Feedback wanted before I resubmit a couple tracks, please.

Hey everyone. Short story not-so-short: I joined AJ last year and submitted 5 tracks for starters. No surprise, all 5 were rejected. Three were rejected for production/mix/master, etc., as well as composition/arrangement. One was rejected only for mix/master, and one was rejected with no reasons given. The one that was rejected only for mix/master, I uploaded on soundcloud and posted it here looking for advice. Generally speaking, everyone who was nice enough to comment had mostly good things to say about it. I also received some great tips and advice on ways to improve it, which I really appreciated, and used everywhere I could.

Since then, I’ve been working hard on all 5 tracks. I think the one common mix/master issue I had on each track was that I was clipping. Besides that, I’ve been really trying to up my mixing skills, and also did some rearranging where I felt it was needed. Fast forward much too long of a time, and I think my skills have improved quite a bit, and the songs are better… Sort of.

Before I would attempt to resubmit any of them to AJ, I took a stab recently (with my new and improved mixes) at Pond5 and submitted my 5 songs to them. Well, all were rejected. Their rejection explanation gives far less information than AJ does, so I didn’t “learn” anything from it.

At this point, I’ve decided to definitely resubmit one of the songs here at AJ again, and possibly second one. Before I do, I figured I’d offer them up to the community to see what you all might have to say about it.

The first one, which I’d like to resubmit: Hurry Up

This is the one that was rejected only for production/mix/master issues. Besides clipping, I could only guess what needed to be changed, but I remixed the whole thing anyway from top to bottom. I think it sounds much better than the first version, and it’s not clipping either. Let me know what you think.

The second one, not sure if I’d resubmit: Turning Wrenches

This one had no reasons given for rejection. I remixed it anyway, as well as played around a bit with the arrangement (mostly in the drums and bass so they rhythmically locked in better).

Thanks in advance!

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Man, I like them, some tight guitar playing!!! Sorry, I have no other real useful input!!

Thanks @OceansAudio, maybe that’s a good thing???

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Excellent work.

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Thanks @FoxHorn.

Definitely a good thing

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Yeah man, they sound tight, punchy and awesome. Give it a go!

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Sounds tight! Melody- and mixdown wise. I agree with the rest, go for it i’d say.

Cheers and goodluck!

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I can’t listen to the tracks right now, but i’ll do it, I promise :slight_smile:

This is cool that you had at least some explanation by AJ… because it seems that recently, AJ does not give any explanation for rejection… and you don’t know if this is because of mix or composition!

EDIT: listening to the tracks right now, I loooove them! :slight_smile: Yeah!! Really nice guitar playing, full of energy. I think I prefer the style of the second one, it has more surprises and variations than the first one.
Also, mix wise, I find the first one is a bit “harsh” in the high frequencies, but this might be just me. I also would like more low end…

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Thanks @ihsandincer!

Thanks @WolfpackBranding!

Thanks @frozenjazz. Man… the harshness, I know. As a guitar player that likes high gain tones, dealing with the area in and around 3k is tough, since that’s where a lot of the brightness, presence, and a lot of personality lies for heavy guitars. Finding that balance where it’s bright but not harsh, nor too dull is quite a challenge for me. I’ll spend a lot of time sorting that out, and I imagine I have quite a long road ahead of me to really get comfortable and effective dealing with that. Listening to it on my studio monitors, I agree, there’s still some grit there, but listening to it on other sources, I was fine with it. As far as the low end goes, yeah, I wouldn’t have minded a bit more. The reference track I was using didn’t have a lot of low end either, and I was challenging myself to get my track to sound like the reference as much as possible because I really like that particular song. If I didn’t use that song though, I may have put a bit more low end in there, but for me it works for this track. Give and take, I guess. Thanks again for listening and sharing your thoughts.

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I told you my opinion, but struggle myself with guitars…
I was just rejected for a guitar track…

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How lovely. The struggle is real.

Update: So I eventually (re)submitted both tracks: Hurry Up, which was the one that was previously rejected for mixing/mastering was rejected again, with no specific reason other than that “it isn’t at the quality standard to move forward.” However, Turning Wrenches, which was previously rejected with no reason given… was approved for sale. I guess I finally broke the seal!

Thanks again to everyone who’ve chimed in and given me great advice. On to the next one…

Hey, your track sounds good, but here is my 2cents
The creative titles like “Turning wrenches” doesn’t work here.

Heavy Rock, American Rock. or some other cliche name would be a better choice.

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Cool track man! I like it.

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Thanks for the tip MagicMood9. I’m definitely new at this, and I imagine your advice is worthwhile. However, just like you said, naming the track with something more cliché would be… more cliché. I agree that it would be more descriptive, and maybe more appropriate. I may be shooting myself in the foot, but I just don’t want to do that. When I look at everything else around (here or on other sites), a lot of the titles are like you described. The few titles I come across with “creative names,” though, are the ones I like to click on to listen to. I guess it’s a different strategy. It might not work in the end, but I have a day job I enjoy and I’m doing this for fun and my own personal enrichment and musical development. That being said, I appreciate any and all advice that comes my way. Thanks.