I really like this track, I’m used to listening to the kind of music where things have moments of dissonance. When done properly this can provoke feelings no other arrangements can. But for AJ where first impression is all that counts this could be a problem.
The most general opinion I can give here is something I have a rich history of
I think in cases like this, when music is dreamy and opens doors to imagination it’s all too easy to fall into a trap of hearing stuff that is only in our imagination. But when someone hears it for the first time and is not warmed up for it, they can easily miss the magic or hear too many errors. I can’t tell if this is the case here but as I said, it’s happend to me all the time, maybe I’m not the only one. In other words - I am listening with my imagination not with my ears. And when my imagination goes wild, it adds richness and magic to the music and there is no way I could hear little mistakes or missing elements etc. So I can’t improve it.
What I mean here is that this track has very nice musical qualities (I think melodies, mood, arrangement, genre etc are fine). I’m sure it was rejected for more “technical” reasons (mixing/mastering, poor instrument samples in some cases). I am convinced that this could become a very nice Ambient/Deep House AJ track without a single change to the MIDI. All the changes need to be done tweaking the sound sources and the mix.
Technically speaking, there are a few things that could get fixed easily and would significantlly improve the track.
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Treat your cymbals as other melodic instruments. Cymbals have a tone. At 6th second there comes a reversed gong-like sound that is not in harmony with the bassline and everything else. I’m sure this is the moment when reviewer gets 99% sure he’s going to reject the track. He just waits for the next smallest mistake to appear and he’s done. It’s funny that after listening to it 5 times it doesn’t bother me any more. But when listening for the first time it was a deal breaker for me. You don’t want to confuse your buyers (and reviewers) with uncleaned/untuned samples.
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At second 34 come some instances of extra loud kick - which seems like a mistake. I’m sure this is the moment when reviewer finally decides and stops listening.
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As others said the strings get too loud. They sound a bit out dated (which maybe isn’t a bad thing for this genre) and in this case I would try to make them less noticable. Leave them in the background for the mood and make some room for voice over.
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Try transposing everything at least 1 whole tone up. This technique sometimes helps to hear everything with “fresh ears” and spot the unwanted stuff.
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Go to your master bus and remove everything below 1000 hz. You should still hear the bass and everything else. If you don’t - that means your low-end is not connected well with your high-end and the listeners will have difficulties understanding your music on small speakers (eg smartphones).
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Remove all the plugins from your master bus and start your mix from scratch. Try to make the melodies a little softer and quieter (a few db down or maybe take some high requencies out in some cases). And make the low-end maybe a bit more prominent. Don’t fall into the loudness trap. Do not overcompress/limit your master just because “louder music sells better.” Overcompression kills all your chances.
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For each channel also ask yourself “Is this instrument something that AurusAudio would use in his track?”
I am not saying you should copy other author’s sounds but this particular question surely helps you identify sounds that are too weak to stay in the composition. You migh convince yourself that the bass or the strings are something you like - but when you discover that your favourite AJ authors never use this stuff, you might find out that it’s time for you too to maybe move on and change your direction here and there.
I still struggle with nr. 7
Hope it helps, I look forward to hearing the renewed version of your track!