Going stock

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Zac
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28 Nov 2018

Arrant wrote:
28 Nov 2018
I'd be interested to hear how things are going for you guys who are just starting to get involved with stock music?
Well I'm all set up to go on Audiojungle and Pond5.

I submitted the same 5 songs to each. I've had one rejected from AJ with a 'copperplate rejection text' which meant the issue could be anything from song type/arrangement/length, technical things like mix/mastering etc.

I pulled the other 4 from AJ (so i can rework and resubmit them) but let all 5 run through the review process on pond5 to see if i got any better feedback, I didn't. All 5 got rejected with a similar 'quality doesnt fit' text.

I really didn't put any effort in ... all i did was push some old pre-master song files through an Ozone 8 preset. So i wasn't too surprised.

Ive since spent some time listening and downloading (the free previews) from AJ and it's obvious my mixes and masters were not up to scratch and submitting 4 min plus songs is not ideal either. The best is 2 min and it's worth paying attention to the arrangements too. Very little intro/outro and not too much contrast or change for the top sellers.

I've now written a song especially for stock submission and using the reference tracks has really helped me improve, especially with mastering. They really push the mastering loudness and the high frequencies beyond what i would normally do. Loud sells. So mine will be loud too. Also the bass is crushed to let the tracks be louder.

I've also worked much more to a method so if this song gets accepted i can hopefully 'turn the handle' more quickly.

All in all, so long as i get some tracks accepted soon I'll be happy. People have been telling me for years i need to reference my tracks (hi Peter) but i never listened. Now i have started and my music will improve for it.

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Marco Raaphorst
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28 Nov 2018

Arrant wrote:
28 Nov 2018
I'd be interested to hear how things are going for you guys who are just starting to get involved with stock music?
My track was not accepted by Audiojungle after waiting for 3 weeks for approval. I am reconsidering what I am going to do. Here's what they wrote me:

Thank you for your submission. We have completed our review of "Green Energy" and unfortunately we found it isn't at the quality standard required to move forward, and you won't be able to re-submit this item again.

Here is the comment from your Envato Quality team reviewer:

Unfortunately, this submission doesn’t meet AudioJungle’s commercial quality guidelines overall, and can’t be accepted.

Audio must be fully composed, arranged, mixed and/or mastered to a commercial standard, and have reasonable potential utility to our commercial buyers, for their varied projects. Ideal audio submissions should demonstrate the ability to support multiple visual works in general. A higher degree of general commercial viability would therefore be required.

Please consider viewing our Top Sellers page to get a good sense of the commercial quality of popular files: http://audiojungle.net/page/top_sellers

If you wish to resubmit more content, please review the engineering and composition and make improvements to a commercial standard before attempting to upload again.

Additionally, please note that part of your submission was either incomplete or formatted incorrectly. To avoid possible rejections in the future, we recommend that you carefully read our upload instructions - https://help.author.envato.com/hc/en-us ... structions

Thank you for your interest in AudioJungle.

We appreciate the effort and time you've put into creating your item. And we'd be happy to help make sure your next entry will meet our submission requirements. Here's our advice:

Visit our forums and ask fellow authors for feedback. Our helpful community will be glad to lend a hand.

Check out this Help Center article to understand why and how items get rejected.

Remember you can get help, in the form of tutorials or skilled professionals, on Envato Tuts+ and Envato Studio.

We hope to see a new submission from you soon!

All the best!

Envato Quality team

Still have questions? Contact our Help Center.

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aeox
Competition Winner
Posts: 3222
Joined: 23 Feb 2017
Location: Oregon

28 Nov 2018

Marco Raaphorst wrote:
28 Nov 2018
Arrant wrote:
28 Nov 2018
I'd be interested to hear how things are going for you guys who are just starting to get involved with stock music?
My track was not accepted by Audiojungle after waiting for 3 weeks for approval. I am reconsidering what I am going to do. Here's what they wrote me:

Thank you for your submission. We have completed our review of "Green Energy" and unfortunately we found it isn't at the quality standard required to move forward, and you won't be able to re-submit this item again.

Here is the comment from your Envato Quality team reviewer:

Unfortunately, this submission doesn’t meet AudioJungle’s commercial quality guidelines overall, and can’t be accepted.

