johnfn's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Got Home]

Argh, solo piano! Jazz chords! Lazy sunday vibe! My one true weakness! This song starts out fantastic, but right at the :25, it suddenly slows down and the melodies fail to resolve in a satisfying way and it starts sounding random. I don’t think that it *is* random, but something about the arrangement is not letting me really get into the second half of this song. It almost sounds like you forgot what you were going to play for a little bit! This song has a lot of really nice aspects to it - great chords and progression, a beautiful vibe, and some really nice melodic sections, but it needs a little tightening up to be excellent. Score: 7.5

Mini-scores (See http://johnfn.newgrounds.com/news/post/936953 for what this means and how to improve)
* Composition: 3+/4
* Arrangement: 2/4
* Mixing: n/a

Noisysundae responds:

This is my essential expectation everytime I send something to the contest. I admit that I had no idea what should I do on the second half. (I definitely going to read your post now!) I usually do my musics in both opposite polars - Go full mix or empty solo piano like this. XD
Followed, faved some of yours, and looking forward to your future release and review. Hopefully, you will leave a review another one if you have some time because I'm more into making electronics than classics. However, I still love to do both. This review was a blast even if it wasn't for the sake of NGAUC! Thanks a hell lot!!!!!1111 :D

[OVus2]

== This is an NGAUC Audition Round Review. ==

This piece is weird as heck (not a bad thing!) and super hard to judge. The mixing is great and I love the drum loop - but then again, that's all it is - a loop. You could at least have chopped it up and varied it a little. :P The vocals are a great touch, but the song kinda drifts around without any meaning other than that drum loop. Score: 7.5

Mini-scores (See http://johnfn.newgrounds.com/news/post/936953 for what this means and how to improve)
* Composition: 2/4
* Arrangement: 3/4
* Mixing: 3/4

Mabelma responds:

Thank you so much for the feedback, I truly do appreciate it. I'll keep those things in mind for the next track :)

[Odyssey]

== This is an NGAUC Audition Round Review. ==

MAN. Now this right here sounds like Homestuck music. Which is good, because I love homestuck music. :) (For example, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktuDYYtbs2s) One thing that you make use of which I particularly like is the ii -> V. It works really nicely in a minor context! If I were to critique, I’d say that the song is a bit repetitive towards the end - it needs some sort of structural variation. I’d also say that that buzzy bass thing in the background is just pointless, and the song would be way better without it. On the positive side, the drums are great! I think they could be a little louder, but they have just the right amount of grittiness. Very good work overall. Score: 8.5

Mini-scores (See http://johnfn.newgrounds.com/news/post/936953 for what this means and how to improve)
* Composition: 3+/4
* Arrangement: 2/4
* Mixing: 3/4

LunyAlex responds:

Hey! Thank you very much for the review. Sorry for the late reply; been immensely busy lately.

Very glad you liked the song overall and I'll take heed of the critique.

Cheers!

[The Place Behind The Vines]

== This is an NGAUC Audition Round Review. ==

The melodies here seem to be quite random - they jump all over the place and don’t have a particular contour or interest to them. The drums are very aggressive - a little *too* aggressive, I think, for what seems like it wants to be a chilled out piece. I like the piano break a lot - the piano sound is great and it takes down the energy level for some much needed relief. I think without the chaotic drums, this song would be pretty solid. Keep at it! Score: 5

Mini-scores (See http://johnfn.newgrounds.com/news/post/936953 for what this means and how to improve)
* Composition: 2/4
* Arrangement: 3/4
* Mixing: 2/4

[Palabras]

== This is an NGAUC Audition Round Review. ==

whoa - that opening guitar riff! whoa - the rest of that guitar riff! The riffing throughout the song is just awesome, but it goes on too long without a break - the arrangement needs to build and break down rather than just staying at that constant high. Or at least it needs to feel like it changed up a little. I also think mixing could help here - the drums are pretty quiet, for instance - I really want the production of the song to add more energy to the melody. Still - great guitar riffing! Score: 8

Mini-scores (See http://johnfn.newgrounds.com/news/post/936953 for what this means and how to improve)
* Composition: 3+/4
* Arrangement: 1/4
* Mixing: 2/4

DivoFST responds:

