How To Optimise Music Tracks For The Scoutroom

Keep Track Intros Short and Snappy.

Slicethepie scouts are required to listen to 60 seconds of your track; at which point they are able to write and submit their review.  In many cases, the scouts will formulate an opinion within the first 60 seconds and have their review written and submitted before the 2 minute mark.  If a track has a long and uneventful introduction, scouts will be more inclined to give it a negative review/score.  In order to optimise your track, it is worth considering a rework so that it kicks in within the first 30 seconds.   If the track has a chorus, it is best that this comes in before the 90 second mark, ideally before the 60 second mark.

Upload Radio Edits

The length of your track may affect how many scouts review/score your track.  If your track is too short (under 2 minutes), or too long (over 5 minutes); scouts may comment on the track’s lack of commercial viability and lower their scores.  If you submit a 10 minute track, it is very unlikely the scout will listen to it in it’s entirety.  To optimise your track, rework and upload a radio edit (approx 3 minutes – 4.30 minutes in length).

Limit Tracks For Commercial Loudness

Over the years, music has been getting louder and louder.  This has led to a ‘loudness’ war in recent times where dynamics are sidelined for loudness.  The unfortunate consequence is that scouts are likely to comment negatively and mark down tracks that are ‘quiet’.  Whilst scouts could simply turn their speakers up, don’t expect them to praise your track for the inconvenience.  In order to increase your tracks loudness, simply use a brickwall limiter.  There really is no need to try and achieve ‘commercial loudness’ as this is best left to sound engineers with experience.  That said. there is no reason why you cannot increase your tracks loudness to a satisfactory level.  Simply get hold of a limiter (The L2 from Waves is a good recommendation), set the ceiling to -0.3 DB and increase the Threshold so that the track is turned up without eating into your sound. Simple and effective.

The Human Touch

Tracks with vocals tend to do better than tracks without.  Indeed, browse the showcases and every track featured has a vocal.  If possible, look to incorporate a vocal into your tracks.  Naturally, this is not possible for certain styles, like film scores or instrumentals.  Don’t be too disheartened if scouts comment negatively regarding a lack of vocals.  Unfortunatly, vocals are seen by many as a  fundemental requirment for commercial viability. 

Clarity

How your music ‘sounds’ is sometimes more important than the music itself.  If your track is badly mixed, or worse, sounds like it was recorded on a motorway in a hurricane with a dictaphone, don’t be surprised if this has a detrimental impact on your review/score.  It’s advisable to seek the assistance of a dedicated sound engineer or producer when looking to mix/master your track but some basic guidlines for those DIY producers out there are as follows;

• Do not record your instrumentation/vocals on one track!!
• Ensure you record with the best equipment your budget allows, the final sound is limited to what you put in.
• Remove all unwanted frequencies on every track.  eg. Roll EQ off at 40HZ in order to remove low end rumble/noise
• Provide every component of your track it’s own ‘space’ in the frequency range.
• Use reverb sparingly
• Use panning and stereo width effectively to dramatically increase your tracks clarity.
• Compression is a great way to ‘blend’ or ‘take the edge off’ of sounds that may be sticking out in the mix
• Use monitor speakers and a good set of headphones to mix/master.

Refrain from using profanities.

Tracks that contain insulting, rude, obscene or vulgar language are destined to recieve negative reviews from many scouts.  To optimise tracks that do contain profanity, it is worth considering removing or ‘beeping out’ expletives in order to appeal to a wider audience and increase the commercial acceptance of your tracks.

Avoid Monotony

If your track lacks movement or variety, scouts will find your track repetitive and boring!  Create a 4 Bar loop and repeat it for 5 minutes and the review will be as predictable as the track.  Your music is a journey…..make that journey interesting and keep the scouts attention. 

Avoid Abrubt Endings

Theres nothing worse than ending your track with an unnatural stop.  Ensure your track ends in a natural and logical manner.  This might be done by bringing the composition to a natural end, or by fading out the track.  If your track cuts out, like someone pressed the stop button on the dictaphone, your review/score may reflect this.

Avoid Abrupt Intros

Similary, if your track kicks in at 1 second with a full on audio assault, you could recieve negative reviews for scaring the sh*t out of the reviewer (especially if they have had to turn up the speakers for the previous ‘quiet’ track).  Ease your listener into your track with a short and effective intro. 

Autotune Your Vocal

Not everyone has a natural singing ability. That doesn’t stop us all from singing in front of a mirror with a hairbrush.  Some artists take it one step further and upload those ‘hairbrush’ moments to the scoutroom!  If you recieve review after review slating the vocalists ability to hold a note, consider using Antares Autotune on the vocal track.  This industry Standard tool is used in studios as well as during live performances aroung the globe (you would be surprised how many commercial vocalists can’t sing..lol).  Don’t be afraid to adopt this tool to optimise your track.  Remember, if scouts are going to comment on anything in your track, it will be the vocal….get it sounding as good as possible!! Failing that, a new vocalist may be the order of the day.

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