NG Audio Iceberg Challenge - Discussion & Guidelines

[LD-W]

NG Audio Pub Discord Server - https://discord.gg/3FmnxmaUmk

We've got an active chat open for NGAIC in there! Come and join us!

New Thread shall be posted for each layer of the Iceberg Challenge as they're released. This thread shall remain as the main discussion area on the Audio Forum!

Please note that ALL audio portal guidelines still apply during the challenge!

https://www.newgrounds.com/wiki/help-information/terms-of-use/audio-guidelines

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Q1 - What is NGAIC? (Newgrounds Audio Iceberg Challenge

A1 - NGAIC is a casual opt-in/out challenge series which will be running over the course of around 8 months. It takes influence from the 'Iceberg Level/Layer Meme', but with different genres and specific sub-genre's being present in each Layer. In addition to genres/sub-genre's, there will be a bonus challenge per tier as an alternative!

Q2 - How many layers are there? What should we expect as it goes further down?

A2 - There will be 9 Layers present. As the layers progress further downwards, the genre choices start to become more obscure, harsher, and/or more inaccessible to the regular listener and musician. What's on the layers will be revealed when they are released one-at-a-time!

Q3 - How long does each round last for?

A3 - This is the timeframes to expect:

 - Entry Period: 2 Weeks Long

 - Peer-Judging Period: 1 Week Long

 - Rest Period: 1 Week Long

Q4 - How are tracks judged?

A4 - All entries submitted to the NGAIC threads will be peer-judged by other contestants. To ensure that everyone gets reviews, **all participants must review at least THREE other tracks in the current NGAIC Layer for their own one to count as a point towards their final total!** In addition, **Each review much be at least one paragraph long!** This is to ensure that almost everyone will be getting some kind of peer feedback while the challenge is active throughout the months ahead, and also forces everyone to listen to and discover new content that they may not of experienced before!

Q5 - What are the rewards?

A5 - Since this is an opt-in/out challenge, the rewards are simply:

 - Points towards your final total (more on that below)

 - Guaranteed Peer Reviews

 - An increased chance of getting front-paged

A5-2 - The points that you earn by the time the challenge ends in the later part of 2023 will allow you to claim status & signatures!

1 Contribution: Bronze-Tier Challenger

3 Contributions: Silver-Tier Challenger

5 Contributions: Gold-Tier Challenger

7 Contributions: Platinum-Tier Challenger

9 Contributions: Diamond-Tier Challenger

Q6 - Are collabs welcome?

A6 - Absolutely! A collab piece made for NGAIC will have all collab participants eligible for earning a point each, however each one must still peer-review other peoples entries for the point to be eligable!

Q7 - Where do I post entries, and how?

A7 - Upload them to the Newgrounds Audio Portal. I'd advise tagging them with NGAIC to make searching through them easier

Q8 - I'm interested in 'insertsubgenrehere', but I want to do a variation of that instead. Am I allowed to do so?

A8 - As long as you 'feel' that the variation belongs in the same Iceberg Layer as the original choice you're looking at, sure! I'll leave this up to the challengers to decide on for themselves

Q9 - Is there anything banned in particular?

A9 - See below:

 - Anything blatantly offensive or pornographic is banned from the challenge. Don't try your luck sampling porn video's and slipping that kind of stuff in etc. If you're unsure as-to if your entry is potentially in violation/borderline or not, DM me.

 - Anything heavily 'political-driven' that you want to do will need to be cleared by me first via DM's (I can promise to act in an apolitical manner for such judgement).

 - (For the last couple of layers) if you are doing a Noise-Variation, please ensure that it's not painful to hear in the case of: you've applied some DeEssing above-16khz, the 8khz range has been tamed, you're sitting at around -6LUFS at loudest, you're leaving at least -0.1db of True Peak overhead, and you'll be ok. IF none of these steps are taken, you may end up in violation of the audio portal rules, and your entry subjected to moderation and possible deletion.

Q10 - Can I join in any time?

A10 - Definitely! This is an open challenge as opposed to a contest, so you're free to join-in and leave whenever you wish!

Q11 - How many points can I earn per-round?

A11 - Only one point, although you're welcome to make more than one entry!

=======================

[LD-W]

The Layer 1 Thread Is Up! Please post your entries here over the next 2 weeks:

https://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1515833

[CryNN]

Im sooo looking forward to this!

[LD-W]

At 12/11/22 01:48 PM, Leavesz wrote: This sounds fun and I'm totally gonna try to take part in the challenge. I just have 3 questions:

1) what determines the obscurity of a genre?

2) what about sample based genres, will there be any of those in the challenge or will they be left out?

3) Can I use the amen break and other similar jungle/dnb breakbeats? or should I keep everything original and like, sample free for this challenge?

1 - I'm determining it overall. To the extent of if I'm able to get such a thing right: I've spent almost 20 years discovering and studying genre's of music to the point of having a fairly alright idea how genre's and subgenre's should be layered on a triple-scale of accessibility/public obscurity/harshness for this kind of challenge. To that extent, expect things like noise subgenre's within the last two layers (as an example) when we proceed to get that deep towards the end of the challenge in 2023!

If you do have any genre/subgenre suggestions you would like to see though in the deeper layers, head on over to the NG Audio Pub discord and feel free to put some requests in! Genre and Subgenre choices for each layer are locked around 24 hours before I start the next layer each time.

2 - Sample-based genre's are under review, and ultimately it will be the case that even if I do add them, it must not conflict with the NG Audio Portal Guidelines at any point.

