Drooble is a social network for musicians. Like Facebook, it has a news feed with comments and likes. Like SoundCloud, it has artist profiles, radio, charts, and playlists. And like Fiverr, you can pay for things like radio play, news feed exposure (Artist/Tune/Video of the Day), and even professional services like mixing and mastering. The site has come a long way since my interview for their blog in December of 2017.

Today I’m going to focus on my favorite feature: Song Reviews.

Drooble Song Reviews is one of the three major song review platforms I’ve tested. For the past few years, I’ve been using and recommending ReverbNation Crowd Review (my review), descended from AudioKite. There’s also TuneCore Fan Reviews, descended from SoundOut (my review).

What sets Drooble apart is that the reviews come from actual musicians, which means no more “the guitars are too loud” when there are no guitars in the track.

Artists on Drooble can earn money reviewing tracks once they’ve accumulated 2000 karma, Drooble’s in-house virtual currency. Karma is awarded for contributing to discussions, listening to other artists’ music, and providing feedback.

So far I’ve racked up a whopping 558 karma, so you won’t be paying me to badmouth your song anytime soon. For that, hit me up on Fluence.

To clarify, Song Reviews is different from their Album Review and Private Song Review services, which come directly from the Drooble team.

Submission & Pricing

The submission process is straightforward. You confirm the song’s genre(s), indicate whether it’s a finished production or a work in progress, and note any specific feedback you’re looking for (“are the vocals too loud?”).

Next, you get to select your audience!

My selections are mirrored in the screenshot above. I kept it pretty broad, knowing that the platform was new and the pool of reviewers likely small.

Make sure the first genre you enter, both when you upload your song and when you select your audience, is one of their primary genres. That’ll ensure better matching and make the song eligible for chart placement.

Pricing is slightly higher than ReverbNation Crowd Review, but with a smaller minimum order: $6.90 for 10 reviews on Drooble, versus $12.25 for 25 reviews on Crowd Review. You can also pay in karma.

There are also advanced insights available at an extra cost:

I was given a promo code to test out the service, which I did with five songs. I went with 30 reviews each plus all the bells and whistles. At today’s pricing, that amounts to $73.80 per song.

That’s a lot of money, but as you’ll see, you don’t always need the extras. Most of the value is in the written feedback, which is included in the base price.

You can get a 30% discount on your first Song Review on Drooble and support the site by using promo code COLORTHEORY here.

I’m going to talk you through a report section by section, but it’s much prettier in its native environment. Take a look!

Here’s the song in question, which I describe as “an 80s ballad from A Nightmare on Elm Street,” embedded straight from Drooble.

Overview

The review opens with the Overview page, which contains:

• An overall score from 1-10
• A written summary
• Would you want to hear this song again?
• What is your overall reaction to this song?

Unless you choose to hide it, the overall score shows up right next to the song name on your profile.

General

The second page opens with an homage to Jackson Pollock:

Now I can confidently order that next batch of Color Theory t-shirts in seafoam green.

The answers to more practical questions follow:

• How did this song make you feel?
• Which is the most appropriate genre for this song?
• Did you feel engaged during the whole song?
• Which well-known artist does this song remind you of most?
• Number of reviewers who selected each artist
• How likely would it be for you to purchase this song?
• How likely would it be for you to listen to this song on a streaming service?

And a well-phrased question about how innovative the song is:

Feedback

The next page contains a 1-10 score along with written notes from each of the reviewers, divided into two parts: General Review and Recommendations for Improvement.

Speaking of karma, you can rate each review on a scale of 1-10 stars. You can also choose to add any of the reviews as public comments on the song.

The vast majority of written feedback was useful and insightful. In fact, Drooble even published a guide to reviewing music. You can tell a lot of time and repeat listenings went into some of these reviews.

Here’s a sampling:

Of course, they can’t all be gems:

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Songwriting

The first of three advanced insights modules, the Songwriting page cuts right to the chase:

Next we’ve got scores for eight aspects of the song:

Followed by:

• Do you feel the lyrics fit with the music?
• How deep did the song touch you?

Next up is scores for seven instrumental groups. Hallelujah for N/A!

The section closes with an open-ended question: “What picture do you imagine while listening to this song?”

The responses are all over the place, as you might imagine.

Production

The second advanced insights module starts with:

• Overall Production Score
• Overall Sound Quality Score

Followed by a handy chart designed to pit band members against each other:

Fortunately, Drooble reviewers aren’t listening on laptop speakers!

I can imagine the next two charts being extremely useful if the mix isn’t quite dialed in:

Two more questions round out the page:

• Compared to songs you hear on the radio, how loud is this song?
• Do you find this song ready for promotion to a wider audience?

Audience

The final advanced insights module tells you a little bit more about who is doing the reviewing.

In theory, you have a large degree of control over reviewer selection in the submission process. In practice, I suspect that the current pool of reviewers is relatively small. I saw the same names pop up in each of my five reviews.

Here’s more on the men and women (but mostly men) behind my curtain:

It’ll come as no surprise that Drooble is headquartered in Bulgaria.

Hopefully I’ll be able to get a higher percentage of electronic music fans as the pool of reviewers grows.

Conclusion

As you can probably tell, I’m a big fan of Drooble Reviews.

Where else can you get detailed, specific, and actionable advice from fellow musicians for less than a buck a pop?

For works-in-progress, the songwriting and production modules are especially valuable.

If you decide to give it a shot, be sure to use discount code COLORTHEORY to save 30% on your first Drooble Song Review here.

Have you tried Drooble? Share your experience in the comments!

Brian Hazard is a recording artist with over twenty years of experience promoting his nine Color Theory albums, and head mastering engineer and owner of Resonance Mastering in Huntington Beach, California.

His Passive Promotion blog emphasizes “set it and forget it” methods of music promotion.