johnfn's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Mockingbird]

== This is an NGAUC Knock-Out Round Review ==

Now this is a really interesting track. I can’t say that I’ve heard anything even close to similar in the NGAUC so far, and that is usually a good thing.

The massive wall of guitars and feedback is a really good idea, and I think that they do a very good job of feeling powerful, yet emotional. However, the problem is that you seem to have trouble keeping them under control - they muddy up the mix, obscuring the drums and the piano, which both desperately need to be louder (the drums more so than the piano).

I’m not totally sold on the intro. The piano sounds very mechanical (this is a pet peeve of mine, as a pianist :P) - you need to vary those velocities - and honestly, I’m not even sure if it’s necessary. However, the sudden transition into heavy metal is effective.

I do like the dissonance - it can be a very effective way to bring about emotion - but what I don’t like is when the notes are straight up off key, like the piano is around 1:43. (This is also a good example of where the piano buried in the mix.)

It may seem like I’ve been pretty critical during this review, and I have, but there’s one thing that has really been a saving grace throughout this song: the great progression! The progression in combination with the guitars just works so darn well, and you accentuate it with little piano flourishes in just the right ways, that I’m willing to overlook some of the mixing issues because the track has such a great mood behind it.

So this track’s mix definitely needs to be reigned in, but I see a really good song buried in it. Keep at it.

Overall Score: 7.5/10

Mini-Scores (see here: http://johnfn.newgrounds.com/news/post/936953):
* Composition: 3+/4
* Arrangement: 3/4
* Mixing: 1/4

IndustryStandard responds:

Interesting and different are two of my favorite adjectives to have attributed to me and/or my work, so thank you! People always said I'd be great as some kind of undiscovered mold or fungus, but that career didn't really pan out for me, as I am a human.

The guitars were definitely a bit of a struggle to mix, and it's something that tugged on the corner of my mind after i submitted the song for sure. I messed around with mixing for a while but that's just something i haven't quite gotten the hang of yet. I've come a long way over the past few months, so seeing a 1/4 for the mixing is a bit disheartening but i definitely understand why it's so low.

As for the piano intro, in fairness to me I DID actually mess with the velocity of the notes, but I guess the velocities weren't varied enough? That or the instrument i was using(a sampler that comes with Reason) doesn't actually change the sounds when you change the notes' velocities. or option number 3, which is i don't know how piano velocities look or how it's supposed to sound when played naturally. Could I tell the difference if my MIDI version and an actual human played version were played back to back? most definitely. But I'm not quite sure how to take a MIDI composition and translate that into something a little more human, not yet. Something to work on, i guess, but I digress;

The atonal part at 1:43 was a straight fuck up on my part. I was messing around with making a variance on the intro riff but couldn't find anything that sounded good, and i guess i just forgot to put those few notes back in place. Kind of a facepalm moment for me, to be honest haha. And yeah, duly noted about the mix.

I don't at all fault you for being critical. It never feels good to hear people think anything less of your own creations than you do yourself, but to deny or ignore these things is far worse in my opinion. You've really helped me outline my strong points(ambience and progression, if I'm understanding everything right) while letting those strong points highlight what is holding the project back, which is really the best way to review something. Thanks for the advice!

[Fanfare in c minor]

== This is an NGAUC Knock-Out Round Review ==

Let’s get the obvious out of the way: an organ fanfare! I really wasn’t expecting that. (Though I do seem to remember the judges mentioning a 7-minute toccata in the previous round - that must have been you :P)

Not only that, but you’re not just all talk. It really does seem to follow a lot of the idioms of the “genre”. That is pretty darn impressive, super cool to see, and rare as heck.

However, I have to tell the truth - it’s very difficult for me to concentrate on this entire piece. To be honest, I don’t listen to very many single-instrument organ pieces, so I’m not sure if the flaw is with you or if it’s just accoutrements to the “genre", but this piece is in desperate need of structural variation. It’s constantly moving between one idea to the next idea without ever slowing down, which makes it quite an exhausting listen. In future pieces, you would find it super helpful to add slower (or less intricate) sections to break up the main sections.

