johnfn's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[The First Armada]

== This is an official NGUAC Review ==

Okay, first things first. THAT BASE LINE. I LOVE IT. It's just so goofy and fun! When the other melodic instruments started coming in, I knew that I was in for a fun time, and I was totally right. This song is a total joy, it reminds me of racing around in Mario Kart or having fun on a sunny day if you don't play video games =P The composition style here is just really enjoyable and fun.

As for things to improve, definitely think about the mix. I have a guide in my profile, you might want to read it! An easy win would be to just turn down a lot of the reverb you have going here, and then once you've done that, turn up the drums a little bit.

Great stuff though! A really enjoyable and fun listen =)

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

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

Overall: 8.4

Quebi responds:

Thanks a ton! But if you've ever listened to all of Axel F, you can tell that had an influence. To the point that when I originally named the project, it was Axel G until I could come up with something

[Almighty Destruction]

== This is an official NGUAC Review ==

Well, for a track named Almighty Destruction, I feel like you hit the mood you were aiming for 100% - this track sounds like it's the end of the world and the heroes have to stave off the evil or be annihilated entirely! So yeah, the sound choice and design is all working in this one - the choir, trumpets and everything sound great. The progression also works - it definitely has that feeling of finality to it, and it drives the track forward very well.

What's not working so great is the mix itself. The drums aren't nearly loud enough in the mix (they should almost certainly be the loudest element!), and there's almost no bass to speak of. Try comparing your mix to known good mixes by professionals and seeing what easy changes you can make to sound closer to their tracks!

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

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

Overall: 8.1

Nedwin04 responds:

Thanks for the feedback john!

I must admit mixing is not my strong point; I used to be criticised for producing bass and drum heavy music so got a little scared and went conservative with my sound. I'll aim to get the balance right next time!

Thanks again!

[Conclusion]

== This is an official NGUAC Review ==

This is a pretty fun and enjoyable piece - the main melody is pretty cool, and the way that you add additional instruments in order to keep it interesting is a good idea.

Unfortunately, this track has a rather large problem with it - the mix. When you get into the drop, the piece completely lacks any sort of bass whatsoever, and the drums are far too quiet. Try comparing your song side by side with other songs to see if the levels seems appropriate or not.

This one is definitely a bummer to me because with a good mix and a proper arrangement that was trimmed down to, say 2-3 minutes, it could do really well!

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

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

Overall: 6.6

Azuleux responds:

Damn, well, thanks for the feedback! I'll keep it in mind next time

[Arkanoid]

== This is an official NGUAC Review ==

This is a fun track. I definitely want to commend you for your fun melodies - you've definitely written some really fun to listen to stuff here, and I gotta give you props for that! The square wave melody in particular is really fun.

However, a track can not exist on melodies alone (as much as I've tried to argue for the opposite...). While you've got your melodies in place, the sound design and mixing definitely need help. Try referring to my mixing guide on my profile, or referring to other professional tracks to see how they approach those two areas for help. One big problem - make sure that when you have piano melodies, that not all notes are the same loudness. This makes a big difference.

Also P.S. as much as I love the 16 random modulations in this track (I think you get some sort of award for most modulations!), you definitely want to build into them in some way - like put crashes whenever you modulate, and drum fills up to that point, or something.

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

Arrangement: 3/4
Composition: 3+/4
Sound Design: 1+/4
Production: 2/4

Overall: 7.0

mutty99 responds:

Thanks, i'm really happy to know that my melodies are fun to listen :)
I'm still learning how to use FL Studio, in particular sound design and mixing

[Miami Shredd3r]

== This is an official NGUAC Review ==

Whoa, yeah, that intro really just knocked me off my seat. It just sounds amazing and eerie in all the right ways. The production is just excellent, as well! The mix sounds really full and detailed, which is great. I really enjoy the chord progressions and overall atmosphere here.

The problems I had with this track were due in large part to the beat, unfortunately! Once the song really kicked in (0:30), I expected a nice steady beat, but unfortunately what I got was anything but that. The beat seems to have random sections of it cut out, to the point where it doesn't drive the song at all and in fact makes it feel constantly faltering and staggering around (maybe like a victim of a serial killer?!?). My other problem is that the guitar's placement in the mix is a little too deep and it's quite difficult to hear, which is the opposite of what you'd want for a track that should be guitar driven!

So yeah, this is a really awesome track unfortunately marred by two huge issues. Still some really impressive and great stuff, though!

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

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

Overall: 8.6

Joey4Track responds:

Thanks John for the feedback and leaving a review. Haha, yeah for sure my style of percussion is often unorthodox and you can hear it in almost all of my work to be honest, I'm used to it putting people off, lol. But I was never one to follow strict formats and such which is why I don't really get much into EDM these days, too many labels and rigid structure.. Especially for synthwave you always have that same driving beat and it's something I am particularly trying to avoid. I actually quite like the drums here but then again I wasn't the one getting all excited for the beat to drop so I completely see your point.

This is going to be on a game soundtrack and I am consciously trying to steer away from that typical 1-2 kick snare beat and have a different drum beat for each track(I do have one song that does have that beat but I already made it that's why you don't hear it here, lol) It's not so much the staggering victims but the killer himself who is out of sorts in his own fragmented mind. But yeah I totally understand, you were expecting it to just settle into that steady beat and it never came, sorry mate!

