johnfn's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[submitted audio tune]

Dang, there's no way to put this nicely - this piece has a lot of problems. It's many different sections that don't fit together well, a lot of the notes sound randomly chosen. I'm going to skip the mini-scores for this track - instead, as a suggestion to improve, I would really suggest that you try to cover some of your favorite songs so that you can get a grasp on their composition styles, and bring that into your own music. Good luck!

flashmakeit responds:

I do not like the score but I do like the advice and I will try listening carefully to some of my favorite song and that may help me out.

[Distance ft. Himeko]

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

The vocals here are pretty awesome! I like the overall feel of the track and the accompaniment. What I don't like is the mix. With a proper mix, this song could be AMAZING. As it is, it sounds a little muddy and the drums are not powerful enough - they are overpowered by the mid-bass. I feel potential here - keep at it. Score: 7.5

Mini-scores (See http://johnfn.newgrounds.com/news/post/936953 for a description)
* Composition: 3/4
* Arrangement: 3/4
* Mixing: 1/4

[<pixel> Village in the Cave]

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

Huh. This one is really difficult to score. Half the time, it seems like you don't know what you're doing, and the other half, it seems like you totally know what you're doing. The melody has all these halves of great ideas that get me going "ooh! that sounds great!" (I really like 7ths) but then it hits a couple of random notes and doesn't resolve it like I'd hoped. It's also quite short - but you *do* have a couple of really nice melodic ideas in there. Score: 6.5, but could have been much higher with more development.

Mini-scores (See http://johnfn.newgrounds.com/news/post/936953 for a description)
* Composition: 3/4
* Arrangement: 2/4
* Mixing: 2/4

[Back To Life]

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

Very cool experiment. I can't remember hearing a similar idea anywhere! The melody on the flute is really nice, but it gets buried in the acoustic guitar quite often. I think it was probably not a good idea to reverse the entire song and play it back - I know it's part of the experiment, but it doesn't really make a good listening experience after the halfway mark. Still, the melody on the flute in the first half is very nice. 8

Mini-scores (See http://johnfn.newgrounds.com/news/post/936953 for a description)
* Composition: 3+/4
* Arrangement: 2/4
* Mixing: 2/4

NyxTheShield responds:

I don't think it gets buried, it's just that there are multiple recorders at differerents Pannings in the song (At least 3)

[Obsidian]

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

The mix is just awesome, well done. Everything comes through clearly and that kick is super loud! :D The sound design, too, is really well done. The dubstep bass, the pads, the other wonky instruments, the slight hints of vocals - it all sounds good to me, and it meshes together well. On the other hand, the song sounds is a bit repetitive - it should be shorter, I think - and could have used more melodic development. A good melody could make this good song even better. Score: 7

Mini-scores (See http://johnfn.newgrounds.com/news/post/936953 for a description)

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

Saao responds:

Thank you very much, if I move on I will enter one of my better tracks

[Fisherman's Fantasy (water)]

Dang, man! Your music keeps getting better and better, this is beautiful! Nit picks - the string patch has too much vibrato, and the piano sounds very mechanical (no human player would hit the notes so hard so frequently). This is great, though. Great chords and melancholy feel.

[~Witz~ Leap of Faith (Electro Mix)]

Really love the melody around 1:50, wish that showed up more. I was really going to get into a groove when it showed up, but then it never came back :( At 2:15 I think the lead is too quiet.

Really nice song though. Drum mixing feels really good to me.

aliaspharow responds:

I'm sorry i let you down johnfn! I will make new version with drop based around this melody just for you <3

[T-Logic - Architeuthis]

Man, some of this sound design is REALLY cool! I freaking love the white noise stuff. But the melodies sound insanely dissonant with each other.

Like the bassline at :20 is awesome and clearly setting up a C minor sort of deal along with the weird instrument playing along side it. And then :30 comes and you play... A minor??? A minor clashes super hard with C minor because A minor has E natural and C minor has E flat, so you'd expect it to sound off, and it does. And then this new instrument comes in at :40 which just sounds like it's in a new key altogether.

The really interesting thing is that at points I really enjoy this atonal freakiness. Like, I guess I've just listened to too much tonal music so the only thing left is atonal, I guess. :P When stuff meshes together around 2:55, it sounds wrong, but the wrongness is actually okay (lol that makes sense) and I like it, it does indeed sound like a giant squid :D. And there's this one diminished (or something) chord at 1:01 that I really like. But atonal is one heck of an acquired taste and hoping that the NGADM judges all have it is probably not going to fly.

