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I decided to try my hand at a hip hop trailer cue. My 1st ever attempt at both trailer cues and hip hop. I expected a return due to that fact but was told that it was my sounds that were holding it back. Curious what some of you with experience in these genres thought and what advice you’d give. I did hurry to play in the horn parts and played them as chords instead of playing each part individually but i didn’t think that they sounded synthy or anything and i didn’t quantize anything but the drum part, which is kind of how i thought (obviously wrongly) hip hop sounded. The ref drums seemed pretty generic to me so i mistakenly chose a generic drum machine part which i now regret but meh… live and learn.
Anyway, screener said ‘upgrade sounds” which i take to mean samples. Am i wrong? I ain’t laying out another $500 for a better brass library so is there another option?
Any sincere advice appreciated.

Here’s my cue: https://www.taxi.com/members/hruBtPzuTI ... -hip-d-out

here’s the Listing: https://www.taxi.com/industry#listing-S250709AL

here’s the critique: https://www.taxi.com/members/hruBtPzuTI ... _rGKawyxUw

Hey Carl,
Some nice things going on with this track! But I do think it's as simple as your sounds and beat sound old.

The beat does not at all sound like modern hip hop. The vast majority of commercial hip hop these days is trap, so that would be a good place to start. Your beat (and the drum sounds) are giving me an 80s/90s vibe, like Run DMC is about to drop some rhymes over it. That hi hat is the worst culprit, but the snare is also pretty dated.

Your brass, especially the braam-type sounds, are also a bit thin and dated. There are loads of free samples of single note sounds like that out there that would be fatter and more modern sounding.

Also, the strings do sound a bit thin and synthy. Don't know what library you're using but it could be as simple as how you're programming and mixing them.

I did a quick listen to some of your other tracks on your profile and it seems you specialize more in the rock/americana/folk world. I'm all about trying new stuff, but these two worlds (both hip hop and orch/cinematic/trailer) are extremely competitive and have pretty well defined sonic traits that people are looking for. If you want to tackle it you should spend a bunch of time listening to as much of it as you can to get a feel for what's in demand right now. The forwards for this listing is obvi a good place to start but most libraries will have at least one cinematic/epic/orchestral hip hop album you can listen to as well.

Good luck!

thanks so much for the reply Geoff! I sincerely appreciate the input.