johnfn's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Will's Dream (arranged)]

Man what a beautiful song! I think your arrangement could have varied the velocity (and maybe rhythm) of the guitar, plus maybe done a little with slides and vibrato on the "vocal" (actually not sure what that's supposed to be...), but it does alright as is :) Thanks for introducing me to such a nice song.

SourJovis responds:

Thanks for the review. I had to do something with it. Creating a realistic guitar sound from samples is rather difficult. Perhaps it would sound a little more realistic if I did more with the rhythm, but it's hard to decide what a live player would do, and I'd risk making it sound clunky. Having alternating velocity levels is indeed important, but I think I have pretty much maxed out the range already. Some of the softer notes get drowned out as it is. Perhaps I should've made some of the guitar slides longer and started them earlier. I couldn't make a samples guitar sound much better than this. It would be great if I could get someone to record a live guitar though.
That's indeed a "vocal" track the way I see it. The game was made for the snes so the Original song had a synthetic voice as lead instrument. It was a bit difficult to decide what kind of instrument to go for. With even the most realistic voice samples or synths you can tell it isn't real with such a direct sound. That's why I decided to go for a voice sound that was obviously synthetic so it didn't sound like it was supposed to be something it wasn't. It would be great to make a version of this song with a live singer, and lyrics that fit the theme of the song. I thought about slides for the vocal track, but the Original had a very defined sound with short notes, so I decided to keep that. I always try to stay close to the original song. Rather than putting a lot of myself in it I'm interested in hearing what the song would sound like if the original composer wasn't limited to the snes sound chip. When someone listens to my arrangement I don't want them to have the feeling they're listening to a remix of another song, but instead they should forget what the original sounded like, and that this could've been the original. Vibrato is a great idea. It really makes the instrument sound more alive and interesting. Most of the notes have vibrato on them. The longer notes more than the shorter ones, and the vibrato always fades in and out. I tried different levels of vibrato, and I ended up with an amount that wasn't that noticable just didn't start to sound annoying. So I don't want to add more vibrato than there already is, but it was a good idea.
It indeed is a beautiful song. I knew I had to do something with it. I was a little dissapointed with the result myself, but I tried my best. This is just what came out. It would be interesting to do a version of the song with a live guitarist and vocalist with lyrics. That would really add something.
I'm happy you liked the song and I was able to introduce you to it. The game it's from ("Illusion of Gaia") is also an interesting game. It's quite short so I think you cvan give it a try.

[Starfall]

Compositionally I think it's amazing. Really the only critique I have is the mix, so let me talk about that:

Is it just me or is the piano clipping in the beginning? Actually at :44 the mix is kinda going crazy... I kinda want you to give this to me so I can mix it better!

It kind of sounds like you're using FL studio and you still have the limiter on. If so, take the limiter off the master channel and adjust your volume levels so that you never get into the red. That should clean up a good bit of your mixing issues.

The part at 1:23 feels a little empty. Maybe it's just that the guitar is a little dry, needs more reverb/delay/whatever. Then at 1:55 the mix is too dense in the other way, the strings and especially the pads are too loud.

Also the guitar doesn't seem to have nearly as much precision as the rest of the song, both in melodic development and in general playing style. I can't really fault you too much for that though since it was your friend. Should tell him to get on the ball hahaha

I'm gonna close off this review by saying that again the composition is amazing so I think the piece is great. It has a really sublime feel to it, somewhat melancholy. If you fix up those mixing problems it'd probably be a 10.

BlazingDragon responds:

You are absolutely right about the mix. To be quite honest, I feel that my mixing skills are my weakest area when it comes to making music. We just started covering the basics of mixing these last two weeks (compression, EQ, gating, etc), so hopefully the next few projects should show signs of improvement. This wasn't so much of an issue in the past since I primarily wrote solo piano and orchestral music.

As far as the guitar goes, I asked my friend at the last minute to improvise something over the top. I was required to record a live instrument for the project and had to have SOMETHING to turn in. That, and I gave him an awkward key for guitar. XD So for the situation, I think he did nicely.

Thanks for the review, John. I'll take what you said and apply it to my next mix.

[Aim-fire-Run]

This is really fun, the main riff is solid, but it's also really repetitive. Trim it down to like 2 or 3 minutes (and maybe add some more melodic variety) and I think it will be great.

I totally disagree with RealFaction, the drums are perfect!

[~SW~ Windswept]

Man this is awesome. Love the rolling feel of the bassline, plus the rise and fall of the velocity. The only thing I didn't really like was that sometimes you sat a little too long on the root chord and I felt like it lost a little bit of interest, like with some chord switches at those points it would be more interesting to listen to. Mainly :53 - 1:03, I was kind of disappointed that phrase didn't lead into another chord (as eventually you get to at 1:15).

