ArcaneSoul's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[groove battle!]

This almost sounds like you made it on old FL. Anyway, yeah mixing is a bit weird on this one. It might have to do with the bass. and 1:17 you had too much mids and way too much delay on that build up.

I love the breakbeat tho. Kind of adds some expressions to the groovy feel this is suppose to have. And as usual....your melodies are ALWAYS better than mines.

So yeah that's all i can point out so far. Great job tho!

johnfn responds:

Lol yeah the build up is pretty messed up.

IDK what is wrong with the mixing other than it's wrong. Kinda drives me crazy.

The reason I submitted this one is mostly because I was sitting on three different songs that were almost done. That's too many. :P Only way to improve is to keep submitting and work through the bad... somehow... blah

[Market Town]

What are you using for some of these tracks? These are amazing! :O
You're getting at a much better rate now. Please keep it up friend :)

johnfn responds:

Thanks bro. You're getting better too. Hope to keep seeing you around :-)

[freefalling]

You're mastering sounds alot better than mines.

After this current song, im gonna freaking start on my next album. Which will have mostly sound design and experiemental stuff.

johnfn responds:

It's funny you think that because when I listen to your songs I always think ";_; my god such good mastering"

i didn't know you released a new album! listening to it now.

[quarantine]

This is almost ALL ableton isn't it? :O

You're improving way to fast. You might even get better than me :(

Still though, good job at improving so well. This is one of the reasons too ive been holding back at collabing is because i feel like you're getting better than me at like everything. Mastering, melodic composition, and even sound design.

Hope you keep improving as its nice to see these really polished songs of yours.

johnfn responds:

oh yeah! i've been using ONLY ableton since lizard dance. haven't touched FL in a while ;-P i don't have it totally down - i sequence beats by copying and pasting audio snippets, for example, but i'm getting there.

you shouldnt worry about who's better though. collabs are all about learning from each other, and they're a way for both of us to improve. it's not like i'm going to siphon off the last of your skills or something lol. i have a lot of respect for your songs, and i'm nowhere near your soundscaping and mastering abilities. but yeah, don't worry about that, just worry about getting better!!

thanks for the review!

[Improvisation #1]

What was the fanfic about exactly? The song changes alot in tone that sometimes its a bit hard to understand. But thats what i love about it to, its like showing an adventure of someones life. Also i practically can't really hear your errors so this one is getting another perfect 5 from me.

NAOW MAKE SOMETHING WITH TEH ALICORN TWALOT jk. Make whatever you want :D

ErikMcClure responds:

Someone already made a Princess Twilight Sparkle Suite by constructing it from the various songs in the season finale. It is far superior to anything I could make: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulCF77j_kS0

The improv was only loosely based on the fanfic so some of the ideas are sad while some are unrelated. It was a realistic take on Rainbow Dash being gay in a society stuck in the 1950s - which meant most of her friends wanted to "cure" her, not actually accept her.

[Spiral Nebula]

I thought a while back you said you would quit. Is your motivation still keeping you from doing that though?

Also not much to say about this song except very well done as usual. Gosh i wish i knew sound design :(

ErikMcClure responds:

Something happened.

[Ludum Dare 22]

Birth of a Hero
The long road
Hidden Energy

The beat feels a little bit weak but minus that, this is a pretty neat track. Also is that autogun im hearing? If that is well i congratulate you for making an actual use for it as i usually suck with using it for a song. As for the title, well those ones above are just crappy suggestions. I'm usually bad with titles so don't listen to me xD

ErikMcClure responds:

I use Ogun, which is the actual synth autogun uses underneath the hood.

[Destination]

Was this inspired by my horrible tempt of chipstep?

Also seems like a good song for an adventure. The mixing and eqing is great tho the beat is a little low in my opinion. The different chords really touches it up alot too, adding tons of variation and everything.

Overall i like how this turned out tho i feel like the beat could of used a bit more variation. Then again im arcane and i always obsess about beats too much so don't be bothered :)

5 stars, fav'd, downloaded.

johnfn responds:

thanks bro! imo the beats are some of my personal best, because usually i just copy and paste a loop and call it done, but this time i took the effort to actually sequence a whole loop out. buuut there's always room for improvement :)

thanks for listening!

P.S. your 'chipstep' song was good, except it wasn't chipstep at all :D (and the contest was 8bit themed, so i didn't really have a choice.)

[Empty]

You seem to have the same problem when it comes to music. That you forget about projects too much or you're scared of forgetting them. What makes it hard trying to get motivation to work on one song?

Also since you kind of admitted this already had flaws, im not going to point those out so ill give you a standard 4/5 mainly for the beautiful melody composition.

johnfn responds:

You should point them out anyways, you might have noticed different problems than I did.

I actually don't have a problem of forgetting about songs (at least not usually). My main problem is I simply don't have enough time to work on music, what with school and all. The spark I had with this song lasted at least a week or two, which is pretty long for me, but I was mostly busy with schoolwork during that time.