$650 to Compose Game Theme Song!

[gamerveda]

Hey All!

It's be a long road but thank to so many members from NG, Audio Catch is a reality. For that we thank you so much.

So, Audio Catch is excited to announce that 2 Dawn Games (2dawngames.com) has launched a $650 Gig for musicians to score the musical theme for the upcoming PC Game âEU~RavagedâEUTM on Audio Catch (www.audiocatch.com).

Gig Details:
URL: audiocat.ch/P4oBxj
Ends on: June 25th at 11:59pm -05:00 GMT
Prize: $650 to winning entry
Cost to participate: $0 - Costs nothing as it should be

2 Dawn Games wants a unique looping musical score that will capture the essence of their gritty Mad-Max style post-apocalyptic world. The award is $650 and in-game credits. This is an amazing opportunity to really push the envelope and get recognized for your musical talents!

Simply Register at www.audiocatch.com, login to your account, then go to audiocat.ch/P4oBxj and provide a custom audition!

More details on what 2 Dawn Games is looking for:
The game is fast paced and a battle of two sides so the music should reflect that...perhaps with an industrial edge to reflect the ingame vehicles. Dirty, metal, rock that has a memorable tone. Games like Battlefield 3 have a memorable tone to the game. We want something people will remember when playing this Mad Max like game. Bits of metal \ rock as the game is gritty in tone. Music should not be campy or gamy.

There are more details with links to compositions for inspiration at the Contest's participation URL

Ravaged Game Description:
Ravaged is a multiplayer only first-person shooter game with vehicles, team objectives and skill-based gameplay. Set upon a post-apocalyptic earth devastated by natural disasters caused by the sun's solar flares, Ravaged chronicles the struggle between the âEUoeResistanceâEU and the âEUoeScavengersâEU as they fight one another to gain an upper hand in an ongoing war for survival, territory and resources.

Scavengers are an oppressive group of lawless criminals that wish to claim all land and resources for themselves. They will stop at nothing to accomplish their goal. The Resistance is a group of fighters hell-bent on restoring civilization. These civilians were able to seek shelter as the world succumbed to natural disasters during the year 2012, taking with them precious goods and weapons while the criminals and less fortunate lived off the land.

Thanks for you time and support everyone!

Kyn
Co-Founder
Audio Catch LLC

www.audiocatch.com
facebook.com/audiocatch
twitter.com/audiocatch

About 2 Dawn Games:
Established in 2009, 2 Dawn Games is dead set on bringing the fun back to games. Our team is made up of passionate gamers with AAA game development experience. We have worked on titles such as Desert Combat, Battlefield 2, Frontlines: Fuel of War, Homefront and more.

About Audio Catch:
Audio Catch crowdsources custom audio (music, sound effects, and voice over) for any media project (video games to movie trailers). We provide real paid Gigs to our artists with no sign up fees. We only make money if our artists do.

So how does it work? Our clients post Gigs on Audio Catch and artists audition by uploading customized audio for the Gig. The client selects the winning artist and awards cash for the rights to use the audio.

[Rampant]

Sounds interesting, I'll definitely enter if I have some spare time.

[gamerveda]

We'd love for you to :-) It should be a fun Gig. Let me know if you have any questions!

At 6/20/12 02:32 PM, RampantMusik wrote: Sounds interesting, I'll definitely enter if I have some spare time.

[RYKEO]

I got a bad feeling about this...

[Breed]

At 6/20/12 05:57 PM, Generations1st wrote: I got a bad feeling about this...

Don't. I can 100% vouch for them and this site.

[gamerveda]

@Breed, Thank so much for your kind words :-) It means a ton.

A note to all of the talented musicians here:

We have built Audio Catch based on your feedback directly. We spoke with well over 100 artists from NG over two years back (man it has been a long time) about the idea for Audio Catch. Using surveys and direct interviews we received a lot of feedback on the idea and went ahead with it.

We know how ruthless the industry and we don't want to be part of that. What we wanted was to put you on a platform where if you're talented you'll succeed, that's it. We don't force you to pay to participate in our Gigs and those who perform well level up in our system and get added benefits for being artists.

I'm more than happy to answer any and all questions. We value NG and all of the amazing creative talent here. If it wasn't for you, we wouldn't be around today. So ask away, comment, criticize, anything. This is the only way we'll be able to build a better service for you.

