Hard reject. Give me some a dvice and your thoughs, please

Envato Authors AudioJungle
1

Hi, I’m a beginner and got my second hard reject. I have my assumptions and I’m not very surprised it was rejected, but I’d appreciate your comments. Listen and tell me your opinion please, what was the main reason of the reject, what can be improved, just your thoughts, etc.

https://soundcloud.com/overt-sounds/corporate-inspiration-preview

I got this message from the Quality team:

“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.”

Also, I’m not sure if this a standard message or it means that neither recording/mixing/mastering nor composition/arrangement meet the quality bar. I don’t know if AJ quality team is more careful regarding what they accept after P.R.O changes. But it shouldn’t matter since I’m not a P.R.O author.

First 4 items that I uploaded were accepted. Here is the link to my profile: https://audiojungle.net/user/overtsounds

Thanks!

2

Hi! Yes it is standart question.
Track is too repetitive (which is my problem too). You must add something at least 2 bars. And when comes breakdown it’s too quickly. Try pick up a kick when breakdown comes, and also your FX’s is not too loud when breakdown comes.
Also I dont like clap and kick with too dynamic attack.

3

Guitar popping up pinched compressor , and need to do something with the kick pops out too ( heavy cotton ) , you need to work with compression , kick and a guitar!)

4

Thanks for your comments, I’ll take them in consideration next time. About the clap and kick, do you mean the attack should be longer or shorter?

5

Thanks for your helpful comment. I’m not familiar with “heavy cotton”, though. Can you elaborate?

6

It is too punchy, if your work with compressor on your master it will compress your kick and it will be ok. Or just change it if you use some kind of plugin like Kick or Kick 2 or simillar to this. Also you can use GClip.

1 Like
7

I see, thanks :slight_smile:

8

It’s always a hard emotion to handle being rejected by any means. Fortunately I never had a hard reject on AJ or any other RF library (only 27 items, not big deal!). But I already had some rejections on my work with clients. Some hard, some soft… it’s never easy to manage them!
Well, the main problem with your tune is your kick drum and stereo field, IMO. The composition is OK and has the main common ingredients most of the corporate tracks here at AJ have. If the stereo field and kick were right, your track, most certainly, would have been approved and you could sell it on AJ. The standards for this particular genre are not the highest, from what you can notice if you take a listen to lots of tracks you will find searching for corporate, upbeat, uplifting, inspiring, etc. 'cause this genre is the one that sells the most and makes everybody happy $$$. So, my advice is:

1. Grab a good Kick drum.
Get one you like and that you feel is appropriate for your tune, is already sounding great and more or less punchy according to the other instruments you’ll use in that specific tune. You can find many free, well produced, drum samples on the net, just do a search and you’ll find them. After finding the right one, DO NOT touch it with EQ and compressors if you don’t really know what you’re doing tweaking the knobs and if you’re a beginner as you told you are. (like you probably did with this one that was rejected). Just build your tune sound around it and from time to time, compare your tune development with some good references you like (listening to tracks of the same genre as anchors and try to approximate the whole sound landscape to them. You can download some previews from the top guys here on AJ, they are a good reference and it seems they know what they’re doing!). If you don’t have an acoustically treated working space and a nice pair of reference monitors, stick to a good pair of headphones. Just use your monitors really quiet (very low levels) for the volume balance of the instruments. A good pair of headphones is not so expensive and will help a lot.

2. Use Pan wisely.
The stereo field is very important, so don’t put all your instruments on the center, even if you use stereo synth patcehs and delays… spread them across the landscape. It’s always better to appreciate a nice view from an open space then through a little window. With music and sound it’s similar.

3. Try and experiment…
If you don’t have sound engineering experience, it’s easier to look for more appropriate sounds that seat well on the track without the need for EQ and comp tweaking so, if some instrument (patch or sample) will not work as it should, or you don’t feel really happy with, try another one until you get satisfied with the result and never forget the anchors. Compare the results with well produced tracks and try to get closer, sounding wise. Always keep an “ears eye” on them! :wink:

4. Look for good tutorials.
On youtube you can find loads of info about music production and sound engineering. You will find good and bad ones of course, the good ones, usually have more views and you can always search about the background of the guy that made it and about his work.

5. Try to listen to your track forgetting that it is yours… can you?! It’s the hardest thing you can do, I know… How can we forget about our lovely little baby, right?! :slight_smile: Well, but this is very important, believe me! It can help a lot if you will not upload it just immediately after you finish it. Just forget about it for some days, work on other tracks and refresh your ears with good references without listening to it. Then go back and, if you really feel it needs it, do your refinements or just don’t upload it and let it live in the limbo if you feel it’s bellow the minimum standards.
Keep this in mind: We never finish a tune or a mix, we just abandon them! So, don’t spend your lifetime with a single one… just keep on going!
Only upload your tune after comparing it to your references and feel (now it’s not your little baby anymore, right?!) that it is not too far from them in terms of quality.
After my little advice, I hope you will not be “boring” the good fellow AJ reviewers anymore, they have to listen to hundreds of tracks a month and have to be judges of the devil sometimes! :wink:

Hope my two cents will help. Good luck! :slight_smile:

1 Like
9

Hey, thanks for taking your time to reply with a very helpful answer. It’s impressive that you haven’t had a hard reject on AJ, it says a lot about an author. I will accept your advice next time :slight_smile: