johnfn's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[_Clouds]

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

Whoa! Even on the first listen, I was really taken aback by this piece. All the set pieces of EDM are there, but you take it in a much different direction - a direction that has really cool sounding chords and melodies.

I have to say, your melodies and solos are really unique and cool. The melodies and chord progressions are probably my favorite aspect of this piece, and that is just SO satisfying to say in a genre where melodies and progressions are usually eschewed in favor of loud obnoxious build ups

I really enjoy the processing that you’ve put on that lead. There is this really bizarre effect that happens when you pitch-bend it - it’s almost as if it splits into a bunch of little leads and they pitch-bend at different times. I’ve never heard anything quite like that, and it’s a very cool, effective idea that adds to the trippy atmosphere of the piece. The sound design is great, which I could tell almost immediately upon opening your track and hearing the nice plucks.

The mixing is on point as well. The kick and snare are loud as heck - almost too loud, perhaps?

I have to say, this piece is pretty friggin' good. The way that you’ve taken EDM and turned it inside out, with interesting chord progressions, cool effects and processing that I’ve never heard before is pretty impressive. Well done.

Overall Score: 8.5/10

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

trunotfals responds:

Thank you for your great review! And thank you so much for being a part of choosing me to be in the knock-out round! To be honest I would've liked to hear more of how I could've improved! Haha but nonetheless it's good to know the strengths I can focus on. Thank you so much.

I'm very glad you appreciated my take on EDM. I love to hear artists like FEED ME or VARIEN or WRLD do much more complicated things with their music. I love to hear unique complicated chord progressions, the ones that grab your ear like "ooooooooooooh whats that" and then force you to pull out your old theory notebooks and figure it out yourself. (If you're a theory nerd like me) That kind of feeling was my biggest inspiration for the chord structure of this song. Which is what I started with and built off of as well. The melody was one of those things where you play the chord progression over and over, and have an idea of your drop, and then you just sit there and listen over and over, until you start to hear a melody. and then slowly let it form into the program. One that just....speaks to you xD 0.o.

The effect you're hearing on the lead is simply a delay on the voice, automated to turn up JUST on the end of the voice, so that it only delays that little tail end of the phrase when i pitch bend it up and down, and timed just right so it sound unnatural and kind of makes you not realize it's a delay at all. I'm glad you appreciated it it was a big effect I wanted to sell. YAY. Wanted to add that kind of transcendent out of body experience-likeness to it, the kind of feeling you'd have if you were actually free flying. Like "is this really happening?"..."Descending back to reality...." (?)

And as I said with SkyeWint, I'm glad the mixing was appreciated by you guys, I'm going to make sure I use similar techniques and levels in my knockout round piece, cause this was the first time I think I hit the sweet spot in my mix. I can't forget how to do that. (yay FL 12 for being so streamlined)

Well once again, Thank you for being a part of choosing me to be one of the ones to move on. I'm a little shocked, extremely happy, and very nervous to start my next song.

[Blueberries']

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

This is a good start to a piece! However, in its current state, I have to say that I don’t really enjoy it. Let me see if I can explain why.

Most of the instruments clash in this piece, or just sound off when put together. We can start right at the beginning - that buzzing synth just does not really belong with those mellow strings. One is aggressive and the other is peaceful. Or at :55, the string samples sound bizarre to my ears because they start quiet and get loud. It almost sounds as if they are normal strings, just reversed, but I think that’s due to the sample itself rather than you actually reversing them. I like when the lower bass instrument comes in at :26, but it doesn’t change when the chord changes as I’d expect it to.

The mixing seems pretty crazy to me. Often you have very many different instruments going at the same time in the same frequency range, and this makes the song sound very cluttered. Furthermore, when the song gets a little more dense, the drum set becomes much more difficult to hear.

The drum kit sounds very electro to me, but most of your instruments sound more orchestral, so you may want to choose a different drum kit.

All in all, this song is a little too disjointed and chaotic to be enjoyable in its current state. I would highly recommend to listen to some of your favorite artists and try to recreate what they do as a way to learn more about music production. Good luck!

Overall Score: 3.5/10

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

jonadrew responds:

Thank you for this review! It was really thorough.
But I agree with most of what you said. I tried something new for this contest because I felt like my current style wouldn't be sufficient. That obviously didn't work; so I'm not going to lie that I'm a bit discouraged, but I'll keep trying.
Thanks again for the tips!

[Vibe Tribe]

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

This is a really cool piece. Listening to it, I instantly start imagining myself drifting around under the sea, looking at the bubbles and fishes... (whether that was your intention or not, but it seems like it has to be!). The instrumentation is all unique and interesting, and it really fits together to give an underwater vibe.

The composition is pretty sparse, but I have to admit that the composition that you do have is pretty good. It’s just a simple 2-chord progression, but I don’t think that anyone who’s listening will really care, because the vibe is right! (What an appropriate title.)

One thing that stands out to me as off is the drum kit. It honestly sounds like a kit right out of a trap song, down to the rapid dry hi-hat hits that you’re doing. I have to say that, compared with everything else going on in this song, particularly with the amount of reverb you’ve got going on the instruments, the drum kit does not really fit here. I’m also not a huge fan of the compression from the kick that goes on in the intro, though fortunately I don’t hear that too much throughout the rest of the track.

The worst thing that I can say about this track is that it feels a little insubstantial. It has a pretty darn short running time, and it doesn’t really explore that much melodic space, and I really wish that it did. I can just imagine a sine wave solo running through the second half of this piece - I think that a good solo or lead melody would make this song a lot more strong.

All in all, a great start, but I want more!

Overall Score: 8/10

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

Miguel-is-cool responds:

Thank you so much!

[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

[Nebula]

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

Wow, this piece is ambitious as heck. It transitions through a BUNCH of different ideas, uses a lot of interesting sounds and progressions, and generally manages to stay interesting throughout its over 7 minute runtime - no small feat!

The sound design of the piece is pretty well done. All the instruments seem to be drawn from the same sort of emotional palette, and none ever jar with the overall atmosphere of the piece.

Right off the bat, you blast us with these massive chords. And, good news, the chord progression is really interesting! It’s definitely *not* a tried and true progression, which is really cool to hear. One of my favorite parts about it is the little pitch bend at :39 in part of the chord. I do think that the mixing is a little off at this point - the track seems a little muddled - but it’s not a huge issue. Then we move into arpeggios at 1:30, and those sounds really nice too - good sound design.

Unfortunately at 1:50, I’m starting to call the composition into question. I’ve heard that really nice chord progression, which I like, but almost nothing else compositionally intriguing. The melody at around that point sounds a bit random to me. I think it could be more evocative. Throughout this piece, this continues to be a problem. The composition is never *offensive*, but it just isn’t that memorable or intriguing. I think this would definitely be something to work on in the future.

I really am enjoying your transitions though. The 2:46 section is a really cool idea - probably the highlight of the piece for me. A few transitions seem slightly off, like how the kick just comes out of nowhere at 1:40. This could be signaled with a very small white noise transition before the drums come in, or you could make the song get a little quieter, or in any number of other ways.

The mix at 4:40, too, is pretty weird. I think that the bass melody (which I like) is a bit too loud and upfront in the mix, and the melody is a little too buried.

All in all, this is a pretty darn impressive piece. You did a lot of really good work here, and I really like all the different ideas that you have. But the song lacks structure and interest. When a song is as long as this one is, it needs a more clearly defined structure (buildup, climax, breakdown, repeat), or it needs to be more compositionally compelling. It’s a good start, but it needs to be trimmed down and made more interesting.

Overall Score: 7.5/10

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