The A minor chord at :30 *might* have had the same effect, but by the time :37 comes and you drop another, *different* atonal chord, I just give up and don't like it. :P

Anyway though... I really like the sound design, like I said. The white noise, the weird instrument at :23 is just awesome... But I dunno about the tonality...

TaintedLogic responds:

Thank you so much for your compliments on the sound design and sweeps. I acknowledge your opinions about the dissonant melodies. I think we both know I love clashing chords, but I still often fail to consider what key all the chords I'm using are in, and I think that costs me sometimes. The thing with :40 is that I wrote it with the tonic on C (even though there are a few accidentals), but for some reason when I uploaded the track into NG's project system, it was transposed up a 1/2 step. So, I transposed it down a 1/2 step in FL Studio, and when I re-uploaded it, it sounded like this. It's still probably my fault that it clashes there (as I kind of wanted it to do so, anyway), but I wasn't really sure of what to make of how the project system transposed that riff AND ONLY THAT RIFF up a half step. DX

I'm glad you liked 2:55, and I was most certainly going for that giant squid-like sound! <3 I'm not sure what you mean by a "diminished chord," but personally I was pretty happy with the chord progression from :52 - 1:14. I understand that too much atonality puts people over the edge, like :37 did for you. The instrument at :23 is one of my weird-ass samples from TS404. >:D

Regarding the NGADM, my understanding of how auditions work is that each judge makes a list ranking their top 64, and if, say, 3 judges each want 48 people to be in the competition, the remaining 16 people are decided by some sort of scoring method. That way, I don't need every single judge to like my piece, as long as 2 or 3 REALLY like it. Still, I have 2 weeks to decide what to audition with. I might even try to make another piece or re-master one of my old ones. I should also probably PM Step to make sure this is actually how NGADM auditions work, haha...

Thanks so much for the review as always, Johnfn! ;D

[The Dream of a Robot]

Hah, awesome!! I'm really pleased that my little guide inspired you, hehe. I should write some more to it sometime - there's a little more than what I wrote down.

> "I'm sure johnfn will eventually say if something is off, which probably is the case XD"

ha ha you know me too well :3 The main thing I would critique would be the drum kit. It doesn't match the electronic sounds imo. This is not a surprise since you rarely if ever do electronic songs, but yeah, a heaver kick, a louder, stronger snare, etc would be great :D Yeah, drum loudness is kinda an issue too, at first I wasn't even sure if there was a snare :p the drums are buried under the rest of the instruments. Make them louderrr :D

I feel like the mix is a little cluttered, which is an ambiguous way of saying that there's too much stuff in the frequency range around the lead. The panning arps are occasionally getting in the way of the lead and distracting me from it.

I'm also not sure I like the lead, but take that with a LARGE grain of salt since as you know I think the only lead you should ever use ever is a square wave and the only way it could be better is if it has a little bit of distortion on it. :D

I really like the sound design, like right before the song really picks up, and the noises that outro the song. They sound really cool!

I am really pleased that you decided to do electronic music! Hooray for experimentation! Soon you will be doing it all the time mwa ha ha ha ha ha haaaaaaaa.

LucidShadowDreamer responds:

I think your little guide inspired quite many people actually, hehhe...
It'd be awesome if you wrote more to it o.O!
Nau do it ;)

I actually agree with the stuff about the drum kit. This is one of the best drum kits I have, but it'd be best suited for jazz music, I think :/
Do you know anywhere I could download good, yet free drumkits?

Yeah, I totally have no idea what loudness my drums should have. While mixing, I tried to raise the volume of the percussion, but it didn't sound that good. That's probably because the kit doesn't match the rest of the song that well? Also, I would've probably ended up with clipping if I had raised it much more with the mix I had, so I would've had to redo everything at that point XD

There's probably a bit too much in the lead frequencies yeah. I have a few pads playing at points in the background where you can barely hear them (I can, as I know where they are), but I'm thinking they are a bit unnecessary, at least at certain points. They too are not in the same, but very close frequencies.
I like the panning arps, but I do get what you mean. Maybe the melody is so fresh in my memory that I can detect it through all the other things in the track, so that I didn't notice the clutter. I always view my tracks differently when I haven't heard them in a while, as my mind is not as focused on all the different parts and precisely what they play at all times XD

As for the leads, I'll indeed take your advice with a huge grain of salt, heh. While square waves are good, I like variation. I also think that different kinds of leads give you different feels, even with the same chords and melodies, which means that I can express much more with just the intrument choices I make. And after all, while this may have aspects of it at points, this is not chiptune XD

It's great to hear that you like the sound design! I spend some time trying to find cool effects in Zebralette and Firebird, some to get a more roboty feel, and others just for fun.