3 - Loops/Samples are ok in smaller doses, as long as the majority of the track isn't dominated by them. In terms of amen and breakbeats: they're ok from my point of view, if you're doing original content on top of them.

[Positron832]

Is it ok to submit a song you've been working on before the challenge started? Oh and is it allowed to submit more than one entry?

[LD-W]

At 12/11/22 04:52 PM, Positron832 wrote: Is it ok to submit a song you've been working on before the challenge started? Oh and is it allowed to submit more than one entry?

They will need to be made during the time of the challenge

More than one entry is fine, although you'll still only earn one point per layer

[arbelamram]

Ohhhhhhhhh im soo hyped for this

lets see how weird can u get

[Yoshiii343]

a question about the "solo instrument" genre:

if i use 2 of the same instruments, does it still count?

[LD-W]

At 12/13/22 09:43 AM, Yoshiii343 wrote: a question about the "solo instrument" genre:

if i use 2 of the same instruments, does it still count?

It won't count in the usual sense, as it's no longer a single instrument.

Exceptions to that may apply though if it's a very common duo-combination to see, which I would allow in this circumstance (i.e. Piano + Singing, Acoustic Guitar + Singing, since those two combo's are very 'layer 1' themselves)

[TheVodouQueen]

Count me in... :* Weirdly am looking forward to this as well, both in doing it and checking out/reviewing others' work.

Will do my best; give myself added challenges as this goes on probably, like stripping away the number of tracks I can use as we get deeper down the iceberg, and cooking things up in shorter and shorter amount of times. I know the prompts are challenges in and of themselves--

--but, shit...why not? ;) Maybe it'll help me push myself through my low-point(s) this latter half of the year, get the creative mind percolating and gears churning.

[TheVodouQueen]

Taking the liberty now to try and get to as many submissions as I can, and give them a review before end of tomorrow. :)

Please, if you guys have time, I'd love some critique on mine. ♥ Cheers.

[LD-W]

At 1/4/23 02:01 PM, TheVodouQueen wrote: Taking the liberty now to try and get to as many submissions as I can, and give them a review before end of tomorrow. :)

Please, if you guys have time, I'd love some critique on mine. ♥ Cheers.

I'm due to do my three reviews likely tonight, so I'll drop one your way

[TheVodouQueen]

At 1/5/23 03:17 AM, LD-W wrote:

At 1/4/23 02:01 PM, TheVodouQueen wrote: Taking the liberty now to try and get to as many submissions as I can, and give them a review before end of tomorrow. :)

Please, if you guys have time, I'd love some critique on mine. ♥ Cheers.

I'm due to do my three reviews likely tonight, so I'll drop one your way

Yeah... It's kinda weird. I think everyone else had at least 3, even the songs posted after mine, but I've had 0 so far... IDK if it's terrible or what, haha. Tried to do what I could in my imposed time limit...

Would be appreciated though, TY... :)

I'll do the rest of my reviews tonight as well. No one's obligated to review mine, BTW. It just feels like a bummer given one of the tags for this challenge was "guaranteed peer reviews". I'm enjoying doing this nonetheless, but I realize the reality is mine doesn't seem to be as ambitious or well-received as others', so people might not be keen to give it a spin.

[TheVodouQueen]

Hey.

I think I've gotten to everyone's Layer 1 songs, in review. If I hadn't, please say so here or drop me a PM, and I'll do so. :)

Also, again--please--would be very appreciative if a few people could rate/review mine. It's not required, but would be lovely.

Thanks again. o/ Good luck on Layer 2, everyone.

[LD-W]

Layer 2 will be up in the next hour, please standby!

[LD-W]

Layer 2 is up!

https://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1517609

[xetto]

At 1/6/23 09:54 PM, LD-W wrote: Layer 2 is up!
https://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1517609

looking forward to others' entries :)

[Positron832]

Layer 3

[LD-W]

Heya! Due to an unexpected delay on this end, I'll be starting Layer 5 at the end of today instead. All deadline-dates/timers will be shifted accordingly to ensure everyone still gets their 2 weeks composing + 1 week reviwing time as usual.

[name]

How can 9 hours fit with only 67 kilobytes?

[Daru925]

Where is my ocean's gate layer? <3 <3

[Creeperforce24]

At 12/11/22 11:17 AM, LD-W wrote:
NG Audio Pub Discord Server - https://discord.gg/3FmnxmaUmk
We've got an active chat open for NGAIC in there! Come and join us!

New Thread shall be posted for each layer of the Iceberg Challenge as they're released. This thread shall remain as the main discussion area on the Audio Forum!

Please note that ALL audio portal guidelines still apply during the challenge!
https://www.newgrounds.com/wiki/help-information/terms-of-use/audio-guidelines

=======================
Q1 - What is NGAIC? (Newgrounds Audio Iceberg Challenge
A1 - NGAIC is a casual opt-in/out challenge series which will be running over the course of around 8 months. It takes influence from the 'Iceberg Level/Layer Meme', but with different genres and specific sub-genre's being present in each Layer. In addition to genres/sub-genre's, there will be a bonus challenge per tier as an alternative!

Q2 - How many layers are there? What should we expect as it goes further down?
A2 - There will be 9 Layers present. As the layers progress further downwards, the genre choices start to become more obscure, harsher, and/or more inaccessible to the regular listener and musician. What's on the layers will be revealed when they are released one-at-a-time!

Q3 - How long does each round last for?
A3 - This is the timeframes to expect:

Ooohhhh! This seems pretty interesting, I’ve been working on a track called Solarium, which is a sorta Techno/Videogame song, though I’m not very sure I understand the “layer” part of the rules? It still seems like a fun challenge