At 5/22/08 12:00 PM, xKore wrote: I was on this site a few days ago, but i was a bit confused by the contracts and backstage passes system, thanks for clearing it up. I'm quite interested in the getting payed to review part...

be wary though, if you think in the long run, the amount of effort and work that you need to put in to make any kind of return is quite large. Their current payment system is like this.

1 star scout rank
3 pence a pop = 6 cents US

2 star scout rank - need 50 good reviews
5 pence a pop = 10 cents US

3 star scout rank - need 250 good reviews
7 pence a pop = 14 cents US

4 star scout rank - need 1500 good reviews
9 pence a pop = 18 cents US

5 star scout rank - 10,000 good reviews
12 pence a pop = 24 cents US

a good review constitutes at least 4 lines of valid opinion. 10,000... that's a LOT. Trust me on this one, don't quit your day job, you can make decent money if you spend like 5 hours a day on reviewing, but who wants to do that? Spend more time on your music so OTHER people spend their day reviewing YOUR music.

At 5/22/08 11:55 AM, swordman592 wrote: what angered responce? I asked for Epic music like your song, but not by you because your charging money. Wheres the anger in that?

he also said that you're welcome to use tracks found on his Newgrounds page, so why not use 4 Brave Champions? Ask him to use that. He's more then explained himself and your responses do seem aggravated and kind of pouty. I any case I do a good deal of epic music myself, check out my page see if you hear anything you like!

So i've been doing stupid pointless surfing, because i'm stupidly pointless like that. And I tripped over a very interesting site. SliceThePie, which offers winners of contests 15,000 pounds (or $30,000 US) to finance the artist to release an album and start selling. Here are the details.

- Artists join an arena on their site, and upload 3 tracks they think could win.

- The Arena opens up for "scouting", this is pretty much people reviewing the music, what they liked, what they didn't like, and score it according to how marketable they think the song is. Or at least, that's how they should score, there are some morons on there. More on scouting later.

- After all this scouting, based on score, the top 20 artists are thrown into a showcase where people vote for and possibly buy "Back stage passes" (more on that later) on their favorite artists to help fund their album release.

- The winner of this showcase, earns 15,000 pounds, no matter what happens. The other artists, if they manage to sell 3,000 backstage passes (they're 5 pounds a pop), they also get financed.

SO WHAT'S THE CATCH?!
- The album you release, 2 pounds per album sale goes to SliceThePie, BUT THAT'S IT! Everything else goes to you, which is a lot more then what you'd expect to get on a record deal. On top of that, STP will release your album online through various venues like iTunes through the business tunecore.
- You keep all the rights and ownership of your music. If you want to sell them for anything else, you are more then free to.

Backstage Passes. WTF?
STP has a "stock market" for up and coming musicians that they finance. You can buy "contracts" which is just their word for shares, and the better the artist does, the more money you make. A backstage pass is something you can buy from them during the showcase stage for 5 pounds a pop.

Each Backstage Pass entitles you to:
1. A free digital copy of the album.
2. Participation in the recording process
3. The exclusive right to buy up to 5 Contracts at 10p ($0.20) each (rather than £1.50) in respect of each Backstage Pass you own.

There is also a virtual market if you'd like to try your hand at it and see what happens in that respect.

A bit on Scouting.
Why should you consider this? If nothing else you'll get nothing but raw, brutal feedback on your music. The scouts on this site are not usually musicians themselves, so they will tell you straight up if they think your stuff can contest in the music market. That or they'll tell you what they liked and what they didn't, with an emphasis on what they didn't.

You should be aware that these scouts get out of their way to try and find flaws in your work, so do expect a bit of bruising. If you have a fragile ego, might want to consider not joining.

Scouts also get paid for their review. 3 pence a pop for starters, or 6 cents US, which is really why I joined, to review and help finance some much needed equipment/software.

Some extra information
Why did I think to post this here? Because 1, I love you guys, and 2, thus far all the music i've heard in that place is general rock and old, tired rap. Same garbage again and again. The extra spice and much deserving talent found here would change that. Sign up lads, we'll attack the site together! me, MilkMan-Dan, and Jazza have already thrown our hats into the ring, LETS DOMINATE THIS BLOODY PLACE >:(!

