johnfn's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Exploding the Sun]

The bassline at :52 clashes with the melody :(

The solo at 1:45ish, while the right idea, unfortunately clashes at times with the bassline too, which is kind of unfortunate. With proper bass note placement, I feel it could be quite solid. Unfortunately, as is it's a bit of a dealbreaker - it almost makes the song fall apart at the seams.

I really enjoy the single-instrument transitions, like the one you did at 2:48 and a couple of other places throughout the track. That is a really fun idea!

The drumline is solid and the instrument choice works. Fix up those bassline issues and this will be a solid song!

N1nj4X responds:

Thanks for your honest and constructive critic :)

[Beyond the Surface]

Fantastic sound design. The creepy sound effects are appropriately creepy for a game that takes place below the surface :) but the sound of the bass and drums is excellent too. I think my favorite part is the really subtle midrange pads around :40. I really like subtle stuff like that, I think it shows really good taste and musicianship.

Hey, you know that clap/snare at 1:30? Why not try adding more reverb - could give a lot more atmosphere to the piece.

Sadly there isn't much in the way of melody/composition, which is preventing me from giving a higher score - but as a background piece in a game I can see this being super solid. Nice work.

eatmeatleet responds:

thanks for input. I find it hard to make complex composition for creepy track. Glad you liked

[Cosmic Stream of Life]

I like it, I feel like it has a lot of energy - but I also feel like it's really repetitive, like you keep playing the same melody over and over and don't do much in the way of different sections. You do an excellent job of shuttling us between breakdowns, buildups and climaxes, which disguises this fact, but I can't help but think that if this were a 3 minute track it would have much more impact. I feel like after the third minute I've pretty much heard it all.

The only other thing I want to critique is the melody itself. It's too quantized - too many notes of the same length! It feels very robotic. Try varying the length of your notes and making more interesting rhythms - I think that would make the song a lot more interesting.

Really though i think the song is quite good and has a fantastic amount of energy. You've got mixing and arrangement pretty solidly down, now let's work on the other stuff!

EctiBot responds:

Thx for the review man. Glad you enjoyed it :D. I agree with your points, and I might implement some of your ideas in my upcoming songs ;).
Thx for the feedback :D! Luv ur music ;).

[The Door - Erasure]

Preferential review treatment cuz you give me so many reviews of course!

So I really liked the ambience in this song! I thought the eery noises and the dark boomy drums went well together. There are 3 major things that need improvement, and 2 of them are really easy, so this review is probably going to be pretty short hehe.

1. Piano and weird harp thing need more reverb. They are very dry and jar with the otherwise moody and atmospheric nature of the piece. Just toss on some super wet and spacey reverb on them, I think it would work great!
2. FL KEYS. Switch out FL Keys with literally any other keyboard VST. I just really don't like FL Keys... haha. Piano One is free, why not try that one?
3. Needs more better melodies. Yeah I'm sure you saw this coming from a mile away. Only thing to do is more practice!!! >:D

Nice work though! The atmosphere is A+, and if you did 1 and 2 up above I think it would be a super solid piece.

TaintedLogic responds:

I'm going to respond to this one LunacyEcho-style:

"Preferential review treatment" ==> Aw, shucks! :')

"Nice ambience" ==> Thanks a bunch! I really was going for an overwhelmingly creepy atmosphere, and I even thought I was making the droning instruments too up-front in the mix at times. 0_O

"Pretty short" ==> ...and by pretty short, you mean longer than 80% of the review in the AP? XD

"More reverb" ==> Yeah, I agree. I sort of rushed this one to completion, I guess. Thanks for the advice!

"FL KEYS" ==> Guilty! T_T I've been using FL Keys since the very first piece I did in FL. I'll look into using Piano One. ;)

"Needs better melodies." ==> Yeah, I definitely sacrificed melodic development for atmosphere. I'll work on that in future pieces.

"Super solid piece" ==> Wow, that means a lot coming from someone so experienced! :D Thanks a bunch, Johnfn. :')

I GOT A 7/10 FROM JOHNFN!!! EPIC WIN! >:D

Thanks so much for the review, man! ^^ Preferential review treatment is awesome! ;)

[~SW~ Misery]

I uh...

*looks around nervously*

..

*shuffles feet*

...

