Reviews for the traveller

[alternativesolution]

- NGADM Round 3 Review -

Oh, so pretty. And contrary to your statement, I am not an orchestra person at all! Rather I'm sort of torn between genres and so I find it easy to listen to multiple genres, myself. The good thing is that us judges are varied with our skills, so while we might agree on certain things, we'll not all hear everything the exact same way. Anyway! Back to the review.

I like the various moods portrayed in your piece. However, I halfway through, I feel like something is missing. I do like the atmosphere, and your sounds are lovely (I especially love your percussion and the guitar in the background, as well as that out of tune pluck at 2:54 and again at 3:12. And oh, your bass right after that. I loved when things sped up and wow that was just lovely. Your transitions are second to none.

At 4:41 oh, love it. Typical johnfn style! Everything that followed was just very you. Lovely mix of styles and everything. This is one of the few songs I've heard in this contest that gets progressively better - way better - as it runss its course. And oh, the ending was great. I didn't expect that guitar. Overall, I'm impressed with the song's flow and progression. Very solid track, for sure :)

Score: 9.5

johnfn responds:

I kinda forgot to respond to this review. Or rather, I did respond to it, but then I forgot to submit it and then I closed my browser. This actually happens more often than you would think...

Anyway I really appreciate the review! I actually liked it a lot because I felt like what you got out of the song was exactly what I was thinking while I wrote the song! I mean I can totally understand why other people may not have enjoyed certain sections, but I think it's totally cool that it all worked for you. Thanks for the great review!

[SkyeWint]

Hello. Longest review of all of them, I think.

The Good:
-I love your melodies, they're very peaceful.
-Dat panning in the harp is nice. ^_^ Thanks for that.
-At about 3:30, there's your classic strong techno-like sound which is cool. It really does sound like there's a train whistle there as well.
-I like the phaser introduction to 4:40 on the drums.
-The little filters on the drum fills are really sweet.
-The way you end the drums at 6:04 sounds REALLY cool.

The Not-So-Good:
-The original strings and reverse cymbal seem somewhat out-of-place. The strings feel very artificial with the exact same attack each time, and the reverse cymbal was VERY obviously intended for electronic music rather than this (compressed. It's definitely too loud). It's also something you seem to use in most of your music for climaxes.
-Transition at 1:02 is into something completely different, there could at least have been a transitional chord.
-At about 2 minutes in, the guitar is a bit too panned to the left.
-The 'acoustic' snare drum sounds extremely cheesy and artificial, it could have been done much better.
-Rhythmic transition at 2:54 is sudden and off-putting. Why did you switch to like, 5/4 from 3/4 and then go to 4/4 one measure later? This could have worked if it were in the middle of a full-on transition, but when it's in the middle of a section it's just awkward.
-Overall mixing until about 3:40 is kinda empty.
-There's some weird clicking sound starting at 4:04 which is weird.
-...cliffhanger ending made specifically to piss me off, eh? :v Well, some modest success there. It worked at first, but then that last guitar bit came in. Why. Why would you deliberately make your own ending worse?
-I don't want to play "Where's Waldo?" with the main theme of the piece.

Overall: Score of 8.4/10. Good enough sections, clear (if empty at first) mixing, nice story being told there. I would like at least one motif that's used through the piece, or a short break where you reiterate a previous idea. Also, transitions. >:( ...by the way, I'm curious. Why do you never use upper-case letters in your music titles?

johnfn responds:

Thank you for this fantastic review.

I was particularly interested to hear your review because you have a ton of nit picking and I definitely needed that for my attempt at orchestral (which I have essentially no experience in.) The stuff about the cymbal being an EDM cymbal is an excellent point (also yes I overuse it!), and the point about attacks is a good one too. It's something I haven't thought about, since I'm primarily a piano player.

2:54, yes I absolutely screwed this up. What's happening is essentially it's going from 3/4->4/4. I flat out ran out of time to fix it.

Good catch at 1:02. One of my ideas was that I would modulate into different sections, because that generally sounds nice, but yeah it didn't work as well it could have. Again, rushed.

It's kind of funny that you didn't like the end guitar, because quite a few other people did... eh, let's just compromise and say the whole ending is bad. =D

> Why do you never use upper-case letters in your music titles?

I'm not sure. A while ago when a song that I made without caps did really well, so that may have something to do with it. Also, capitalizing the titles of my songs seems more pretentious than doing lower case titles. On the other hand, I do have a few songs even recently that were capitalized. Who knows!

[Step]

This is an NGADM Round 3 review.

--

Fixing the transitions because SkyeWintrest is judging is one thing. But making a terrible ending just to troll him because he's judging? Well, that's something else. I swear I heavily considered giving bonus points just for that. That's just hilarious. What's also amusing is that this is actually a very pleasant and well-composed track despite it being something of an experiment (and a very successful troll attempt because when I notified Skye of your ending he was like "WHAT"). You have some spectacular composition, that may seem a bit a slow-paced but is actually jam-packed with a bunch of melodic subtleties, harmonies and sweet motifs.

