Would love to hear your thoughts on why these two were rejected. That’s 12 now. I wish they would say if it’s production quality or the music itself that’s the problem. What do you think? Thanks
Hello, my friend.
Your both track are awsome and beautiful melodies
For the rejection, in my opinion, it should come from the quality of the instruments or the VSTs used, they sound poor.
I suggest you to use highest quality Vst and samples to get a better result
and please you don’t have to give up, just be positive and try to improve your craft step by step
most of the people here got rejections so you are not alone, and be patient you will see a lot of change.
Good luck with your next submission
Both tracks are far too complex for production music. They are fantastic pieces of work that I thoroughly enjoyed listening to but not appropriate for this audience. Simplify things. Key changes and mixed meter don’t work well for production music. Often, your music will get chopped up to fit a certain time window. If there are not clear places in the track to snip, then it will not provide enough utility to the user to be commercially appealing. Pick a 4-8 bar harmonic theme and alter the arrangement slightly each time through the progression.
Listen to the top selling tracks on here and you will here the formula for getting a track accepted and producing something that will sell. You are not writing tracks to show off, you are writing tracks to enhance something else. Simplify your work, my friend. Don’t give up because you have excellent writing chops. But recognize your audience and write to them.
Hope this helps!
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Great advice!
I guess my two friends gave excellent advices.
But on my side: listening to the first track… my immediate reaction is to shout to the piano player “stop it!!” . This fast mechanical arpeggio is so irritating 
But this is just a matter of playing with velocity and make the playing more human. I find the composition is really nice but yes, all the instruments need to be improved in their tone, they all sound “cheap” if this makes sense.
That being said, the composition might be too complex and busy for a “background” track that people will use for videos.
The second track has, in my opinion, more potential on the stock market. The sounds are not too bad, but a big effort has to be made on mixing / mastering.
Please don’t give up! If you knew how many rejections we all get!!
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+1 to all comments.
I would say the tracks sound like they come from the past, they remind me of 90’s (or 80’s) tv shows. That’s not a bad thing, but I think AJ is not the place. Try another library, definitely not stock music.
Sofari is perfect for the new Age of Empires that you can play on Steam 
You make very good music, good luck !
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Sofari !!! I was wondering where did I hear something similar 
love age of empire
Many thanks for your helpful replies. So it’s the music as well as the production! Back to the drawing board then. I wonder what the average number of rejections before a first acceptance is? Could be a new thread there. Actually in my case it was zero, because my first effort about four years ago was accepted straight away. I ‘improved’ it and resubmitted it recently, and it was turned down!
By the way, for those who liked the tracks you can hear more here:
http://cumusic.co.uk/samples/
Thanks again!
2 Likes
Hi Cumusic, Your music is great!! The first track is reminiscent of the prog rock legend Rick Wakeman. If you aren’t familiar with his work, I recommend you check out his albums ‘Six Wives of Heny VIII’, ‘1984’ and ‘Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table’. You would love all of that great stuff I think.
If Motivate was played by a band, it would be epic! As it is, as SprodMusic said, the VSTI’s sound cheap and the notes are robotic. Try a ‘human’ quantize, or randomise the note positions slightly on those piano arps. I would also make some variations in the note velocities and invest in some better sample libraries/VSTI’s. Or, even better still, put together a band and play it live.
Doing all of that probably wouldn’t get this track accepted by AJ though. I don’t think this kind of music would be considered by AJ as commercially viable.
Sofari is an amazing track. Again the poor Instrument samples are evident, but I think in this case they actually work in favour of the track! It is very much like a 16bit video game sound track from the likes of Nintendo’s SNES which are so in vogue at the moment. Maybe it wouldn’t be right for AJ, more fool them, but there are so many indie video game designers making games for mobile devices at the moment that this kind of music is perfect for. Perhaps, if you have lots of ideas akin to this one, you could get together a portfolio and approach some of those people with it.
NEVER give up!
you have very nice works! but this is not about “bad” or “good”
listen, listen, listen a lot approved stuff… you will get approvals very soon!
Hi, thanks for your comments. Yes, I remember Rick Wakeman well, particularly his lovely playing on Hunky Dory.
A few people have mentioned the quality of the sounds. Would you be able to specify a few which grate with you - that would be useful (maybe they all come from the same library)?
Cheers
G
Thanks for that. If not stock music libraries, can you suggest where I should try for? I’ve got about 12 tracks on Pond5 but no-ones looking at them…
G
That was golden advice. I suffered from this and only recently learned how to tone a track down to the bare essence. Writing simple, marketable music is a skill in and of itself!
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