Feel free to ask me anything, i've pretty much memorized the site inside and out, let me know if you've joined, it'll be fun!

wasn't it Sprittles or something like that, who submitted every song of Edgen's whom makes epic medieval music?

I don't recall confirming joining, I can however confirm I won't be joining. There is simply WAY too much to do on my end to sit down and do this. I'm already sacrificing 2-3 hours a night for various other projects and responsibilities.

Thanks for the nomination whoever that was, but i'm afraid i'll continue releasing stuff whenever I can :).

Rushing stuff would make it crap anyways.

I will be putting this info on the page of ultimate free stuffz. Great stuff here guys, great stuff.

At 5/9/08 01:04 PM, NickPerrin wrote: Another fellow Torontonian AND classical/orchestral artist here - count me in for this meeting! This collaboration could turn out pretty f-ing epic.

J00 IS ALSO IN TORONTO?!

OMG WHY ARE WE NOT HAVING MUSICAL BABIES?!

D:!!!!?!??!

have you the pet beavers to triumph over ME!?

Well hell we'd love to have you if you can make it! We could all chill, jam, and insult the mothers of the other.

Thats right, I'll be chewing gum and kicking Dan's ass!

At least, kicking ass Canadian style, which really is us throwing our pet beavers at each other until the other succumbs to rabies.

Can't wait to meet you in real life Dan, if we remember any of it, we didn't do it right.

At 5/6/08 11:36 PM, Spikrodd wrote: SHIT.
o3o !!

I need to find new techniques because whatever Im doing isnt working... AT ALL.
Ah well... good job to all the winners, mainly DJ-Immune (seriously... good job!)

curious... what was everyone's ranking? :P

ah JEEZE, well the judges sent in top 10 only, so... uh... I couldn't tell you.

but you came last... dead last... like if there was anything less then last, it would be called Spiklast. This is you.

You are Spiklast.

There is no last, there is only Spikrod.

But no, seriously, I don't know.

by the by, the judging be done laddies!

btw HotActionYiffFur, how did you make that sweet percussion boom in yours D:? Epic sir, I wish you had taken that song further progression wise, mixed it up a bit more, could have placed higher.

Yeah they split teh prize money however they see fit. They decide who gets the shirt/stickers. IT'S OUT OF MAH HANDS NAO!

1st) DJ-immune | Pico's Death [Mac8] 1st

2nd) trogdar | harlequin pulse (Vs. quarl)

3rd) DaGrahamCracka | Compunction

4th) thatcomposerguy | Among the Ashes (MAC 8-PICO)

5th) HotActionYiffFur | Coil

TEH PEOPLEZ WHO WERE NOT GUD ENUGH! MOCK THEM, BUT ALSO LOOK UP TO DEM! THEY SUCK IN A WINNER WAY!
Winterwind-NS | Fears
SolusLunes | Solus- Synthesis26
danredda | The Dance of The Crazy Eggs
RGH | Looming Picabyss- by RyeGuyHead
Nav | Nav - Space Sequence (Master)

WUT?!

Winners, claim your prizes, and your women, send em to Tom, who will say, kthnxbai.

At 5/5/08 09:25 AM, Khuskan wrote: Are there any alternate ways to get this video rather than megaupload? I can't download from that god awful site at any reasonable speed :(

the extra download locations are from media fire ;D, if you still have problems with it, l'll direct link ya.

At 5/4/08 10:50 AM, Los-Illuminados wrote: ooo my song is almost spot-on then! thank god i already posted it. go check it out. oh and maestrorage (or judges, whoever) you might wanna cut it or fade it out. or do i have to do that :(

We don't do squat in terms of work, we just look and listen ;D.

You're welcome to edit your song if you'd like, havn't listened to it yet.

At 5/2/08 09:52 PM, Chronamut wrote:

At 5/2/08 09:48 PM, MaestroRage wrote: A little disappointed there will be no audio trophy. There were a lot of really deserving guys in here... ah well I suppose when things get more settled in?

ah well - I guess bickering over it didnt help :P

No it probably did not my good sir... no it did not...

well, back to the forges yes lads?