If I compare to one of the more famous organ pieces (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipzR9bhei_o) - alright, perhaps it’s not fair to compare you to Bach, but even without going too deep into the composition it’s easy to see that Bach takes lots of breaks - some times he just goes silent for a little bit, sometimes he just has runs (which are easier to follow), sometimes he just repeats the same phrase a few times, etc. All these things help maintain the listener’s interest.

So I hope that helps you understand a little more where I’m coming from. I think that you have a bunch of great ideas in here, but as it is right now, the arrangement really isn’t letting me get to them. Keep at it!

Overall Score: 7/10

Mini-Scores (see here: http://johnfn.newgrounds.com/news/post/936953):
* Composition: 3/4
* Arrangement: 1/4
* Mixing: n/a

[Lost Signals]

== This is an NGAUC Knock-Out Round Review ==

I have to say that unfortunately I am just not a huge fan of this one.

First of all, the drums really stand out to me as being far too aggressive and repetitive - the kick hits so often it feels like a machine gun! I understand that this can work in certain types of music, but in this song I feel like it doesn’t really work well with the rest of the instruments, which seem to be quite a bit slower.

Furthermore, when you have both bass instruments and the drums playing at the same time - for example, 2:35 - the drums seem quite buried and hard to hear in the mix.

I do enjoy the melody that pops up in the left ear - the little pitch bend and vibrato that the melody gets a few times are both great touches. What I’m not as big of a fan of is the extremely buzzy instrument at e.g. 1:26. The melody doesn’t seem to be that compelling, and at times it’s a bit difficult to even follow, because the instrument goes so low that I can’t tell which note it’s hitting. The music is very aggressive in a way that is unfortunately just not that enjoyable for me.

I think my favorite part of this song would be the piano. It’s a really cool idea that I wish you had explored more! As for the rest of the song, I have to admit that I just don’t find it to be that enjoyable or compelling.

Overall Score: 4.5/10

Mini-Scores (see here: http://johnfn.newgrounds.com/news/post/936953):
* Composition: 1/4
* Arrangement: 3/4
* Mixing: 2/4

[Asian Workshop]

== This is an NGAUC Knock-Out Round Review ==

Dang, this piece is definitely bite sized, but what a tasty bite!

I had no idea what to expect when I saw the title “Asian Workshop”, and yet now that I’ve heard this piece, I can’t think of any other way I’d expect an asian workshop to sound! I like how you use some sounds that definitely sound asian, like the vocal sample at :20, the moving parallel fourths (I think that’s what they are, anyways), the pluck noises etc, but nothing sounds like a stereotype or a cliche.

To me, the sidechaining around the kick seems wrong. I also wanted a more organic sounding drumset, like those found in 90’s rap (e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZWS6CITutY). Your kit is really electronic, which honestly doesn’t go with the rest of your sounds at all. This is probably the biggest error of the piece (well, outside of the length of the piece), and I can only imagine how awesome this piece would be with a more acoustic kit!

If I’m critiquing your sounds, I have to say also that the one at :32 jars just a little bit. It’s a little too dry and distorted in the mix, I think. Just about everything else in the track fits together very well, especially the single well chosen spoken vocal sample.

Overall, I think that this piece is very creative and compelling, but it’s simply just not long enough to be a solid contender. I love the ideas that you’ve presented here, and if you were to develop them more, I think I could have given you a *much* higher score. I’m definitely convinced you know what you’re doing here, so it’s a bit of a shame! Ah well. “very cool” indeed :)

Overall Score: 8/10

Mini-Scores (see here: http://johnfn.newgrounds.com/news/post/936953):
* Composition: 3+/4
* Arrangement: 2/4
* Mixing: 3/4

[Sledgehammer]

== This is an NGAUC Knock-Out Round Review ==

Well dang. I have to say, you pretty much nailed the mix here (with a few minor exceptions). The kick is loud as heck, the basses are properly bassey, and so forth.

