Hey, you made it! Welcome to the Newgrounds Audio Underdogs Competition Knock-out Round Thread 2015! :D If you’re not yet acquainted with all the glories of the NGAUC, click HERE.
The remaining competitors have until Friday, July 31st at 11:59 EDT to submit a completely original track made from scratch for the competition to this thread (with no HTML, por favor). This is the "Knock-out Round." You couldn't have started working on this piece until NOW, as per the contest rules. If we find evidence of you having done so, you will be automatically disqualified. We’re going to be really suspicious if you post your track in this thread 2 hours after it opens. Also, there will be NO remixes, re-makes, mash-ups, covers, arrangements, or anything like that for this round. Your piece really has to be COMPLETELY original. If you use samples, please cite their origins in the description of your track so that the contest administrators DON’T have to hunt you down like a bunch of assassins. NO COPYRIGHTED SAMPLES ARE ALLOWED. This is also clarified in the NG Audio Portal rules, so (hopefully) this shouldn’t be an issue anyway…
The four strongest competitors from each group will be announced by Monday, August 3rd. Then, those people will face each other in an epic finale! They’ll have 2 more weeks (until Friday, August 14th at 11:59 p.m. EST) to submit their final pieces! :D The winner of the competition will be announced on Monday, August 17th.
It's strongly advised that you read ALL OF THE RULES for this contest that didn't quite make this (relatively) concise forum post. Last round, I received dozens of PMs from people asking for clarifications on the rules, and most of them were already explained by the rules themselves. Let’s not have that happen this round, please.
Furthermore, we decided to take @Ceevro’s suggestion and accept 30 members of each group into the Knock-out Round (although the All-Stars have 31 because of a tie). This was a lot, as the judge’s suggestions ranged from 22-32. However, it’s called the Knock-out Round for a reason: we’re going from 91 competitors to 12, easily the toughest cut of the entire competition!
Unfortunately, we had to disqualify @Ritz190, @Kenhandra, and @Dj-Gonzo for using collaboration pieces as their tryout submissions while entering the competition as solo artists. Sorry guys. The judges decided that your respective “teammates” all contributed unfairly to your tracks, boosting your scores, and your failure to alert this to us could be interpreted as cheating. ;(
I still think it’s amazing that I’m able to do this, guys. Me. A barely-passed-high-school-age kid. Run a competition involving 178 extremely talented musicians, not to mention 9 judges that are probably even more talented! I appreciate every single one of your submissions, guys. You really made this contest what it is, even if you didn’t make it to this round. We have judges from 5 different U.S. states and 4 countries around the world, and competitors from 16 different U.S. States (including 7 from California, 6 from Texas, and 5 from Florida) and 1 from the District of Columbia, and 22 countries around the world (including 16 from Canada (5 from Toronto alone), 10 from the United Kingdom, 5 from France, 5 from Germany, and even 4 from Finland). Yes, I freaking counted. The diversity on this site is amazing, guys, and I think it’s truly a privilege that we get to band together to express our love of music and share it with others from across the globe. ^^
The judges (@Johnfn, @Lockyn, @Neon-Bard, @Skye-Wint, @LiquidOoze, @BlazingDragon, @SoundChris, @Samulis, and me) deserve a huge round of applause, btw. They each spent several hours of their free time this past weekend scoring your submissions so that these results could get out on time, and some of them even left you rather detailed and helpful reviews!
If you didn't make it into this round, please don't complain. Simply PM me or any of the other judges if you have any questions or concerns, or if you want to know your specific scores. It was REALLY hard to determine these survivors, guys - there are a lot of talented individuals who didn't even make it this far in the competition! The judges have worked hard to score this competition, though, so please keep your PMs friendly and not accusing.
Also, I'd like to credit @Spadezer with coming up with the names for the groups back in 2014, and to personally thank @Camoshark for helping with administration-related activities.
Anyway, you guys are probably still caught up in who actually made it into this round for some reason. They will be posted in a separate forum post in a couple of minutes. NO ONE IS PERMITTED TO POST IN THIS THREAD UNTIL THE RESULTS HAVE ALSO BEEN POSTED. Thank you in advance for complying.
"Time's fun when you're having flies." ~Kermit the Frog