Don't ye be worrying, I can't afford me no cello! My M.O. is 'organic sound.' And as a particularly cheap bastard, I think it's time that I raid my kitchen and garage for improvised instruments. You can do a lot by diggin' through yer attic!

I didn't expect to make it in, but i also expected to be in the underdogs in the beginning.
gl everyone

Well, that escalated quickly. From 91 to 12...not even a quarter. (13%) :O
Anyway, congrats to who made it in. Do your best. :)

At 7/21/15 12:40 AM, dem0lecule wrote: Thanks guys! @LucidShadowDreamer @larrynachos I will try to win this vengeance for you all!

Can I join your party? :P

I am a bit scared about the judging as well. I am by definition a minimalist composer, i often use a single instrument to build a soundscape, how does that affect my "diversity of instrumentation"?

At 7/21/15 12:40 AM, Phonometrologist wrote: Only four people advancing in each group will be quite tough... Also, I met a girl so I'll be obliged to allow her to distract me from music quite a bit, but I'll do my best

:-) Perfect opportunity to write a love song.

Or a like song. Depending on the stage of the relationship. And all that.

So who's trying to catch this fade?

I don't get it. I was kicked off from competition or wha?

At 7/21/15 01:54 AM, NyxTheShield wrote: I am a bit scared about the judging as well. I am by definition a minimalist composer, i often use a single instrument to build a soundscape, how does that affect my "diversity of instrumentation"?

As I said to Ceevro, all of my criteria are genre-flexible, particularly instrumentation. The largest majority of shortcomings in pieces in the underdogs section were either mixing or compositional. For mixing issues, a number of pieces had issues where background elements were overpowering foreground elements, or where sounds used in points were sharp or otherwise irritating and not really mixed in. A number of tracks also had issues where some elements were incredibly wet while others were bone dry. For compositional issues, I saw a lot of tracks where one part, be it drums or strings or the pad, played the exact same thing for literally four minutes, or where a track doesn't have any motion to it, no "ups" and "downs", or is all "up" and no "down".

On the other hand, i heard a lot of really well mixed tracks too. I heard some tracks where people really made some great sounding and enjoyable things to listen to, and that's across all genres. I also heard some really interestingly composed tracks- ones with things like key changes and patterns that change over time when they are repeated. These are simply good habits that you can find in any genre or style, yes, even minimalism.

Minimalism in particular is all about taking a texture and working through and around it, like this example by Steve Reich:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLckHHc25ww

He may repeat an idea for a while, but it evolves. He plays with each idea until he's contented himself in having explored all the facets before moving on. Nothing ever stays the exact same forever. There are also examples of minimalist pieces using only one instrument, but even then, we see the same basic ingredients that we find in all works- contrast, motion, pattern/repetition, shape, flow, etc. Even with using only a relatively small group of performers, the piece still has distinct changes and colors due to how he arranges the rhythms and tones.

Just because a piece uses only one original sound doesn't mean you can't be creative or will be, at least in my books, penalized! If you are creative with using that sound, you can get major bonus points. Use different effects, don't just stick to only one octave, but try all sorts of octaves and see what colors you can bring out. If you saw the contest I ran a month or so ago, people only had 25 samples to make an entire piece with. Some chose to use only 10 even. However, the creativity in the usage of these samples was incredible, simply because of how their hands were tied behind their backs when working, being only allowed to use those handful of samples. Minimalism is an opportunity for you to set aside the limits you normally face with music and try dealing with some new ones, and if you put in a good effort, you will certainly succeed, both by your own standards and typically the standards of others.

The reason I split and organize my rubrics and scoring method like this is for myself. If people start making a big deal of it, I will not share my methodology with folks. This contest is about making music, not fitting yourself and your works into rubrics. Rest assured that those aren't really hard lines that sit between the boxes on that rubric... metaphorically speaking. ;)

Just some thoughts. Remember, this is just the thoughts of one judge using one method of judging, out of nine diverse and very much independent people. :)

At 7/21/15 02:39 AM, Esdeer wrote: I don't get it. I was kicked off from competition or wha?

You made it to the next round!

Holy moses, I have the highest score!? That is unbelievable..

Good luck to everyone in the second round! Better get writing.

For anyone curious, here is the rubric I used this round. I'll be using something far more thorough and mathematically complicated for the next one (mostly because the chart Samulis made makes me feel like some kind of slacker).

I didn't strictly follow this; I used it to get a base score, which I then changed slightly based on various considerations such as genre and other criteria not listed. For example, I might have bumped the score up a bit if the piece struck me as particularly innovative, or I might have reduced it if the piece had awful, distracting transitions. In other words, things not listed in the rubric. But I tended to stay relatively close to the score it provided.

At 7/21/15 02:54 AM, johnfn wrote:

At 7/21/15 02:39 AM, Esdeer wrote: I don't get it. I was kicked off from competition or wha?

You made it to the next round!

Tank you...