Anywho, apart from that fairly minor issue I felt this was a great and emotional piano piece! Welcome to the 1 day music club... perhaps you'll stick around a little longer? ;-)

P.S. How much of this is live?

SkyeWint responds:

I agree about 0:53-1:03. That's the kind of thing I'd normally spend a lot of time on, so that it just goes through things without those little boring bits. I could make a decent amount of music in a day, but I don't feel like it'd be good enough. :P

Also, what is live? This is all sequenced. ;)

[Pure Morning [Cover] Preview]

Not really my style but it's OBVIOUSLY amazing so take my 5 stars and get out of here. Good luck with labels dude, you obviously have the talent.

Bafana responds:

Thanks mate, keep getting "not the sound we are currently looking for" responses but I'll soldier on!

[~SW~ Extrote]

Bounce down those tracks and keep going. I believe in you bro.

It's pretty great so far, I just feel like it's a little too sparse in between the bits that have interest (the synth in the first half and the "dubstep" (lol) in the second half) - the ambient sections don't hold my interest as much as everything else does. That would be my biggest complaint. My other problem is that the "dubstep" section seems a little too sparse. It's quite hard to explain why this is, but it feels weirdly empty (even though it's exploding with crazy noise). I think that with more things going on (little melodic flits and pads to fill out space perhaps) it would come together better.

The synth solo in the beginning sounds great to me. If you pressed me I'd say that the melody is a touch more undirected than I would prefer. Like 2:35 really sounds on the verge of something, but is slightly off in terms of rhythm I think. I think if you fiddled with the rhythm it could be better. I like the blues notes.

That synth lead is a little too quiet but other than that the mix is perfect in my eyes. Nice thumpy kicks and heavy base. :)

The sound design (or should I say effect design) is amazing. I don't even know what's going on in the drops but it sounds amazing. The way it takes the same instrument but brings to the front different frequencies of that instrument is great.

On the fence between 8 and 9 but 8 is to low for such sexy sound design so 9 it is!

P.S. Fadeout ending is best ending so no points docked. :3

(Actually that's not true... it does sound pretty incomplete - probably because it is :p I wonder if this is how my songs sound with a fadeout ending. O_O)

SkyeWint responds:

Spare is right, I guess. Different things we enjoy though, since I like more ambient bits. :P

The dubsteppy bit is kinda empty, though I'm guessing you mean more after 4:13. If that is where you meant, then I'd entirely agree - that's about where I ran out of ideas. If you want more things going on before that, I'm going to have to get you to try and mix that monster yourself, because it was a nightmare already.

Melodies and stuff weren't really my focus at all, I was almost entirely focused on the sound design and atmosphere.

Sound design stuff you're gonna hate me for, because it's basically 3xosc plus some effects on it like a bitcrusher and waveshaping. :D Oh also some other samples of cardboard I had lying around, I could get those to you - shoot me a message on Skype or something.

>I wonder if this is how my songs sound with a fadeout ending.
Yes. It is if there's no conclusion. It also sounds like that for all those techno songs that just end on a pattern that's meant to loop. Do you see why I dislike fadeout endings now ;_;

[Spacewalk]

I really like the vibe and chords, I'm getting a total tropical feel from the marimbas and the easygoing progression - but I have serious difficulty listening to this all the way through because the buzzy bass is so abrasively loud! Could you turn it down a little?

Mawnz responds:

Thanks for the tip, "john" ;D I'm experimenting with widening my bass synths, and trying to improve sound quality, so I've started to EQ the highs on the bass more, which in this case makes it buzzier.
Glad you pointed out the marimbas, that was kinda what I was going for. In contrast to the spacey feel.

I took down the bass a little, it was a little too loud which got a little annoying.
Thanks again for listening and leaving a helpful review, much appreciated!

-Mawnz

[Regret]

That flute needs more reverb!

Chalk down another person who likes the +2 modulation towards the end. Though yeah it does start to feel a little repetitive. I like the swelling strings and the focus on piano.

As usual my main block is with melodies, but I feel like you made some strides in improving on that front. The one e.g. at 1:20 that just does D-E-D-E-D-E is definitely my favorite, it has a lot of emotion behind it. I think once you start putting countermelodies on top of it with other instruments you actually lessen the its power though. If you just had "D-E-D-E-D-E [4th bar arp fill]" and you repeated it a lot, this song could develop a lot of power behind it. To some degree that IS what you did, I just feel like the other melodies are worse and take away from the power of the "D-E-D-E-D-E" idea.