I'm a bit surprised that nobody has mentioned the bass in this track yet, as I think it feels a bit inconsistent at points. Maybe it had such a low volume that no one noticed it XD?

Yay! It was fun to make something electronic for a change. But at the point that I will be making only that, you will be making only ambient and maybe even atonal music ;)
That, or we both just revert to the piano... :)

Thank you a great deal for the awesome review johnfn!

P.S. Sorry for the late response! I was out partying the whole day yesterday, basically :p

[~SW~ The Brain Cycle]

I really like the sound design. It's really all over the place in what inspirations you're drawing, but it still sounds cohesive. Like, it starts out sounding wild west, but then it somehow transitions to futuristic... and back... it's weird. I really like the "guitar"mnispheres (i presume) in the beginning of the track, the vibes(?) at 1:52... and a bunch more. The slower melodies are great. I think I'm going to borrow some of your sound design ideas for my current track ^_^ I also the triplets or 4 over 3 or whatever. It has a great rhythmic quality to it. I should do that sometime...

I'm undecided on the crazy panning on the lead heh. I'm listening only on headphones, which is probably why it bothers me. I think if it was on speakers it wouldn't bother me at all.

I concur with TaintedLogic that melodies should not be faded in because that actually makes them fly under the radar, so to speak. The mixing actually sounds a little off to me. Like, the bass and drums are not loud enough, I think. The bass stands out to me. For instance, the "drop" at 1:11 seems so cool but it ends up being slightly underwhelming because no real bass kicks in.

I think the solos could be a little more evocative, they kinda fly all over the place. Try using the pentatonic scale. I heard all the cool kids are doing it. :p

Great song! SOUND DESIGN HOW DOES IT WORK?!?

P.S. LOL I was just about to reprimand you because I thought this song was insanely quiet. Then I realized that the volume on the Newgrounds player was set to 20/100. I'manub.

SkyeWint responds:

So... sound design was fun. I did draw from a lot of things, including non-NG works by a guy called Fourge, another person called Chrome Sparks, apparently the Starcraft soundtrack without realizing it.

The panning was something I thought was pretty cool, it's just an autopan from left to right and back again.

The lead fading in was, again, to keep it from being perfectly sudden, which it was without the filtering. It is also once again very clearly heard if you have good headphones or speakers - that said, it's meant to fade in. If you compare it with the later lead section, the second one doesn't have nearly as smooth a transition into that section. It isn't meant to be nearly as intense at that point either. :v

As for mixing of the drums...

<mixing lecture>

There is *plenty* of bass during that section. However, it's all in the kicks. The kicks have a lot of deep bass, which actually interferes with the main bass instrument. The bass instrument is roughly at 80-150hz, whereas the kicks have their initial hit around 120hz but then move down all the way to around 30-40hz. Main thing about that is they need that initial hit in order to have the right impact, but that initial hit disrupts the normal bass sound. Later in the piece around 3:23 onward you can hear how the bass is sidechained with the kick to prevent distortion and muddied frequencies from both of them hitting at the same time (since lower frequencies can't handle that much hitting the same frequencies at once as a general rule - try it sometime). With all the kicks going on in the middle section, the normal bass would be chopped up so much as to sound like complete shit.

</mixing lecture> <point about Apple>

That said, it's actually possible that you hear them very quietly because you use a mac - with default hardware and software settings the lower bass frequencies on a mac are significantly reduced if not cut off entirely (tested by cross-comparing with a good and bad soundcard on a standard dell laptop and the default soundcard as well as a good quality one on an iMac, using the same pair of ATH-m50 headphones). Given the heavy amount of lower bass frequencies there, it's entirely possible that those frequencies were cutting off or reduced, making those instruments seem particularly quiet.

</point about Apple>

In any case, there is no actual bass instrument during that section - but there are plenty of bass frequencies (aside from when there's no kick like with the snare rolls, of course <3).

I like my blues scale thank you very much, it harmonizes nearly as well as the pentatonic scale but also requires *some* skill to sound harmonic. >:( My goodness, kids these days...

Anyway. Got it, got it, can't entirely agree about the mixing things since it was tested on a full soundcard with multiple speaker/headphone systems with regard to the bass and the lead was very much intentional for the sake of transition and atmosphere. :v

Solos I can understand for certain. Again more of a personal thing like the initial lead filter but I definitely get that.

Anyway (x2), got it. Much thanks for the review, always good to hear your perspective! :)