johnfn's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Anthem of the Adventurer]

Nice job being the first one to finish the first round of NGADM ;-)

I like this, it fits your comments perfectly. It's like I'm going on an adventure! I feel like Link! Or something.

I like the choice of instruments. I really enjoy the reeds that sit on top of the mix and add this soaring feel to the song.

The percussion is subtle and well done.

Anyways, I have a few suggestions for improvement.

The mixing is generally good, but I would suggest to make the 'most important' instruments (in this case, the violin(?) that carries the lead melody) louder than the others. Right now everything is about equal volume, which makes it harder to understand the song without listening closely.

There's a minor mixing problem where you have the french horn at the same frequency level as the strings. I can tell you panned because otherwise they would clash, but I think that you should just remove it - or move it out of the clashing range. Same thing with the oboe(? I'm bad with instruments.) at 1:00.

The dynamic (volume) level of the whole song is pretty flat. I'd suggest to make the parts where you have transitions a little louder (with crashes or what have you). Like, you modulate up a key or two at the end, but the listener could almost miss it entirely because there's nothing in there to indicate a change is coming.

Last, it feels a little repetitive. I think if you fix the dynamic levels like I said before this will clear up a little bit because the song will feel like it's constantly changing. However, I don't think it'll fix all of the problems because I think the song is just too long for the number of ideas you have. This is an easy fix - just make the song shorter. I always believe that it's better to make the song a tad too short and have the listener press replay than have it be a bit too long and have the listener get bored.

That's all the criticism I have! It's a lot, but it's mostly easy to fix stuff, which is good. Nice work on the song, I liked it!

ChronoNomad responds:

Yes, that is a lot of information to process, but I really appreciate the time and effort that you put into your review. You make a lot of excellent suggestions, and of course I want this piece to be as good as it can possibly be. At least I've managed to gain a bit of a deadline buffer zone somehow, so I should be able to expend a bit more time on this one.

I've also started on my next submission, but that can temporarily go on the back burner. Hopefully I'll receive more reviews with yet more feedback, even as I'm working on your suggestions. This could get interesting, but I'll just have to make sure I don't lose track of the next piece in the process. Thanks again for the phenomenally informational review! I truly appreciate it. ^_^

[Wheres Your Soul?]

Holy crap. If you're still ticked off by NGADM, take some solace that you're an amazing musician.

I haven't given more than one 5/5 in like 50 reviews, I hold out for the songs that are worth it. Well, I found it. You remind me of The Black Keys, but better. And I like The Black Keys. Love the ending, despite what Sequenced says.

That scream at 2:53... Incredible.

VaudevilleFreud responds:

Funny that you say that, because my music is hugely influenced by the things that I listen to at the time when I write them. At the time of this recording I was listening to a lot of Black Keys and Weezer, I'm glad to hear that it showed through well in the music :)

[Synths N Junk]

Just scouting out my competition... ;-)

This is really good man. The production is so well done - the whole sound is so clean - and the melodies are awesome as well. Good luck!

[The Door - Storm]

Ha! I recognized the FL plucked instantly. Makes me nostalgic for FL... good times.

Here come a lot of suggestions. Before that though I should say that overall this is a pretty good piece, and I think you definitely achieved your goal of capturing loss from a storm. I especially like how the strings come in at :58.

Alright here we go!

My first suggestion is that the plucked melody feels very mechanical. I don't hear much in the way of varied velocities. It's pretty simple to do and will make your pluck sound a lot better instantly. Honestly I'm not the hugest fan of plucked - it might be better to find some other VST - but that could be just because I've heard it so many times.

The kick is a bit of a shock with the pluck, I'm not sure if they traditionally go together. Suggestion is to put some reverb on a snare or something and see how that fits in. Unlike the last guy I don't think it's off beat. However you are probably confusing your listeners because there's not much in way of other percussion to guide you through the song. Some subtle hi hats could do wonders to keep your listeners grounded.

I hear the strings pushing on the limiter at 1:29. A really important tip is that you should just throw out the limiter entirely, and ensure by hand that your song never goes into the red. This single tip has done more for my mixing than anything else.

Melodies need some work. At first I thought they were totally random. But when I focused really hard, i realized I was wrong. This is good! But if I'm zoning out then I can't follow them at all, which is bad. Try to simplify your melodies and cut them down. This will make them easier to understand.

Alright, that's all I've got! Good luck! And don't be too down by all my criticism. It's not as bad as the review makes it sound xD

TaintedLogic responds:

Thank you so much, Johnfn! :D What a detailed and thoughtful review! ^^ I've been thinking for a while now of making a track where I really focus on using the mixer and on the quality of the sound more than the notes themselves, and I think I just got some motivation! :D Thanks again for the continuous support! :)

[Aphelion]

I really liked this one. The "ocean splashes" really add some nice depth. It reminds me of that first scene in Inception where the old guy is standing on a beach. Dark, brooding, thoughtful, mysterious. And of course there were wave noises. ;-)

There are some really subtle noises buried under the big sweeping synths that add a lot to the sound too.

If you've never heard of the band Biosphere you should check them out, particularly the album Substrata and definitely the song Poa Alpina, which, while it doesn't sound the same, gives me the exact same mysterious and creepy feel as your song.

This is a really high compliment btw, I love that song.

