How to emulate the references?

[myk247365]

I submitted a piece to this listing: https://www.taxi.com/listings/S220429LR
The reference I focused on is here: https://youtu.be/hq-ZMq5Er6E?t=15 (from 0:15 - 0:46)

My submission is here: https://www.taxi.com/members/uwEIk6EPRS ... rden-party

The feedback was:

What I like most about this song
I like the use of the instrumentation on this instrumental.

I think you could improve this song by
The motivic structure works well, yet the master is very low. To have a competitive track, make sure your master is at -14 LUFS -1 db True Peak. Utilizing a loudness meter will help.

I returned or forwarded this song because
The track has a good "hunt & stalk" attitude, although, it could benefit from a revision in the mastering to get closer to the listing's request for "Broadcast Quality"


The feedback says my track is too quiet. Yet the reference has the music at a very low volume. I simply tried to emulate the volume level of the reference. I thought if I tried to make the track loud, the timbre of the instruments would be off.

Here's a version with a louder sound library and some tweaking: https://www.taxi.com/members/uwEIk6EPRS ... en-party-2

So which one fits better with the reference? I kinda feel like I did my best to emulate the reference, but got returned because I did what we're told to do over and over again.

Thoughts?

[BrentI]

Hey there Michael! I have a couple thoughts on this.

First off, I like your cue. It sounds like good dramedy music to me! In my opinion, I don't know that it fit this listing. I know that's not what you were necessarily asking about. The only reason I bring that up is because sometimes I think a submission can get returned for multiple reasons. In my experience, I've had critiques that seem to focus on a specific issue with my cue, but then a whole bunch of checkboxes citing other problems the screener had.

Secondly, the particular reference you gave contained music that had been mixed under the dialogue of the scene. If you compare it to the Bleeding Fingers reference (https://youtu.be/f1fbCvwoog8), you can hear that this one is louder. I think the idea is to mix at a competitive volume, then leave it up to the editors to turn it down. I watched an episode of TAXI TV where they commented on how a louder track automatically sounds better...even if the music itself might not be.

Anyways, I hope this is helpful. I'm still learning, so take this for what it's worth.

Your louder version sounds great! I would certainly re-submit this one in the future! Best wishes!

[myk247365]

Thanks Brent!

[Paulie]

Afreed... your mix is almost a flat line of quietness. Our job is to provide broadcast quality tracks, this includes being recorded at the proper levels (which were kindly provided in the screener feedback).

[cosmicdolphin]

Even the loudness guideline given by the screener is too quiet for some Taxi freindly libraries I know.

[irthlingz]

Even the loudness guideline given by the screener is too quiet for some Taxi freindly libraries I know.

Let's say you submit something at -14 LUFS and the library likes your piece, but needs -12 or -10 LUFS or whatever. Do you think they'd come back and ask you to remaster at a louder level? Or just pass because it's not loud enough?

===
Michael

[cosmicdolphin]

Even the loudness guideline given by the screener is too quiet for some Taxi freindly libraries I know.

Let's say you submit something at -14 LUFS and the library likes your piece, but needs -12 or -10 LUFS or whatever. Do you think they'd come back and ask you to remaster at a louder level? Or just pass because it's not loud enough?

===
Michael

Some of them have a composer dashboard on their website and it will do a loudness check on the file as you upload it, so it will just show an error if it's too low and not let you continue.

Others will just ask for it to be turned up in the master. I've never had anyone ask me to turn anything down, but I highly doubt they would reject anything for that reason alone as it's an easy fix.

[irthlingz]

Thanks, Mark and Graham!