Anywho I felt like you definitely made improvements. Mixing is great, progression is meaningful, got dem feels pushing it forward, good work with the strings, blbalba etc. Prob my favorite of yours so far!

I actually downloaded this song and soloed over it in piano because I liked the progression:

MP3: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ddpa08n99pl00f6/soloz.mp3 (playing starts at 1:05)
MIDI (in case you want to do something with it): https://www.dropbox.com/s/5rqkcy0mff330gt/soloz.mid

Let me know if you do anything cool with it, otherwise I just hope it gives you a more concrete idea of the kind of melodies I was imagining.

Everratic responds:

"That flute needs more reverb!"
One of the last things I did was lowered the reverb on the flute :(

"I actually downloaded this song and soloed over it in piano because I liked the progression:"
Thankyou so much! The melodies you made are amazing and are much more complex and emotional than mine. I'll listen to this mp3 again before I make my next song, and hopefully it will give me inspiration to make better melodies :D

[Grone Lunden Cover]

Really nice job and quite restrained compared to your normal pieces. I enjoy it a lot. :)

steampianist responds:

restrained you say? :D

[The Door - Platform]

I just want to talk about melody, so that's what I'm going to do. THE REVIEW SYSTEM WON'T HOLD ME BACK!!!

One thing that's important is that most melodic phrases are legato, which means that if you're writing a melody, and it's a coherent idea, and it's played on an instrument that can manage it (not e.g. guitar) there shouldn't be any gaps of silence in it, in general. Just listen to a singer in your favorite pop song - they slur all their words together so that the phrases are legatoed properly. I was hearing a lot of gaps in your melodies, which is really jarring and might make people think that they're disjointed.

But even still, that won't help you get much better at melodies, it just fixes some minor issues. Now I'm going to tell you how to actually write good melodies:

Go and take ye favorite instrument (I seem to remember you being a fan of the cello, though I can't figure out why I think that lol). Bring it near your computer and play some of your favorite songs on the computer, and see if you can play the melody on your instrument as the song plays. DON'T try to get it perfect, just keep going on to new songs.

In this way you'll start to build a subconscious understanding of how melodies work. This is important because writing melodies isn't a conscious skill. afaik great musicians don't sit down and think about music theory in order to write good melodies - they just sorta feel it out subconsciously to see how the melody wants to go. It is this skill that you're developing.

It will take you a very long time to master this skill (I'm still practicing every day) but you will probably notice differences in your melodic approach almost immediately (I did).

Aside from that, I have one other very simple tip (which I even fail to follow a lot.. lol). MAKE YOUR MELODIES MORE REPETITIVE. It sounds crazy because a lot of the time people are like "zomg musical repetition is the root of all evil!!!" However, if you listen to some pop song you like, you'll realize almost immediately that the melodies are REALLY repetitive. Not only do they repeat entire phrases over and over, but the phrases themselves are really repetitive - like they may play some notes, and then play them again slightly lower or something.

Seriously, sit down one day and listen, really listen and analyze the melodies in some of your favorite tracks. You'd be amazed how repetitive they are - and yet how successful that makes them!

Last, I have a challenge for you, which kinda ties into what I've been saying up above. I want you to do a song with theme and variation. Take some melodic theme - it can be as short as a couple of notes - and then then make a bigger melody out of reusing it, modulating it up or down, or playing it under different chords. Not only is there a ton of space to explore here (you're basically looking at the foundation of classical music here), but it'll teach you to make your melodies more coherent.

Anyway... I kinda 100% disregarded your song here but I hope this is more helpful than a piecewise dissection of your track (LSD, BO and LE kinda got that in the bag anyways).

Final thing - melody writing is HARD and you shouldn't let this get you down. You're doing pretty great for being 16. Go listen to my tracks when I was 16 (in 2007) if you want to feel much better about yourself hahahahahah

TaintedLogic responds:

Thanks so much, Johnfn! :D I really appreciate your advice about the melodies. For some reason, the mixing got really screwed up when I tried incorporating some more legato elements into the piece, and I agree it is a little too pizzicato-esque. I've been playing the cello since I was 9, btw! ;D Thank you so much for all the advice on making good melodies. I'll try experimenting with that as soon as I have the time, which reminds me: DANG IT, JOHN!!! Don't you know it's midnight in Boston and I should really finish studying for my Biology midterms! ...oh, wait, of course you don't know. You're not psychic. I forgot. Sorry....
No, but seriously, thank you again for the extremely helpful advice. Don't be too hard on your 16-year-old self, btw. I have a feeling DAWs weren't as advanced then as they are now.
Thanks again! ^^
Now then, the structure of mitochondria... ;)