ALSO

I can easily make a little post in the art forums to ask people for designing album art. I have much experience with design, so I can help as well with that.

ALSO ALSO

To get this thing more noticed, I will request a small team to get together with me and PM virtually any audio artist we can find here on Newgrounds. Networking, networking, networking.

*oh and*

I will handle all of the behind the scenes stuff, such as taking care of fine print with Tom about the store, setting up times and dates, and making sure this whole thing stays organized with the help of some dandy mods.

This sounds sick! I'd totally be willing to compete for a spot on the electronic album :D

At 5/26/11 12:11 AM, RampantMusik wrote: What, no love for classical and cinematic music? :'(

This makes me sad.

At 5/26/11 12:25 AM, FatKidWitAJetPak wrote: 3.) Since there are so many people that will be put on the albums, we should donate all funds towards charity. Otherwise, everyone would get only $20 or so for condoms and electricity bills.

Electric bills are good to me.

Still but why have only 3 electronic songs win top? A album can have about 10 tracks. I say we have:

1. 10 best Trance
2. 10 best Drum N Bass
3. 10 best Dubstep
4. 10 best Techno

Why have a seprate album with only dubstep and DnB? Is because of my experience most people who like Drum N bass dislike Dubstep and vise versa. And this could hurt the album.

I dont think we should mash up all electronic music into one album. Techno should be seperated from Trance. Yeah, maybe alot of work but totally worth it! In my opinion. ;)

What about releases centred around certain moods or themes?

- orchestral metal/classical/symphonic VG music/symphonic hiphop
- deep house/progressive trance/oldschool dubstep/atmospheric breaks/liquid dnb
- brutal metal/hardcore/gabba/brostep/gangsta rap/hardstep
- funk/funky breaks/funky house/funk rock/funky hiphop
- ambient

Just my 2 cents, assuming that this actually comes to fruition.

I'd be keen to do ambient/chillout stuff. Nothing else excites me anymore.

Could also be interesting to do the releases based on auras.

For example; light vs dark, neutral vs fab, gold vs evil.

Also, you'd really want to make sure that you had a good screening system in place. Can't let turds sneak on to the compilations, just because they were composed by a familiar face/you couldn't make up enough numbers/you got bitched out. You'd want it to be as cohesive and polished as possible, and definitely employ the services of a good mastering tech.

The actual arrangement would be fairly important as well. If you order the songs in a way that flows well, it'll feel a lot more cohesive. Could be interesting to work them up in to a mix. If you wanted to go down that road, I'd be more than happy to offer assistance. I think I have a pretty impeccable taste in music, and I'm fairly well versed in a range of musical styles.

At 5/26/11 05:13 AM, jarrydn wrote: What about releases centred around certain moods or themes?

This is probably the best approach. I agree with jarrydn.

I'm in if u need me ;)

At 5/26/11 05:13 AM, jarrydn wrote: What about releases centred around certain moods or themes?

- orchestral metal/classical/symphonic VG music/symphonic hiphop
- deep house/progressive trance/oldschool dubstep/atmospheric breaks/liquid dnb
- brutal metal/hardcore/gabba/brostep/gangsta rap/hardstep
- funk/funky breaks/funky house/funk rock/funky hiphop
- ambient

Just my 2 cents, assuming that this actually comes to fruition.

I like the theme idea. I was thinking we could have the themes matched up with Newgrounds characters.

Pico Album- Rock, metal hard techno etc
Darnel Album- Hip hop, R&B, dub step, rap etc
Nene Album- Trance, classical, and the like

At 5/26/11 05:13 AM, jarrydn wrote: What about releases centred around certain moods or themes?

This is pretty much what I had intended, but I used the word "genres" rather than the word "themes" since genres typically have a certain mood based around them. I am thinking that we should limit ourselves to no more than 4 albums, however, since making more albums would be harder to accomplish.

Yet again, here is the basic album setup I was thinking of:

- Heartwarming, serious themed album based around the orchestra and classical genres.
- Upbeat, dance/grindcore themed album based around DnB, progressive, and trance.
- Hardcore, brutal themed album based around metal, rock, and dubstep.
- Chill, visual themed album based around ambient, drone, and experimental.

