This is a guest post written by our friends over at AudioMastered, where they are just as crazy about helping musicians as we are on Drooble – one of the greatest social networks for musicians.

This has happened to every musician – you’ve been working hard on a killer new track, and you’ve looped it over and over so many times – you can’t tell if it’s the greatest thing in existence or if you can’t stand it anymore.

This inner conflict is fairly commonplace in the lives of composers and songwriters. This is why it is so important to utilize as many extra pairs of fresh ears as you can to provide constructive feedback.

The more people that give you feedback, the greater the understanding you will gain in terms of what is ticking all the boxes, and what needs refinement and adjusting.

The main reason a fresh pair of ears is so crucial is that they have something you don’t; especially after looping it incessantly: objectivity.

So, without further ado, here are the top 5 best places to get feedback on your songs:

1. SynthShare:

The community vibes on this site are fantastic. SynthShare is a free service and works in a mutually beneficial way for both reviewers and artists.

Every time you provide feedback to others in the community you’ll receive one credit. The more credits you earn, the more feedback you’ll receive on your own stuff. It’s a win-win for everybody.

There’s a section to view recent feedback, and the quality of user responses are great, in-depth and easy to understand.

A fantastic feature on this platform is the ‘How Do I Make This Sound?’, which allows users to submit a sample of a sound they’d like to recreate – and other users will give you a step by step guide into recreating that sound to implement into your song.

While this seems more targeted toward electronic music creators, this platform is relevant for all genres and seems fantastic in that it incentivizes supporting and sharing through a peer to peer system.

2. Drooble

Most of you will be very familiar with the features in Drooble. However, you may not be using it to its full potential.

While there are a number of services specifically designed for providing you feedback, Drooble provides you one better: a network of like-minded musicians.

It can be difficult to use friends as reliable critics if you aren’t able to find anyone in your social circle who is familiar with music production,. This is why Drooble is so valuable. It’s one of the best places to find like-minded individuals who can provide you unbiased feedback.

Start building relationships with people who produce music in your genre. They will be able to provide you with genre-specific tips and critiques that will actually apply to your music. The key here is to actually build relationships with people.

Too many people only ask without giving anything in return. Comment on their tracks, try to provide feedback where you can. Start building a small community. It’s free and you’re likely to get a few new friends out of it.

If you haven’t yet signed up for Drooble, now’s the time.

3. Reverbnation Crowd Review:

Reverbnation is home to many musicians and has a reputation for building careers and provides a great foundation to channel your work.

Through Crowd Reviews, your song will be submitted to a sample pool of reviewers who are masters of your genre! They will each provide an overall score of your stuff, taking into account factors such as production quality, lyrics, and song structure.

Crowd reviews are not a free service and cost $12.25 per song for review. There are also a number of additional options that target specific insights you might need to take your music to the next level.

Add-ons range from songwriting analysis to commercial potential and will set you back $16 for each add-on per song, which does seem a little steep for each feature, however beneficial it may be.

A brilliant feature of the site is if you’re successful in getting a score of 7.5 or higher, Reverbnation will give you a spot on the Crowd Picks section of their homepage, giving your stuff more exposure and opportunities to get picked up by the right people!

4. Fluence:

Fluence connects creators and promoters with curators and influencers around the world to improve musicians and their work.

Signing up and adding your content is free, but there are additional features and benefits available for creators to choose which influencers they connect with and effectively create a mentor style relationship to guide them in improving their songwriting skills.

Creating an account is really easy, but you will need a twitter account to create one. The user interface is dauntingly minimal at first glance, but there are plenty of links on the site giving detailed advice on how to use the site.

Simply add your work in progress or finished songs through submitting Soundcloud or Youtube URLs. You can target specific curators and influencers that best match your content.

5. Tonearena:

This one made the list above others for a few reasons. The interface has a very minimal feel. It’s simple to navigate as the design makes it easy to read and understand.

Users can filter and review songs by country and genre. Additionally, the way the reviews are organized is fantastic; users will receive a score out of 5. The main positive aspects of the song will be listed.

Another great feature of Tonearena is allowing users to effectively review the reviews – users can upvote or downvote a review depending on whether they agreed or found it helpful.

This one truly has a fantastic community feel, it really feels like artists are supporting their fellow artists on this platform to improve their craft.

These sites are all great resources to get your music heard, reviewed and supported. They all offer fantastic additional features that will deepen your knowledge as a musician and get you connected with like-minded people.

The awesome platforms create an environment where sharing and helping each other is the main objective.

Start checking these places out ASAP and improve your songs today!

About the Author: Glen Parry has been a musician for over 15 years. He’s done everything the hard way so you don’t have to. You can find more musical and production advice, such as a review of the top keyboards and digital pianos, over at AudioMastered.