A little disappointed there will be no audio trophy. There were a lot of really deserving guys in here... ah well I suppose when things get more settled in?

At 5/2/08 01:29 PM, Nithalahk wrote: (this pry belongs in the general forum but i don't belong there)

When they log into NG?

I also get redirected to some other site.

I would message TomFulp about that... that's pretty weird, I don't get that at all...

yes, a link was put in the contest text, for our rendition of the contest you are allowed to use whatever you want.

Additional Prize Possibility
- I am in the midst of seeing if it is legal for us to submit our entries to a service like Revver. This will allow us to generate revenue as a collective and then award that to the winners as an additional package.

The extra money can be s(p)ent in a variety of ways. I'm hoping I can send Tom the extra money via PayPal and he can send it to the winners as a part of their check ($125 instead of $100 for example).

Or if enough is generated the prize winner can instruct me on how to use it for them. Buy something off the internets, or whatever. Though not likely if we can create $50 or more, a year long membership for G.A.N.G. can be acquired, and that is a resource that will pay for itself time and time again.

AGAIN, THIS IS NOT OFFICIAL, I WILL LET YOU ALL KNOW HOW IT GOES DOWN

Extra Download Locations
Large Movie .mov
Large Movie .wmv
Medium movie .avi

Small Movie .mov (9mbs)
Small Movie .wmv (9mbs)

Extra Explanations
- Remixes are allowed, as long as you follow NG submission rules. No samples of others work, everything 100% your work
- Remixes of your own songs are allowed, as long as you show effort into your submission, we're fine with it.

Any other questions, please ask them in the discussion thread!

At 5/1/08 10:50 AM, HouseMasta wrote: holy crap, you have a separate thread just for discussion? interesting....

It seems every contest run over at the art forum does it, and it DOES help our listmaster get things done quicker, so in the name of efficiency, here we are ;D

Also I realize the animation is strange, and ambiguous, but that should be its strength, there are no limits to what you can do.

Also Quarl, if you remodify your song to fit the animation, and put some effort into it rather then just slap your song to the animation, we won't mind. I just don't want to see people throwing some random tunes together and calling it a day.

At 5/1/08 12:45 AM, WritersBlock wrote: I already think I'm onto something. I had started a very short tune a couple of days ago, and it's perfect for the opening. Now I just have to build on it and develop the motif out to 2 minutes. But that shouldn't be a problem given that I have the whole month to get it sorted.-

I'm personally seeing a very timid, fragile opening to the piece. Something with a "bell" like sound. Glocken, Celesta. Some low faded out strings as chords to support the atmosphere. Some white noise from a simple 3xOSC seems like a very useful candidate too.

My next reaction is mellow french horns. Muted, give it some tender strength.

Yes, the audio should be the length of the movie, unless you want some kind of fade out and have a lingering few seconds of dwindling audio afterwards.

Using a service like Revver you can upload your movie file as a widget, and show it to everybody and even earn money off it! That's right, you can earn money just by showing us your work alongside submitting your song to the portal.

We ask that you upload your movie to a service like revver, or youtube, or whatever, to make viewing/listening to them very easy. YouTube is known to knock down bitrate for streaming, so if you need your nitty gritty details present, consider other alternatives.

At 4/30/08 11:19 PM, momdoof wrote: For certain reasons I would not like the song I'm submitting to be downloaded by people? Yeah I know, but I like what I did a lot and I don't want this one in the hands of a lot of people. I DO however, have a website, so would it be alright for be to link it there? I know in the past you haven't allowed this, but it was worth a shot to ask..

This is HAYF BTW, I'm on an alt for obvious post count reasons.

As this is a Newgrounds competition, and Newgrounds is potentially giving you their money for your time and effort, I'm afraid we must keep contestants to submit to the portal.

At 4/30/08 11:05 PM, SSBSD wrote: Alright, fucked that up, but commercial bullshit. You get my meaning.

DEATH TO THE SYSTEM

The whole purpose of this MAC is to give members a chance to score to a free animation, to give them a taste of what it really means to sit down and score FOR something. A lot of us have simply made something that vaguely fills empty space and nothing more. Make no mistake there is a HUGE difference between scoring FOR something, and scoring ABOUT something.

