review?! Why didn't you just teh pm me my good sir, why i'll just plop on over there and we'll make merry with beers and audio.

so... failure is just knocking all over Ng's face huh?

This is starting to sound awfully famaliar...

whats even more ironic is i'm wearing a shirt that says Player on it, which must be a sign from the heaven that I must draw you...

Conspiracy!!!!

wow, Audacity failed?

I do believe we're witnessing history in the making...

Try it one more time, making sure you have the right settings, if it still doesn't work, I guess you could try one of the many free wav -> mp3 converters out there. Sorry I don't really know any myself.

API uses flash. Lets chain his eyes and arms to this particular thread.

yes, many downloaded Audacity ;).

See many mp3 converters derive at the end point in different methods, and so sometimes Newgrounds doesn't see it as a proper mp3 format file.

For this reason you need to download audacity and convert through that program, there are probably many other converters that would work, but the only one that i've seen to work again and again is audacity, so go for that.

Many others had this problem, they did eventually solve it.

At 10/16/06 04:57 PM, DarKsidE555 wrote: Like MaestroWuzzy. >: (

:'(

*Secures razor*

Now to as SpamWarrior would say, play the wrist violin, in D#

get it, because it's SHARP. Oh how I lol at my own wicked humour, in Korean styles...

kekekekekeke

Well whenever people get this error, they usually download Audacity and then reconvert the file into mp3 through that. This generally solves the problem. If it doesn't, then for sure, somethings up with NG and not you.

At 10/16/06 03:45 PM, Khuskan wrote:

At 10/16/06 02:29 PM, MaestroRage wrote: BlackNoise and Ban is like Cock and Crabs, once the two find each other, you can never seperate the two :D.

What the hell have you been doing in your free time?

reading up on my medical books?

now to use the disarming smiley appropriately

:D

and you are all disarmed!

On another note, i've found Newgrounds next potential classical king since Edgen.

ESN

His first piece was actually performed live, and truly it is the greatest work i've heard here on Newgrounds. Maybe because it's directly related to my taste, but seriously, I have never been more impressed by a piece. And if really it was his second composition, then it is even more impressive.

BlackNoise and Ban is like Cock and Crabs, once the two find each other, you can never seperate the two :D.

Well I wouldn't say RELATED, because you'd have to be somebody else to be related right? I just started a new account cuz people love me like that ;).

and by occurance are you talking about the massive numbers that prop up when you try to submit stuff?

it's sad when I joined SoundClick, in 5 minutes I found 3 stolen songs. They have nearly no mods there. And two of those stolen songs were on THE TOP CHARTS! Hundreds of people were listening to it, yet nobody questioned Eminems song on friggen Classical charts. I swear...

my feathars are ruffled

>:(

whoops, was on first page.

Not sure how Rocky found out. Maybe the same conclusion jumping skillz?

No they found out. They confronted my face and were like "I KNOW WHO TEH YOU IS!!"

except with less grammar.

I made them swear on their own graves not to tell until it was done.

At 10/13/06 11:45 PM, Kirizzle wrote:

At 10/13/06 11:41 PM, MaestroRage wrote: Also, I will be famous when I invent a way to punch people across a standard TCP/IP network.

I assume you surprise took that idea from a quote from bash dot org, am I wrong? =)

is there anywhere better to dispense lol's in great velocity and volume?

the way I see it, the only and best way to teach anything, is to have a "spike YOUR FACE!" system, where if somebody makes a thread which requires an iq only in the single digits, then their computer gets destroyed via NGV, or NewGroundsVirus (duh!)

Also, I will be famous when I invent a way to punch people across a standard TCP/IP network.

I've watched a pretty considerable amount of anime. Can we see some of your works?

Rucklo said:
Nice thing mate, I hope to see you aroun more (and not some soul-rage dude messing up the freakin pleace;)

No promises >:)

At 10/11/06 09:48 PM, Kirizzle wrote: Interesting data, although there are exceptions... like dimrain, who reviews no one, and doesn't have any real musical skill EXCEPT in the area of composition, but when it comes to originality or creativity or sound quality... he sucks.

You are right of course Kirizzle, there are ALWAYS exceptions, and there are more then one of course. Dimrain was actually one of the factors that led me to believe most of the reviews were handed down to Techno/Trance. I mean your "Underwater Chills" was in my opinion several times more entertaining and complex, and yet, lets compare reviews/votes/downloads right? When I wrote this, I was writing in the point of view of newcomers. People who recently start submitting are very competetive.