You’ve got all the nice swooshy and cool aspects of EDM in here. The sound design seems true to form, and it even has a couple of nice unique touches - my favorite of which is the piano! I really wished you had done more with the piano, actually, because I thought that was a great touch that made the piece a bit more emotional.

I have to say, the minute-long intro was not really convincing me, and I was kinda worried that this song was going to go nowhere until the melody appeared. A little more progression towards the drop in the first minute could help this problem.

I wish that the drop would have reiterated the melody in a higher octave. I feel like the octave and instrument that first express the melody is the best one, so I really wanted you to bring that back during the drop. The melody brought down a few octaves sounds less interesting to me.

Although the mixing was generally solid, like I mentioned, there was one flaw I noticed: at e.g. 3:01 I hear some piano chords, which sound like they could be really cool, but they are buried like HECK behind everything else, and I could barely even make them out. This is interesting to me because the rest of your mix sounds pretty solid, but this is a rather serious error.

All in all, this is a good attempt at an EDM track, but I feel like the piece really doesn’t have that many ideas to it. The buildups were not very compelling - I think they could have used some more effects, but they seemed rather dry. And the song really only has two melodies, which necessarily sound stretched thin when they’re used to fill 3 minutes and 30 seconds. So in sum, the song is a good start, but it needs more of your ideas in it!

Overall Score: 5/10

Mini-Scores (see here: http://johnfn.newgrounds.com/news/post/936953):
* Composition: 2/4
* Arrangement: 3/4
* Mixing: 3+/4

[Boundaries]

== This is an NGAUC Knock-Out Round Review ==

So, first things first. HOLY CRAP. This piece has a lot of energy. A LOT. I can’t remember hearing a piece with so much energy. It’s pretty freaking nuts. And of course it’s totally a chiptune thing to go completely overboard with energy levels, so you totally nailed that. Well done!

I have to commend you for trying something new for this competition! That’s what competitions are all about, after all - learning! Well, that and crushing your foes, but mostly learning. :P With a few reservations, which I’ll get into later, this experiment was a success.

I know a lot of people are going to say that the drums are not authentic chiptune drums and you should therefore feel bad about yourself (or something), but I say: ignore them. It’s totally valid to do chiptune with non-chiptune drums, and the results can sometimes be awesome. I think your drum choice worked pretty darn well here, though perhaps you could have chosen a slightly more beefier kit.

I also think that your glitching was a pretty cool touch.

But yeah, this track has some problems, so let’s get into those. The largest problem, by far, is the repetitive nature of the track. You repeat the main riff far too much. In my mind, the absolute longest that I would have been okay with you repeating the riff would be up to :47. That’s the point where I started thinking on my first listen that this track was repetitive. Unfortunately, you continue to repeat it up until 1:22, and then you bring it back shortly after and loop it for the rest of the track. This is too much - it makes it sound like you are out of ideas and the song starts to become grating.

The mixing is generally pretty solid. My only complaints would be that the bass might be a little too loud - dominating the rest of the frequency spectrum even when it shouldn’t be - and sometimes the mix sounds slightly cluttered, for instance when you have two mid-range instruments going at 3:37 (the melody and the arp).

I am not very convinced by the solo at 2:10. The instrument just doesn’t sound right to me - it’s not nearly aggressive enough for the rest of this insanely aggressive song, and I think the melody could be a bit more interesting (and faster!)

So overall, this is a pretty neat track, but it has a very large flaw - the repetition! Without that, I think this track would have been much more solid.

Overall Score: 6.5/10

Mini-Scores (see here: http://johnfn.newgrounds.com/news/post/936953):
* Composition: 3/4
* Arrangement: 1/4
* Mixing: 3+/4

Adhenoid responds:

Thank you very much for the review, John!! It really helps a lot!! :D

I learnt so many positive things by participating on NGAUC!! XD

[Ravages of War]

== This is an NGAUC Knock-Out Round Review ==

First things first. Your composition is on point! The melodies are perfect for the scene that you’re trying to portray. The melody you open (and close) with is perfectly mournful. You later harmonize it with a vocal-sounding instrument at :59, which is a great decision. You then move into a separate section exactly when I hoped that you would, and the two sections work together perfectly! This kind of thing makes me happy.