Each album would most likely include 30+ songs in a two disc set, each designed differently and mixed smoothly. I would love help mixing the albums together, so that would be great jarrydn.

The actual arrangement would be fairly important as well. If you order the songs in a way that flows well, it'll feel a lot more cohesive. Could be interesting to work them up in to a mix. If you wanted to go down that road, I'd be more than happy to offer assistance. I think I have a pretty impeccable taste in music, and I'm fairly well versed in a range of musical styles.

I have listened to many, many genres in the past and have some mixing experience to boot, so you and I could certainly work together in making sure the songs all flow together in a nice track list. I am keeping many design elements in mind as we slowly organize this, understanding that the key to each album is a set mood based around specific genres that can easily be placed next to eachother. I am also planning on getting together a nice team of judges that will help me decide which tracks are the best for each album.

Thanks for all of your help guys! So far, we are already getting a nice team together!

At 5/26/11 04:26 PM, FatKidWitAJetPak wrote: Thanks for all of your help guys! So far, we are already getting a nice team together!

Sweet! I'd help to judge but I really want to take part in this (or at least attempt to, because I doubt I'll make it in haha).

If I had to give my opinion, I'd suggest locking this thread once everything's planned out, or alternatively keeping it as a discussion thread. Then I think you should make a new thread which is dedicated to people posting their best work/which theme their music falls under, and after a predetermined deadline the judges choose the artists who'll contribute towards the album so we can get this started.

Well if you've got some room for some trance/techno/electronica you can count me in. Just tell me when to get started.

I like the idea of a Newgrounds CD actually, but is it actually going to be a physical CD, or downloads?

At 5/26/11 04:54 PM, Supersteph54 wrote: If I had to give my opinion, I'd suggest locking this thread once everything's planned out.

Yeah, I'll just hack the BBS and lock this thread once we are finished discussing everything. *nudge nudge wink wink*

I think we should continue discussing the basics of this project to make sure a majority agrees on it. Since this project is being done by the community as a whole, it is important that the community agrees on how it is carried out. Otherwise, not many will want to get involved. I'll go ahead and bring up what people generally seem to want in this project.

Let me know if you guys are alright with this:

1.) We will create a compilation of four albums with different themes to be sold in the Ng store. Each album will have 1 CD with about 15 newly made songs total. All money earned will go towards charity, since the profit would otherwise be spilt among a group of many people, and therefore would earn everyone only enough money to go to Dennies and get the breakfast special... and that's just not a significant amount at all. If given to charity, however, more people would purchase the album, it would make us look better, and the organization we give it to could really benefit from the money.

2.) The four albums that will be created will be based around the following themes and genres...

- A Heartwarming, serious themed album based around the orchestral, folk, and classical genres.
- An Upbeat, dance/grindcore themed album based around DnB, progressive, and trance.
- A Hardcore, brutal themed album based around metal, rock, and dubstep.
- A Chill, visual themed album based around ambient, drone, and experimental.

3.) We will create separate threads for each album, one at a time. The threads will hold a contest with general rules and guidelines on creating music for the current album. Once the contest is over, the top songs from each genre will be selected and put into the album based on a 100 point judgment criteria. After the winners are selected, they will be mixed fluently into a track list. The top 3 winners on each album might receive store credit if Tom allows it. So yes, there will be prizes hopefully!

4.) Album design, if needed, can be done by someone over in the art portal. We can hold a contest if needed, but all in all I am sure that someone will gladly volunteer. I will discuss all of the fine print with Tom about getting the album into the store.

At 5/27/11 12:55 AM, FatKidWitAJetPak wrote: Yeah, I'll just hack the BBS and lock this thread once we are finished discussing everything. *nudge nudge wink wink*

Or you can go the easy way and ask a forum moderator, just sayin' :P.

And yeah, the plan so far looks good to me. I might be able to get a friend of mine to make the art if nobody's willing to in the Art Portal.

Where is the money going to come from to produce the album?

At 5/27/11 06:18 AM, ForNoReason wrote: Where is the money going to come from to produce the album?

