johnfn's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[She Was Picking Flowers]

This is really a new direction! Nice work.

If I were to psychoanalyze you based on your songs, I would say that the only thing you really need to work on is your sense of melody. Like, you can (and do) write great melodies, but you also write melodies that kinda just wander around. Your songs are best when they're totally insane because the insanity and things happening all the time kind of disguise this fact. I dunno, I'm kind of hypocritical because I have the same problem :D

And honestly in this song I don't really feel like the melodies are speaking to me until about 2:06. After 2:06 it's awesome, but it makes me wonder what the purpose was of the first half the song haha.

I really love the music box at the end. It really is a beautiful chord progression/melody, and breaking it down to its essence really adds a lot in my opinion. Though I needed to listen to it a lot to really understand what the melody was doing. This might be my own fault, but I think it may also be a problem of dynamics.

Anyway don't let my crazy nit picking get you down cuz you're still one of the best musicians around. Keep it up.

steampianist responds:

I did like 2 songs for this round but I decided to use one for my vocaloid song and the other one for
My steampunk EP

some of the melodies here are improvised (harp and zither) maybe thats what you mean by wandering melodies. improve on sense of melody? Well sure but I dont think thats my problem. my problem is form. I need to work on my form (or a solid motif) and I admit the melodies here are free from a motif and there are no themes that you can latch on to :| so yeah...

Anyways appreciate the review and good luck in this round!

[Everything is Broken]

A+ production and sound design. The mesh of orchestral and electronic is really well done. Good instincts on the changeup at 2:00. But I thought that it was really lacking a melody to sit on top of the song.

That is sort of just a guess. I mean Boards of Canada can write a song without a melody and have it still be awesome, so it's not like a melody is totally necessary. But I do feel like something is missing here. It could also be more complex beats or more changeup in the chord progression. I can tell you were trying to add more variation with the glitching, but it wasn't entirely successful. (I mean, the glitching sounds awesome, but it doesn't really *change* the song, you know?)

Anyway I really enjoyed it and I thought it was even better than your last song. Plus, it was a really enjoyable switchup from the rest of the NGADM list ;-) But I feel like a melody, or more variation, could really kick it into the stratosphere. Keep it up!

InvisibleObserver responds:

Generally agree with everything you've said.

Ultimately I felt like I got my idea's down, and was able to mostly smooth things over and play with things, but not explore the ideas present fully.

There's 2 main motifs I suppose but the solo violin samples I have available I feel weren't able to show case the motifs as strongly as how I had wanted.

[Cthulhu Surfaces]

Dat transposed theme at 1:34. Skye must not have been paying attention, I hear your :46 theme everywhere. It's back again at 2:02, and then again at 2:11. It even makes an appearance at the end.

Listening to this piece has convinced me that you are not actually one person, but actually a collective of at least 6 different people who work together under the same name. Seriously I have no clue how you write songs that sound so diverse. And the pieces have almost nothing in common, except maybe that you like to emphasize those strong chord movements like at 2:34. (But who doesn't!)

Sound choice is crazy here. I love the pizz strings, the crazy percussion - and I'm going to be contentious and say I even love the we will rock you claps (though I guess I would admit that a better choice of clap might help the song). The only thing I don't really like, and it's the only thing holding me back from a 10 here, is the final 40 seconds. Like, I feel like the climax comes in the first minute and a half and then the rest is kind of a build down, and if you switched the order the song would be way better.

There's also a minor problem I have with coherence, like I feel like the dynamics are rapidly going from loud to quiet in a way that's hard to get a hold on. But I think you improved on that in your more recent tracks.

Anyway, this song is awesome. The number of great ideas it has is ridiculous. Pretty much every chord change in the first half is a joy. I would love to hear you write more stuff in this style!

headphoamz responds:

Aw, thanks johnfn! Hey, good luck to you!! :D

[Wolftacular NGADM Round 3]

I listened to this one on the NGADM playlist without knowing the story behind it. Yeah, vocals could have added a lot, but lacking that you coulda just cut it down to like 2 minutes and played a little more with dynamics, and I think you'd have a much more compelling piece on your hands. The piece is actually much better than you think - the melodies are great and the instrumentation is very enjoyable - the only flaw is that it goes on too long and feels quite repetitive by the end.

Still, good stuff. Let me know if you make a finished version :-)

Wolftacular responds:

Yeah, I did think about cutting it down, but for the last 2 or 3 days I went into "get it done" mode. I stopped making decisions and just worked as fast as I could with what I had in hopes of getting the vocals in on time. The vocals would've helped lead and tie everything together and most likely erase that feeling of repetitiveness.

I appreciate the feedback, and see your points very clearly! Thank you for listening and commenting!

[Mote Prime]

Oh my god, you did it. We've all been holding out for you to write a really focused piece and you did it. This piece is structured perfectly and has a lost a lot of that ADD-like nature of your past stuff, trading it off with smooth transitions between sections. I love the opening with the synthesizer, felt wonderfully spacey. As usual, you move through chords in such an unusual and enjoyable way. (Do you have any tips on this? I would be really interested to hear how you think about chords.) The guitar playing is virtuoso.

But I haven't even gotten to my favorite part of the song. First, the transition at 5:45 is incredible. But the climax after that, wow. Everything comes together SO well, and the guitar is out of this world. I actually teared up, it was that good.

Two insanely small technical points. One, this is mixed pretty quietly, I had to crank up the volume to get the proper effect. And two, the drums seem to be compressing the mix noticeably, e.g. 4:30 and particularly the climax at 5:45.

If you don't write any more songs until the next NGADM, I'm going to be really upset with you because your songwriting abilities are just too good not to use. Make an album. I will pay for it.

P.S. Have you ever considered doing post rock? I think you'd have a knack for it. (This song is almost there already.)

Kor-Rune responds:

Thank you! Wow what a nice review thank you for your kind words john! I'll work on the drum dynamics and volume for sure!

I'm sorry I didn't get much done last year, don't even feel deserving of the 2012 musician of the year. I'll put together an album, but I don't think I'd charge for it until I get a second one going. Thanks again man! I appreciate it, very moving.

As for chords, I just use jazz cliches and put emphasis on extensions, hope that helps!

[Shinjitsu]

Gosh, the composition here is SOOO GOOD. I guess I'm just a sucker for these sort of beautiful melodies with all the diminished and augmented chords all over the place.

But. And this is a big but. The electronic instrumentation approach just smashes the emotion to bits for me. I really think you should have just stuck it out and done a proper orchestral version, or failing that, used a much more subtle synth, with more attention to vibrato and articulation and blabla - you know, all that stuff that makes orchestral music so emotive in the first place.

So I'm really divided on the score. The piano melody is gorgeous and one of the best in NGADM, but the electronic part I'm just not a fan of. 8/10 for the song as is, but the song in my head (which is just this song with proper orchestration) is an easy 10/10.

P.S. I hear clipping at :19. Be careful with your levels!

[Lying to a Stranger]

The sound design here is really really good, speaking as a guy who has tried and failed to design cool sounds ;-)

Song is really groovy and enjoyable. I like it a lot. Could do with a lead melody of some sort or some variation in the chords, but other than that I'm digging it. Solid work.

InvisibleObserver responds:

Thanks John!

I spent a very long time collecting samples, tweaking instruments up and routing controllers on what feels like virtually everything. Fortunately its allllll in the background and just runs now and never needs looking at or setting up again.

Learned a few new tricks and figured out how to do some conceptualized ideas I've had for a while, so this was a rather exciting piece to do up. Mind you stressful - I take the year off school and end up more busy.