Greetings to everyone, I am new to audiojungle and I have been trying for months to get my first article accepted, with each rejection I seek to improve the composition and sound processing. This is my last article, I uploaded it a few days ago and I just received the rejection notification. Can you please help me by providing your professional opinion? what should I do? what should I not do? what should i improve? Thank you very much for your help, I really appreciate it.
Hi. For what it is worth I think this sounds pretty good. The only thing that stands out to me is the ending - it seems too abrupt and lacking finality. Maybe a clear cadence would put this track over the top.
Hi,
The composition is good.
In my opinion your sound libraries could be better chosen.
The strings sounding oversaturated, synthetic and stands too much out. Also I miss an reverb and ambience. It sounds more like a little chamber quartet. Therefore the Timpani have this ambience and reverb - but together it sounds not real. Also the Timpani are too quiet and too far in the room in propotion to the other instruments.
I would work on the dynamic of the strings. By example they ending very hard at 00:23.
The song ends totally unexpected. I would work on this.
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I really appreciate your opinion and advice, I will abide by them. Is there a library of orchestral sounds, especially strings, that you, with your experience, recommend for this kind of article?
There are a lot of suitable libraries on the market. If you do not own an all-in-one orchestral library, I would recommend
- Albion One (Spitfire Audio) for common orchestral music
- Albion Loegria (Spitfire Audio) if you want to compose more calming and soft orchestral music
- Albion Iceni (Spitfire Audio) and Metropolis Ark 1 (Orchestral Tools) if you want to compose more agressive music like trailers
- especially for very good strings the Cinematic Studio Strings (Cinematic Studio Series) and the CineStrings Core or Pro edition (Cinesamples)
- especially for brass the CineBrass Core or Pro edition (Cinesamples)
- especially for woodwinds the CineWinds Core or Pro edition (Cinesamples)
For the piece above I still would recommend Albion One to try it out. Every manufacturer of orchestral libraries has his stengths and lacks. It’s always a good idea to layer the instruments from different manufacturers (especially the sections - not the solos). But that’s also a question of money then, because every of this librariy is not cheap.
Hope, that helps a bit.
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@Daydreamz-Studios . I’ll second the Cinematic Studio Strings. Most realistic articulations. Period. For brass i’d add Orchestral Tools - Brass. Not as bitey as Cinebrass but more organic and warm.Spitfire Olafur Arnalds for Strings textures. Amazing and inspiring quality. Orchestral Tools Timpani is a good addition.
I found NI Noire to be a potent addition as a felt or pure piano. Very warm and full. Lots of editing options.
The composition and arrangement is okay apart from the ending, however the sound libraries sadly let this down consequently that may have led to a rejection. The end needs to resolve in a more musical way. The competition is high and regarding sound libraries I would agree with the above. It could prove to be an expensive exercise but that is what the market expects nowadays.
As for reverbs. I kindly sugest Eventide Room Reverb. This is a very special one due to the fact that has’ Near - Far ’ option. It uses a psychoacoustic algorythm which sends your tracks in 360 degrees whithout ambisonics. It will help you send some aggresive tracks in the rear, axonometry wise and clean up the muddy and crowded mixes.
Thank you all very much for your contributions. the libraries I am using are BBC Symphony Orchestra and LABS from Spitfire Audio which are free to use. Should I definitely rule out free libraries? It is reasonable that the paid ones have better quality than the free ones, but I thought that with free libraries you could do a moderately good job, at least to begin with.
Orchestral Tools provides alway the high quality stuff, but I have given up for their products. They are too expensive in my opinion and for my circumstances.
And yes, the other ones you mentioned are good additions.
For the reverb I love my Eventide Blackhole.
Sure, you can try to start with, but you see the result now. As @gballx said above, the expectations in quality are very high nowadays. You can try to tweak that free stuff, but I guess you want to hear good results in a reasonable time and effort. Not all from the free Spitfire products are bad. By example I love it to use the Spitfire Originals - Cinematic Pads. I got them for free, as an Albion user.
The point is: To get the realistic sound recorded and scripted in a VST end product, you need a lot of effort, human resources and money.
- you need a good location for the record session and rent it
- you have to rent a complete orchestra for days and weeks
- you have to rent the most perfect audio engineers for recording
- you have to rent all that technical recording stuff
- you need programmers, who can script these hundreds of thousands of recorded single samples in a playable VST instrument
- you have to invest in a huge marketing campaign
Cinesamples has described the recording process. The orchestral musicians had to play C to C#, C to D, C to D#, C to E and so far. Then the next session from C# to D, C# to D#, C# to E. And so far and so far. 4 Octaves. For EVERY instrument section. Can you imagine how many time and effort this means? But in the end product the customer wants to play the most possiible realistic orchestra.
And thats why these libraries are not comparable with any free stuff, neither by quality nor by the price.
And you also experienced the result, while using free stuff. Everyone of the commentators has criticized the used libraries. You can hear it and the customer would hear it for sure - and not buy your song. And that’s the only reason and criteria, why you catched this rejection: your song would never sell.
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I know it is so frustrating that not so long ago Spitfire Labs would have sufficed but alas the competition has got so high which is good as quality has improved the marketplace hence the amount of rejections being posted here. Do not give up and music-making should not be a rich-person’s playground yet sound quality is now a premium pre-requisite and thus author’s have to evolve their sound libraries to keep up with everyone else.
Talking about reverbs - Relab Sonsig Rev A, Eventide Black Hole, Fab Filter Pro-R and of course Liquidsonics Seventh Heaven or Seventh Heaven PRO.
@gballx Also google for Bricasti M7 IR. There is a free pack out there. Or i can mail them to you.
Are all Albion users eligible for cinematic pads for free? I have Albion One but never got an offer like that.
Also, I have cinematic strings 2 and just bought cinematic studio SOLO strings. Would it be worth while upgrading to cinematic studio strings from CS2? I hear there are still some big name composers who love using CS2.
I’ve searched in my emails, here’s the email from SA:
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Dear xxxxxx,
We are excited to inform you that as an owner of Albion Legacy, you will receive our new library, Originals Cinematic Pads, for free. You will receive an email informing you when your download is ready.
Originals Cinematic Pads features recorded content from Albion Legacy — remastered, updated and presented in our award-winning, easy-to-use plugin. This library offers a diverse range of classic, broadcast-ready synth textures, made entirely from stunning symphonic orchestral recordings originally captured at AIR Studios, London — meticulously treated, processed and warped by the Spitfire Audio team. Discover 23 presets made from 45 individual pad sounds — from rich, dystopian underbeds through to epic and inspiring celestial textures which blend perfectly with orchestral samples.
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The difference seems to be, that I own Albion (the first one), which they call “Legacy” and Albion One comes out a few years later. Sorry for that mistake.
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Makes sense. I’m guessing if they ever release an “originals” library with content derived from Albion One, I’m guessing I’d get the same offer.