johnfn's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Chicken Dinner]

=== This is an NGAUC Audition Round Review ===

My god. You, my friend, have a way with your trills. I just love trilled melodies and you pretty much hit it out of the park. Your melodies all have a fantastic sense of rhythm to them that I usually don't hear from musicians twice as experienced as you! So really good job on that. Both your melodies and rhythms are good. What is not so good is your sound design. In general, I hate to admit it, but the sound design honestly leaves a lot to be desired, and makes your song sound a little amateur. I'd encourage you to check out chiptune, partially because I'm biased as a chiptune composer, but also because I think your melodic style would really tend to it well. In any case, neat stuff! Keep at it.

Mini-scores (See http://johnfn.newgrounds.com/news/post/936953 for what this means and how to improve)
Mixing: 3/4
Arrangement: 3/4
Composition: 3/4
Overall (this is not an average): 6.5/10

[Honest Mind (studio)]

=== This is an NGAUC Audition Round Review ===

Okay, I have to admit. I wasn't totally sold by this song... UNTIL. Until i got to the awesome section from 2:15-3:00. That section is just great in every regard. I almost wish that that section comprised a greater part of the song (like maybe repeat it at the beginning of the song)? The rest of the song is also pretty good, but I do feel like that section is a standout. Good stuff overall. I'm not always a fan of the really heavy stuff, but I did enjoy this song.

Mini-scores (See http://johnfn.newgrounds.com/news/post/936953 for what this means and how to improve)
Mixing: 3/4
Arrangement: 3/4
Composition: 3/4
Overall (this is not an average): 7.5/10

[oscinian - bubbles]

=== This is an NGAUC Audition Round Review ===

It's kind of funny to me that you've classified this as Dance. In my mind, this sort of heady and thoughtful music is about as far away from Dance as I could imagine. (Don't worry, I don't dock points because of incorrect genre specifications!) I enjoy this song, however. I mean, it takes a long time to get into the good stuff, and it makes me wonder if the intro is *really* worth it, but that's a small criticism. Once we hit 1:00, we get into this really interesting, pad-dominated, ambient section. There are even nice melodies on top of it, what more could I ask for? I'll tell you what I could ask for: a better beat. if the drums in this song were closer to hip hop drums - like heavier, maybe a little distorted - I think it could be a really awesome ambient piece. I still like it for what it is, though!

Mini-scores (See http://johnfn.newgrounds.com/news/post/936953 for what this means and how to improve)
Mixing: 3/4
Arrangement: 3/4
Composition: 3/4
Overall (this is not an average): 7.5/10

[THE DARK EXPERIMENT - Noedig (Rushed)]

=== This is an NGAUC Audition Round Review ===

Whoa. First things first. I love the chords in the intro section. The pads playing those very weird and dissonant chords which I'm actually liking a lot! It reminds me al little of a horror movie or something unsettling. And then after a bit of that, you transition into a separate section where you just blast me with gated pads. And you know what, I'm totally onboard with that too. The transition from one to the other was very satisfying, IMO. There are 2 things lacking from this song, however. First is the sound design; a lot of your sound design choices sound a bit amateur. That's just something that comes with time. The second is the composition. While I love your dissonant chord progressions in the first section, your melodies mostly seem to be a bit random. I do however appreciate the overall structure of the track and the transition from dissonant into the more energetic section, and the reintroduction of the dissonant chords in the end!

Mini-scores (See http://johnfn.newgrounds.com/news/post/936953 for what this means and how to improve)
Mixing: 3/4
Arrangement: 3/4
Composition: 1/4
Overall (this is not an average): 6.5/10

Syzion responds:

Your score is very much a compliment to me, because I personally still think the music is pretty shit.
Thank you!

[Density Shift]

=== This is an NGAUC Audition Round Review ===

Yo, so that chord progression that you lead into the drop with is really awesome! Unfortunately, the drop isn't nearly as cool. The chord progression had some real interest in it, but the heavy section of the drop is just not really catching me. What DID catchy me however, is the AWESOME MELODY AFTER THE DROP. That melody is freaking awesome and I love you. Probably one of the best I've heard in the competition! I actually can't understand why the drop gets so much focus in this song, since the melody is like way better than the drop, let's be honest. If you truncated out some of the more boring parts, this would probably get one of my highest scores of the round. It still gets a high score because the melody is awesome. Good stuff!