And this is invaluable experience to participants, as well as excellent portfolio material. As long as you credit the animators you are allowed to use this work to showcase to other prospective game developers/producers, movie/flash artists.

I suppose to many this doesn't mean squat. I mean many of us have no intention of taking their music beyond Newgrounds. To some this might be a huge starting block, it might answer the question if this is the kind of work they really want to do, or if they want to stick to solo producing.

At 4/30/08 10:58 PM, JoeyNukes wrote: This theme sucks.

Also for nostalgia's sake, fuck you Rig.

By all means, feel free to suggest something that doesn't suck, I gotta say it's getting just a WEE bit irritating getting "This blows!" while nobody goes out of their way to say "Hey, lets do [insert idea] next!"

Now i'm tired as hell so i'm going to go away, and fall unconscious.

Entering the Contest, Basic Rules
1 - Check the Rules for Submitting Audio to the NGAP. If you still are unsure what's OK to upload and what's not, check this thread. Basically, you must not submit material that include samples you have no copyright/permission to use.

2 - Make a song according to these rules! FO SHO!

3 - Submit the song to the NG Audio Portal.

4 - Go to this thread and post a link to your songpage. You risk not getting on the list of submissions if you do not post links to your songs. Also include the audio title.

5 - POST YOUR SUBMISSIONS IN THIS THREAD, TALK ABOUT BLASPHEMY AND CRAP IN THE DISCUSSION THREAD! (You are allowed to talk about WIP's there if you'd like)

6 - Do not break any of the rules stated in this thread. If you intend on submitting with different profiles, notify Maestrorage or Rucklo about this. If we find out that you break the rules, you risk being disqualified from this contest. Depending on how serious your actions are, you might get banned from the contest for some time. Basic BBS rules apply in this thread too, of course. If there are posts that are irrelevant for the contest/spam, a moderator will clean it up. This mean your post(s) might get deleted, and you risk getting banned from the NG BBS. All according to the BBS rules and the forum specific Audio Forum rules.

7 - You should have your submission signed up for the contest in this thread by 30th of May. If you cannot post for one reason or another, PM or e-mail MaestroRage or Rucklo, enter a valid reason why you can't do it yourself, and we'll see to it that your contest entry is in. To make it even clearer; - No submissions will be accepted when May 30nd is up.

8 - It is now possible to update songs one have submitted to the contest, and it is allowed to do so. However, when May 30th is up, no more updates are allowed. The songs will be downloaded by this time, and distributed amongst the judges (or if they choose to download the songs themselves) to avoid the risk of somone updating the song post deadline.

9 10 finalist songs at the end of the day!

10 - LOL (A ROFL IS NOT ALLOWED)

Extra notes
- The judging will be done similiar to prevous MAC's, nobody escapes alive. :)

- Rules, guidelines and other things that this contest have, may change as time goes by. If anything changes, you will find out by staying updated to this thread.

- There will be two threads, one for submissions, and one for talking about songs and what not. DO NOT POST IN THE ENTRIES THREAD UNLESS YOU ARE ENTERING. Otherwise a deleted post is you.

- If you have any bright ideas for future MACs, don't be shy to PM Maestrorage or Rucklo
with your ideas.

MAC8 - May Crewmembers and their function.
MaestroRage - Chief Judge, creator of the judging system. Likes to insult mothers, is providing laughable prizes :'(?
PsychoGoldfish - DJ who will announce the winners live on radiogrounds.com, (MAYBE?)
DarKsidE555 - Listmaster, updates the list of new submissions with new entries since the previous update marked.
TomFulp - Provides the awards along with creating/managing this website, newgrounds.com.
Rucklo - Contest manager and mascot.

Previous Audio Contest in the Audio Forum
MAC8 - Pico Punchout!
MAC8 - Feb/March Pillars of Pico!
MAC7 - June CASTLE CRASHERS theme.
MAC7 - May REDESIGN, FRONTPAGE THEME!
MAC7 - March (+April) PICO LOOP theme.
MAC7 - February PICO TREASURE HUNT!
Mrac06 - December
Mrac06 - November
MAC6 - October X-MAS theme
MAC6 - August TANKMEN theme
MAC6 - July OPEN CONTEST
Heaviest riff ever competition! (2006)
March Contest (2006)
Battle of the Audio Portal (2005)

Discuss.