And damnit I knew it about the guitar! but I had people saying it was loud in a feedback session in discord so I turned it down. That was dumb. Last time I ever listen to people again.. My next submission will most likely have guitar as well so I will make sure you can feel that shit in your balls!!

Thanks man

[Paraphrase]

== This is an official NGUAC Review ==

Oh cool, an actual legitimate chiptune track. Those drums even sound authentic, like maybe they came out of famitracker or something? I dunno, but I can dig the authenticity. Unfortunately, what I don't dig so much is the mix of the track - it's far too sparse. It needs some elements to pad it out, like maybe chords played by saw waves or something.

I also think that this song is way too repetitive - you pretty much have one idea and repeat it over and over again through the entire track. Additional sections with different ideas and chord progressions could really help this track stay interesting over its runtime.

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

Arrangement: 1/4
Composition: 2/4
Sound Design: 3/4
Production: 3/4

Overall: 5.8

JigglypuffClient responds:

I know that this isn't very good. Not nearly as nice as my first submitted score. I will continue trying though. Someday I'll have it down.

[G4CE'sz - Haze]

== This is an official NGUAC Review ==

Now THIS... THIS is a hard to score track. Like, okay lets just put it out there, the mix is so so bad, I don't know what happened there but it's just not good. It's almost as if half of it got low passed or something, like everything is SO quiet and then there are a few drums that are SO loud??? And also the melodies are totally random.

But I have to say that your chord progressions are almost all really really intriguing and tasty and THAT is the saving grace for this song that prevented it from getting a really low score. I dunno exactly what you did to them but they speak exactly to my deranged sensibilities that love super weird funk chords, so great job there. I seriously can't give this song too low of a score because some of the chord progressions are like the best I've heard in the compo.

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

Arrangement: 2/4
Composition: ?????????????????????
Sound Design: 2/4
Production: 1/4

Overall: 7.0

KayJay-Artique responds:

Thank you for the review, I totally get what you mean by the bad mixing so there's a thing I shall concentrate on in the future but I'm glad to hear that I have my know-how around chords and chord progressions so thank you as well for that.
I look forward to next years NGUAC Contest and the creations from the current contest.

[Chill 2]

== This is an official NGUAC Review ==

So I wasn't totally sold on the sound design at first, but eventually I kinda slotted it into the 'vintage' section of my mind and it actually works well with the what sounds to me like slight detuning and stuff. And I have to say, this chord progression is actually very cool. Again, I wasn't totally sure if it would work at first, but the repetition really made it work well. It makes great use of a few out-of-scale chords and a well chosen III, and I also really appreciate that it's not just 1 bar to one chord, it has a neat rhythm to it. Very cool. The melody is pretty simple and not great or anything, but it gets the job done.

If I were to complain about this song, I'd say that the mix is definitely flooded at points - there are simply too many instruments all in the same place. That and the drums should be louder.

Still though, this is some cool stuff.

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

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

Overall: 8.1

Electronox responds:

Thanks for the review! I know I didn't make the cut for the next round, but I am still glad I got 8.1/10! Could you explain to me what you mean by Production? Is that like mastering? Thanks again!

[This Phoenix Will Rise]

== This is an official NGUAC Review ==

Gotta commend you on the really beautiful and atmospheric intro. I feel like I could sit there forever.

I'm not totally sold on the crazy melodies you have going, though; they are okay, but they don't really pull me in or anything, and while they do a good job following the contour of the chords (always a plus) they do feel a bit random.

At first I felt the drop was underwhelming, but eventually I realized that it's mostly underwhelming due to the lack of super loud drums that would really drive the energy in that section. The drop idea is actually pretty fun aside from those issues. =)

Fun stuff - could use some work, but not so bad as is!

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

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

Overall: 7.6

DJ-DG responds:

Thank you! Yes, even I am a fan of my intro (too much credit)? At this time I had some severe writer's block and so no good melodies really struck... couldn't really spend much time on this so I put something together (was busy). Thank you for appreciating the idea of my drop... wanted to keep it minimalistic.
Anyways, enough justifying myself... thanks for all the feedback, can tell the melodies are the main issue here. Hope the drums are audible here, not like in Luminous!

-DJ-DG

[The Alignment]

== This is an official NGUAC Review ==

Right off the bat, I have to praise you for putting the work into the arrangement. This song has many many different parts - it moves through all sorts of moods and energy levels rarely if ever sounds dull. The song has lots of tricks up its sleeve, and yet it always sounds like a coherent whole rather than multiple sections glued together. Nice work there.

However, there are a few things about this track that need additional work. The mix is a definite pain point, with a number of instruments and channels sticking out, especially during climaxes. (3:13 is a big offender, with crazy dry percussion far too loud over everything else. To be honest, a drum solo section would be great, but right now it just sounds far too dry! Reverb and compression is good.). Also, there's a melodic whistley thing around 1:15 that's so quiet I almost missed it entirely. Furthermore, your composition could use more work as well - while it's not bad, it never really catches or surprises me either.

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

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

Overall: 7.4

ColinMuir responds:

Thank you, that really helps. I found it difficult to mix during the week with everything going on, so i'll have to work on that. I loved arranging everything and all the instruments. Probably so much that i passed some parts i could have made better in the composition. Right before i submitted it i still felt something missing but couldn't find it, this helped me analyse it better.

Thanks again johnfn :)

- Colin