Thank you for the time,
Kyn

At 6/20/12 06:04 PM, Breed wrote:

At 6/20/12 05:57 PM, Generations1st wrote: I got a bad feeling about this...

Don't. I can 100% vouch for them and this site.

[gamerveda]

That's it! :-)

At 6/20/12 06:05 PM, Deflektor wrote: So, basically, you want us to register on audiocatch, then submit a Mad Max style piece, and that's about it ?
Anyways, i may take part in that one.

[Blazirc]

How long do you want the song to be?

[gamerveda]

Hey there,

The Client is asking for something longer than a 1 min 30 second loop. It's going to be the main theme so it shouldn't get annoying to listen to is the concern :-)

At 6/20/12 10:06 PM, Blazirc wrote: How long do you want the song to be?

[NickPerrin]

At 6/20/12 08:18 PM, gamerveda wrote: We don't force you to pay to participate in our Gigs

Thank you for posting the opportunity here, but please be honest. Gig points on the site, which are required to take part in gigs, cost money to add to one's account. You do start with 16, but I'm assuming after that you must buy more, which proves your statement wrong. Personally I hope this is changed in the future (as large groups of musicians are already providing massive amounts of free work and services to clients that will never use it), but in the meantime perhaps this can be clarified?

Thanks!

[BrokenDeck]

At 6/21/12 12:02 AM, NickPerrin wrote:

At 6/20/12 08:18 PM, gamerveda wrote: We don't force you to pay to participate in our Gigs

You do start with 16, but I'm assuming after that you must buy more, which proves your statement wrong.

It's another take on the old "Pay us to get noticed" scheme. It's big business actually. This sort of thing has been around for a long time, especially in the modeling / acting industry, and now the music industry. At the base of it, it's pre-paid representation.

[gamerveda]

Hey, Thanks for posting your concern @NickPerrin. So let me clarify how the Gig Point system works. You're absolutely right that to participate in Gigs on Audio Catch it requires Gig Points (virtual currency on Audio Catch). And We do provide Artists with Gig Points when they register their account as you also mentioned.

Why do we have Gig Points? It's actually not about making money. It's actually about submission volume control. Clients don't want to be spammed with every possible audio option under the sun. That's what our research has shown. At the same time we want all Audio Catch artists to be selective in which Gigs make sense for them to participate in. Where they feel that they can deliver best. And this is for the same reason, to keep the quality of the submissions high and to reduce the clutter.

Now, regarding how we allocate Gig Points. You get a certain amount when you register and there is a cap set as to how many you can have at the start by default. So our Level 1 Artists (yes we also have a leveling system) are allocated 8 Points which is pretty much enough to participate in every Gig on the site. However, even if you use up all your points, we actually replenish them at the end of every week. So you may use up all your points and have 0. But wait a few days and it goes back to 8. Why do we do this? Again for the same reason, we want artists to be selective of what they submit to the Gigs on the site.

Now, yes you can purchase Gig Points if you want to, but it's not required. Some of our artists are ambitious and want to be involved in everything from the get go so they choose to buy Gig Points. That's a choice that's perfectly acceptable but, again, not a requirement. Gig Points are replenished.

Now as for our leveling system. If you win your first Gig, you level up. That gives you a few benefits, one of which is more Gigs points. This allows the artist to participate more. And this system makes sense. It's all about showcasing talent and those who prove themselves can do more on Audio Catch.

I hope this addresses your concern, Nick. If not, let me know your follow up thoughts.

Thanks,
Kyn

P.S. I'm assuming you're with Symphony of Specters by your avatar icon? Your work is absolutely spectacular. Selcuk and Zach were both guys we consulted with on our system and have been instrumental over the past two years for us (even as of yesterday haha) so please tell them hello from us :-)

At 6/21/12 12:02 AM, NickPerrin wrote:

At 6/20/12 08:18 PM, gamerveda wrote: We don't force you to pay to participate in our Gigs

Thank you for posting the opportunity here, but please be honest. Gig points on the site, which are required to take part in gigs, cost money to add to one's account. You do start with 16, but I'm assuming after that you must buy more, which proves your statement wrong. Personally I hope this is changed in the future (as large groups of musicians are already providing massive amounts of free work and services to clients that will never use it), but in the meantime perhaps this can be clarified?

Thanks!

