Really good! I really like the opening with the epic choir/organ (come on, it's such a great classic combo!) I also like the section leading right after that.
I looove the arpeggiating baseline in the 'main' section of the track. It sounds great! The one thing that stands out to me in the main section (e.g. 2:14) is the snare. I think this piece could be even better with a sharper more driving snare. Also I think that that vocal synth (also at 2:14) just sounds silly. Everything else though sounds great. Solo at 2:50 sounds pretty good, though I don't really like the timbre of the instrument. I *do* like the stop/start at 3:10 though. That's really fun! :D
Really fun track, great work :o You know how much I like the electric/orchestral combination. Or if you didn't, you do now. :D
Thank you Johnfn :)
Aww I like the vocal synth for some reason xD I guess it's a personal thing, some will like it and some wont.
Thanks again for reviewing!
Hhaha awesome!!! The ending made me grin. It is pretty much perfect.
The one thing I wanted to mention compositionally was that the "main melody" (e.g. 3:22), the chord progression should go G -> D -> C -> G -> bm -> C -> G -> One more chord that I can't remember. The chords you were playing seemed a little indistinct to me but imo that bm is really important because it adds that tinge of sadness!! :p
The other thing (I lied when I said one thing) is the instrument choice. Your instrument choice could be better, I think. The instruments could have more expression to them (like vibrato, pitch bend, legato phrases... etc) This is actually the biggest problem I have with the track. I would highly recommend to try to recreate some of your favorite instruments from other tracks. I mean, you know how I love my smooth leads and all, but you don't have to go down that exact same route. For example, the vibrato at :22 just doesn't make any sense to me. The lead instrument at 1:35 is just, I dunno, it just seems the wrong guy to be carrying that melody.
The composition is pretty good (wait, am I just complementing myself? :D) but I think you can do better! I thought you did do a pretty good job of fleshing out like 20 seconds of content into a full song. Very cool to see.
Wait, is that little riff at 1:05 a reference to "you win!"? Ok... it's probably not. Still that would be pretty funny. It definitely fits with the theme of "Good Ending" xD
P.S. Also who is this mysterious "johnfm" fellow that RealFaction keeps talking about?!? I gotta meet him.
Our main melody went G-D-C-G-D-C-G-D for the first eight bars (we spent a while writing out what we thought you played on a whiteboard). We never even considered B minor, but in hindsight, knowing your penchant for sad sad, we probably should've realized.
I hope replacing bm with D works in this scenario, since they're just mode-shifted scales with the same sharps. Having a bm in the middle of the chorus would add a little bit of sadness to what would be an otherwise uplifting and happy piece. :P
=> instrument choice =>
Agh! I was using a MIDI keyboard, and I even had access to pitchbend and mod wheels, but I thought 'I probably shouldn't use these, it would unnecessarily complicate the song'. I don't have much experience in picking lead instruments for details like what you mentioned, but I'll definitely be on the lookout for those kinds of things from now on.
=> vibrato at 0:22 =>
? I'm not quite sure what you mean... You mean just the main instrument that plays during this part?
=> 1:35 =>
I actually like that lead instrument quite a lot! :( I guess it has more merit on its own, though. It's also the same lead used for another of my songs whose composition I enjoy - Glass Sky! I guess I am a bit partial to it. :P
=> am I just complimenting myself? =>
Yes.
=> 1:05 =>
SO THAT'S WHERE IT CAME FROM! I wrote the riff, and I was like 'no. this can't be right. this sounds too johnfn not to be accidentally stolen from some johnfn song.' But I just couldn't find it as a riff in any of your songs. I didn't look at 'you win!', though! Thanks! I stole more from you than I thought. :D
=> johnfm =>
Your comments have better endings than your songs. :D
Nice job! I like the more toned down mix. I caught a couple of minor differences between the two versions in the different solos. Honestly the only thing that sounded weird to me was the guitar tone around 1:38 (vibrato?). I also think I liked the old outro slightly more over just descending arps. Other than that, I like this one a lot.
Great job, ChronoNomad. Pull that piano out of the mix a little bit - put it right in the center where it belongs (when the strings come in, the piano is hidden behind them a little, see 2:22), and fix the velocities on the notes, it sounds very mechanical right now. And replace those drums with something that sounds better - use some reference tracks if you're not sure exactly what would fit. Free drum packs are EVERYWHERE online, so you have no excuse >:)
This song has everything that I like. It's got acoustic guitar. It's got piano. It's got descending baselines and modulations. It's got great melodies. It's even got different sections and horns. You fix those 2.5 issues I mentioned and this is the BEST TRACK EVER.