Audio must be fully composed, arranged, mixed and/or mastered to a commercial standard, and have reasonable potential utility to our commercial buyers, for their varied projects. Ideal audio submissions should demonstrate the ability to support multiple visual works in general. A higher degree of general commercial viability would therefore be required.

Please consider viewing our Top Sellers page to get a good sense of the commercial quality of popular files: http://audiojungle.net/page/top_sellers

If you wish to resubmit more content, please review the engineering and composition and make improvements to a commercial standard before attempting to upload again.

Additionally, please note that part of your submission was either incomplete or formatted incorrectly. To avoid possible rejections in the future, we recommend that you carefully read our upload instructions - https://help.author.envato.com/hc/en-us ... structions

Thank you for your interest in AudioJungle.

We appreciate the effort and time you've put into creating your item. And we'd be happy to help make sure your next entry will meet our submission requirements. Here's our advice:

Visit our forums and ask fellow authors for feedback. Our helpful community will be glad to lend a hand.

Check out this Help Center article to understand why and how items get rejected.

Remember you can get help, in the form of tutorials or skilled professionals, on Envato Tuts+ and Envato Studio.

We hope to see a new submission from you soon!

All the best!

Envato Quality team

Still have questions? Contact our Help Center.
That's a bit of a shocker, your music seems quite good to me.

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Marco Raaphorst
Posts: 2504
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Location: The Hague, The Netherlands
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28 Nov 2018

aeox wrote:
28 Nov 2018
Marco Raaphorst wrote:
28 Nov 2018


My track was not accepted by Audiojungle after waiting for 3 weeks for approval. I am reconsidering what I am going to do. Here's what they wrote me:

Thank you for your submission. We have completed our review of "Green Energy" and unfortunately we found it isn't at the quality standard required to move forward, and you won't be able to re-submit this item again.

Here is the comment from your Envato Quality team reviewer:

Unfortunately, this submission doesn’t meet AudioJungle’s commercial quality guidelines overall, and can’t be accepted.

Audio must be fully composed, arranged, mixed and/or mastered to a commercial standard, and have reasonable potential utility to our commercial buyers, for their varied projects. Ideal audio submissions should demonstrate the ability to support multiple visual works in general. A higher degree of general commercial viability would therefore be required.

Please consider viewing our Top Sellers page to get a good sense of the commercial quality of popular files: http://audiojungle.net/page/top_sellers

If you wish to resubmit more content, please review the engineering and composition and make improvements to a commercial standard before attempting to upload again.

Additionally, please note that part of your submission was either incomplete or formatted incorrectly. To avoid possible rejections in the future, we recommend that you carefully read our upload instructions - https://help.author.envato.com/hc/en-us ... structions

Thank you for your interest in AudioJungle.

We appreciate the effort and time you've put into creating your item. And we'd be happy to help make sure your next entry will meet our submission requirements. Here's our advice:

Visit our forums and ask fellow authors for feedback. Our helpful community will be glad to lend a hand.

Check out this Help Center article to understand why and how items get rejected.

Remember you can get help, in the form of tutorials or skilled professionals, on Envato Tuts+ and Envato Studio.

We hope to see a new submission from you soon!

All the best!

Envato Quality team

Still have questions? Contact our Help Center.
That's a bit of a shocker, your music seems quite good to me.
Thanks. I am not sure what exactly they want.

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sonicbyte
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28 Nov 2018

Marco Raaphorst wrote:
28 Nov 2018
aeox wrote:
28 Nov 2018


That's a bit of a shocker, your music seems quite good to me.
Thanks. I am not sure what exactly they want.
HI Marco if you can upload the rejected song to SoundCloud or share it somehow I could give you some feedback.
Let me know

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Marco Raaphorst
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29 Nov 2018

sonicbyte wrote:
28 Nov 2018
Marco Raaphorst wrote:
28 Nov 2018


Thanks. I am not sure what exactly they want.
HI Marco if you can upload the rejected song to SoundCloud or share it somehow I could give you some feedback.
Let me know
Thanks, here's the private upload:


Including looped versions and bumpers. Let me know what you think if wrong with it.

