Hey there,
I was considering back and forth to post this. Maybe I will earn very harsh reactions like a storm of excretions 
.(sorry for that word, but the short version was removed)
I don’t want to offend anyone with this post. I also don’t want to appear as arrogant.
The most of the people here know, that I try to help if someone asks for help or for an opinion about a rejected track. I try to do that in an objective manner and want to be friendly as good as I can.
But in the last weeks I noticed, that people want to know the reasons for their track rejections. Those tracks are in a very desolate state. And I am a bit shocked about the fact, that they really thought, this track could be ever approved.
I know, everyone of us has started to compose music at a time. We all, including me, were going a long and hard way to learn about music and mixing and we learn every day a bit more. I also started with compositions where I lmao if I hear that today. But: At this state I knew all the time, that my music isn’t good enough to get published or used in a commercial way. I waited very very long before I dared to publish my first song here - and I talk about many years, not days, not months.
I am concerned, why people try to publish tracks with a very poor quality and wonder why they get rejected. These tracks lack in every aspect of commercial music and quality. Sometimes I don’t know, how to start to help them, because everything in their tracks is wrong. I am concerned, because these people seems to do nothing in preparations like hearing music from other successful authors, watching videos, learning about composing and mixing. They throw a piece of noise on the market. Sorry to say that in this hard words.
No, my own music isn’t perfect. I am neither an outstanding composer nor a particularly successful author here. But I try to do my homework, every day.
So, no one forces me to help other people. No one forces me to comment their work.
But I assume, that this lack of quality and the high amount of tracks such like this could have a long term impact on the overall quality here on AJ. If a reviewer has to judge the whole day over 80% of waste, he will approve then a track which is maybe better than waste, but not good enough to compete with other marketplaces.
And yes, this includes a more strong quality review on my own tracks also. AJ needs a higher quality.
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Really good topic. And, also, very sensitive.People, usually, tend to overevaluate their skills. There is a very thin line between the objectivity and overconfidence. Most of people are listening to some tracks, and mentally modify their complexity according to their power of understanding and perception. For some people, a drum sound is a drum sound.Not much differences. They lack the perception of detailing, sound design, dynamic layering, and a whole lot of other things which make a huge difference. Obviously, the tracks get rejected, then , they are asking for advices. The hilarious story starts here.If other authors are sincere and straight, they will not tolerate the sincere critique. Most of their reactions are even rageful.’ This situations could be avoided if AJ would ask for some demo portfolio in order to be accepted as authors. Of course, many would game the system, too, but the number of the low quality tracks would be critically diminished.
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From an earlier post today…
If you have identified what is the problem with a particular track, why then would you upload it? Authors here have regularly demonstrated a track record in item submissions and offer an insight into
some possible rejection reasons however to reduce the review times for all, authors need to be honest and objective with the quality of their submissions.
A far more rigorous vetting policy should be in place to help prevent future escalation of review times.
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Very good topic. I agree that the quality is very poor in most cases.
This craft we do is a combination of an awful lot of skills: composing, arranging, mixing, mastering, having understanding about commercial music, suppressing ego, having common sense;)
This takes years and years of hard work and failure, there is no other way.
But… nowadays everyone is online and sees DAW commercials and YouTube instruction videos and get sold on the idea that everyone can be a composer. You see pretty pictures of producers sitting in yellow clothes in front of certain yellow speakers in perfect dim light etc. Etc.
Vst plugins get more and more accessible, plus computer power is available at a fraction of the cost compared to years ago.
So yeah lots of people getting on board which can be great but what is forgotten is that essentially this thing that we do is an art form in all aspects and facets you can think of.
It takes hard work, Patience and also talent to get to a certain level. Above all else are values such as dignity and being humble and never thinking you “got it”.
I’m still learning all the time, it never ends.
So yes in summary people get lured in by the idea that making music is simple easy and intuitive all the time. Unfortunately it is not like that.
Also, i hope Audjojungle will now move into a new era where quality stands above everything else. I’m willing to work harder for it.
My thoughts.
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That ! We are our worst enemies. The things we learned, our experience, is basically standing in our way. It sounds paradoxical, but it’s not. I am fighting myself with these things. I am trained to make complex music, so why do i need to make these simple things? Because we are adressing to people without specialized musical background, with basic perception. So instead of adding useless information to our track, we need to retrain ourselves to substract things in order to let the most important ones shine.
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No offense taken. I appreciated everything you told me about my track the other day. In my case, I thought I had an understanding of what a “corporate” track sounds like, evidently I don’t. Just because you learn how to compose, mix, and master one genre of music, doesn’t mean that applies to another genre.
And by the way, I had two more tracks approved today, one classical-orchestral and the other Latin-big band. Here’s the thread if you’d like to check them out: 2 new items approved for sale on AudioJungle!
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Exactly, I’ve always written very complex music but in this place it took me many rejections to even get something up here. I see it as a cool challenge:)
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But don’t forget that most rejections here on AJ will be largely accepted by other platforms.
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