I hardly enough know what to say. You're a hard fella to impress, so I'm admittedly a bit speechless... Fortunately, I can still type a little. Shifting the piano to the center is easy peasy, and I don't want it to be overshadowed by anything else, so good call. I'll have to think about what to do with the velocities since they're already exceedingly variable. I suppose they could use a bit of tweaking here and there, though I guess it just doesn't jump out at me as much in most places. As for the drums, I suppose the hats could be improved a bit, but I'm quite fond of the kick. The sidestick is absolutely vital; nothing else sounds as good in its place. My only complaint with the drum kit itself (DSK DrumZ - MachineZ) is that the note strength doesn't change with velocity adjustments for some reason. Rather odd, that.
Everything that you like, eh? That's it! Now I know the secret formula! Acoustic guitar, piano, descending bass lines and modulations...CHECK! I feel quite honored to receive almost full marks from you, and I'll see what can be done with those 2.5 issues you've mentioned. Thanks a ton for the in-depth review, my friend! Much appreciated. ^___^
Melodies: The main riff is pretty nice! It definitely merits being repeated throughout the song. Good job! My main criticism is that when you try to do variations or solos on it, you're using too many quarter notes and you need to mix up your rhythms a little bit. 1:54 is a good example. Or 2:19. More complex rhythms can spice up a melody nicely. (I've actually been thinking about this in context with my own music too.)
I like the break at 1:43. I thought the song was over for a second! haha. I think it might be more effective if you didn't bring in the bass immediately. I do enjoy how the song is empty for a second though.
The mixing sounds pretty good to me! The bass stands out and the other voices are not fighting to be heard. The only thing that I thought could be fixed was the drums. They're too quiet! EVERYONE gets drum loudness wrong, all the time, always, including me, even though I already know this - so don't feel bad. Slap a compressor on those bad boys. It doesn't have to be aggressive, but I do think they should be louder.
Synths: I think they sound cool, but I don't really think that they belong in a song like this. Like the first synth that you introduce (:18) has got this really eerie feel to it that clashes with the otherwise chill and happy vibe the song has going. I honestly think that a piano would be perfect. Though I always think a piano would be perfect. :D Other orchestral instruments to carry the other voices (like strings, woodwinds especially) would do well, too.
While I'm talking about sound choice, the drums are kinda electro and a clap is pretty weird in a song that's emotional like this one. I would personally use someone like Skullbeatz on newgrounds as a reference. He has beats with emotive tracks all the time, and he does pretty good at it. (I mean, come on, he has the word "beatz" in his USERNAME).
I'm all for using reference tracks. Good artists copy, great artists steal, blah blah.
I was also thinking that you could switch up the progression somewhere in there and get more feels out of the piece. The main progression is great and carries the feel of the song nicely but if you switch up then you can get even more mileage out of it when you switch back to the main progression. One that I think might compliment your main one pretty well is d minor -> g major -> c major -> a minor. Bonus points if you do the descending baseline C -> B- > A for the chord change from C major to a minor. It gives it that extra emotive feel. :D
Also last thing, don't be scared to loop your main melody a little more, you don't have to always make variations on it. Good melodies deserve to be repeated!
Overall, I like this song a lot. Good job! I think the biggest thing to focus on would be synth design. With more organic sounding instruments that match the feel of the piece, the song could go far! :D
Wow, that's really insightful. It sounds like something really simple, but after looking back and listening to all the rhythms I used again, I realize that I use the same rhythms a lot. I'm definitely going to pay a lot more attention to melodic rhythms from now on (even though that feels like something I should've been prioritizing in the first place)!
=> break =>
That was definitely inspired by 'i believe' - it really got me thinking about how to use silence in music. Thanks! The reason I didn't keep the bass out was because I don't generally like only having one instrument play at a time (unless it's a solo composition). I try and put a lot of replay value in my music, and when I listen to stuff, one thing I find that really detracts from replay value is having really simple instrumentation, since replay value comes from finding stuff in a song you never found before. It's hard to find the unexpected when you've only got one instrument to listen to.
=> mixing =>
Really? Drums? I've always felt like my earphones made me hear music differently from others, but now I know that's the case. Gotta work harder on mixing!
=> synths =>
Aw... I thought they sounded quite nice! I do agree: this song would be vastly improved with a piano. I kinda liked the sound design on these, but after listening to some of Skullbeatz's stuff, I can see what you mean by instrument choice and the mood of the song.
=> progression =>
You know, I wanted to change up the progression during the break. One of my more progression-based songs was my NGASS one, but this one's pretty boring in terms of chords. I think I'll try using that chord progression in another song!
=> main melody =>
But... repetition! I think in my reviews, the one thing I call out people the most on is their amount of repetition, so I try to keep that to a minimum in my tracks. I guess I could afford to have some more - perhaps changing up the background instruments instead of the main melody to preserve interest?