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Arrant
Competition Winner
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29 Nov 2018

That rejection text really isn't much help at all. I'll give your track a listen when I get the time Marco.

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Marco Raaphorst
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29 Nov 2018

Arrant wrote:
29 Nov 2018
That rejection text really isn't much help at all. I'll give your track a listen when I get the time Marco.
thanks in advance!

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Arrant
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29 Nov 2018

Don't take this the wrong way but it's a very repetitive track and probably doesn't have enough going for it musically. Technically I can't hear anything wrong with it.

As a first submission I can understand the rejection, the evaluation guys have probably heard the same chords a million times before and have hundreds of similar tracks on their site already. They simply need something fresher to be able to make sales.

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Marco Raaphorst
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29 Nov 2018

Arrant wrote:
29 Nov 2018
Don't take this the wrong way but it's a very repetitive track and probably doesn't have enough going for it musically. Technically I can't hear anything wrong with it.

As a first submission I can understand the rejection, the evaluation guys have probably heard the same chords a million times before and have hundreds of similar tracks on their site already. They simply need something fresher to be able to make sales.
Thanks!

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Zac
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29 Nov 2018

I realise Marco started this thread and I've jumped in a bit... but could i post my latest song ready for submission on SC and get some feedback?

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Zac
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29 Nov 2018



Here it is anyway...

PhillipOrdonez
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29 Nov 2018

I tried again with a hip hop track on AJ and got rejected. Got a similar message to the one Marco got, sans the technical whatever nonsense they wrote to him; just the "This item does not meet the general commercial quality standard required to be accepted on AudioJungle, unfortunately."

Who knows what they like.

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Arrant
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29 Nov 2018

Zac, your track sounds way too hot on my system, the bass is distorting. Also, I thought the strings sounded too synthetic in the intro, would be good if you could make them more organic.

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Zac
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29 Nov 2018

Arrant wrote:
29 Nov 2018
Zac, your track sounds way too hot on my system, the bass is distorting. Also, I thought the strings sounded too synthetic in the intro, would be good if you could make them more organic.
Thanks. I'm sure it is too hot... I'm trying to match this track which has 1400 sales....



Does it sound much worse?

I only have d770 headphones...

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Arrant
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29 Nov 2018

Don’t knock your 770s :cool:
Well yes the other track is quite a lot better. A much more polished master, better stereo field, lots more little tweaks and turns to keep up interest.
It illustrates the difference between a pro and us amateurs I guess :redface:

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Zac
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29 Nov 2018

Arrant wrote:
29 Nov 2018
Don’t knock your 770s :cool:
Well yes the other track is quite a lot better. A much more polished master, better stereo field, lots more little tweaks and turns to keep up interest.
It illustrates the difference between a pro and us amateurs I guess :redface:
Thanks for the honest feedback.

If i could get 1400 sales at 'x' a piece i could get my life back on track. I'm not expecting that with my skills and monitoring.

You said mine was distorting in the bass... is it horribly so compared to that track? I just want it to be accepted by the people at AJ and Pond5... please advise me where i need to go with regards to this... unrealistic cello noted :)

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aeox
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29 Nov 2018

I had a submission accepted 2 years ago but I didn't pursue that path. I checked it a few months ago and it had zero sales so I just deleted it.. (it was crap anyway)

I'm not very interested in selling stock music but I submitted this song that isn't special to me(super repetitive, bad mix, etc) and I wouldn't release it under my name. So I figured to try to see if it gets rejected as well :P

This is the song


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Zac
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29 Nov 2018

aeox wrote:
29 Nov 2018
I had a submission accepted 2 years ago but I didn't pursue that path. I checked it a few months ago and it had zero sales so I just deleted it.. (it was crap anyway)

I'm not very interested in selling stock music but I submitted this song that isn't special to me(super repetitive, bad mix, etc) and I wouldn't release it under my name. So I figured to try to see if it gets rejected as well :P

This is the song

I didn’t listen to this one. I'm heading for bed. But i know your productions sound great from previous listens.

This isn't a game for me. I need to improve to a point i can make some money here. I tried the artist route and it netted me less than £100 across 3 albums.

I appreciate your push it and couldn't care attitude... you could make money anywhere with your music im sure.

