Audiojungle Reject - Critique Request

[jonlint]

Hi all,

I just joined Audiojungle and want to start writing royalty free tracks. My first submission was rejected as "this submission does not meet our commercial production (sample quality/mixing/mastering) standard, unfortunately".

Could anyone please give me advise on what I should work on? The track is below:

https://soundcloud.com/jadehill_audio/rising-in-the-east-20140907

Regards,

Jonathan

 

[b00n]

The solo sax is not very realistic.
If you get someone competent to play it for you and make a good recording of the performance,
you might stand a chance next time you try.

 

[Anders Erisian]

Hey, I don't really know anything about Audiojungle, and haven't listened to any of the other tracks, so i'm not really sure what their standard is. I guess this is in the vein of a backing/jam track. Anyway just a few observations - I think the pad synth could use some high pass, seemed a bit too full in the bottom, sounded fine in the intro by itself but took up a lot of room in the mix with the other instruments. The reverb on the sax sounded like a much bigger space than the rest of the piece, a bit weird with the second part layered in, and about half way through it's part the level seemed to drop out abruptly. The guitar tone sounded pretty dull against the synths, and it seemed to sit behind everything else. The 303ish sounding bass synth also seemed pretty dry compared to everything else. The drums seemed a bit too quiet too, especially the kick, but i've always liked loud drums, and the snare and hats were pretty clear. A lot of the elements seemed a bit separate from each other and the whole mix didn't quite mesh together to my ear, probably sums it up best.
Sorry if that sounds overcritical, but i was just trying to imagine what someone judging this to a 'commercial' standard might be looking at, so i nitpicked . I'm sure you could get it to sound more 'commercial' with a few tweaks. Pretty 80's sound to the track, and that 303 sound sort of seemed out of place, and the guitar tone a bit too, but i'm thinking of stuff like Duran Duran, and i actually don't mind that sort of stuff in some strange way. Anyway that's just one biased opinion FWIW and good luck!

 

[Schwarzenyaeger]

The synth part that goes du-du-du-du-du the entire song could be buried a bit more. It's incredibly repetitive and doesn't carry the song on it's own. I don't think that it should have that much face time.
You could turn up the kick and snare.
I didn't think that the sax was bad. The whole track has a very "phony" vibe to it (synth sounds). It fit in the context.
Guitars could have been a bit louder, didn't even hear what they were doing half the time.