johnfn's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[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)

[Hero Of The Stars]

Suggestion: some of the high pitched glitchyness might have been better a little lower down.

The orchestration and beats for this one make it feel like an army marching off to war or something. :-)

Glad to see you again BTW. Mostly my fault because I don't use Youtube... I'm trying to move to Soundcloud actually, you should get on and then just delete your old stuff ;-P

ArcaneSoul responds:

Well the only issue with soundcloud is limit of downloads and upload limit. I like newgrounds alot due to the fact they have a glorious amount of upload limit.

I'm not sure i'll move back to soundcloud. I'll consider it though.

[APOD (Full)]

I thought that the stuff that you did for the drops sounded pretty awesome. The production quality was supa high. The melodies were kind of wandery, but I always say that. I think if you chose easier chords for yourself, you might be able to write better melodies.

It was cool. Keep it up. It was definitely an improvement over your older stuff.

[TheDoor- Lily's Theme RMX]

(Note - I review pretty harshly, so don't take a low score personally! I don't vote harshly.)

First, a pro tip - definitely find some better strings! Those strings sound like cheesy 80s film background strings. I'm sorry to be so blunt, but it's crucial that you improve them. Newgrounds has this great thread with 3.5gb of orchestral soundfonts (search for it), so there's really no excuse :-)

Other than that, it's hard for me to think of anything particularly insightful to say, since a cover hinges almost entirely on the quality of the instruments that you're using. I'd be cool if you could add a little more to the song in terms of personal ideas.

I just went and listened to the source material and it has a really beautiful female vocal (I see what you're talking about in the comments). You should give a little better voice to that vocal - perhaps with a violin or some sort of filtered synth.

Anyway keep it up. Let me know when you've improved the instrumental noises.

P.S.: The one time I feel like fadeouts are appropriate is when it's in the middle of a jam - indicating that the jam goes on and on forever, and you, as the observer, have merely left in the middle.

TaintedLogic responds:

Thank you so much! :D I agree that I should've found something better to use for the strings. I'm working on getting Sakura for FL 10, but all the Imageline plugins are SO expensive! Anyway, thanks again for reviewing me back, man. I really appreciate it! ;)

[It Will Never Be The Same]

(Note - I review pretty harshly, so don't take a low score personally! I don't vote harshly.)

First, I don't think this is really ambient - it's closer to techno. But I won't dock you points for that.

It's very tough for me to give good critique about this song, for some reason. The honest truth is that it's not really clicking with me, for some reason. I wanted more out of the climax, for some reason.

I think that the main thing is that the melody at the climax of the song is not very strong, so the buildup is kind of a let down. You could also just make the build up a little stronger - that might help a little bit too, if you want to fake it ;-) (nothing wrong with that).

I do like the incorporation of the acoustic guitar into the song! Definitely keep that up :-) This song is a good start; keep working at it.

DamienFleisch responds:

Thanks for the input! I wasn't sure what genre to call it, I was thinking techno at first but because of the acoustic guitar I thought that would be a misrepresentation so I figured Ambient was more vague. I'll definitely take it back to the drawing board.

[For Now, Goodbye (Improv)]

Phew, that was really nice. Beautiful! I really like listening to improvisational pieces because they push my own improvisation in new and interesting ways.

It's funny because just yesterday or the day before I was wondering about the iii chord and I was thinking how I didn't use it all too much, so I was trying to figure out how it should work in a song. I thought you used it very well.

BlazingDragon responds:

Thanks for the thoughtful comments! I used to always wonder about the iii chord as well, but there are a couple of progressions it works really nice in. EX:

I iii IV I
I iii vi IV

One of my favorite things to do is replace the iii with a dominant seven starting on the same root. For a somewhat bluesy progression:

CMaj E7 FMaj F#Dim CMaj/G G7 CMaj
or
CMaj E7 Amin FMaj

Another good way to use it is as a passing chord. For example:

CMaj Emin/B Amin

Hope some of that is useful to you!

[MDJ vs Teqneek]

I really liked this, but I felt like the beat was kinda weak. With a stronger beat it might be a 10/10.

You shouldn't ask me for opinions on rap since I don't listen to it that often, but for what it's worth I thought Teq had better flow. However he also used the words "penis" AND "vagina" which definitely knocks a point or two off.

Both did really well though.

[Hollow]

(Note - I review pretty harshly, so don't take a low score personally! I don't vote harshly.)

The build up to the drop was kinda weak - those kicks need to come out a lot more. And in the drop you kept in those high pads that were there before, which messed up the otherwise dark aesthetic of the drop and take away a lot of the energy. If you would switch those out with some deep bass it would be a lot better I think.

I saw on audio advertisements that you just started using FL - this is really great for just starting out, so keep it up! I could see you being scouted, not immediately, but maybe soon if you keep working hard. :-)

iFate responds:

Thank you very much sir. ^^ i will work hard.

[Resistance {Dj-Abbic}]

Dangggg this is real nice, I was not expecting such quality on NG. The mastering is so crisp and clean, I'm way impressed. The glitchy lead instrument really caught my attention the first time I listened. I like the subtle dubby effects that crop up here and there. Plucks sound great too.

Nit picks-

The opening chord prog is a little generic (although I admit I use it a lot too). I did like how you changed it towards the end. I think this song would need a little bit more melodic interest for me to push up the score.

Build at 3:55 sounds real nice. However I am not totally convinced by it because what it drops into is not much different than how the previous bits of the song sounded. I feel like drops are most successful when they introduce a new instrument into the mix.

Regardless, I really liked this. Would love to have your suggestions on one of my latest tracks, if you have the time.

P.S. - you know you don't have to put your name in the title any more? ;-)

DjAbbic responds:

Thanks a lot for the detailed review! I'll be sure to write one back later.

Melodies have never been my strong suite, so you'll have to forgive me for that D:

Now that you say it, I can see you're right. Drops need to introduce new things. I have this habit where once I'm done making the first drop, I never try to make new sounds for the second drop, so I basically recycle what I have (not a good thing). Thanks a lot for pointing that out, I'm going to need to work on that.

Thanks a lot for the great review. I'm glad you enjoyed it for the most part. I keep my name in the title out of habit. Besides, it frees up a lot of titles that might already have been taken.

Expect your review sometime soon :)