johnfn's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Tomorrow's Lullaby]

Excellent, excellent. The more I listen to it the more I like it, really - I'm on my third listen right now. At some point I start to ignore the pattern of the melody and just listen to chordal movements instead - and fortunately the chord choice is wonderful, with each switch fitting perfectly but also surprising me just a little bit. There are a couple of times where you seem to be leading into I but then go into vii, which is surprising and intriguing.

I love the choir-like/string-like instrument that sits on top of the whole piece and guides it from chord to chord. The addition of actual singing voices towards the end was a great idea, but I feel like a few times they jar for some reason I can't quite place (too much vibrato?).

At first I was thinking it was a bit too long maybe, but now I'm not so sure.

Love the little twist on the theme that comes in at 5:14 and takes us out of the piece. Great way to end.

The piece makes me think of a river, moving inexorably from place to place, but peaceful. Or maybe even time itself, pushing us into the future - but now I'm getting too metaphorical, so I better stop.

Great work.

Phonometrologist responds:

There are two reasons why I thought you might be interested in this:
First, the 2hr track Sundays inspired this, and of course I decided to invest more time on it and not make the deadline. I was okay with that :)
I also thought the ending was a bit more optimistic.
johnfn layout:

>vii chord

To be honest, I have a had hard time really figuring what the I chord should be through the piece to know exactly which chord would be the vii chord you're talking about. I figured F# Major because it ended there. It does feel like the I chord in other places, but the key change just makes it less clear for me. You know what? I didn't really care when I was writing it lol. I think it was just a flat-minor 7th chord rather than a pure vii.

>voice jarring

Perhaps it is the vibrato, but it probably has more to do with lack of variety in using the sample, i.e. laziness.

>great way to end

Thought you might like that.

>moving inexorably from place to place...maybe even time itself, pushing us into the future

;-) yes

[Exploding the Sun]

The bassline at :52 clashes with the melody :(

The solo at 1:45ish, while the right idea, unfortunately clashes at times with the bassline too, which is kind of unfortunate. With proper bass note placement, I feel it could be quite solid. Unfortunately, as is it's a bit of a dealbreaker - it almost makes the song fall apart at the seams.

I really enjoy the single-instrument transitions, like the one you did at 2:48 and a couple of other places throughout the track. That is a really fun idea!

The drumline is solid and the instrument choice works. Fix up those bassline issues and this will be a solid song!

N1nj4X responds:

Thanks for your honest and constructive critic :)

[Beyond the Surface]

Fantastic sound design. The creepy sound effects are appropriately creepy for a game that takes place below the surface :) but the sound of the bass and drums is excellent too. I think my favorite part is the really subtle midrange pads around :40. I really like subtle stuff like that, I think it shows really good taste and musicianship.

Hey, you know that clap/snare at 1:30? Why not try adding more reverb - could give a lot more atmosphere to the piece.

Sadly there isn't much in the way of melody/composition, which is preventing me from giving a higher score - but as a background piece in a game I can see this being super solid. Nice work.

eatmeatleet responds:

thanks for input. I find it hard to make complex composition for creepy track. Glad you liked

[Cosmic Stream of Life]

I like it, I feel like it has a lot of energy - but I also feel like it's really repetitive, like you keep playing the same melody over and over and don't do much in the way of different sections. You do an excellent job of shuttling us between breakdowns, buildups and climaxes, which disguises this fact, but I can't help but think that if this were a 3 minute track it would have much more impact. I feel like after the third minute I've pretty much heard it all.

The only other thing I want to critique is the melody itself. It's too quantized - too many notes of the same length! It feels very robotic. Try varying the length of your notes and making more interesting rhythms - I think that would make the song a lot more interesting.

Really though i think the song is quite good and has a fantastic amount of energy. You've got mixing and arrangement pretty solidly down, now let's work on the other stuff!

EctiBot responds:

Thx for the review man. Glad you enjoyed it :D. I agree with your points, and I might implement some of your ideas in my upcoming songs ;).
Thx for the feedback :D! Luv ur music ;).

[The Door - Erasure]

Preferential review treatment cuz you give me so many reviews of course!

So I really liked the ambience in this song! I thought the eery noises and the dark boomy drums went well together. There are 3 major things that need improvement, and 2 of them are really easy, so this review is probably going to be pretty short hehe.

1. Piano and weird harp thing need more reverb. They are very dry and jar with the otherwise moody and atmospheric nature of the piece. Just toss on some super wet and spacey reverb on them, I think it would work great!
2. FL KEYS. Switch out FL Keys with literally any other keyboard VST. I just really don't like FL Keys... haha. Piano One is free, why not try that one?
3. Needs more better melodies. Yeah I'm sure you saw this coming from a mile away. Only thing to do is more practice!!! >:D

Nice work though! The atmosphere is A+, and if you did 1 and 2 up above I think it would be a super solid piece.

TaintedLogic responds:

I'm going to respond to this one LunacyEcho-style:

"Preferential review treatment" ==> Aw, shucks! :')

"Nice ambience" ==> Thanks a bunch! I really was going for an overwhelmingly creepy atmosphere, and I even thought I was making the droning instruments too up-front in the mix at times. 0_O

"Pretty short" ==> ...and by pretty short, you mean longer than 80% of the review in the AP? XD

"More reverb" ==> Yeah, I agree. I sort of rushed this one to completion, I guess. Thanks for the advice!