I know the results of the previous MAC arn't out at the time of this writing, I don't care, keeping things moving!

Submit your work here!

- WIP's are allowed
- Mother jokes are allowed
- Rig sucks
- A lot

Welcome to the

Monthly Audio Contest 2008 - May Motion to Music!.

CONTEST ENDS May 30th 2008 11:59:59 PM NEWGROUNDS TIME

THERE IS NO PICTURE THIS TIME, OKAY, THERE IS NO TYME NAO! IT'S NOT IMPORTANT!

Motion to Music!?
- For so long we at the audio portal have been making themes to our own accord. Given an idea, a destination, or snippet of something else you, the audio contributors have been running around happy as can be, doing what you want.

WELL NO MORE! THIS TIME IT'S PERSONALLY DIFFERENT!

Currently East West producers are holding a competiton (details can be found here!) to score for a short animation developed by Zennor Alexander and Fiona Soe Paing.

We will have our own NG rendition of this contest. Many of us don't have their libraries so it would only make sense that this condition be removed from our take. You are free to use whatever you want, with whatever sounds you want. The movie is ambiguous enough to grant you as much flexibility as you want, without giving you enough leeway to just go stupid on it.

What?

Shut up >:(, pay attention.

NO U!

>:'(

About the Contest this month
- The contest is open to any theme/genre you please, but the music must feel like it belongs to the animation. We don't want to see random crap that sounds good, we want random crap that sounds good and links to the movie.

- You are allowed to submit 2 pieces of music to be judged, and as many other extra's as you'd like to throw into the pile. Why not!?

- You will recieve a MUCH harder judgement if your piece is old, and you decided "hey, it KINDA, ALMOST, MAAAAYBE fits with the animation!", then you've wasted everybodies time. Unless it really breaks our souls and shatters our mental well being it's so good, and nobody is that good.

- This is incredible experience for you as composers to try your hand at expressing yourselves through not just your ideas, but through a filter set in front of you. Many of you probably don't know how it feels to really limit yourself through an activity like this, and let me assure you once the Newgrounds API kicks off, and animators are looking for "the composer" for their super duper game, and you can potentially make money off it, you'll all go "Bless that MaestroAngerIssues and the experience he gaveth to us".

Download the movies here
Quicktime 7 - H.264 codec
* Large (45MB)

WMV 9
* Large (31MB)

AVI
* Medium (42MB)

Awards
1st) $200 + Shirt/stickers
OR $100 + $100 NG Merchandise + Free shirt/stickers
OR $200 NG Merchandise + Free shirt/stickers

2nd) $100 + shirt
OR $100 NG Merchandise + Free shirt/stickers

3rd) $100 + shirt
OR $100 NG Merchandise + Free shirt/stickers

4th) Free shirt/stickers
5th) Free shirt/stickers

6th - 10th) mockery... cruel CRUEL mockery.

- Front Page Spots for the top four songs!

- Hopefully somebody will help make a sig for us! If you're interested in lending a photoshopping hand, let us know!

- At the end of the day, a poll will be held to declare a "Peoples favorite!", the winner of this small scale contest will recieve
-- promotional space on my site Symphony of Specters
-- Our undying love and affection.

- Since this contest relies on visuals and not just music, it is debatable whether having our good drunk friend PyschoGoldfish DJ it up on RadioGrounds! If you havn't already congratulate him on his recruitment as Newgrounds Staff! DO IT!

ADDITIONAL ASSISTANCE
I have prepared a short document with an example to some flash animations personally scored for. In this document will be how I went about undertaking these animations, hopefully they will provide you with some ideas of your own. Make no mistake these ideas and guides are by no means "the holy grail" of scoring, just one of many. You may or may not agree, thats fine.

- Document/Page

Don't forget to visit the free VST(i)/Samples/Refill page, to up your arsenal or just for kicks.

- Free VST(i)/Samples/Refills
- Free movie editor/renderer