I think this shows some of the flaws of NG's rating system. I usually reserve 10/10 for pieces that really knock me out of my seat. This one didn't do that, but the atmosphere is perfect. If you coupled it with a few more songs of equal quality and made it into an EP or something, it could be stellar, and even better than your conventional explosive 10/10 song.

Maybe I just need to rethink my rating system... meh oh well.

Mich responds:

I think I can kinda see the connection to that Inception scene, yeah. :P

Most of those subtle noises were all done with the same synthesizer instance, just did a lot of modulation on noise and filters, which makes for interesting effects if they're not done at the same frequency.

Just listening to Poa Alpha by Biosphere right now, and loving it. I'll probably look into getting Substrata, this is good stuff. So thanks for the compliment there! I can really pick up some things from this, particularly the well-executed low-end.

I wouldn't worry too much about your rating system; as long as it's paired with useful criticism / commentary, scores couldn't matter less. :-)

I am in fact planning to make a little EP out of this, exploring the theme a bit further. It'll probably be just 3 tracks or so, but at this kind of length per track I think that's fine.

Thanks a lot for the review, and glad you liked it!

[~SW~ City of the Clouds]

Haha...yeah this song is really awesome.

I really like the violin (or something, I'm not good with instruments) at 0:20. It reminds me of the intro music of the show Firefly if you're familiar with it - it was a space themed show with some sweet violin going.

Call me weird but one of my favorite parts of the song is the industry section, mainly because of that big snare. I felt like it worked really well to create the ambience you were going for.

I also like the Starlight City sections - I mean, that's the point of the song right, I would hope those would be the best parts. The grooving organ section is really sweet.

However the mixing is very odd. Let me explain. Normally in a chorus section I would expect the lead melody to be a bit louder than the rest of the song, so it stands out. (Classic example is vocals, which are always mixed pretty loud vs the rest of the song.) However the groovy organ doesn't stand out at all, and so the first time I listened through I almost missed it(!).

My other point of critique is that the volume levels throughout the whole song seem pretty flat. I would suggest to make the chorus a bit louder than the rest, which would make it stand out a little more. Having the calming sections be as loud as the chorus doesn't work for me because they aren't actually calming if they continue to be as loud as the other sections.

Apart from that this song is ballin. The mixing is really well done like you said, and apart from my points up above I can't find any problems with it. The grooving sections are awesome. The attention to detail is pretty crazy, with the birds chirping and the great synth lines at :37. Awesome work!

SkyeWint responds:

Hey man! Glad you like it! :D

First off, the violin thing is actually an Erhu - it's a pretty sweet eastern instrument.

The giant snare is honestly the same snare as in the faster-paced sections but with some reverb on it. I actually had to make two versions of the snare for it to work properly. Probably inefficient but whatever.

When it comes to the mixing, I guess I can definitely understand your point. Definitely something to work on. I'll see if I can work with that in the future, though for the organ at least it was a tad bit of trouble because if I increased the volume of that much more, the mix would get muddy. :(

The volume levels also makes sense, though I really work more with the mood of the piece. It's worth noting, however. I'll definitely try to work on a bit more dynamic variation.

As for attention to detail, I work extremely hard on that - bit of a perfectionist when it comes to music to be honest. :P All those things are just some nice little tidbits I thought would be cool.

Thanks for the review! I'll definitely remember your comments and consider them in the future. Fantastic. If you have a skype, feel free to add me - I'd love to communicate with you!

[The Door - Embedded]

This is pretty cool.

My main complaint is that it feels very disjointed at the chorus (for instance 1:08). The instruments are kind of crazy and clash a little when they're combined. I also think that the lead (electric piano sounding instrument) is a tad loud, and occasionally sounds like it's hitting atonal or incorrect notes.

Agree with the last guy though. It has a fun jazzy feel. Nice job finishing it up and frontpage! :-)

TaintedLogic responds:

Thank you so much, Johnfn! :D That was actually my main concern when I uploaded this, that people would complain about the harmonies. To be perfectly honest, this piece is actually my attempt to mesh together three different riffs I made a long time ago: the melody ( :20), the bass ( :00), and the dark harmonies at :48. It turned out better than I thought, so I uploaded it! I still have no idea how it got on the front page! XD I understand your complaints, though. Thanks again! ;)

[Afternoon Blues (Improv)]

This is really nice. So chill and carefree.

I really have to know, though: when you improv this, did you really do the whole song in one go? Aside from quantization, did you change the result at all?

Cuz if not, I really need to practice piano more D: D:

Thanks for the lovely song though.

BlazingDragon responds:

I really did the whole thing in one go (and then heavily quantized my terrible timings! XD). I also might have deleted a note or two that I accidentally bumped.

I used to practice improving very slowly with a metronome, making sure not to stutter or stop for mistakes. Now, I've got an array of go to chord progressions that I don't have to think about, so it is easy to improvise over the top. If I was doing something more harmonically daring, I'd have a lot more mistakes. But this progression is one that I know my way around quite well. :)

Thanks for the review!

(Edit: The above was referring to the piano part. The bass took a couple of tries, as did the strings)

(Edit 2: Forgot to mention something important. While I did record this in one take, I spent probably 15 minutes playing around with ideas before hitting record. I like to warm up and get in the groove of a progression before recording an improv, so it wasn't done completely cold)