Thank you so much for the constructive review John!!! :D

[Prelude to Destruction]

== This is an NGAUC Audition Round Review. ==

This song rocks. The mixing is ace (those drums!!) and it nails what it sets out to do so hard. My only critique is that it's too short and that the climax seems to come and go without even a cymbal crash or anything to let me know that something happened - which leaves me dissatisfied because I feel like I missed the ‘best’ part of the song because I didn’t know it had come. There could have been a stronger melody, but let's be honest - this piece is already incredibly awesome. Score: 9

Mini-scores (Note: See http://johnfn.newgrounds.com/news/post/936953 for what this means and how to improve)

* Mixing: 4/4
* Composition: 3/4
* Arrangement: 3/4

Phonometrologist responds:

Yeah you're right about the brevity of it. I made a mistake, I think, in releasing this track without the main one that this preludes to. It definitely lacks in melodic content as well as the emphasis is in the rhythm, but I'm glad you think the mixing is good. Slowly but surely, it seems to be improving.

[The Saga Begins]

== This is an NGAUC Audition Round Review. ==

This is a pretty cool classical piece! Your handling of the orchestral elements is pretty well done. The piece also has a lot of intriguing and classical-sounding melodies which keep me interested. Not only that but here we have a rare instance of 5/4 - handled well enough, in fact, that I almost missed it entirely! Well done. On the other hand, I feel like the structure of the piece is a little off - the build up which is ongoing at 1:00 completely peters out at 1:20, which is a total tease and not a nice thing to do to music listeners :-) By the end of the track, you have multiple melodies going simultaneously, but none of them are loud enough or compelling enough to grab my attention, leaving me a bit confused as to what I should pay attention to. Still, this is a good piece - it just needs to be tightened up and tweaked a little. Score: 7.5

Mini-scores (See http://johnfn.newgrounds.com/news/post/936953 for what this means and how to improve)
* Composition: 3/4
* Arrangement: 2/4
* Mixing: 3/4

[MVC Character Select (Redux)]

== This is an NGAUC Audition Round Review. ==

The first thing that you should know is that the source material has 2 really interesting chord changes on the final 2 notes of the phrase that you didn't really replicate here, which I kinda wish you did (I like them!). I think the sound choices that you made are kind of grating - a lot of high, harsh frequencies - and that would definitely need to be fixed (low pass please! :-) for this song to really be enjoyable. On the other hand, you did an impressive job at expanding a 10 second loop into 2 minutes. You should really feel free to add your own content to a remix - that's totally valid and it can make the song more interesting. Score: 5

Mini-scores (See http://johnfn.newgrounds.com/news/post/936953 for what this means and how to improve)
* Composition: n/a (As this is a remix, it doesn't make sense for me to score you here.)
* Arrangement: 2/4
* Mixing: 2/4

[Cuddles]

== This is an NGAUC Audition Round Review. ==

OMG... these chords are so gooddd. Half of the melody when it comes in is really amazing, but the other half is out of tune. Argh! (I disagree with the other reviews, btw - a whistle is totally fine for the lead here.) 8.5 - could have been like a 9.5 if the melody was totally in tune - it's like turning in an english essay with typos!

Mini-scores (Note: See http://johnfn.newgrounds.com/news/post/936953 for what this means and how to improve)

* Mixing: 3/4
* Composition: 3/4 (Easy 4/4 with the above fixed)
* Arrangement: 3/4

Pandasticality responds:

thank you for the tip, i already noted up the earlier reviews tips for when i start a new project :)
thank you for the review! hopefully il get to the next round.

- Pandasticality

[Six-Sided Parabox]

== This is an NGAUC Audition Round Review. ==

The opening to this song is really awesome! The song is not bad, but rests very heavily on the acapella, and unfortunately I'm not too convinced by the work in this song that is entirely your own, which is the reason for the slightly lower score. Some of the FL presets I’m hearing dont sound so good to my ears. Other sound design is pretty good though! Score: 6

Mini-scores (Note: See http://johnfn.newgrounds.com/news/post/936953 for what this means and how to improve)

* Mixing: 3/4
* Composition: 2/4
* Arrangement: 3/4

poinl responds:

Thanks johnfn, I learned a lot from your honest review and through the pm's!