Track rejected after being held.

Hi everyone, my track was rejected after a day of being held for further review. Honestly I feel a little disheartened as I felt pleased with the music. If anyone would be kind enough to offer some constructive criticism i’d really appreciate it and just use this as a learning curve. Thanks in advance!

https://soundcloud.com/user-860945720/wake-up-epic

I think you have to work with your compression. There is too much.

I think you need to use the balance in the song :wink:

About mix: Less low end frequencies on your hi strings and hi instruments in general (I would say all except double basses and bass drum). You have too much low mid and bass in the mix, it sounds muddy. I think your bass drum and double basses try to fill the same space in the sub frequencies so it makes a mess. I would keep the bass drum in the subs and place the double basses more in the region above 80-160 hz. Or/and you could try to find the fondamental frequency of your bass drum (if it’s 50 hz), cut volume at 50 hz on the double basses with a notch filter. But your double basses need more definition in any way. Each instrument needs its own space. You need more brillance overall so put more treble in the mix. I think you have too much compression and reverb too.On reverb, try shorter tail and dryer signal particulary on front elements and rhythmic elements. It sounds like you have distortion at 0:13 and 1:13 (the cymbal roll) too. At the end you need too a more balanced volume between each instruments. For that listen to your mix with really low volume you will hear easily if something is twice louder than others. For the sub and bass instruments, use a reference mix and if you don’t have subwoofer go in a corner of your room to hear very well the subs and switch between your mix and the reference mix to hear the difference. Using a frequency analyzer can be very useful too to makes all even more accurate at the end. Important parts should be a little bit louder than the others. I hope all that can help! :slight_smile:

Thank you for your feedback comments, especially Anthony for your detailed response. Lessons have been learnt! I’ve been doing a lot more hybrid scoring lately were compressors are needed more. As this track was only orchestral I know realise that orchestral instruments don’t really need much (or any) compression. I’ll also turn down my reverb sends and compare the results. Thanks again!

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I have now added a high pass filter to most parts and tried to clean up the low end a bit. I’ve taken off the bus compressors I had on and also lowered all of the reverb sends quite a bit. I had a very low synth pluck going along for most of the track but I think that it was just too much with the double bass and very low drums so I just deleted it.

Overall I think that the result is much clearer and it was just a case of previously overdoing everything on the mix!

If you want to see the comparison here is the original: https://soundcloud.com/user-860945720/wake-up-epic/s-uy5YO

and the remaster: https://soundcloud.com/user-860945720/wake-up-epic-remaster

Unfortunately in the email from Audio Jungle they said I was unable to resubmit but at least I could learn something :slight_smile:

I’m happy that you like my comment. :slight_smile: I listen to your last version. Where is gone the lower octave of your arrangement? If the double basses are yet here, they are not loud enough. Or maybe the synth pluck made the line on that lower octave? I find that sound was good but conflicting with bass drum. You could just cut frequencies with a notch filter on that synth pluck where the bass drum is the louder to let that place for the bass drum and add more volume to the synth pluck above at 70-160hz to give him more presence. You need to get back this line because you have now a hole in the bass. Now that your hi instruments have less low end you can fill that low mid/bass zone with double basses (70-120 hz) and cellos (120-180 hz) (just approximations). The idea is to cut enough low end on hi instruments to let the place for the bass instruments. Now you have volume on subs and mid frequency but a hole in bass frequency and not enough treble. Fill that hole with double basses and cellos for warmer sound and add hi mid and treble on hi instruments to make them breathe. The reverb is better but the tail is yet too long (try twice shorter too begin with) and try it more dryer maybe. The chimes are way too loud. Hope it can help :smiley:

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