At 10/11/06 10:07 PM, Aimers wrote: Your mind works in funny ways. And now you've gone and confuzzled me. Gah. o_o

I'm sorry :(

At 10/11/06 10:11 PM, VegetarianMeat wrote: Interesting read, I guess it's time for me to get reviewing! ...sooner or later.

The sooner the better!

At 10/11/06 11:09 PM, crodian wrote: As one of the new artists who've had the privilage of being reviewed by MaestroRage, I must say he's pretty much hit the nail on the head. It's a great feeling to have a long, detailed review on a song of yours!

As you can see my friends, proof ;). Also Crodian, don't feel obligated to review back, I meant every word.

At 10/11/06 11:15 PM, OCON wrote: Aww, you remembered! Thanks man, it's been a pleasure...

Of course, i'm sure most regulars here remember their first review! Except BlackNoise, Chron, and TheComet, as they may... uuuh... not know which one of the hundreds ;).

At 10/12/06 12:53 AM, PrinceG wrote: Hm...I read most of that, and this implies that one sticks to a certain genre. See I dont have a certain genre down yet, I just go into miscellaneus because I dont know where to put it at. So should I just review every genre? that should be best, I suppose...

uuuh... every genre? Good luck X_x. If I were you, i've listened to quite a few of your songs. I am getting more Industrial/Hip Hop feel from your songs, many of them belong in those two genres. So I would advice you to dive a bit more into those. That is of course, assuming that really is what you like most. The genre you're most into, is usually the genre you have the most to say and talk about in your reviews.

At 10/12/06 01:00 AM, BlackNoise wrote: Also, submitting a lot of songs makes people think that you are stupid, unoriginal, and overrated.

Only because people can't figure out where so much energy and mental prowess comes from >:O! As Kirizzle mentioned, screw them.

At 10/12/06 12:35 PM, Kirizzle wrote: And Maestro, I don't see why people majoring in the same genre as you would get hostile when you reviewed their music, or not return the favor. I'd be delighted if API, PX9, dj-padman, cornnbeans or synkon ever reviewed one of my Dnb songs... or even someone not as good or popular, junglists gotta stick together and show some reskpect, foo... or maybe that's just me.

You are right Kirizzle, from the viewpoint of regulars, people who have had time to leave the competetive edge behind. However here's a question i've been pondering on, why is it that even regulars do not come around more often to support each other? Time constraints and real life obligations is a large factor I am sure, but even us regulars will stick to the genre we know best, and new artists who are trying to be the best in the genre you are in, they will listen to your stuff, find it intimidating, then justify some reason to why that song sux, and then 0 bomb it. Shamefully enough I did this to WinterWind's Eternal Levithian (I didn't 0 bomb it, but I was intimidated to the point I justified some reason to why I thought it was a bad song, though in truth, it wasn't). There are new people who do this every day!

Every 0 troll will eventually stop 0 bombing, either because through time they have simply grown tired of it, or they understand better of what it actually does, yet there is never EVER a day where 0 trolling doesn't occur. This led me to believe this fact. I could be wrong, but this is what I got from what I see.

At 10/12/06 12:41 PM, pitbulljones wrote: all i have to say is wow.

Thank you :D

At 10/12/06 03:50 PM, MusicalSerenity wrote: Sadly, I don't find much time (nor the patience) to review so many pieces thought I am always there to review for anyone who asks, and when I remember I check the pages of people I know.
Sometimes, when I have free time I browse the AP but I am usually busy.
O- and I ALWAYS respond to reviews. :)

Well you're doing the right thing by responding! It's not like you are FORCED to review, but it would help you get more reviews back. Take your time though.

At 10/13/06 07:02 AM, SuperDrummer146 wrote: So YOU were SoulStrings? I had no idea, lolz, you're music rocked there : )

Thank you ^^.

And I must say Deflektor, despite my attempts to hide my tracks, it seems you've caught onto most of the leads I had left. On a side project I also wanted to see if anybody would suspect or catch on. DavidOrr constantly reviewed saying "Your stuff sounds like MaestroSorrow", and so I suspected that he suspected (game of suspicion!). I however was completely unaware that Deflektor was inspecting things with a microscope :O! The game Nook thing WAS a pretty big blunder on my part.

And now, that i've responded to all of your comments, I would like to try and prove once again about responding to reviews. Does it not in some sense feel good to have all of your words acknowledged?

Out of curiousity is it possible to form some form of Christmas account? I'd like to make a few covers, but in all honesty I don't like putting covers on my page, and I don't really want to flood it with Christmas toons in October. People are just not going to understand.