Not only that, but the instrumentation is excellent too. I wish I knew what all these instruments were called, but sadly I barely do any orchestral music, so I really have no clue. :P Nonetheless, both the pluck and flute-like instrument at :22 are excellent, as is the reverb that you put on, and the very quiet background pad. It sounds to me like you also cut off some of the highs of the instruments here, which is, again, an awesome choice! It makes the piece sound distant in a way that really heightens the melancholy.

I really enjoy the stripped down arrangement here - it works perfectly for the mood. The gradual build at 2:05 is great, though I admit that I wish that you would have signaled it coming from a little earlier. I’m also not a huge fan of how the climax of the piece is just repeated twice - I think it should feel a little different the second time around, to maintain my interest.

I even hear a couple of really neat chords, like the brief appearance of a minor major seventh at 1:24.

A curious thing happens at 2:15, though. The bass is building and so I am expecting a more emotional section to come - and then suddenly right at 2:15, all the bass drops away. This was kind of disappointing - I was hoping for a fully fleshed out climax, but none came!

I also have a minor quibble with the end of the piece - it sounds like the song is stumbling around a little . For instance, is there a reason that the note at 2:38 is held an extra couple of beats? I hear this happen a couple of times towards the end of the track, and I’m left wondering why - it makes the song sound a little undirected.

Finally, although I do enjoy this piece, it could be improved, and if you really wanted to improve it - while still retaining the sparseness of the piece - I think you’d have to push your melodies a little harder. Yeah, they’re pretty darn good already, but if you really want to do a piece that doesn’t have much in the way of multiple instrument complexity or arrangement, the only real thing left to do is improve the melodies.

Overall Score: 8.5

Mini-Scores (see here: http://johnfn.newgrounds.com/news/post/936953):
* Composition: 4/4
* Arrangement: 3/4
* Mixing: 4/4

DSykMusic responds:

Thanks for the review and for staying happy :)
I admit I did get a little lazy with repeated the string part twice. I'll likely update it when I later come back to this project. Hopefully I'll also focus on the bass buildup part as well.

[Amarelo Preto (Blackanese)]

== This is an NGAUC Knock-Out Round Review ==

This is a super interesting and cool piece. It has a really unique, chillout vibe that makes it stand out from most of the other tracks in the NGAUC, and that is very cool. The piano chords have a great jazzy, relaxed vibe to them.

You have a great ear for samples, and the ones that you selected work together magnificently to create a piece that’s way more than the sum of its parts.

The arrangement is really interesting to me. I don’t really get bored listening to this piece, which is especially interesting considering that not too much happens in this piece - it keeps the same piano chords, vocal melody etc. throughout the whole song. You do a really good job of adding and removing small elements like percussion, piano solos, and so forth to keep interest.

However, while I don’t really get *bored* listening to this piece, I’m not really *interested* by the arrangement either, since again, not too much happens. This I’m not going to let you off the hook for! I think that additional sections in this piece - with different instrumentation, ideally - would make it a lot more interesting.

I am somewhat indifferent on the piano soloing. I think it’s a great idea and adds a lot of interest to the arrangement, but the actual melody itself could be a bit more evocative. At times, it also sounds off beat.

I’ve noticed a few problems with the mix. I’ll go ahead and list them off. First, those piano chords. They sound really deep and reverbed, and I have to say that I’m not the biggest fan of how they’re presented: they sound a bit muddy to me, and they make the mix feel muddy as well. They also obscure the baseline pretty badly. I didn’t even realize there was one until I looped the song and heard it before the piano dominated it. (The bass at 1:40 has a bit more presence, however.) Unfortunately, since the whole song is built around these chords, this is a pretty big hit - I think with a different timbre it could have been much better. The soulful vocal is a very cool touch, but it’s desperately in need of reverb and/or delay: it’s far too dry in the mix, and that makes it jar. The percussion is pretty well mixed, with the exception of the kick drum, which I have difficulty hearing because of the piano/bass combination.