Just do me a favour and tell me where I'm going wrong ^^

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aeox
Competition Winner
Posts: 3222
Joined: 23 Feb 2017
Location: Oregon

29 Nov 2018

Zac wrote:
29 Nov 2018
aeox wrote:
29 Nov 2018
I had a submission accepted 2 years ago but I didn't pursue that path. I checked it a few months ago and it had zero sales so I just deleted it.. (it was crap anyway)

I'm not very interested in selling stock music but I submitted this song that isn't special to me(super repetitive, bad mix, etc) and I wouldn't release it under my name. So I figured to try to see if it gets rejected as well :P

This is the song

I didn’t listen to this one. I'm heading for bed. But i know your productions sound great from previous listens.

This isn't a game for me. I need to improve to a point i can make some money here. I tried the artist route and it netted me less than £100 across 3 albums.

I appreciate your push it and couldn't care attitude... you could make money anywhere with your music im sure.

Just do me a favour and tell me where I'm going wrong ^^
Considering that I'm practically homeless, my music definitely hasn't gotten me anywhere in life besides personal enjoyment. Believe me I've tried! I went the ghost production route and that seems to pay the best but it's soul-draining really and I wouldn't recommend it to my worst enemy (If i had any)

You know, there is great possibility that my song gets rejected as well! Which was why I decided to share my experience in this thread.

It's hard to just tell you where you're "going wrong". For me, it's hard to critique other people when I'm not even confident in my own work. When I get back from lunch I'll give it a few listens and get back to you.

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Zac
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29 Nov 2018

aeox wrote:
29 Nov 2018
Zac wrote:
29 Nov 2018


I didn’t listen to this one. I'm heading for bed. But i know your productions sound great from previous listens.

This isn't a game for me. I need to improve to a point i can make some money here. I tried the artist route and it netted me less than £100 across 3 albums.

I appreciate your push it and couldn't care attitude... you could make money anywhere with your music im sure.

Just do me a favour and tell me where I'm going wrong ^^
Considering that I'm practically homeless, my music definitely hasn't gotten me anywhere in life besides personal enjoyment. Believe me I've tried! I went the ghost production route and that seems to pay the best but it's soul-draining really and I wouldn't recommend it to my worst enemy (If i had any)

You know, there is great possibility that my song gets rejected as well! Which was why I decided to share my experience in this thread.

It's hard to just tell you where you're "going wrong". For me, it's hard to critique other people when I'm not even confident in my own work. When I get back from lunch I'll give it a few listens and get back to you.
Hi, I'm Zac. I don’t know your name. I just know you make great sounding music.

I am officially homeless. I live in a room in sheltered housing. It sucks right?

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aeox
Competition Winner
Posts: 3222
Joined: 23 Feb 2017
Location: Oregon

29 Nov 2018

Zac wrote:
29 Nov 2018
aeox wrote:
29 Nov 2018


Considering that I'm practically homeless, my music definitely hasn't gotten me anywhere in life besides personal enjoyment. Believe me I've tried! I went the ghost production route and that seems to pay the best but it's soul-draining really and I wouldn't recommend it to my worst enemy (If i had any)

You know, there is great possibility that my song gets rejected as well! Which was why I decided to share my experience in this thread.

It's hard to just tell you where you're "going wrong". For me, it's hard to critique other people when I'm not even confident in my own work. When I get back from lunch I'll give it a few listens and get back to you.
Hi, I'm Zac. I don’t know your name. I just know you make great sounding music.

I am officially homeless. I live in a room in sheltered housing. It sucks right?
Sorry to hear about your homelessness if that's true.

There are some good elements to the track but I see where there is room for improvement.

I really have no idea what's technically right or wrong in the music production realm but I can tell you what I do.

I build a 4, 8, or 16 bar chord progression that sounds good looped with piano or INIT sawtooth wave . Once I've got that, it's MUCH easier to be inspired in the rest of the process. Since your song seems more melody driven than sound design driven, that's where I'd start. I mean, if you can listen to a looped chord progression for a few minutes and it still makes you feel a certain way (in a good way) then it's only going to snowball as you progress forward in the track. The initial chord progression can serve as the foundation and you can make alternates based off the first one for variety.