Thanks a lot for the humongous review! It was so helpful, and it gave me lots of ideas to create new songs with. Good to see you're making your way back to Newgrounds! :)
Screw you Step. Stop hogging all the good mixing. Some of the rest of us need it sometimes :P
Seriously though, what are you doing with your drums around :13 (and elsewhere) to get them to sound so nice and meaty! It must be some special stardust or something.
My only complaint about this song is that the chorus is Hit the Road Jack. I mean I can hardly complain since it's just a baseline but, eh, you know.
It's so fun though! I think my favorite part is at :54 when I thought that you were done with the chorus and transitioning out (in typical Step style of erring so far to the side of not repeating your best parts that you don't even do them at all, hahaha) but then it goes into this alternate take with more orchestral stabs! You totally fooled me for like 2 seconds there. :D
One suggestion is that at 1:01 instead of holding on the final chord you could actually keep ascending the scale. I see the cool kids doing it and it can have an equally interesting effect.
My only thought is that the piece is SO dynamic I find myself wondering how it could work in a game if it's looped? I would expect something that stayed a little more in the background...
"Screw you Step. Stop hogging all the good mixing. Some of the rest of us need it sometimes :P"
Man, I'm actually really happy with the mixing in this track. I think the sax could've been louder and the bass is a bit too full-bodied, but otherwise I actually think I nailed it for once.
"Seriously though, what are you doing with your drums around :13 (and elsewhere) to get them to sound so nice and meaty! It must be some special stardust or something."
I have no idea, man. Sometimes I just finish composing a section of music and think to myself "how the hell did I do that". I must enter some sort of trance while composing because I can almost never explain how I did anything :(.
"My only complaint about this song is that the chorus is Hit the Road Jack. I mean I can hardly complain since it's just a baseline but, eh, you know."
Yeah, funny story about that actually. I didn't even think of that song when composing this. I finished the first half of the track, went to camoshark and was like "hey look at this sweet descending bassline I invented!", to which he responded by sending me like three different tracks that use this exact same bassline, including Hit The Road Jack. Didn't feel so original after that!
"It's so fun though! I think my favorite part is at :54 when I thought that you were done with the chorus and transitioning out (in typical Step style of erring so far to the side of not repeating your best parts that you don't even do them at all, hahaha) but then it goes into this alternate take with more orchestral stabs! You totally fooled me for like 2 seconds there. :D"
Awesome, so glad you pointed that out. I feel like the nature of the game I made this for is kinda jumpy and hyper, so I wanted to reflect that by doing things like over-the-top shifts in dynamic, plenty of jazz stabs/hits or, as is the case with 0:54, haphazard rhythm changes.
"One suggestion is that at 1:01 instead of holding on the final chord you could actually keep ascending the scale. I see the cool kids doing it and it can have an equally interesting effect."
That's a cool idea. Or maybe I could keep the chord going with the strings/brass and ascend upwards with the mallets.
"My only thought is that the piece is SO dynamic I find myself wondering how it could work in a game if it's looped? I would expect something that stayed a little more in the background...
But whatever, as a standalone piece this rocks!"
Yeah, this is something that gives me a lot of trouble when composing BGM to video games. I can't bring myself to keep the dynamics limited since then I have trouble introducing variety. It's something I need to work on.
Also that transition at 1:40... I know you can do a better transition than that given how much you complain to me about my transitions hehe ;-)
To me the first half of this track is definitely ambient, but as soon as other instruments other than that watery synth come in, then it loses it's ambientness. (that's a word) It almost like it's two separate songs!
The melodies could use a little bit of help. Try singing/humming to your song (I do this where no one can hear me :P) and then transcribing what you just sung. Sometimes that can help.
I really liked the ambient first half! The watery synth is just awesome. Makes me feel like I'm floating in water, illuminated by sun... drifting around. It feels really nice, and I almost wish you spent a little time just on the chords rather than bringing in the other instruments as early as :20.
So nice to see you've been more active these past few weeks, Johnfn! :D Yeah, I love doing crazy chord changes. :3 I agree about the transition at 1:40. There's actually this massive crescendo in the bass at 1:36, but it's really hard to hear because I suck at mixing in Garageband. I'll do better next time! I totally recognize the "it's two separate songs" complaint too. I tried to tie it together with that melody at 2:16 and the chords in the background, but I understand that it still may have not sounded that coherent. That's a helpful tip with the melodies! I might just use that... Glad you liked the ambient part. I try to keep my intros under 30 seconds, but maybe that's a bad thing in this instance, haha. Thanks so much for the review, Johnfn! I'll review your latest track as soon as I get the chance. ;D
This is really nice! I was thinking while listening to it that you must be my musical alter ego or something, since your chord choices sound almost EXACTLY the same as mine (at least, when I'm in this sort of emotional piano mood). The only things you did that I normally wouldn't do is that sometimes you really go heavy on the chords e.g. 3:55 (or 2:00). Aside from that, we're pretty much exactly the same :P I was thinking we should get together and play piano, but... Finland...