At 7/21/15 02:44 AM, samulis wrote: Just because a piece uses only one original sound doesn't mean you can't be creative or will be, at least in my books, penalized! If you are creative with using that sound, you can get major bonus points. Use different effects, don't just stick to only one octave, but try all sorts of octaves and see what colors you can bring out. If you saw the contest I ran a month or so ago, people only had 25 samples to make an entire piece with. Some chose to use only 10 even. However, the creativity in the usage of these samples was incredible, simply because of how their hands were tied behind their backs when working, being only allowed to use those handful of samples.
Just some thoughts. Remember, this is just the thoughts of one judge using one method of judging, out of nine diverse and very much independent people. :)

Hahaha thanks, this is what i needed, don't worry, i know how to creat variety with little ( I like reich in fact, my main inspiration is Glass though)

Also, yeah i remember the contest clearly, got 9th there :D

Love the rubrics, really great feedback from the judges! Looking forward to the next list of submissions :)

Hey @samulis, Out of curiosity, do you think I could see my rubric? I didn't make it in, but I want to know what I can do to improve for next time.

Watching the scores seems like I got here by pure statistics, just a little above the average score in my group.
I'm glad I made it this far, and I'll do the best I can for this round, even if math says I wont get any further.
Let's have fun making music !

Nice one, i am chuffed i made it through as a top scorer :) i will get onto another track asap and really put my head into it :)

I woke up, went on newgrounds and got the notification that I made it in :D
Then I scrolled down and saw the corrected list of people who made it in.. too bad ._.

anyway good luck guys :)

At 7/20/15 11:58 PM, TaintedLogic wrote: 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!

^ this

Thanks for managing this contest and thanks to the judges for listening and trying to rate music objectively - a task that can be really exhausting.

I don't get it. Do I have to make the track completely from scratch starting from this day, for the Knock-out Round?

At 7/21/15 07:15 AM, Esdeer wrote: I don't get it. Do I have to make the track completely from scratch starting from this day, for the Knock-out Round?

Yup. That's the task. Best of luck!

To see yourself on the list of people who got in (even in the one that had the correctionsxD) is one of the better things to see on your birthday :3

I don't think I'll be going forward from this, but the fact that I got past the first round with those scores is awesome!

I actually did a song that was meant for the competition, but I should've read the rules and other info better, since I did it between 10th - 16th of july :p (I realized I was too going to be late for the 15th, which is why I posted an older track), so a bit too early with that song, but oh well... Time to make something else that is possibly awesome.

Good luck to you all!

At 7/21/15 08:23 AM, Lich wrote: Question: For vocalists in the contest, will the lyric writing & lyrical content included be judged alongside the actual singing inside of the composition? When writing vocal segments is there anything for pieces submitted to this contest which are forbidden to be mentioned about? (i.e. Are we looking at an age-rating kind of thing possibly?)

I did check the contest rules for this and the Audio Portal rules and there doesn't seem to be any clarification about the mentioned questions above.

Good call, Lich. As a vocalist in this competition, I'd prefer it if they didn't mention rules, as my lyrics tend towards the racy side!

But the question remains: what happened to the private NGAUC jet? I need it to pick up the reviews I left at my parents' house, otherwise the peeps here will never know what I thought of them.

seriously though, forgot to take my usb with the reviews with me, I'll post them later this week

I stayed in on my day of work and hammered this out. I know its really early but when I got the news I was through I got too excited to sleep....or eat....or go outside. Anyway I tried to think of improvements for this track but I can't think of any, so here it is...first in the gate (probably foolishly) but here goes. My submission XD

http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/635510?updated=1

OMG OMG OMG
Have to leave for work next Monday and won´t have the possibility to make soome music there.
So 5 days left to do something... (I have an idea, but let´s so how it works out)
Also congrats to everyone who did this round ;)
Did I get it right that 4 people form each group pass to the next round?
This will get quite tough if I look at the contestants...
Again I´m glad that I don´t have to choose or judge ;)

I made it, yeay! :D

So, where should I post my submission when I'm done? I'm sorry if I missed some info :(

At 7/21/15 12:18 AM, johnfn wrote: Scores incoming!

UNDERDOGS GROUP: Judged by SkyeWintrest, TaintedLogic and Samulis, in that order.

-----
Howardt12345 + Keratz101
SCORES: 5.5 7 5.3
OVERALL: 5.93

Well,
@keratz101 we didn't make it...
I wasn't even planning to produce this summer so whatever
At least I can use my depressive mood...somehow...
@TaintedLogic remind me next year to go for this thing again
bye

Omg omg omg omg omg omg YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS :') Let's dooooooooooooooooo this!

At 7/21/15 01:41 AM, Keitomine wrote:

At 7/21/15 01:03 AM, TaintedLogic wrote:

At 7/21/15 01:00 AM, Keitomine wrote: What happens now?

You have until the 31st to make another track from scratch! Please read the original post for details. ;)

we post them to the same thread?

Please post them in THIS thread. It's the one dedicated to the Knock-out Round, after all. ;)