We won't need much other than about $100 TOTAL for paper printing, There is a professional printing company nearby called "Kwik Kopy". I know the owner so he will be able to give me a good deal. We will most likely produce about 30 copies or so of each album and sell them for $15 - $20 each. *Thats about 50 cents - 75 cents per song*. It will end up costing about 75 cents to create each album.

Well, then I guess it's time to move onto the next step!
We should decide which album we want to move onto first...

So, which album do you think should be done first and why?

- A Heartwarming, serious themed album based around the orchestral, folk, and classical genres.

or

- An Upbeat, dance/grindcore themed album based around DnB, progressive, and trance.

or

- A Hardcore, brutal themed album based around metal, rock, and dubstep.

or

- A Chill, visual themed album based around ambient, drone, and experimental.

Once we decide which one should be created first, we can move onto the next step of the contest + networking.

Hi there guys, sorry for the lack of input but there are a few things you could have missed.

One being that if you hold a competition for entries and pick those entries to go on cd. It defies the point of making new tracks sorta, because the tracks then become available in the portal. And that's what we need to not do, at any cost. Nobody will buy tracks that are available for free.

Another is the loudness war. There's so many overly loud tracks on ng that I have firefox on 40% of my volume. These inconsistencies can blow speakers if you go from a really quiet track which has been turned up then hitting a really loud track. Someone has to bring them to a consistent level.

Saying that this is a great idea and love that all the proceedings are delivered to a needing charity. Ngs benefits directly by becoming connected on a higher level to show that's it's not self-serving as well as their community. It makes making musc for the album also honourable and I would relish the opportunity to create something for it.

At 5/29/11 04:34 AM, PeterSatera wrote: Another is the loudness war. There's so many overly loud tracks on ng that I have firefox on 40% of my volume. These inconsistencies can blow speakers if you go from a really quiet track which has been turned up then hitting a really loud track. Someone has to bring them to a consistent level.

This = my biggest concern. One solution would be to measure the average rms level of the louder portions of each song and then changing the volume of the entire track accordingly. The sticky part is agreeing upon what level the album should be. I vote for a window of allowed "loud loudness" between a -12 maximum and a few dB below that. Simple reason - "loud" tracks can be decreased in volume with no ill effect except for a conspicuous empty headroom and an inaudible bit depth reduction, but "quiet" tracks can't be increased in volume without clipping or otherwise ruining the track.

I also vote for the "hardcore" album to be produced first, if only because I won't contribute and will have more time to create entries for the other albums if the project survives.

I'm assuming that there's going to be a quality check on the composers here before they're allowed to create music for the albums in question, so I think it'll be up to FatKidWitAJetPack to only allow people that can achieve a particular loudness level in their compositions. As mentioned before, it's easy to turn the volume down on a track, but not up, so if that's one of the barometers used to measure the quality of the composer then there shouldn't be too many problems when a final mastering is done on the album. That's generally part of the process on albums created on OCR, and they seem to work alright, when it comes to volume consistency.

At 5/29/11 04:34 AM, PeterSatera wrote: One being that if you hold a competition for entries and pick those entries to go on cd. It defies the point of making new tracks sorta, because the tracks then become available in the portal. And that's what we need to not do, at any cost. Nobody will buy tracks that are available for free.

This is why I suggested that we post our best tracks and then the artists with the highest quality music get chosen to make a new track, rather than everyone making a new track and the best tracks get chosen for the CD.

BIGGEST NG AUDIO COLLAB EVAR?!?!

TUNE IN NEXT TIME!!

I'm down with this for sure. Sounds very fun.

I'll make a tune for the CD. That is if submissions are accepted.

I really like this idea so far. I think it could end up working much like the NG Hip-hop album is right now in the store. I think there are enough people on NG who are willing enough to buy an actual album of audio artists on the site. Many people buy posters/artists CDs and such.

Obviously most of the concerns posted I agree with (mastering, mixing etc.) But the problem I see is with each style. I feel like we should keep the genres a bit more separated, because not everyone is open to different styles of music.