If you'd like to know some methods I use to write chord progressions I'd be happy to share them with you.(it's nothing crazy.. just messing around with midi really) Shoot, I've got about 85 chord progressions written and stored away for when I'm not in that mood. I could give you one to experiment and practice with if you'd like.

You mentioned that you were trying to master your track as loud as the other track but I feel that you can achieve the same sound without any "mastering" if you just focus on a good sounding mix , arrangement, and sound design first.
What I like to do is put a limiter on the master with +6 Gain( or what'ever you want) I mix into the limiter, none of my tracks have any fancy mastering stuff going on because it's all achieved in the mix stage.

Most of anything useful I could tell you would be very hard to convey over text. You would benefit greatly from visual and verbal via screenshare! :puf_bigsmile:

Now, I understand that none of what I said can truly help you. Would need to get hands on and verbal. That didn't sound right, did it?

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Zac
Posts: 1784
Joined: 19 May 2016
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30 Nov 2018

aeox wrote:
29 Nov 2018
Zac wrote:
29 Nov 2018


Hi, I'm Zac. I don’t know your name. I just know you make great sounding music.

I am officially homeless. I live in a room in sheltered housing. It sucks right?
Sorry to hear about your homelessness if that's true.

There are some good elements to the track but I see where there is room for improvement.

I really have no idea what's technically right or wrong in the music production realm but I can tell you what I do.

I build a 4, 8, or 16 bar chord progression that sounds good looped with piano or INIT sawtooth wave . Once I've got that, it's MUCH easier to be inspired in the rest of the process. Since your song seems more melody driven than sound design driven, that's where I'd start. I mean, if you can listen to a looped chord progression for a few minutes and it still makes you feel a certain way (in a good way) then it's only going to snowball as you progress forward in the track. The initial chord progression can serve as the foundation and you can make alternates based off the first one for variety.

If you'd like to know some methods I use to write chord progressions I'd be happy to share them with you.(it's nothing crazy.. just messing around with midi really) Shoot, I've got about 85 chord progressions written and stored away for when I'm not in that mood. I could give you one to experiment and practice with if you'd like.

You mentioned that you were trying to master your track as loud as the other track but I feel that you can achieve the same sound without any "mastering" if you just focus on a good sounding mix , arrangement, and sound design first.
What I like to do is put a limiter on the master with +6 Gain( or what'ever you want) I mix into the limiter, none of my tracks have any fancy mastering stuff going on because it's all achieved in the mix stage.

Most of anything useful I could tell you would be very hard to convey over text. You would benefit greatly from visual and verbal via screenshare! :puf_bigsmile:

Now, I understand that none of what I said can truly help you. Would need to get hands on and verbal. That didn't sound right, did it?
I really appreciate you making the effort^^ I was drunk and moody last night.

I think maybe i have to accept that I'm a hobbyist and making money from my efforts is always going to be a push.

I take a positive from what you said though, so thanks.

I'm really surprised you mix into a limiter! But it obviously works for you.

Yes, I was made homeless in Oct 16. Spent some time in a tent, hospital and in a night shelter before getting a room in sheltered housing in Mar 17.

I hope your situation improves.

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sonicbyte
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03 Dec 2018

Sorry guys didn't have time to answer earlier, I'm sorry your songs have being rejected, in my years on Stock sites I have a few rejections too, don't take it personal, even if a song is "perfect" from a technical point of view, it could also being rejected because is not "commercial enough" or "too experimental", the song must have some value from a commercial perspective.

Here is a post that explain it better, I think is a must read for everyone who is interested in this kind of work:
https://forums.envato.com/t/the-top-rej ... them/43980

Hope it helps

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Zac
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03 Dec 2018

sonicbyte wrote:
03 Dec 2018
Sorry guys didn't have time to answer earlier, I'm sorry your songs have being rejected, in my years on Stock sites I have a few rejections too, don't take it personal, even if a song is "perfect" from a technical point of view, it could also being rejected because is not "commercial enough" or "too experimental", the song must have some value from a commercial perspective.

Here is a post that explain it better, I think is a must read for everyone who is interested in this kind of work:
https://forums.envato.com/t/the-top-rej ... them/43980

Hope it helps
A few things I hadn't considered in that article. Thanks. I'm not giving up yet.

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