash cymbals can be panned left or right to reflect the drum kit's location or balance the stereo field. Tom fills and rolls can emulate a right to left movement, with the first tom panned in a direction and the final panned opposite with the middle tom sitting in the middle of the field creating dynamic breathing room in the mix. That kind of sound fidelity requires more mics than you probably have. The first three songs I uploaded to Newgrounds in 2005 had maybe two microphones on my drum kit and the recordings were so embarrassingly flat. We recorded those songs in a dark basement using an old 8 track mixer that was given to us with a handful of microphones. I know the struggle all too well.
I can't overlook bad production just because I'm aware of the struggles while romantically remembering that time in my life. I'd recommend researching how to get better stereo recordings but you can still fix stuff up a little with digital tools. I'm not sure what programs you're using to mix it all but if you have the ability to slap a graphic EQ onto things I might recommend it. You're mix looks fairly full but there's still room for more bass and an EQ can help boost those lows. EDM producers have the ability to just drop fidelity tools on everything but you can also make use of those same digital tools to a righteous degree. If you have less mics you can try to record parts separately, would recommend structural elements such as drums first. Mics can be shared between instruments and voices but the more recordings you can divide the band into the better. Heck, one guitar can be recorded via two mics, one panned left and one right to get a much stronger sound. I do the same thing with my synths when I make dubstep but many a guitarist I've talked to attests to the efficiency of that stereo recording technique.
I loved hearing this track. Thank you for sticking it to "the man" and writing some old-school punk/grunge recorded in the same teen-basement energy that spawned the genres in the 80s. I'm sorry for being critical over the mix quality but I feel like I've adequately explained myself and will move on with a huge smile. Thank you for providing something unique to this contest and have a wonderful day Uncouth <3
UncouthkidAC 