At 5/29/11 12:10 AM, FatKidWitAJetPak wrote: - An Upbeat, dance/grindcore themed album based around DnB, progressive, and trance.

I don't really see someone who enjoys DNB and trance for most of a CD then a Grindcore song comes on? Just seems a bit too contrasting to me.

- A Hardcore, brutal themed album based around metal, rock, and dubstep.

Same with the dubstep on this one. Unless it is a cool mix style of rock/metal and dubstep. I could see that as appealing.

The other two styles sound good mixed together. I'm sure these ideas weren't completely thought through, but I wanted to add in my 2 cents. It seems best to have electronic style music together on one group and the rock and metal styles in another grouping.

I'd be happy to join in on this, It would be great to make some chill progressive music for the CD, and I love the fact that it's all for charity.

Anyway, all in all it's a great idea, but rather than a contest, i'd introduce a panel of judges sort of thing, a contest is slightly too complicated for where this is going.

HEY GUYS, NEW PAGE! MAKE SURE TO READ THE THREAD BEFORE POSTING. :)

Important points below...

At 5/29/11 04:34 AM, PeterSatera wrote: One being that if you hold a competition for entries and pick those entries to go on cd. It defies the point of making new tracks sorta, because the tracks then become available in the portal.

Don't worry, I've thought about everything you've mentioned before making this thread. We just haven't been covering the specefics just yet, although this does need to be covered.

All tracks posted in the contest should be posted up on SOUNDCLOUD in private. This way, only certain users can see the track *like the judges* and give comments, judge, and decide if it's good enough to be on the CD. Once the contest is over and the winners are decided, the user can then put it up on NG if he ends up losing. Once this happens, the user will receive reviews for improvement, votes, e.t.c. This makes it to where users can understand what they should do to improve so that they one day CAN be on a CD of some sorts. This also makes it to where no songs on the album will be available for listening or download for free. *Yes I know its possible to hack soundcloud and download the songs, but if the song is made private it will be extremely difficult to figure out WHERE it is on soundcloud for those who arent presented with the private link and password*

This basically makes this album pirate proof, other than the sample we give lol. In order to present people with a nice sample of everything on the album, we can do something like THIS.

Another is the loudness war. There's so many overly loud tracks on ng that I have firefox on 40% of my volume. These inconsistencies can blow speakers if you go from a really quiet track which has been turned up then hitting a really loud track. Someone has to bring them to a consistent level.

Which is where the MIXING comes in. In the past, many, many albums have been made as a collaboration both in the professional and indie world. It is relatively simple to mix everything together in a good volume level. This mastering process can be done by many people on here and I am sure we can find a suitable volunteer for optimum performance.

At 5/29/11 06:55 AM, Gario wrote: I'm assuming that there's going to be a quality check...

Of course. I've listened to literally two thousand+ songs here and now have an ear for understanding which songs are properly mastered. Funny enough, most NG listeners never notice this and vote songs like that up to the top of the week, lol. Then they have a fucking eargasm when they hear QUALITY MASTERED TRACKS. So yeah, I will make sure to judge based on quality as well. *along with the other judges*. I will present a judging criteria for all songs once the contest comes in.

At 5/29/11 03:20 PM, SineRider wrote: Obviously most of the concerns posted I agree with (mastering, mixing etc.) But the problem I see is with each style. I feel like we should keep the genres a bit more separated, because not everyone is open to different styles of music.

I think the main concerns that people will have the most trobule agreeing with are the genres and themes... but surprisingly, most of the genres presented work very well together. Have you ever heard Tiestos Club of Life? He mixes together nearly all electronic genres together including dubstep, DNB, trance, progressive, glitch, techno, dance, happycore, e.t.c and people LOVE it. And besides, it's going to be nearly impossible to make every single track genre likeable due to thevast amounts of culture and ears out there... but it will be a hell of a lot easier to make 90% of it likeable by combining fairly similar genres and themes together. Generally, if people like Dubstep they are going to like Drum N Bass due to the similarities between them. Although, I can understand how people could argue upon this, which is why we should decide if these genres I listed in my earlier post are good for album mixes.