This is a really interesting piece - keep it up.

Score: 6.5

Mini-Scores (see here: http://johnfn.newgrounds.com/news/post/936953):
* Composition: 3/4
* Arrangement: 2/4
* Mixing: 2/4

DeadlyAlchemy responds:

EHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I KNEW THOSE PIANO CHORDS WEREN'T GOOD DAMMIT

Even so, I'm really happy with a score of 6.5 considering I managed to make this in 2 days.
I'm certainly going to take notes and fix this up because it's one of my better songs and it always has the potential to be better with improvement, so thank you for taking the time to listen and give such a thorough review.

[Jewel]

== I wasn’t your judge for the NGAUC, but here’s some criticism anyways. ==

Wow! I’ve always appreciated your music, but it’s generally not been the sort of music that I would seek out. (With a few exceptions like Mote Prime, because I love post-rock). To be clear, it’s not bad music - it’s generally pretty friggin' amazing - but I have to admit, I don’t tend to listen to jazz fusion all too much. It’s just personal taste.

(Though you are doing a pretty darn good job of convincing me to get into jazz fusion, but let’s not get into that...)

Which makes it all the more interesting that I actually REALLY like this song and I would TOTALLY burn it on a mix-tape. (Assuming anyone actually made those anymore.) The first time I listened to it, the chorus really caught me, and I looped it a few times immediately - not even judging it, just enjoying it - which is pretty darn rare.

If anything, I think that the song is a bit short! The chorus is so good that I think it definitely could have been repeated one more time at the end, perhaps with a little more melodic variation like you started to do on the final chorus.

I do have a couple of dumb nit-picks. Someone already mentioned that there are a couple of places where you sing off pitch. This is definitely something to watch out for, though I don’t think I can remember that happening in your past songs. A slightly larger thing that bothered me is the way that your lyrics felt like they would stumble in on the first beat of the measure. “You’re fine”, “You’re mine” etc seemed like they were trying to fit into a single syllable. It bothered me a lot in my first few listens, but less now, so I’m not sure if I got used to it, or if it’s not bad. (On the other hand, I really like how the last word of the previous phrase is the first word of the new measure! It’s such a cool idea, and you make it work great with the melody.) The ending is a little abrupt - I think you could have held the word “closer” for a beat or two more.

I wanted to hear a more epic guitar solo, but that’s only because you spoiled me with like 6 of them in your last song :P

My last criticism is that the handling of the drums seems a *little* off sometimes, particularly when I mentally compare with professional tracks, but I’m having difficulty putting my finger on exactly why. (You know you’re doing pretty good when I’m pulling out professional tracks to compare against.) It’s not the tone of the drums that bothers me, though. One thing I’ve noticed is that you REALLY like to put a flanger on the drums. I’m not sure if it’s bad so much as I just hear you do it a lot ;-) Maybe what bothered me is the use of cymbals towards the end? I think you are using them a little too much - I expect to hear the constant cymbals for really energetic songs, but this one is fairly laid back. It may also just be the 5/4 - without any sort of subdivision the drums kinda make the song feel like it’s lurching forward unevenly.

So if you want to improve, I’d say to head in the direction of drums, but I don’t know exactly what it is. You’re a smart musician, you figure it out! ;-)

This is my favorite of the NGAUC tracks I listened to this round (through I only listened to about half of them.)

Overall Score: 10/10

Mini-Scores:

* Composition: 4+/4
* Arrangement: 4/4
* Mixing: 4/4

Kor-Rune responds:

THANK YOUUU for such a comprehensive review! I will do everything I can to sing better or not at all LMAO. I do abuse the drum flange and the cymbal wash, I'll try new stuff haha! Appreciate all the effort and love johnfn ILY <3