johnfn's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Ludum Dare 22]

This is a great song so I'm going to be nitpicky - that piano sounds really cheap. And I'm a little bothered by how reverb filled everything is - the whole song feels blurry.

But it's an excellent song, and when that piano comes in it's magical. I do LD also - will I see you there for LD26? :-)

ErikMcClure responds:

I am aware of these problems, but it was thrown together in a couple hours. The drums are pretty pathetic too.

I find myself doing Ludum Dare 26 pretty unlikely. I haven't developed my skill set enough and my engine has become unstable again.

[Game Over]

Nice, heavy metal chiptune! I enjoy this. I'm having difficulty articulating exactly what problem I have with it. The thing is, when I pay attention to little bits of it, I like them, but for some reason the little bits are having trouble cohering into a whole. I think it might be the chip melody on top of the bass, because the melody feels a little random. That's just a hypothesis though. But anyways I like this song! I really like the bass and how heavy and glitched it sounds. Keep it up!

Pitfall responds:

Thanks! I appreciate you checking out my song btw. :)

Yeah, idk either, but I guess I can understand where you're coming from with that. :)

Thanks for the critique! :D

[Majestic]

This sounds good so far. The main reason I docked points was because it's very clearly unfinished. If I'd give you a suggestion for work in the future, I'd say that the techno bits at :37 clash pretty hard with the orchestral bits before. It's not impossible to combine the two, but you have to be very careful about your aesthetics.

Looking forward to the final piece. This is a promising start!

Contextor responds:

Agree and agree, also, it is not finished, as i saw the competition the day of the deadline, i didn't have any more time than this, thus the result! :) I am currently working a lot more on it ;)

[Our Adventure (Mac13)]

Word to the last reviewer. That bridge is awesome. All those crazy notes in my left ear. It builds up and then explodes like a water fountain or something. If I were to complain, it's just a tad repetitive - I think you could fix that by switching the instrument or varying the beat under it perhaps.

Anyway, I really enjoyed this! And you sampled the gameboy turn-on sound. How awesome is that :D

[Expedition to Earth]

That one grooving melody shows real talent. If you were to force me to give good constructive criticism, I'd say that I don't like the other one (i.e. 0:00-0:16) so much. But the first one is great, and the whole song is very good. Good luck with the contest!

Fleshbag responds:

Thanks. Good luck to you too!

[Taking Flight]

The chords are beautiful, the instrumentation is A+, and the song fits the description to a tee. Wonderful.

(Mixing does need a bit of work though!)

SuperGoodSound responds:

thank you ;)

[Commodore Warriors]

I like this. I feel like you cheated for MAC13 because it's only barely chip ;-) However that doesn't stop it from being a great tune. The chords you chose are delightful.

Czyszy responds:

Thanks for the positive feedback. Your submission is great too.
I like the way it changes the mood and the tempo yet still keeps the feel coherent.

[Takes A Sudden Turn]

I'm really amazed by the mileage you get out of that one melody line. We probably have the MAC12 winner right here.

midimachine responds:

i've been listening to a lot of post-rock and shoegaze lately - talk about mileage! haha
cheers but!

[Okie Doki]

After listening to a lot of MAC13 entries, I thought that yours (so far) probably has the strongest melody (at :30). However, the mixing is really holding you back. This could be a MUCH stronger song (possible finalist in the contest?) if it was mixed properly. I also felt like the section you introduce at 1:24 didn't really contribute much to the overall song. Since you're above the time limit anyways, you should just take it out.

Good luck!

[x(t)=sgn(sin[t])]

My comments are going to be almost exactly the same as the last song I reviewed. I really like the melody that comes in at 1:09-33, it's definitely the highlight of the song. Compositionally it's a big mess and you should get rid of all the extraneous melodies (like the part up to 1:09). It's not bad, but it is not as good, and why have less than great stuff in a song that has great stuff?

I also really like the crazy arps towards the end!

BTW i would just like to point out that I'm start enough to know that the title refers to a square wave. yep. smart. i'm smart. that's me.

KrrMaim responds:

I think its the season to binge on simple sound waves :D

everything i'm working on right now has some sort of old school gaming feel.

those crazy arps broke my keyboard XD

so now i need new speakers and a new midi keyboard