That is by FAR the most originalistist of Christmas songs ever...

damn...

up yours Dan, now I have to trash my song and make something completely new...

TEN HOURS OF WORK DAN... TEN HOURS!
>:(

That 250 bucks isn't yours yet >_>.

Final Statements.
- Reviewing outside your genre will build tighter bonds with other artists as the competetive edge is removed, around 80% of outside reviews will result in a reply and hit back assuming that the artist in question is not very popular or frankly lazy as in that case usually they will not feel the need to hit that person back (don't deny this guys, i've seen you all do this, including myself).
- Reviewing inside your genre will overall return 20-40% reply back, as well as this, after giving the initial review, the artists in that same genre may tend to stay away from you. They are after all in the same genre as you, and the competitive edge they feel will make them a bit more hostile towards you. On top of all this, after leaving a review, most of the time the reviewer will not actually vote, or in some severe cases, actually 0 bomb you, but say they voted 5 in the review. The cloak and choke I call it. I have personally seen somebody drop me this review, and then my score was 0 bombed merely seconds after. It could be a freak coincidence, but not likely.
- Effort spent is reviews earned. The success to newgrounds for many is 30% skill, and 70% reviewing. Unless again your songs loop on the Audio Portal front page, in that case it's 50% skill, and 50% sit back and watch the reviews and downloads fly :D (I would dare somebody to come forward and tell me this is NOT true!).
- The length of the review does not actually matter. You could write essay after essay, and you would not gain enough exposure to make it significant. Unless of course you reviewed 600 times like this with lengthy reviews... trust me, if you have that much energy, get back to that computer and make musical magic >:(! The most effective length of reviews is 2-5 paragraphs. This may seem a lot, but really it's not that much.
- Responding to reviews MAKES A DIFFERENCE! People who review your songs eagerly await your response to their words, as if to almost make sure that the person they review is really alive. Responding to reviews makes other people want to review, to see what you will write for them, I have seen many artists who did not respond to reviews and their first few songs got a good number of reviews, and then as they kept submitting, reviews became more and more sparce.
- You WILL learn a great deal from reviewing outside your genre, or reviewing many artists. There are DOZENS of brilliant, and innovative ideas and melodies that go by unnoticed EVERYDAY! I implore you all to take a day, and wonder the Audio Portal, you will not regret it!

This is the data I am willing to share, there is more but ultimately I can't say them with confidence, so I will not say them period.

-------------------------------------

_-=*~_/[Step Three?]\_~*=-_
So what is next for me now? Now that i've collected all my data, do I return to my MaestroSorrow's account? I've even considered having SoulStrings destroyed so I can revamp and remaster the songs there to upload to MaestroRage (a few, some I really liked, and have the finished version for, but don't know if I should upload them to SoulStrings).

Well for now i've decided to remain with MaestroRage. Truth to be told, I can no longer find that same source of inspiration that led me to create songs like MaestroSorrow's. My songs have become more mainstream which I kind of disaprove of, and so instead of fusing two different styles together on the same page, I will let MaestroSorrow rest in peace. I will make SoulStrings my looping account. All my looping songs and segments will go there. I will also change SoulString's name to SoulSegments, or MaestroLoops.

That's it for now guys, thank you for your time.

I'm thinking something completely new for this one guys... TRIBAL EPIC CHRISTMAS!

Hello everyone. I felt it was time to explain a few things on my side. To finally get some things off my chest. I've been meaning to say this for a long while now, just never had the courage.

As many of you are aware, I had left Newgrounds a while ago, saying that I would not be submitting again, and i'm sure some of you know now that this is not the case. However I would like to share a few things with you all, as I am now here to explain that things were not as they were really made out to be.

But first I get ahead of myself, let me start from the beginning.

Several months ago I began recieving emails from anonymous people stating that all of my music was far over rated and that there was really nothing to them (in fact if you go to my "The Woman's Roar" and go to page 1, you will see that one of them actually felt the need to post their "constructive" words). Now normally I would not listen to such people, especially if they didn't even have enough spine matter to leave their aliases so that I knew who I was talking to, however with every passing day, these emails became more frequent, and more vicious.

As would be expected I began to doubt myself.

At the same time MilkMan_Dan was said to be leaving Newgrounds to join the military. I jumped ship then to unite with him and hoped to create some wonderful songs before he left. We were even talking about producing a cd.

