What Is The Trick To Get Past Random Rejections

OK, the first set of pieces I submitted were too much for the reviewers to handle. So I dumbed the next set down to meet the ‘criteria’ they are looking for. I sent in an absolutely flawless representation of what is already out there in AudioJungle. Bang, another hard reject. I’ve tried different approaches. I submitted creative, interesting and original music. That didn’t work. I tried banal and mindless - but still nice to listen to. That failed as well. I honestly have no idea what they want. I have had many people listen and they all love what I do and I have had no problem placing music on other prod music websites. I am getting seriously frustrated here. The music on AudioJungle is good, but not better than other libraries where I have been placed. Can anyone offer any suggestions on how to crack the reviewer blockade? Thanks!

I think you have to post example of a track that has been rejected to get som proper advise. It could be many reasons. In general genres that are already are over populated here on AJ needs to be very good to be accepted.

Maybe you should post your favorite tracks of yours here to get some comments froms the fellow authors

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Thanks. I appreciate the quick feedback. I will post a couple of my tracks when I get back to my studio.

Jeff

Post something so we can listen

I am trying to upload my tracks and am getting the following error message:

Sorry, the file you are trying to upload is not authorized (authorized extensions: jpg, jpeg, png, gif, svg, pdf).

You can hear my stuff at Otherwise, please tell me how to upload to the forum.
Jeff

First, upload the track to soundcloud.
And then, copy and paste the link here

Please go to: https://soundcloud.com/jneiblum/sets/production-music

The latest rejection is the last song in the setlist: Feelin’ Good. Follow The Water and Autumn Run were also rejected. What is wrong with these tracks?

Thanks!

Jeff

Hi Jeff,

I had a little listen to the tracks that got rejected, and what I kind say for certain is that the sounds you are using sounds quite outdated and not up to modern production standards. For example the guitar at Autumn Run sounds very unrealistic and old school midi. Same with the piano in Feelin’ Good. Percussion in Follow the water sounds quite distractive to my ears.

That said I think you have a lot of fun and interesting compositions in your playlist, I could easily imagine many of these in more retro oriented games as the way they currently sound.

If you really want to get tracks into AJ I think you have to invest in more modern sample libraries and study the simplicity and common chord progressions used in many AJ tracks (at least for the more commercial genres). Just my opinion, hope it helps.

Good luck!

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Mojo is right.
With modern samples “Feeling Good” would sound more than ok.

On the contrary I like the percussion on “Follow the Water”. And with modern samples and a polished mix the track would shine and find a place in “Experimental/abstract” category.

Hi Jeff,

I think you’ve got some interesting tracks there. Thanks for sharing them. “Follow the Water” has a great feel to it. Love the rhythm. I think this one has the most potential of the three.

In my opinion, some of the sounds on all three you mentioned aren’t strong enough and sound dated. From a mixing & mastering standpoint, they need work, also. I think there’s room for improvement in terms of making the tracks sound comparable to what is available on AudioJungle. To my ears, these songs sound like first drafts instead of fully finished mixes. I am not intending this as a put-down. Just a first impression after listening for the first time.

Check out VideoHive.net and watch some of the video clips there. I think this is a good place to start when trying to get a feel for the types of production music tracks that video producers choose to underscore their videos. Listen to compare sounds used and cohesiveness and strength of the mixes.

I would suggest watching & reading some good mixing tutorials (there are tons of them out there), and doing some A/B comparisons between your tracks and a few professionally mastered tracks in similar genres.

Best wishes!

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Hi Jeff,

I had listen to some of your tracks. The reason for rejection is indeed your sample quality. Composition is clearly not a problem for you. Perhaps you’d need to dumb them down further, but you’re pretty much there with regard to structure and composition. I can definitely understand your frustration when it comes to creative freedom. Unfortunately, making music for AJ is not only an art, but also a science. Striking a good balance between familiarity and originality is important, so you’ll need to rely on tried and tested chord progressions, steer clear of key changes, and avoid wandering too far off the beaten track when it comes to composing.

The biggest problem facing your music is production quality. Unfortunately, there is a palpable difference between the music you linked us to in your SoundCloud page and what is available on AudioJungle. Some of the tracks, especially Autumn Run sound very dated, almost as if they were made with SoundFonts. In order to meet standards here, you’ll need to be using high quality, modern sample libraries with multiple velocity layers, such as those from Native Instruments (I see you’ve used NI stuff for a few tracks, like Feelin’ Good - definitely sets these tracks apart from the others), and the pieces must be mixed to a high standard. Additionally, consider using real guitar recordings where possible, especially for complex parts. Often guitar samples sound very fake.

It’s not always easy to spot production issues in your own music, but once you’ve seen the other side first hand, you’ll realise where you were going wrong. It’s just practice, trial and error.

Feelin’ Good, as others have stated, is probably the closest to being accepted. My main criticism would be the robotic-sounding piano samples. Consider using some more velocity variation for a more organic, natural sound. Also, there should probably be some more bass and warmth to the track. Where’s the bass guitar?! Additionally, the drums are quite repetitive-sounding. Try changing things up just a bit, and adding some more layers / fills towards the end - eg shakers, tambourine, ride cymbals, reverse cymbals, etc. Lastly, the track is just a tad repetitive in general. A good rule of thumb to keep in mind when making tracks for AJ is that they should be repetitive, but also have some sort of slow, linear development. In addition to developing the drums later in the track, consider adding some background arpeggios, acoustic guitar strumming, etc.

These are definitely not bad tracks, but there is definitely room for improvement on the production front. With a bit of market knowledge and some updated samples, I don’t see why these wouldn’t be accepted in the future.

‘Night Run’ is probably my personal favourite. Nice work.

Hope that helped!

James

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Thanks everyone for your helpful advice. I see that the main criticism is my choice of samples. Listening closer to the sounds I used for those production music tracks, I can hear how they could be considered dated. It was a conscious effort of mine to keep things simple and kind of ‘old school’ for these tracks. Perhaps I went too far in that direction!

Over the years I’ve used a huge variety of different synths and samplers for my music. I currently use all of the stuff in NI Komplete 12 (Kontact, Massive, Absynth, Reactor, etc.), Sylenth, some of the Steinberg stuff, Cakewalk Z3TA+2 and Rapture Pro, u-He Zebra and other sounds both in and out of the box that are quirky and interesting to me. I also use a ton of gear from UAD, Focusrite, Waves and other outboard gear to shape the sounds. I would love to hear some examples of samples and patches that are more modern. I admit that I sometimes get too comfortable with stuff that I think sounds good instead of keeping up with current technology.

I will take your suggestions and go back to the drawing board to create music that is more contemporary and modern sounding.

Thanks!

Jeff

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This advice is really helpful for my productions right now, as I am on a little bit of a reject-spell at the moment. Thanks for posting!

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if u call this this way, for sure u are going to have more and more … lol

??? - not sure I understand n2n44.

what i meant by that is, if u complain online about rejections, u can rest assured u will have more and more of them … lol