johnfn's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[Taking Flight]

The chords are beautiful, the instrumentation is A+, and the song fits the description to a tee. Wonderful.

(Mixing does need a bit of work though!)

SuperGoodSound responds:

thank you ;)

[Commodore Warriors]

I like this. I feel like you cheated for MAC13 because it's only barely chip ;-) However that doesn't stop it from being a great tune. The chords you chose are delightful.

Czyszy responds:

Thanks for the positive feedback. Your submission is great too.
I like the way it changes the mood and the tempo yet still keeps the feel coherent.

[Takes A Sudden Turn]

I'm really amazed by the mileage you get out of that one melody line. We probably have the MAC12 winner right here.

midimachine responds:

i've been listening to a lot of post-rock and shoegaze lately - talk about mileage! haha
cheers but!

[x(t)=sgn(sin[t])]

My comments are going to be almost exactly the same as the last song I reviewed. I really like the melody that comes in at 1:09-33, it's definitely the highlight of the song. Compositionally it's a big mess and you should get rid of all the extraneous melodies (like the part up to 1:09). It's not bad, but it is not as good, and why have less than great stuff in a song that has great stuff?

I also really like the crazy arps towards the end!

BTW i would just like to point out that I'm start enough to know that the title refers to a square wave. yep. smart. i'm smart. that's me.

KrrMaim responds:

I think its the season to binge on simple sound waves :D

everything i'm working on right now has some sort of old school gaming feel.

those crazy arps broke my keyboard XD

so now i need new speakers and a new midi keyboard

[waifu]

Synth strings at 1:30 are just too loud, they're messing with the melody (which is good).

The melody line that starts at 0:43 is really wonderful. The rest of the song is kinda messy. Still I really like that melody, you should expand on it. Also I like the ending with the added reverb, that was a nice idea.

KrrMaim responds:

Melodies in Major are so foreign for me XD

the reverb ending is a super spacey piano synth I made. I'm glad you thought it was a nice idea.

[swickwicked]

This is fun, but right now it's a giant mess of ideas. You should pull out the good ones and add some dynamics and stuff. I'd like to hear the result.

6 stars -> its current status. You could make it much better though!

KrrMaim responds:

unfortunately I won't be finishing anything for a while since I don't have speakers. I still make unpolished stuff with my headphones though.

They're all good ideas imo ;d

[Rise Of Heroes]

Man what is that piano at 2:30. I have been looking for a piano like that. Is it nexus?

At 5:40 if I'm going to be a little picky I'd say that the mastering is a little messed up, the lead isn't loud enough.

On the other hand I know you really like unique leads and I thought that your choice was good here. To be fair I don't listen to a lot of trance, but I haven't heard anything too similar, so nice work.

I don't know how I feel about the weird diminished-like chord at 2:11, at first I thought it was completely wrong but now I just think it's a little weird. >:P

I liked this one. Melodies are improving. If you brought out the melody in the last section I would probably give this a 9.

ArcaneSoul responds:

Yeah, i overall liked the mastering in general but the end could of been fixed up a little.

Also are you talking about the last bar in the chord progression? Because i am kind of picking up on something weird in that too. I think i might go back and change it a little to my liking. And 2:30 is nexus piano. I just used izotope to bring it out more and sound more fuller.

[Melody of the Heart]

Thanks for the courtesy review. This is good, nice melody work. My big comments are nit picks, like I think that the lead could be brought down an octave. In a few places the melody could be smoothed out - I mean, it's trying to express a simple idea in a complicated way.

Although you put this under Misc I feel like it wouldn't be out of place at all in a chill video game. Maybe a farm scene or something like that.

I've been listening to a lot of Yasunori Mitsuda recently, and this music seems a little reminiscent of him. If you like this sort of stuff, check out this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOSrWG JBL34 The guy was a master.

KrrMaim responds:

Yasunori Mitsuda! I started paying attention to that guy back when I played Shadow Hearts: Covenant. Good stuff.

You should check out Jeremy Soule if you haven't listened to his stuff. The consistency of which he releases brilliant work blows me away.