Knowledge hub
The six things that decide whether a song lands
Sonar scores every track on six dimensions. These guides explain what each one measures, how engineers and A&Rs actually judge it, and what to change when the score comes back low.
Start here
A song fails commercially for boring, fixable reasons far more often than for artistic ones. The intro is nineteen seconds long. The vocal disappears on a phone speaker. The second chorus is identical to the first. None of that requires more talent to fix — it requires knowing what to look for.
Each guide below is written the way a mix engineer would explain it to an artist: what the problem sounds like, why it happens, the specific move that fixes it, and how to confirm you actually fixed it.
Guides
- Hook strengthWhether the central idea arrives early enough, repeats enough, and is distinct enough to survive a skip-happy listener.Read the guide →
- Mix clarityWhether every element occupies its own space in frequency, time and stereo width instead of fighting for the same room.Read the guide →
- Streaming readinessLoudness normalization, true-peak headroom, intro length and metadata hygiene — the parts platforms judge before people do.Read the guide →
See the guides applied
The case studies walk through four before/after examples: a report finding, the exact revision it prompted, and the score movement across all six dimensions afterwards.
Also scored
Vocal balance
Where the lead sits against the instrumental, how consistently it reads across playback systems, and whether consonants survive compression.
Arrangement
Section lengths, contrast between them, and whether energy is added and removed deliberately rather than accumulating until the end.
Commercial appeal
How closely the record matches the sonic expectations of the playlists, sync briefs and audiences it is aimed at.
Free tools that go with these guides
When you want all six scored at once, upload a track to the analyzer.