DJ-Ultimus's audio Reviews on Newgrounds

[PaNdOrA-Heavan's Uprising]

This is why I don't go to NG often...

There's clipping everywhere. You didn't use a compressor. Somehow, I'm thinking that basically all of your synths are presets (even though they're very unimpressive and dull anyways). There's no EQ in sight, and everything seems to clash instead of merging smoothly together. I appologize for being harsh, but I'd be doing you no good by telling you that this is good. For somebody who's uploaded 50 tracks, I would expect better quality from you.

Perhaps what's holding you back is your hardware (you use poor quality speakers, don't you?). Perhaps it's all of the people giving you good reviews and encouraging this mediocrity. Perhaps it's the fect that you rush your work (you do a song per day, and it shows in how unfinished they sound). But more seriously, I'd recommend that you take a break from making your own music and try to recreate some professional tracks. Anything at all, as long as it's pro. After you've done 3 accurate recreations like that, I guarantee that your original work will be of much higher quality. But, 'till then, I just can't see why most of your work deserves anything more than a 3/10, mainly for the effort. Tracks like this are why I don't go to NG often.

-DJ Ultimus

Pandora-Tranquil responds:

and then you go an review fantasmal sadness and want to remix it?

im too lazy to check and see if i really did compress the shit, and yes it mainly IS my hardware, i barely have any decent speakers in my whole house. (i have to use headphones) but actually since fantasmal saddness ive been doing a different approach and doing more optimizing.

FUCK remixing a pro track, i hate remixes, for real they jus ruin it, it don even feel like mine. Yes i DO use presets, but i don see how that synth was unimpressive, it changed as it was playing, mainly it was the other synth that had bass in it, on the headphones i didnt hear it.

now that ive been doing it with these shit headphones for a while im getting better at SEEING the optimization, using more equalizers to make sure no bass'es clash and stuff.

oh and im not gonna check and make sure but i don think this song clipped once....

you made me think for a second, but ive actually gotten way better since i made this song so im not worried about sounding mediocre.

also the synths i used in this one were new and i was testing them, unfortunately they were demos and they had this shitty white noise that played every 20 seconds or so.

[PaNdOrA-Fantasmal Sadness-LOOP]

I'd love to remix it

This is a very well done loop, and if you don't mind, I'd very much like to do a professional remix of it. To hear a sample of my recent remix work, feel free to check out my track, Firefly.

If you are interested, please contact me by email or (preferably) by MSN messenger at

ultimus at gmail dot com

I look forward to a response,
-DJ Ultimus

Pandora-Tranquil responds:

haha thanks dude, im gonna do a full version of this, so i don mind if u remix the loop.

thats cool that you like it, thanks!

depending on what software u use id be glad to send u the project file (i use fruityloops.)newayz thanks for the comment, im glad you see it worthy of a remix lol

[Rave-Lit-Sky]

Not bad at all compared to most submissions.

I like the melody (it definitely has the makings of good trance), but that's about the only thing that I can say about this one.

I'd have to disagree, I think that it sounds very unpolished as sounds a bit too much like midi (though still far better on a technical level than 90% of the crap that you'll find on NG).

Some EQ would be useful, as would automation of cutoffs to give the whole thing a less amateur sound. Still, though, this is getting an 8/10 from me, which isn't bad at all.

ZooL152004 responds:

thanks, 8/10 might mean squat to some but it means alot to me. i admit most of my stuff sounds amaturish (if thats a word lol) but to be honest i can willingly call myself a rookie, as i would be making money if i was at a standard level. the only way is up and thanks to your words and others i keep on climbing.

cheers

[DanceTrance]

I'm speechless... and not in a good way

Okay, so you took a preset and slopped on some random midi (or various prefabricated loops), chopped up some samples to no the point of no recognition, looped it all over and over for 1:45, and uploaded it as your own work. Tsk, tsk, tsk...

Hostest to God, I really don't mean to offend, but I'm not going to sugar coat the truth. As a fellow producer, I know how hard criticism may be, but the only thing worse than knowing that your work is terrible is thinikng that it's good when it's not.

Regards,
-DJ Ultimus

TheRealMrPretzel responds:

bahaha, dude this was back in teh day when i didn't know wat the hell i was doing. So critcise all you want, i dont care honeslty, this song is pure shit.

[The Sun Run (2004 Event Mix)]

Great Job

First off, let me say that you definitely know what you're doing (unlike 99% of the trance artists out there). You've got skill and potential to make it big. You've got sequencing and mixing down pat.

However, I can't help but hear that the track seems a little chaotic and unfocused at points. Your compressor does a great job at squashing those bels down to a reasonable level, but unfortunately, this causes a lot of the channels to be lost in the noise of the track... The same effect that you'll get out of bad DAC's in your hardware. This does give the track somewhat of a more professional feel to it, but try feeding this through some amps and blasting it out of generic speakers in a large hall full of reso... and you won't get much but noise. Add in a the sound of the crowd, and you've got chaos led by a beat from the woofers. It would do you well to accentuate the higher end, and cut out a bit of the middle to make the track more portable and to increase clarity. If you want a reference as to this "clarity" I'm talking about, feel free to check out the highly unfinished track of mine (and the only one I've put onto NG), Beholder.

Transitions seem a little coarse, but this does not have any major reprecussions for the track as a whole, as it is fast paced and unpredictible in itself, so I won't complain.

However, I do hear what seems like a load of unaltered presets that have been done a million times over. If you built them from scratch, then I would recommend that you develop them more fully and give them a little of your own flavor, as opposed to trying to immitate the sound of the big names in the biz. If you simply fed some midi through factory presets, I should really recommend that you try developping your own synths to add a bit of spice to your tracks.

Nevertheless, like I said, your work looks very promising, and I would love to do some collab with you. Should you be interested, my email/MSN tag is ultimus [at] gmail [dot] com

Good job, and good luck in the future.

-DJ Ultimus

Marchorizon responds:

Thank you very much for your detailed review and I thank you more for giving it a "fair" score..It only deserves 4 for originality..lol..All of the problems that you have discovered with this tune, I have already fixed myself as I have made a newer remix recently..but its good to know that you've spotted the same things..dead on about most of the presets..as this was the first track I made after I had got a new VST..so I cracked out all the new presets and put them into an old tune..As you wish to hear some of my "originallity"..I shall upload a tune that you should check out..Its "my" style..not generic trance, not generic anything..It uses all of my programmed synths etc..Most people say its like "nothing they've heard before"..Well thanks for the good luck..

..about colaboration, what software do you use for production?

..Marc Horizon