johnfn's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Just a Little Improv]

i enjoyed it yeahhhh good playing yes good job, also what's that chord at 2:27, its wonderful

LucidShadowDreamer responds:

I think that's just a normal F# (or Gb) dim, diminished chord. Aka, start with any note, and go up three semitones for the next note. Keep doing it and you have that almost horror style diminished chord :D

Glad ya enjoyed it, thanks for checking it out! :D

P.S. I play a broken up diminished chord between 1:02-1:05

[Don't Give Up]

hahaha this is wonderful man! i love these kind of ngadm surprises.

the missing hamilton track???

bassfiddlejones responds:

HOW DOES A BASTARD, ORPHAN, SON OF A...

[Last Hope]

fantastic writing my friend!! im too lazy to critique right now, just wanna say this rocks. ok bye

CloakedSoup responds:

Haha thanks!

[Gladiolus]

wow we both did 1 more singer than normal

also, wow your melody writing is even better than before. :o

etherealwinds responds:

three vs three baby

yay i improved a thing!

good luck grant <3

[A Dude Named Grant]

who is this mysterious grant person everyone keeps talking about

P.S. /SO/ tempted to leave a 9/10 review that just says "you added reverb" but...... nah let's keep that nice row of stars ;-)

Onefin responds:

relax, the version on the chips website has no reverb

i think

[Invisible Magic]

i think the core idea of this song is phenomenal, even better than your last one. /however/ the song has a couple of problems that really nag me...

first off, i dont think the song really starts until "what I want for me", which is about halfway through the song! once you do get to that point, THE SONG IS AMAZING. but that intro just... it doesn't really do anything? It's nice, it's chill, it's not offensive at all, but compared to the absolutely bonkers good second half, it almost seems like it should be part of another song.

second off, why on earth does "we all carry it" fade out?? i mean the sighing vocals you fade into are really nice and stuff but, ugh, its such a wasted opportunity for an AMAZING transition! like imagine if instead of fading it built and built into the "i need to be loved" section??? IT WOULD BE SO GOOD.

finally, the mix needs some more love tbh. i disagree strongly with proudaardvark, the vocals (particularly in the "i need to be loved" section) need to be brought much more to the front! at a section like 2:30 they're dangerously close to falling into the "background instrumentation" bucket, which makes no sense at all for a song which should so clearly be driven by vocals! and also, imagine how good this song would sound with bigger drums in that climactic final section?!? UGH

you still get 10/10 from me because this song is amazing. so i guess with those issues fixed it would be an 11/10 or so... =P

FinnMK responds:

Haha, well all good comments. Tbh I agree with most of it and I knew about much of it when I released the song. I was limited by time on this one; I knew I wouldn't have (and I haven't) time to work on it in the last three days of the round, so it got released with some errors and incomplete thoughts.

At the end of the day, I think the core idea is really solid even if my execution of it isn't. You have some great musical ideas for it!

[g o o d t h i n g]

the mix is actually perfect on my end, maybe you should add a few more compressors?

midimachine responds:

これは良いこと！

[Jealousy]

It's been a delight watching this one go through various stages of development. Congrats on probably my favorite NGADM track this year.

1:30 <3

McGorilla42 responds:

Thank you, John! <3 1:30 is just for you (I told the same to Jordi, but don't tell him)

[Rat In the Attic (Mix 2)]

== This is an official NGUAC Review ==

Mini-scores (not used to calculate final score in any way - just so you know what needs improvement):

Wow yea vocal song! Your vocals are pretty good for the most part, though I have to say that every now and then there's a word that you don't quite sing with the same force or that is slightly out of tune (like "do" in the first line), but overall your vocal quality is high and sounds great! The mix is still kind of weird, even though you said that you remastered this one - it has a lot of highs and the bass seems rather disproportionate. (Also the drum kit is pretty hard to hear.)

If I were to give advice to improve this song, I'd probably head in the direction of composition. While the composition definitely isnt /bad/, it kinda just... fell flat? Like it didn't really stand out or anything. It's hard to say why, part of it could simply be that it's hard to hear the chord progression and how it lines up with the vocals.

Arrangement: 3+/4
Composition: 2+/4
Sound Design: 3/4
Production: 2+/4

Overall: 8.0

verbicidemusic responds:

Thanks for the review! That bass man... I really should've re-recorded it all together to be honest, as the initial tone I had was just impossible to work with, haha. And for a song like this that relies so much on the guitars being more coloration and mood establishment, the bass really needed to come out and act as the anchor more than it did. But that aside, I really appreciate the feedback and I'm glad you enjoyed my vocals as much as you did!

[Voodoo Nightmares]

== This is an official NGUAC Review ==

Man, this track is all over the place!

Like, I'm really impressed by that sorta growly vox like synth that you have going in the drops, and I also really like the arpeggiated stuff that you lead off the song with. Those are both really cool. Your production sounds pretty impressive (with a few caveats); the drums and clap are loud for the most part.

However, this piece also has a number of large flaws to it. First of all, it is just far far too repetitive. Right now there are some sections that are just repeated way too much, like the aforementioned growly synth and the pluck melody. The other big problem with this track is that although the production sounds alright, something seems... off. It seems almost like it's clipping at points, but it's hard to put a finger on exactly what the problem is. Like 2:03 when the kick hits, that does NOT sound like a normal kick to me, it sounds very distorted.

So yeah, cool stuff, but needs to be trimmed down and whatever that kick is doing definitely sounds weird to me.

Mini-scores (not used to calculate final score in any way - just so you know what needs improvement):

Arrangement: 2/4
Composition: 2+/4
Sound Design: 3/4
Production: 2+/4

Overall: 6.7

UnavailableSurm responds:

Thank you, and I will most definitely improve!