Plagiarized track still isn't modern enough

[Casey H]

Todd
The full screener feedback helps. He/she did make suggestions and from what I gather from comments here, your mix does need work. So, regardless of plagiarizing a lot of ideas from the ref track, it just wasn't there.

One suggestion I have, though it will cost you $20, is to get a custom critique. Make sure you specify that you want feedback on making the mix more modern, the listing it was returned for, and any other questions. I think you'll be very happy with the level of detail you'll get on the custom. Well worth the money.

Best,
Casey

[superblonde]

We got a return recently where we all but plagiarized the example track, at least that's the way it sounded to us. It was as close to plagiarism as we were comfortable with. We even used the same lyrics for our hook, but we got the usual feedback "needs a Modern Mix", what ever THAT is.

OK. so who can tell me definitively what makes one of these a "Modern Mix", and one of them "not modern enough"

Track 1: https://youtu.be/IbMMce4QwT8

Track 2: https://www.taxi.com/members/hvEsmMqtRQ ... won-t-stay

This is a fascinating comparison. I listened to the first 10 seconds of each track. The reference track is absolute musical garbage imho (maybe the disjunct accompaniment is a complete turn off?). But the production is good. Your track is missing a bath of reverb in the intro. It sounds much, much too dry especially with the single guitar intro. Your track sounds immediately amateur in the intro part. That is my assessment of the first dozen seconds. The vocal on your track has good reverb. Did you automate the dry/wet mix or apply separate reverbs (latter might not be appropriate)? Now at the 20 sec mark it seems that, musically, your track is far superior. I wouldn't say it is plagiaristic since the reference track verse sounds like @*#&* trash serialism compared to your more melodic track.

Chorus: It sounds like your track uses a disco-flavored bass which is not "billie ellish era modern" especially compared to the lofi reference track which sounds like it is using an altered/detuned piano synth for most of it (the purposeful noisifying, detuning, and bit-crushing could be considered 'the modern (garbage) sound'?). For the actual bass on the reference it sounds like it is using a real slap bass which has real-life twang from articulation. Whereas your bass sounds like it is 'stock without expression'. Fixing that could be a big improvement.

Therefore I agree your track isn't "(something something) enough". Drop the word "modern" because it has essentially no meaning.

Also, I wonder if you tried reviewing your mix & comparing to the reference through an iPad's speaker. I think your track might have much more power in the low mid's compared to the reference and it seems to me as I try to improve my own terrible mixes that the 'modern' mix moves a lot of the power away from that area since the mobile speakers everyone uses now do not have good response in that range. i.e. the guitar intro is bassier than it should be.