Mini-scores (See http://johnfn.newgrounds.com/news/post/936953 for what this means and how to improve)
Mixing: 4/4
Arrangement: 2/4
Composition: 4/4
Overall (this is not an average): 8/10

[Inflated Peanuts]

=== This is an NGAUC Audition Round Review ===

This is a really interesting song. Like, it seems kind of amateur in some ways (the instruments are really harsh and sometimes the melody is just totally random and out of control), but at other points, you seem like you know what you're doing. You've arranged the song well so that it never becomes repetitive, and the main melody is actually not that bad! I'm a big fan of chiptune, so I'd say to work on your sound design choice and make stuff a little more wet with reverb, but this is an intriguing start. Also, props on the drop - that was unexpected as anything!

Mini-scores (See http://johnfn.newgrounds.com/news/post/936953 for what this means and how to improve)
Mixing: 3/4
Arrangement: 3/4
Composition: 3/4
Overall (this is not an average): 7/10

[N1NJA - Origins]

=== This is an NGAUC Audition Round Review ===

Wow, right off the bat I have to admit that I really love your sound design. The kick is nice and the plucks really stand out to me as being outrageously good sounding. If those plucks were a girl, I would definitely take her on a date and be to embarrassed to say anything. Er, but yeah, nice sound design. The kick could have a little more bass to it, however. As much as I love your sound design, I feel like where this song is really lacking is in the arrangement - it feels far too repetitive, and the chord progression does not change noticeably, which is generally no good unless your melodies are amazing. I actually enjoy your melodies, but the song needs more variation in the arrangement to really shine.

Mini-scores (See http://johnfn.newgrounds.com/news/post/936953 for what this means and how to improve)
Mixing: 3/4
Arrangement: 2/4
Composition: 3/4
Overall (this is not an average): 7.5/10

[[HadenTheCreeper] -Rival-]

=== This is an NGAUC Audition Round Review ===

Like the other guy said, distortion is a big no no. It's like turning in an english essay with typos or grammar mistakes. Anyways. The chiptune arp thingies floating above the otherwise smooth pads give this piece a really interesting vibe. In fact, I have to say, I like your approach to composition in general - the big smooth pads are really enjoyable. I'm not quite sure that I like the buzzy, hard stuff at 1:30, but fortunately you get right back to the smooth pads. Good choice. This is a very fascinating, interesting piece. If you were to get the fundamentals down - no clipping or distortion, fix up your levels so that the drums are nice and loud, and don't transition randomly into buzzy stuff when non buzzy stuff is working so well for you - this piece would be REALLY good. I even like it as is, although it is quite flawed.

Mini-scores (See http://johnfn.newgrounds.com/news/post/936953 for what this means and how to improve)
Mixing: 2/4
Arrangement: 2/4
Composition: 3/4
Overall (this is not an average): 8/10

MrCreeperGeometryDas responds:

Thanks for the review!
I would always like to improve, so I will look at your audio and see what I can improve on.
This is also an old song, I make my percussion sound better with the music now.

[Unfortunately Unforgettable]

=== This is an NGAUC Audition Round Review ===

Holy... so I almost wrote this off as terrible, but then all this awesome stuff started happening. (In particular, 0:28 to 0:44 is just phenomenal.) So I almost called this song awesome, but then it got really messy again. To me, it sounds like you are a very talented composer - some of your melodies are just fantastic here. However, and this is a very large however, your approach to sharing these melodies in the world is to take the worst possible instruments you can find and PLAY THEM ALL AT THE SAME TIME. So, like, please please spend some more time on sound design in the future! Because I love a lot of your melodies (this is very rare for me), but I just can't get over the sound design and arrangement aspects of this song.

Mini-scores (See http://johnfn.newgrounds.com/news/post/936953 for what this means and how to improve)
Mixing: 2/4
Arrangement: 2/4
Composition: 4/4
Overall (this is not an average): 6.5/10

mrcoolisimo responds:

Thanks for the critique!