We've all gone through these disappointing moments when your demo's soundcloud private play count goes up but your inbox remains empty. As a label owner and a person signed to big labels in my style and genre, I wanted to share my insights on what causes a demo to be rejected.
There are a lot of reasons that could be inhibiting you from getting signed to a label of your choice. These rejection could come from a marketing perspective, from a networking perspective, or from the sonic perspective. I'm going to tackle the reasons that the label might not reject your track because of how it sounds.
Mix
- Your balance is off between the levels of the instruments One of the most important things to note about mixes is that in every genre there are elements that you prioritize. In Techno, Tech House, and Underground house music it is generally the kick and the bassline
Fix: Learn to reference your low end through your headphones, monitors, and even car speakers.
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Your lows are too cluttered
If you don't get the low end to stand out and stick out of a mix with your other instruments cluttering the low end, then your demo will be rejected. This is very easy to notice with monitors that have a decent low end or even headphones. Especially in dance music where you want your lows to drive the people to dance, you cannot have a tardy low end mix.
Fix: High pass instruments that are not your kick and bass to about low mid frequencies in order to avoid any sort of clash. You should also sidechain or use envelope automation tools to duck the bass every time the transient of the kick hits. For different electronic genre's this varies in magnitude.
I think it is important to learn how to mix in order to be able to creatively develop a sound that is yours within the mix for example, saturating hi hats can be considered stylistic and could also be signature. But if you want to make a genre that is relatively common and you can afford to pay mix engineers who have dedicated years of their lives to train their ears to the genre, then it is definitely the best choice. Even if you're an intermediate level producer find mix engineers who would give you feedback when you pay for their services. This will allow you to learn a lot faster because they will be able to pin point issues within your mix that you might have a hard time identifying.
Master
In most cases, this is something you shouldn't be too worried about learning unless you want to pursue a career path of mastering engineer. It is relatively very inexpensive to hire mastering engineers who have put in a lot of years of their lives to master the craft. With that said always send your demos mastered unless it is specifically mentioned to provide premasters. This just allows the labels to reference your tracks dynamics and levels to other tracks on their labels.
Style
This is something I see a lot of producers, experienced and beginners, forgetting. It is crucial to understand the direction the label is taking in terms of style. Established labels pay attention to trends and have a very clear identity within the sound of their label. It's something that is so closely part of their brand that it takes no time for them to reject demos that might sound perfect mix, master, and idea wise but don't fit their style.
Fix: Listen to the past few releases of the labels as well as the tracks being played out by the head honcho or label bosses of the labels (in case the label bosses are DJs). This will give you a clear idea of the direction of the sound the label is pursuing. To be even more meticulous, go ahead and use a DJ mixing software and try and mix in and mix out your tracks with tracks from the label to see if the style fits seemlessly
If you intend to use a mixing engineer, track engineer, to help with producing or mixing the track for a particular label, don't forget to provide them with songs from the label that you want them to reference. It would also help to let them know the label name in order for them to do their own research.
These are some fundamental ways to ensure that your tracks sound quality is never the reason for your music getting rejected.
These are all my opinions about how to navigate through the industry and are up for debate. Feel free to comment with your opposing viewpoint so we can discuss further.
Submitted March 29, 2018 at 02:11PM by simondoty https://www.reddit.com/r/edmproduction/comments/8831d1/why_your_tracks_dont_get_signed_to_a_label/?utm_source=ifttt