OH blah I may as well just get it out. I actually don't like the main theme in this piece very much. *ducks* To me, it definitely sounds like misery, but misery over something really trivial, like the guy is in absolute misery about getting chocolate ice cream instead of vanilla. I feel like the composition of the piece is technically very well done - the constant reiteration of the theme is great, the transitions are on point, the runs - THE RUNS - but I'll get to those in a second - but every time you bring us back to that main theme I'm like "oh who cares about your ice cream". I don't really know what to say, the rest of the song is friggin great but it NEEDS a better theme.

It's not like you always have bad melodies or something (cough Fog Between cough awesome cough - also, Float was good too) but yeah I dunno. A different one could be better.

I don't really have any other complaints, except I guess the tendency towards more atonal harmonies nearly throughout the piece. I don't listen to very much classical and this feels very much like a classical idiom of sorts, but I do know what my ears tell me, and they're a little ticked that you don't have a little more harmony in this piece. Take that for what you will if you want to be a classical purist ;-)

Anyway, moving on to good stuff. I really like your runs! Yes, you saw this coming, mainly because I made allusion to it up there. Anyway, they are all delightful, with the one at (1:40) being the obvious highlight of the piece. I like how it leads into a slight variation of the theme, that was a nice idea - and then you keep making gradual modifications to the further reiterations of the theme. Like I said, execution gets an A+.

I also really like the segue and the concept of the section at 2:20. It's a total switchup, but it fits perfectly with the dark feel of the piece. Nice work. But of course you can't let me totally enjoy anything because it also feels oddly atonal, like things are just missing where they should be harmonically.

The ending, being the only time you actually do a full resolve to Gm (at least it feels that way, I didn't bother analyzing the whole song haha), was nice too. Finally some release!

SkyeWint responds:

Hahahahaha, I love the introduction to your review.

I LOVE jazz harmonies. :< They're one of my favorite things. You need to learn the beauty of dissonance. There's nothing atonal in this btw, it's just dissonance.

I get that about the melody, kinda. It depends on how it's played.

RUNS ARE FUN. Also extremely difficult. The theme and variation on the theme are the main feature, it's the overall composition of the piece.

Ironically, your fixation on the dissonant harmony and the feeling of things missing fits perfectly with the full title of the piece: Misery - Fading Memory.

The ending is just a G. It's literally just a G, with nothing else.

[Tsukikanade (月奏)]

Composition is awesome. Melodies are great. But the mix needs serious help, so let's talk about that!

=== MIXING 101 ===

Two big things:

* Internalize the following fact: 90% of mixing is getting volume levels to be right. There's no secret formula or magic technique - get the volume levels to be right and you're nearly done.

* Slots - You should consider your music as if it has a couple of slots: bass, midbass, midrange (melody/singing), pads, and high range. If you put one instrument in each slot, the song will sound totally full. But DON'T put more than one instrument in the same slot (unless you pan), because they will compete and mess with your song.

Alright, now for a step by step guide:

1. Go to the mixer in FL studio, go to the master channel, and remove any limiters you have. ALWAYS do this, until you get to the point where you consistently know what you're doing. They just make it harder to diagnose mixing issues.
2. Go to the loudest part in your song (1:20, I'd say). Make sure you're not in the red. If you are, turn down your volume levels until you aren't any more.
3. Turn down the master fader (the volume control that controls how loud the entire song is) until you can only hear a single instrument. That's your loudest instrument! Are you sure you want it to be your loudest instrument? If not, turn it down and turn up what should be the loudest (probably vocals in this song).
4. Turn up the volume to the point where you can hear every instrument, but just barely. It should still be very quiet. Now, set the volume levels for the whole song. Believe it or not, us humans make better mixing choices when music is really quiet. Why this is true is a long discussion, but this simple help will really help out.

Alright, I hope that helps. I'd encourage you to remix this song, it's good practice :) PM me if you have any specific questions.

Troisnyx responds:

Thanks for the pointers..... I would remix this song, save that I've lost it and the stems forever.

[Chrono Trigger TitleRemix]

Pretty awesome. Definitely one of the most creative uses of the source material I've heard. I love the concept of jazzy blurry chords on top of chip that I hear at around :15 - it's like if boards of canada decided to write chiptune (or if the fez guys decided to make their noises less chip). The buildup is very cool. I just felt like it could use more development. Half the song is spent building up, and then another quarter is spent in the final breakdown. I feel like the actual drop should go into something ELSE somehow, rather than just being over.

