It helps me to liken it to Provel cheese. I’m from St. Louis, and a lot of people from St. Louis really like Provel cheese. It’s used on a lot of local Italian foods. But most people (that I’ve encountered, anyway) not from St. Louis can hardly stand Provel cheese.
It’s obviously both good cheese (hundreds of thousands of people enjoy it), and commercially viable within St. Louis, but you’re unlikely to find it on the shelves of grocery stores in Los Angeles or New York – or anywhere at all very far from St. Louis.
So we’re trying to produce music for AudioJungle to put on their shelves. It may well be GOOD music, but it may or may not be what they want to offer for sale. I do wish we had more insight into their thought process, but “commercial” rejections seem to have little or nothing to do with the quality of the music per se, but rather, with the reviewer’s idea of what is suitable for AudioJungle.
After a small number of AudioJungle accepts and a comparatively large number of rejections, I too feel discouraged, but I think the best thing to do is continue trying to discern what AudioJungle wants, and keep trying… and also, see what else I can do with the tracks they reject. Just because they don’t want them doesn’t mean that nobody does.
Awesome, thanks for providing this link/graphic! I did not know there were this many tracks submitted on the daily. I still respectfully maintain that I’m not asking for details. I imagine if the reviewer just answers three yes/no questions (and nothing else), then it doesn’t get any quicker than that. The answers to those 3 yes/no questions is all I would need to make appropriate adjustments.
Understand, there are no 1000 reviewers for one author. This is the main reason, BUT you can unload your tracks on the forum, even in this topic and we’ll help you!
This helps a lot actually, I did not realize this. Thank you! To me, something not being “commercially viable” could mean a number of things. Knowing what that term means to AudioJungle reviewers means a world of difference. Thanks again.
You’re right, if there’s 400 accepted songs in a given day, then there’s probably thousands of rejections. I’d be interested in finding out the current review process. It’s hard to imagine it being simpler than answering 3 yes/no question. I know things are more nuanced than simple answers, but given the massive workload for reviewers, it may help them to know I’m good with just 3 simple yes/no answers as opposed to what they do now.
The responses in this thread have really opened my mind though. I’m learning that the rejection for not being “commercially viable” means more that the composition isn’t fitting for this site, and that if it was simply a production quality issue, then that is it’s own type of rejection. That had confused me, because I was thinking that a good composition with bad production also falls under the category of “not commercially viable”.
This is absolutely correct and good to keep in mind. If I was sending demos/albums to a record label and getting no response, that is not some fault of the record label. They don’t have the time or responsibility to teach me how to make better music. I would have to decide whether or not to keep submitting music to them, or if it’s a waste of my time. …all the while, the mistake could be as simple as me just mistyping their address on the envelope.
Wow, thanks for checking it out! This helps out a lot, thank you. I’ve also wondered if naming it “Mother Trucker” was a mistake in itself, for this site. And to be honest, I’ve yet to write music specifically for this site. I make a lot of music constantly, and I figured I could start trying to just routinely submit that music here to see if I can make a buck.
I’m starting to get the impression that the “sound” that you describe here is more “corporate/mainstream” so any deviation from that, whether it’s artistically awesome or not, is less likely to get accepted. That’s understandable.
I’m not very young… but I started to contribute with Audiojungle two years ago… with same passion as a young. I got lots of rejections… then I started to listen approved tracks… and they were amazing! I started to learn how to do music here, get approvals and even keep my principles and my spirit as a composer. I’m not have lots of sales but I’m ok whit that right now… at least they like what I do and I have that in my portfolio,.
Don’t give up… listen, listen, listen… learn,learn,learn… I’m sure you do great music… but here it’s not about “your” music. It’s about a synergy between that you are capable to do and what “they” want you to do.
Good luck!! and remembber: don’t give up!
So imagine this, Flumen, given the massive amount of submissions and very few amount of reviewers… A reviewer has only three questions to answer on every submission:
Is the production level commercially viable? yes/no
Is the composition commercially viable? yes/no
Did the author follow the correct submission guidelines? yes/no
As an author getting a track rejected, that’s all I’d need to know to adjust things and learn from it. Surely that’s not more difficult than what they already do, right? I don’t know what they do currently, so maybe it is. Seems like the reviewers are currently tasked with addressing more than just three yes/no questions. If they could simplify the review process, then they can review more songs and the review cue would be shorter.
I think ultimately, I may have just been confused by the rejection of “not being commercially viable”. To me, that means either the composition isn’t right for the site, or the production quality isn’t up-to-par. As I’ve learned from this thread, however, there’s a different rejection note when the production quality is the reason. That definitely helps! Thanks for the encouragement!
Yes of course it is, but you forget about the fact that there are also people on the forum, and even professors in music (I will not speak to myself), but nevertheless they often share their experience. And they can give you a criterion that will be interesting for you, perhaps about what you did not even know. Do not need to underestimate the forum. You can upload into this thread your tracks that have been hard rejections. There are no people here who refuse to help you!
Are you 100% sure that’s the case? In the past they used to send another text mentioning issues about mixing/mastering/samples and lately I haven’t received that text. How can you be sure that they didn’t just decide to reply with the same generic text to everyone about ‘commercial quality standard’? Do you have an example of a recent rejection mail where they specifically indicate issues with production quality?
To be on the same page, when I say they send a mail about ‘commercial quality standard’ I mean this template:
“This item does not meet the general commercial quality standard required to be accepted on AudioJungle, unfortunately.”
Not sure if it’s implicated in this template that there could be issues with mixing/mastering/samples, or they mean that production quality is OK but a track isn’t commercially viable. I’m a bit confused…
This is another template from 2017:
"Thanks for your submission.
After some careful consideration, it was determined that this submission does not meet AudioJungle’s commercial production (recording/mixing/mastering) standard, and its commercial composition/arrangement standard, unfortunately."