[BrokenDeck]

At 6/21/12 12:22 AM, gamerveda wrote:

Now, yes you can purchase Gig Points if you want to, but it's not required. Some of our artists are ambitious and want to be involved in everything from the get go so they choose to buy Gig Points. That's a choice that's perfectly acceptable but, again, not a requirement. Gig Points are replenished.

If they replenished for free, that's great then.

if you're worried about submission quantity, why not just put up a weekly submission limit and be done with that. On Newgrounds for example, we used to have a system where you could post only 2 songs a day. it worked really well with preventing audio spam.

[NickPerrin]

At 6/21/12 12:22 AM, gamerveda wrote: I hope this addresses your concern, Nick. If not, let me know your follow up thoughts.

Thanks for clearing that up. Sounds good to me.

P.S. I'm assuming you're with Symphony of Specters by your avatar icon? Your work is absolutely spectacular. Selcuk and Zach were both guys we consulted with on our system and have been instrumental over the past two years for us (even as of yesterday haha) so please tell them hello from us :-)

Right you are! In fact I could have asked this question of either of them, knowing their involvement with the site and the hard work around the recent launch, but I didn't currently know the answer and thought a publicly displayed answer might be more useful for the people just getting on board in addition to myself.

Now if I have time between existing work, I'll take a shot at this gig. Cheers!

[gamerveda]

Great point @BrokenDeck. Normally, that would be a great solution!

However, what we also learned from our client research is one concern they had was if they offered a large prize amount then they'd just get way too many entries across the board. What they want are the best artists the site has to offer without having to look for them or getting, as you said, "spammed" by everyone. And the best artists on the site are those who have started to level up! And these artists have more Gig Points to use as a result.

So the way the system is set up, down the road when we have a better spread of artists at higher levels (who will then have more Gig Points) there will be Gigs set up by top tier advertising agencies and game developers that will be for larger prize amounts, and as a result require a larger number of Gig Points to enter (Gig Point requirements to enter a Gig are based on how much the client is willing to offer you guys $ wise and through other preferences they set). The point here is they will essentially be filtering on Artist Level. So hypothetically these Gigs might be out of reach for our Level 1 guys, but everyone Level 2 and above can easily enter. However, if a Level 1 artist wants to enter these Gigs and they think they can truly compete they can spend a buck to get the Gig Points needed to enter the Gig. But, that doesn't mean we're going towards only having Gigs with high Gig Point buy-ins. That doesn't make sense. We want a natural spread of smaller paying, mid level paying, and higher paying Gigs. So all Level 1 guys will have plenty of opportunity to participate too.

Point is the Audio Catch system was built to deal with scale. And the early adopters will have a leg up. We'll be hosting some fun Gigs too which will help our artists level up faster.

But, we're learning too. It's new and likely not even close to perfect, and may prove to be flawed in one way or another. At which point we'll absolutely re-evaluate and tweak it or alter it entirely.

Long answer, but we want to be transparent here. And this gaming-like system we designed comes about from the fact that both founders are former game developers :-P Doesn't mean we did it right, but we're hoping!

At 6/21/12 12:27 AM, BrokenDeck wrote:

At 6/21/12 12:22 AM, gamerveda wrote:

Now, yes you can purchase Gig Points if you want to, but it's not required. Some of our artists are ambitious and want to be involved in everything from the get go so they choose to buy Gig Points. That's a choice that's perfectly acceptable but, again, not a requirement. Gig Points are replenished.

If they replenished for free, that's great then.

if you're worried about submission quantity, why not just put up a weekly submission limit and be done with that. On Newgrounds for example, we used to have a system where you could post only 2 songs a day. it worked really well with preventing audio spam.

[gamerveda]

Hey, I really appreciate the open forum approach and I'm glad you did it :-) And we'd love for you to participate too. We know how great your audio is. I, personally, had my jaws drop when I knew you guys did some work on Castle Crashers (god I love that game...)

We don't want to be exploitative so for everyone here, if there is something that seems fishy just bring it up.

We're a business, sure, but we also have founded Audio Catch on the principle that the s****y subscription services that a lot of voice over sites charge and entry fees ($) that "contest"-based sites charge are truly idiotic. And our model has it's challenges since it does limit our ability to earn an income to keep the business going, but that's the direction we want to go in and the bet that we made. We'll just have to be more creative and make sure we're adding value.

And everyone, feel free to contact me direct at kyn at audiocatch com if you ever have questions, comments, gripes, whatever... And Mods, please forgive me if i'm not allowed to place email addresses here.