"FL KEYS" ==> Guilty! T_T I've been using FL Keys since the very first piece I did in FL. I'll look into using Piano One. ;)

"Needs better melodies." ==> Yeah, I definitely sacrificed melodic development for atmosphere. I'll work on that in future pieces.

"Super solid piece" ==> Wow, that means a lot coming from someone so experienced! :D Thanks a bunch, Johnfn. :')

I GOT A 7/10 FROM JOHNFN!!! EPIC WIN! >:D

Thanks so much for the review, man! ^^ Preferential review treatment is awesome! ;)

[~SW~ Misery]

I uh...

*looks around nervously*

..

*shuffles feet*

...

OH blah I may as well just get it out. I actually don't like the main theme in this piece very much. *ducks* To me, it definitely sounds like misery, but misery over something really trivial, like the guy is in absolute misery about getting chocolate ice cream instead of vanilla. I feel like the composition of the piece is technically very well done - the constant reiteration of the theme is great, the transitions are on point, the runs - THE RUNS - but I'll get to those in a second - but every time you bring us back to that main theme I'm like "oh who cares about your ice cream". I don't really know what to say, the rest of the song is friggin great but it NEEDS a better theme.

It's not like you always have bad melodies or something (cough Fog Between cough awesome cough - also, Float was good too) but yeah I dunno. A different one could be better.

I don't really have any other complaints, except I guess the tendency towards more atonal harmonies nearly throughout the piece. I don't listen to very much classical and this feels very much like a classical idiom of sorts, but I do know what my ears tell me, and they're a little ticked that you don't have a little more harmony in this piece. Take that for what you will if you want to be a classical purist ;-)

Anyway, moving on to good stuff. I really like your runs! Yes, you saw this coming, mainly because I made allusion to it up there. Anyway, they are all delightful, with the one at (1:40) being the obvious highlight of the piece. I like how it leads into a slight variation of the theme, that was a nice idea - and then you keep making gradual modifications to the further reiterations of the theme. Like I said, execution gets an A+.

I also really like the segue and the concept of the section at 2:20. It's a total switchup, but it fits perfectly with the dark feel of the piece. Nice work. But of course you can't let me totally enjoy anything because it also feels oddly atonal, like things are just missing where they should be harmonically.

The ending, being the only time you actually do a full resolve to Gm (at least it feels that way, I didn't bother analyzing the whole song haha), was nice too. Finally some release!

SkyeWint responds:

Hahahahaha, I love the introduction to your review.

I LOVE jazz harmonies. :< They're one of my favorite things. You need to learn the beauty of dissonance. There's nothing atonal in this btw, it's just dissonance.

I get that about the melody, kinda. It depends on how it's played.

RUNS ARE FUN. Also extremely difficult. The theme and variation on the theme are the main feature, it's the overall composition of the piece.

Ironically, your fixation on the dissonant harmony and the feeling of things missing fits perfectly with the full title of the piece: Misery - Fading Memory.

The ending is just a G. It's literally just a G, with nothing else.

[Tsukikanade (月奏)]

Composition is awesome. Melodies are great. But the mix needs serious help, so let's talk about that!

=== MIXING 101 ===

Two big things:

* Internalize the following fact: 90% of mixing is getting volume levels to be right. There's no secret formula or magic technique - get the volume levels to be right and you're nearly done.

* Slots - You should consider your music as if it has a couple of slots: bass, midbass, midrange (melody/singing), pads, and high range. If you put one instrument in each slot, the song will sound totally full. But DON'T put more than one instrument in the same slot (unless you pan), because they will compete and mess with your song.

Alright, now for a step by step guide:

1. Go to the mixer in FL studio, go to the master channel, and remove any limiters you have. ALWAYS do this, until you get to the point where you consistently know what you're doing. They just make it harder to diagnose mixing issues.
2. Go to the loudest part in your song (1:20, I'd say). Make sure you're not in the red. If you are, turn down your volume levels until you aren't any more.
3. Turn down the master fader (the volume control that controls how loud the entire song is) until you can only hear a single instrument. That's your loudest instrument! Are you sure you want it to be your loudest instrument? If not, turn it down and turn up what should be the loudest (probably vocals in this song).
4. Turn up the volume to the point where you can hear every instrument, but just barely. It should still be very quiet. Now, set the volume levels for the whole song. Believe it or not, us humans make better mixing choices when music is really quiet. Why this is true is a long discussion, but this simple help will really help out.

Alright, I hope that helps. I'd encourage you to remix this song, it's good practice :) PM me if you have any specific questions.

Troisnyx responds:

Thanks for the pointers..... I would remix this song, save that I've lost it and the stems forever.

[Chrono Trigger TitleRemix]

Pretty awesome. Definitely one of the most creative uses of the source material I've heard. I love the concept of jazzy blurry chords on top of chip that I hear at around :15 - it's like if boards of canada decided to write chiptune (or if the fez guys decided to make their noises less chip). The buildup is very cool. I just felt like it could use more development. Half the song is spent building up, and then another quarter is spent in the final breakdown. I feel like the actual drop should go into something ELSE somehow, rather than just being over.

I kinda wish I could say more, but then again, it's a short piece. Nice work. I'm stuck between 7 and 8, so pessimism wins out!

mozzdeep responds:

Thank you so much, I'll be making a lot more music in the future so I'll keep improving :)

[The Butterflies]

Very good. I looped it like 10 times (and counting!). Just needs more longerness.

Xorberax responds:

:-)