One thing I really like about this track is that it depicts a journey so well that there is literally not that much of a reason to stay following your intended storyline in the Author's Comments. The first part sounds just like a hometown, and what follows is very much of a "farewell" kind of deal. The song blends seamlessly into a more serious note as the adventurer makes his way to the desert (I'm being honest; great transition), and also morphs very well into the showdown (which OF COURSE is on top of a train in the desert. Seriously! Who didn't see that coming?). Really, you've got great transitions on the whole, and a nice structure to boot! Not a conventional structure for sure, but one that conveys a story.

What else do I like about this track? Well, the way the song opens up fourteen seconds in was just beautiful. I loved that! 1:23's little melodic phrase, while leaning ever so slightly onto the cheesy side, was also magnificently incorporated into the track, especially since you repeat it various times. I think your introduction of a breakbeat towards the end of the track was dubious at first, but I've got to admit, it's the kind of thing that, in some odd way, grows on you. Neat high pass filter on the bass at 4:31. It successfully managed to create expectations that the track was about to burst into a more exciting new section.

Really, I actually enjoyed this a lot! It hardly sounds "orchestral" in the way quite a few other NGADM Round 2 tracks were. This has its own unique little charm and even though you probably don't have amazing instrument samples, I don't think it showed in this track at all. A few issues you need to iron out though. Your reverse cymbal is again far too loud. It was also used too much. You milked it to the point that it cheapened almost every transition it was implemented in, which is a shame because you had a few impressive transitions. You have some nice percussion, but your tambourine is way too upfront in the mix. As much as I would love to give you bonus points for the ending, it is abrupt haha. There's a nasty drum roll leading to it that sounds really unprocessed and harsh; do away with that.

Scattered with a bunch of issues, but this was actually great fun to listen to, and I still can't get over how awesome you are for trolling Skye. Keep it up! Side note: was the melody in this track inspired by this? http://goo.gl/zYo0ZK

Score: 8.7/10

johnfn responds:

Step, thank you thank you THANK YOU as always for the amazing and detailed reviews. I'm glad it generally worked for you. Doing songs with visualizations is actually a rare thing for me, so I'm finding it neat that that worked out too.

The funny thing about the reverse cymbal is that I have a blind spot for it. Like I slip it in and then I just never hear it in the mix again, and then eventually everyone is like "omg your reverse cymbal what were you thinking!!!" And then I hear it for the first time and I'm like "oops." This happens to me all the time, lol. So I will promise not to use one in NGADM4. That should help me fix up my transitions.

Good call on the tams.

This song was seriously rushed so I can understand all the minor issues and will definitely keep an eye out next time.

I was actually really nervous that the ending would be my downfall... or at the very least, SkyeWintrest would give me a 0/10 as a countertroll. So I'm glad I can troll and get away with it ;D

P.S. actually no, that was not an inspiration - I haven't played that game. Though one of my worries about doing the descending baseline idea (C->B->A->G->F) is that all of the different uses sound similar. I believe the first time I learned of the idea was when I was dissecting this homestuck song a few months ago: http://homestuck.bandcamp.com/track/alternia (gorgeous song, btw), or perhaps this one hour compo song http://compo.thasauce.net/files/td244_-_Haunting_memories(OHC205).mp3 (again, gorgeous... and done in one hour too... it's the descending baseline, I tells ya!)

[SoundChris]

Very nice main theme - very livley. I really like the tribal touch you have created by using the percussions. I can imagine how the maincharacter leaves his rural hometown and starts his journey. Very nice how you change the feel between the single sections, which are quite different but also add to each other very well. Btw: Awesome that you have been inspired by the xenogears soundtrack - it also reminded me of it - what an awesome game! *nostalgic feelings*

What i also found very cool is how you move from orchestral to electro while the piece. I have been very well entertained. Nice musical journey - Thank you!

All the best for you and keep it on

johnfn responds:

Hey thanks for dropping by! In fact the changeup was at least partially inspired by you because I was totally jealous of how you could switch between styles so easily! (And I realized that it wasn't easy at all... haha).

Seems like I made a typo, I meant to say xenoblade not xenogears. Though I'm positive there's some xenogears influence in there too because Yasunori Mitsuda is one of my favorite vg composers!

Thanks for the review :)

[SourJovis]

I like how you give an explanation for what happens in every part of the song. Helps to visualize it, although it wasn't even that necessary, because it gives me plenty images. However, now at least I also hear the train. Very cool. On a minor note, at 4:03 to about 4:35 I hear a high hat that sounds a bit too loud to me. Cliffhanger ending? I suppose you made this a set up for a sequel? I actually liked the ending. Even if/ or probably because of its ridiculousness.

johnfn responds:

I'm glad that the song leads itself to good images! It's kind of rare for me to see images when I'm working on my songs, so I decided to jot them down for other less visual people like me.

Good ear on the hat at 4:03. In fact this is a noise coming from the guitar. It made sense when the guitar is soloed, but a lot less sense when it's layered, so yeah I should have fixed that.

I'm also happy the ending worked for you, ha! It seems to be quite polarizing and will probably be my downfall :P