Sadly enough I fear this cd is not going to happen soon, through many factors, involving both of us, progress slowed, and eventually nearly disappeared entirely. I don't blame him nor myself, in all honesty though we are both what I feel quite compatible composers, the truth is both he and I work when inspiration hits and forcing ourselves to work on pieces sent to each other simply didn't work. On top of that there were connection issues, passing work back and forth properly, blagh, it was a mess.

I was left without a home, and after I killed off MaestroSorrow, I was given the perfect oppurtunity to run a series of experiments to see how the environment of Newgrounds worked. "Manipulating the masses" in a sense. Here are the results of that experiment, some may make you go "duh!", and others may make your nod in interest.

_-=*~_/[Step One]\_~*=-_
My first move was re-introduce myself as somebody else, that nobody would know. I created SoulStrings.

Now SoulStrings was supposed to be your every man. He reviewed rarely, and mainly those in the same genre. He was technically there to try and get as much exposure as he could without doing the fan chasing. When he DID leave reviews however, he left pretty damn large ones, go check them out if you don't believe me, I left damn essays on each song >:(!

The results of said experiment.
- A close circle of loyal listeners that stood by every piece I submitted due to the large reviews.
- Review/Response Ratio (30-40%) mainly those in the same genre.
- Still I get pm's from some people asking them to review their pieces despite the fact SoulStrings has not submitted anything in a month and has remained silent for a long while.

His disappearance was intentional of course, to see what would happen to his page without any more effort poured in from SoulString's side.

The results were pretty obvious.

Effort spent, is reviews earned, clearly and frankly speaking, unless you have your audio looping on the front page... or making Techno songs, because 14 year olds seem to enjoy techno/trance pieces so damn much, that section clearly ushers in more reviews, and a crap load more competition and 0 bombs.

I can say this statement with confidence as it was generally agreed that SoulString's music was better structured and melodically more advanced. Technically he should have been more famous then MaestroSorrow.

------------------------------

So after recieving this data, I was faced with a question of fanbases. How would they influence the tides here (other then the obvious)? Clearly an already established fanbase would greatly effect your page with 5 votes and 0 bombs to your competition (if they seem to idolize you enough...)

However I could not test out any theories involving these fanbases by returning to MaestroSorrow, that would blatantly make that account out as a liar and the data would be tainted. Yes I recognize that by returning period my credibility to what I say has been damaged but for this next step it was a sacrafice I wanted to make.

_-=*~_/[Step Two]\_~*=-_
I created MaestroRage.

Why? I needed a face that was familiar to people. Not famous, but at least with a decent amount of listeners to have the data effected in the way I wanted. I began creating what I felt was some of my best work and plastered it up there.

MaestroRage was supposed to act like MaestroSorrow, mass reviewing. Not one liners of course, I have NEVER approved of giving one line reviews, only in EXTREME conditions where I honestly didn't know what to say, yet wanted to drop my support, even then it was always at least 3 liners.

I also added another twist to the reviewing. MaestroRage spent 90% of his reviews outside his genre.

THe results of the second experiment
- 80% of reviews given were returned, 5 votes were freely given from that person since they were outside the genre that they were voting for, they did not feel threatened by the score of that song and could honestly and freely support said artist.
- Finding underrated and for some reason ignored artists of course was another field MaestroRage focused on. He made it his DUTY to find those who were freshly into the system, who were in need of a some kind words and constructive reviews. I remember my first review given by OCON and I still remember that giddy feeling. MaestroRage spent his energy invoking that same feeling to as many as he could, while he could. This of course built some bonds with some of the other artists, sharing ideas, stories, samples, a small network was being formed.

Because MaestroRage also tapped into whatever remains of fanbase there was left for MaestroSorrow, reviews and downloads were of course greatly increased compared to the speed of which SoulStrings got reviews and downloads. Again however this can be credited to the way MaestroRage reviewed over SoulStrings.

----------------------------

MY GOD PEOPLE! ENOUGH WITH THE DAMN FACES!

>:(

On another note RadRacer. I personally do not agree with the other guys, I myself begin to notice a slow down. Songs I see at the top of the list are still somewhere near th middle at the end of the day. When I first joined, that list was nearly completely changed every 6 hours.

even your pumpkins are flamboyant :P

I love you Chron.

If I told you, we'd have a great shortage of goats...

and therefore I shan't

>:(

Dude, why would you do that to the goats...

DAMN YOU DAVID >:(

I went into this thread all giddy with joy thinking "imma go tell him about Garritan's Big Jazz Band :D!" and suddenly my smile went upside down D:

This victory belongs to you...

>_>