johnfn's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[New Techno WIP]

This is good but it seemed like it was only just getting started by the end. I love the beat. Keep working on it.

tommcq responds:

Thanks for the feedback, I'll be continuing work on it very shortly!

[Industrial Nightmare Demo]

Very nice. The pads from :30-1:00 (and again at 1:15) were my favorite part. The beat is fantastic - it's so strong. I don't know what else to ask of you... except maybe a melody heheheh.

anthonyragus responds:

Thanks! Yeah there will definitely be more variety and melody in the full song.

[Darkish]

Dark*ish*? More like dark*est* :p

This is really cool. I'm not sure why you tossed it under misc, it sounds very industrial. I was hoping the string would drop like 6 down and hit a low note, it would make this song pure evil. But yeah this is very cool.

DESHIEL responds:

If you want to hear that string drop you'd have to teach me how to do it xD

[Loop of voice]

This is so cool. Dude you have to develop this idea more. I love it. The drums are disturbingly organic. But everything else is great.

VladNS responds:

thanks. I will think about it

[Takamina]

Beautiful!

That chord change that we close out on sounds a lot like Chrono Trigger, if you ever played. It's sweet.

I dunno exactly what else to say since Classical isn't really my strong suit. I feel like some of your melodies are stronger than others. The opening is really nice and the final 10-20 second phrase we close out on is pretty too. Maybe you should cut out the middle?

KrrMaim responds:

I don't know much about classical either. I just make music stuff then I am told to put it in a genre.

I'm out of town right now but when I get home i'll expand on this idea. Maybe i'll completely change the mood :] it will be fun to do.

[=(Search For Happiness)=]

Seeing this song and songs like this with scores in the 2-3 range flat out depresses me. Seriously? This is 2.74 star material right here? Honestly who thought that? Did they even listen to the whole thing? Was it just 0 bombed? Does Tom Fulp still not care at all about the audio portal (even though if you look at the numbers it's going to overtake the flash portal in raw submission count in a year or two max)?

Sigh. We all know that NG is a terrible place to get decent remarks on audio. I'm hardly saying anything new here. So let's just talk about the song.

It kind of blows my mind that you say you were lazy on this one. Lazy on a 7 minute song, seriously? Personally, if I go longer than 2 minutes on a song I am PUSHING MY ABILITIES TO THE LIMIT. What do you DO for 7 minutes? How do you not hate it by the end? And yeah I'm really impressed by this. It manages to be varied and interesting throughout it's length. SHEER MAGIC.

But the thing about this song. The real important thing. The lead melody needs work. The one the whole song is structured around. Someone had to tell you. It's good right now. It's halfway to a good lead but it's not quite there. It's not quite catchy enough, not quite interesting or unique enough. It has to have MORE somehow. I dunno how. I'm more of a noob at this stuff than you are.

So my suggestion would be to gut this song and put a better melody in. Everything else is great - the production, the mixing. So that's it really.

ArcaneSoul responds:

rlly? I kind of like the melody :3

The lead though i can agree needs TONS of work. I was trying to experiment with different leads though since i use the same ones too much.

[More fun fer nikko]

Bah, it's way better with the ambient echo stuff :) 9/10 for the other version, 7/10 for this one. This song actually didn't make any melodic sense at first, but when I listened to the other one it clicked together.

One thing to think about: there's no bass! I generally think it's really important to have something driving - or at least filling - that lower end of the song (even though i understand that you're trying for something icey here).

Cool stuff though! The melody is quite interesting (great interplay between the instruments), which is rare for electronic music ;-)

KrrMaim responds:

~wink

[Hydroxygen]

Some thoughts

Even early on, I can tell that you really cared about making this song right.

The chord progression is a good one, but maybe switching it up every now and then would be good.

Around 2:30 the beat comes in with the pads and gated stuff and it really makes my ears confused (it keeps pulsing). That seems to be typical of technoey ravey music though, so maybe it's what you were going for, I dunno. I wont dock you.

It's really a shame that stuff like this gets nuked by 0 voters.

The lead is a great instrument, but maybe you should have worked on that melody a little more. I felt like it could have been more interesting. That was what was holding me back from really enjoying this song, I think. Maybe a build up would have been a good idea - it's kind of hard to keep a techno song interesting without changing something, be it dynamics, chord progression, etc.

My strategy (I'm not any sort of authority, though, my songs all suck) is that whenever I get a new idea I'll try to integrate it, even if it messes with my whole song structure. It kind of plays to my ADD tendencies ;)

Voted 5.

Heitoki responds:

I agree about the melody, it sounds empty. I was planning on releasing a version 2 for this song, including a piano interlude, with some background tie-in melodies.

I like the progression the way it is, but the dynamics was indeed faulty, and admittedly monotonous.

lol, i also like you, like to mess with songs "on the fly". Thats how i got the idea for the super saw, as well as the tec'ish square, which was inspired by Sonic and Knuckles boss battles.

I will work harder for dynamics though.

Ty for your input ^_^ !

[Intro(demo)]

Liking it.

The ambient voices that faded in somewhere near the 2m mark were a great touch, nice job. I felt like the piano melody in the first half had a lot of emotion to it that wasn't quite captured by the strings in the second half.

I would like to hear the rest of this song.

jpbear responds:

Yea i feel ya dude, this whole song was just a little experiment for me, i think its pretty dandy i made it all with free soundfonts. Heh this is the intro for the an epic ambient and trace track thatll be around twenty minutes ^.^, should be done in max two weeks probably one. Apreciate the review dude :)

[Inexistence]

Interesting.

This sounds pretty imaginative, but you seem restricted by production. A lot of the instruments should have wanted to burst through my headphones, but instead came off muted. I can tell that you have good ideas, though, which I appreciate. Work a bit on the melodies. I want your song to reach out and grab me.

Par0xysM responds:

Thank you very much, I appreciate the advice!