Alright all, I'm going to bed. Catch you all soon and hope to see you guys on Audio Catch!

At 6/21/12 12:27 AM, NickPerrin wrote:

At 6/21/12 12:22 AM, gamerveda wrote: I hope this addresses your concern, Nick. If not, let me know your follow up thoughts.

Thanks for clearing that up. Sounds good to me.

P.S. I'm assuming you're with Symphony of Specters by your avatar icon? Your work is absolutely spectacular. Selcuk and Zach were both guys we consulted with on our system and have been instrumental over the past two years for us (even as of yesterday haha) so please tell them hello from us :-)

Right you are! In fact I could have asked this question of either of them, knowing their involvement with the site and the hard work around the recent launch, but I didn't currently know the answer and thought a publicly displayed answer might be more useful for the people just getting on board in addition to myself.

Now if I have time between existing work, I'll take a shot at this gig. Cheers!

[Blazirc]

Would the client or would you care if we both entered the contest with our song and submitted our song to newgrounds?

[skyood]

I'm just disappointed that, if the graphic is correct, I'm only just now hearing about it and it ends June 25th (granted, I'm here 3 days late).

I say "if the graphic is correct" because I currently can't get audiocatch.com to load. :/

[gamerveda]

Hey there!

So the license for this Gig is a buyout with the client owning the copyright. So the winner cannot use the track without the explicit permission of 2 Dawn Games afterwards. So if you reach an agreement with them, then it's all good.

However, if the track is not a winner then you have full rights to the track. It's yours to do what you want with it.

Does that answer your question?

At 6/24/12 12:02 AM, Blazirc wrote: Would the client or would you care if we both entered the contest with our song and submitted our song to newgrounds?

[gamerveda]

Thanks for your interest :-)

There are still a couple days left for an audition, so would love to hear your track!

The audiocatch.com site was down last night due to server maintenance, but it's up now. Definitely sorry for the inconvenience caused.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

Best,
Kyn

At 6/24/12 12:21 AM, skyood wrote: I'm just disappointed that, if the graphic is correct, I'm only just now hearing about it and it ends June 25th (granted, I'm here 3 days late).

I say "if the graphic is correct" because I currently can't get audiocatch.com to load. :/

[gamerveda]

Hey DjDTM,

Love your idea! Totally agree.

So we do feature artists on our main landing page. We change these up so people can see who they are and the quality of their work.

Regarding the Blog, we actually did have this initiative in place during our Alpha. And if you go to our Blog section http://www.audiocatch.com/blog/ we feature a number of articles from artists who we were trying to highlight and who wanted to give back to the community.

We put the initiative on hold briefly for our Beta launch in order to focus on squashing our bugs, but we're going to be relaunching this initiative along in the coming 1-2 months with interviews, help guides, and other interesting features. If you have any thoughts on the approach we'd love to hear it :-)

Regards,
Kyn

At 6/25/12 01:59 AM, DjDTM wrote: If you wanted to help musicians out, you'd start a blog and feature them for free and send your blog url to places that want the same.

Seems like a record label in disguised. There was already too much explaining in this thread for my liking.

Always be cautious if there's money involved, wherever its going.

[Bad-Man-Incorporated]

At 6/25/12 10:47 AM, gamerveda wrote: $650!

Damn, little late into this. Gotta give it a go. :)

[Bad-Man-Incorporated]

UM WHY? I am not computer noob.

[Bad-Man-Incorporated]

WOOT TRIPLE POST FTW.

Gay.

Won't let me enter.
Oh well, I'm sure someone on newgrounds could use the song.

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[gamerveda]

Sorry you're facing uploading issues! Let's take this to email so we can resolve it fast!

PMing you.

At 6/25/12 07:25 PM, Bad-Man-Incorporated wrote: WOOT TRIPLE POST FTW.

Gay.

Won't let me enter.
Oh well, I'm sure someone on newgrounds could use the song.
http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/491776

[gamerveda]

Hey All,

Just wanted to inform everyone that the Gig has been extended until July 5th. Hopefully, that will allow many of you who contacted us about wanting to participate an opportunity to get your audition in.

Gig Details:
URL: audiocat.ch/P4oBxj
Ends on: July 5th at 11:59pm -05:00 GMT
Prize: $650 to winning entry
Cost to participate: $0 - Costs nothing as it should be