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!