I have 1 technical nitpick, which is that sometimes the mixing gets a little muddy - too much sustain I think. For example :29, and :32. You generally don't want to sustain 1 base notes that are in different chords - it sounds muddy very quickly.
I have another suggestion about the composition. This piece is like I'm in a train (in Finland?) looking out the window, and I'm seeing different stuff all the time, and it's all very pretty, but to me it feels like there isn't much of an arc in the music itself. I think you could help by having more variation between your different sections. Each of your sections are the same sort of moody slow chordal stuff. There's nothing wrong with it, but you can give your song more of an 'arc' by switching it up. I mean, I'm the last person you should call a classical music expert, but even I've listened to moonlight sonata, and I'd bet a good reason it's so successful is that it starts out with a slow moody section, but by the end it's exploded into this insane arpeggiated craziness. Keeps the listener's attention!
Another thing that might help would be to try sticking with 1 melody as a sort of theme, and then try bringing it back throughout the piece. Gives the whole thing a sense of coherence.
Anywho, those are just some random thoughts. Hope that helps. I liked the piece! You have a lot of good ideas on the piano. I liked the thing at 1:44 especially. Heck, I thought that you could have got even more mileage out of it just by repeating it again! Also, isn't 3:20 the phantom of the opera theme? hahehah. for like 2 seconds anyways. It works really well.
Hey, this was a totally unexpected and big review! Thanks a lot!
"...your chord choices sound almost EXACTLY the same as mine..."
=> That's quite the compliment right off the bat, there! Maybe we both just have really good taste in chords ;)?
And well, 3:55 is kinda the climax of that segment, so I wanted to give it a slightly different feel, with the orchestral rhythm and all :)
Yeah... We don't exctly live close to each other (Hehehhehe, now johnfn will never get to know how bad I am at improvising along with others >:D).
I agree with the sustain pedal thingy. I'd like to blame Phonometrologist, who added much reverb while mixing the track (knowingly, because I like much reverb), but I DID hold the pedal down at such points you mentioned. On my electronic piano, it doesn't get that muddy if done like this, but with the piano vst that Phonometrologist used, the same thing is not true :p
So it was a clash between different intruments, I guess (I always play a bit differently on a real piano and an electronic one, as the sounds are still so different).
I can totally see the train analogy, as this is a progressive piece in the way that it always moves forward, without looking back (Which is also why I don't have repeating melodies that moce across the sections!!!).
While I agree with every criticism you give, I'll still give you my point of view. While the melodies and chord are different in different sections, I agree that they are all similar (well, there was the clumsy change from 3/4 to 4/4 at one point, and a few other rhythmic parts) to each other. The reason for that is mostly how I approached the peice. I first made a few different melodies and parts, in a similar manner, as I wanted to glue them together into a sense-making piece. However, they turned out to be too different from eachother (when I was about midway done, or so) for me to easily be able to make them sound part of the same piece. This resulted in them being similar in the way you mentioned, yet different in the way that they don't mix well together. That is why I decided to come up with the story for the piece. My thought process was that while the sections represent different emotional times of a persons life, it's still the same person in all the parts, which is why there are both differences and similarities. So basically, I made a medley :)
That's just my take on it though, as much is up to the listener.
I still agree with what you said though. It's just that I was so far gone with the piece already, so I was too lazy to make many changes :p
(I love the first and third movement of the Moonlight Sonata).
I do sometimes stick with 1, 2 or 3 main melodies that repeat in different ways, but many times, coherency is not what I go for. I also like to switch up the melody and change it a bit, using the same chords, or play the same (or a very similar) melody, but with different chords.
It is a very useful technique though!
You definitely helped! I didn't even think about the pedal thing at all, for instance. You have a great ear for music, as usually. You know, I actually thought about repeating 1:44, while making it a bit more dramatical, but I ended up with 1:56 instead :/
And I can see what you mean with Phantom of the Opera; there are some similarities in the overall tone as well!
Thanks a lot for the big and sudden review! I really appreciate it!
Now... Time to go review your newest upload...
Thanks Johnfn! Happy to see you're not dead. I really worked hard on that percussion, so I'm glad you liked it. Also, do you have any plans to upload anything soon? I swear I've been going into Johnfn withdrawal over here. :O Seriously though, thanks again! ^^
Our Last Hope 
Shimmer 
Chemicals 2015 
For Those Who Remain True 
Heartsteps 
Chompy 
TL - Words Lost in the Waves 
Medley of a Shattered Mind 
T-Logic - Influx 