I kinda wish I could say more, but then again, it's a short piece. Nice work. I'm stuck between 7 and 8, so pessimism wins out!

mozzdeep responds:

Thank you so much, I'll be making a lot more music in the future so I'll keep improving :)

[Only The Beginning (Extended)]

There are definitely some out of tune notes around :17. I think you did that on purpose, but I wanted to mention just in case.

I of course enjoyed the drop at 1:15 or whatever. Like you said, I still feel it's a little underdeveloped. NEEDS MOAR NOTES. Or something like that.

Also, that glitchy transition into 1:35 is awesome!

The song almost loses its way around 2:20 or so I feel, that section may go on a bit longer than it should. However, the thing that it drops into isn't really selling me at all. The melodies seem pretty random to me, and the mixing seems off too - the presence of the bass is almost overpowering. (Though it's not really a bass, it's more mid-range).

Again, love the glitch effects in the outro <3

All in all, I feel like this song, particularly after the drop at 1:15, is a bit directionless. The biggest problem for me personally is the lack of melody - the plucks aren't really keeping me interested. I think that the drop at 1:15 is my favorite bit. If you had stopped the song right there, I think I would be giving this song a much higher score. Why not spend some time fleshing out that idea some, I think it could be really cool!

Back-From-Purgatory responds:

You were talking like you were being a total jackass or something in your newspost reply... I was expecting you to like rip it to shreds or something, but that's not the case at all.

It's all valid critique, and a lot of it I agree with. This isn't really a comfortable genre/style of music for me, this is really the first time I've tried something of this sort, I played with a lot of new ideas and techniques I've never used before. I'm surprised it took that long for someone to really dig into those flaws.

Regardless though, I'm glad you liked some of it at least. Thanks for the review.

[The Butterflies]

Very good. I looped it like 10 times (and counting!). Just needs more longerness.

Xorberax responds:

:-)

[Afterimage]

Some time synced comments:

0:00: Dat sytrus.
0:08: Hey that beat sounds good to me, though have you considered sidechaining more stuff to it?
0:16: Now I can officially say dat sytrus.
0:24: I like the bassline melody, but it could be mixed a little better, try using eq to cut the lows out of non bassy instruments.
0:28: Clap is kinda dry...
0:28 Also that instrument sounds kinda off-tune.
0:44 I like the pitch bends, though couldn't the instrument have a little more legato?

I like it but it feels underdeveloped, like it could use a pad. Plus, if you really want to go for that "super speedy" feel you should add some rapid hihats, make the clap bigger and give a little more emphasis to the beat in general. Those two things would make the song better I think.

Also I listened to "Pendragon Legacy" and I thought it was pretty good! Epic medieval/celtic feel :D

ChronoNomad responds:

Thanks for the time-synced feedback, John! A very cool idea, so I'm totally going to respond in the same way:

0:00 - Aw, yeah!
0:08 - Okay, so...funny story. This whole track started out as my first sidechaining experience. It was only going to be an experiment, but I ended up digging it enough to turn it into a quick and dirty loop. I did consider sidechaining the clap, but it was kind of an afterthought. I used Gross Beat for the sidechain, but it's only the demo version.
0:16 - What can I say? I love me some Sytrus.
0:24 - Something to consider in the future. Since I used a demo plug-in, further fine-tuning is no longer an option. It is what it is.
0:28 - Again, clap was basically an afterthought, but yes...it is a bit on the dry side.
0:28 - It sounds cool to me, but I dig the squelchy sound of this particular Acid arp. Subjectivity in spades, no doubt.
0:44 - I actually worked with incorporating more legato in this part, but nothing sounded as good to me as the short notes! Go figure. I'd be curious to know what you would have done with it. :)

Yes, it's definitely underdeveloped. The main concept was basically conceived and arranged (with lots of additional time wasted while futzing around and generally having fun) in maybe an hour or so. It could have been more fleshed out, but life has taken a wonderfully unexpected turn and I have other, more important (!!!) things taking up vital real estate within my mind. Considered using some fizzy hi hats, but I almost went with kick alone on the percussive side. Your ideas are sound and generally awesome, but this one's set in stone...at least for now. Regardless, your feedback is phenomenal and thorough, not to mention highly appreciated.

Hey, I'm happy to hear that you enjoy "Pendragon Legacy!" That one ended up on the back burner for a long time, so it feels great to have it finished and submitted. That epic medieval/Celtic feel is 100% what I was going for, so that's fantastic to hear! ^__^