Mix Challenge - Gossip and Discussion

[Compyfox]

I'd rather not go that route to be honest. So far it was always possible to press on the download button and you got the WAV or MP3 (whatever was connected to that button), no signing in.

This is not great news for the Mix Challenge. I really do not(!) want to ask people to sign up just to access provided mixes. Neither do I want to ask people to go to Google Drive and co just to offer WAV files... This would definitely go a bit out of hand.



And as if that wouldn't be enough headache inducing - we're also on the verge of running dry with the Mix Challenge Song Pool. At this stage, May or June might be the last Mix Challenge. I've got so many PM's in recent weeks only to be ultimately let down, and I can nothing more than bump/push the campaign thread. If there is nothing that we can hold in our hands (read: RAW/STEM packs), the challenge is over.

A "I might have something for you" sadly doesn't help. In order to keep the challenge running smoothly, we need to constantly have 6 tracks in queue (4 bar minimum!). At the moment, we have 1.

We're at the end of the line it seems. We can do nothing more than drum up promotion and waste hours on end to grasp at straws... if there is nothing left to grasp, it's game over.

[Jorgeelalto]

I really would submit more tracks, but I currently don't have any more stems. I'm not used to save them (I should, I know)...

[harryupbabble]

only to be ultimately let down,

By this do you mean the submissions didn't meet a quality criteria? How good does the songs/tunes have to be?

[thiagoam88]

I'm not sure this has come up already, but have we tried to partner with the OSC/MCC to get new material?

[Compyfox]

only to be ultimately let down,

By this do you mean the submissions didn't meet a quality criteria? How good does the songs/tunes have to be?

So far I only rejected one track, and that was not only unfinished, but also not cleared in terms of rights (since it was a collaboration).

By being "let down" I actually mean that I/we were contacted with tracks, constantly saying us "we might have something specifically for the challenge", only to never hear back, get excuses and not get the promised content in return.

Which is why I insist now that if you contact us (or me in this case), provide a demo track at bar minimum. You can't work with promises.

I'm not sure this has come up already, but have we tried to partner with the OSC/MCC to get new material?

It came up, and in fact... a lot of the songs (and participants) from the first 20 MC's are from the OSC. Without the participants of the OSC, the MC wouldn't have lived that long - for which we area really grateful.

We help each other out with cross-linking in the threads, we also re-tweeted each other (in early days). The "Campaign Thread" is also in the Music Cafe, where the MCC resides. But it's not pinned (since there are so many pinned threads already). Maybe this is a mistake?

At this stage, I / we can do nothing more than bump threads, do word of mouth, Tweet our fingers off (for forks sake, we mention KVRAudio's Twitter account with every Mix Challenge announcement/reminder! So promotion for them, yet we're left in the deep end), cross-link, do collaborations with companies, etc.


It's really tiring to constantly run on hot fumes and only get new content at the very last minute...
EDIT - this type of discussion shouldn't even be necessary IMO...

[harryupbabble]

This Mix Challenge seems like a good thing for us people who can't afford high-end plugins and it's like getting a mixing service that costs 100+ dolllars for free.

I have about 40 songs and tunes that does not fit the label "EDM" and are really crappy and amateurish and the mixing is even worse but I am willing to submit those but I am not sure about the procedures. Do I disable all the plugin effects in my DAW and just render each track dry? Also, do I get to keep the mixed versions done by other people and am I free to post them on YouTube, Soundcloud, etc? And will the mixed versions still legally be my property?

[Compyfox]

This Mix Challenge seems like a good thing for us people who can't afford high-end plugins and it's like getting a mixing service that costs 100+ dolllars for free.

To some extend, it is indeed a "mass engineer shootout" for the clients - but it's also a learning process for all participants.

For example:
- how to provide properly prepared tracks
- client/business communication
- managing deadlines
- for mix participants: fine tuning skills, getting experience
- and for both ends of the scale - getting known

I have about 40 songs and tunes that does not fit the label "EDM" and are really crappy and amateurish and the mixing is even worse but I am willing to submit those but I am not sure about the procedures. Do I disable all the plugin effects in my DAW and just render each track dry? Also, do I get to keep the mixed versions done by other people and am I free to post them on YouTube, Soundcloud, etc? And will the mixed versions still legally be my property?

Some form of quality control is still necessary of course - we want the challenge to be fun, not frustrating or being a turn-off (which I hope you can understand). I think reading the "Guideline Thread" (pinned) is a good starting point for you, which should clear most questions.

Yes, the production is still your intellectual property. However, if you want to submit a mix created by somebody else, maybe even earn some money with it, it's only fair to maybe strike a possible deal with the people involved (mostly the winner).

As of this moment, this is a Mix Challenge - not a Song Remix Challenge here slightly different rules apply.


If you have one or two tracks from what you created throughout the years that you like the most, and want to see them as part of the Challenge, please throw me a PM and we go from there.

[harryupbabble]

If you have one or two tracks from what you created throughout the years that you like the most, and want to see them as part of the Challenge, please throw me a PM and we go from there.

I can't get PM to work properly, it doesn't seem to be sending.

Anyways, I have to read that guideline some more. It's more than what I expected. I thought it's "Here's my stems" and that would be it.

I can't participate in mid May and June because I will be offline for maybe two months.
But if I participate later... where is the stems uploaded to? I don't think I saw that in the guideline.

[Compyfox]

I can't get PM to work properly, it doesn't seem to be sending.

Works fine for me - for over 10 years at this point.

Anyways, I have to read that guideline some more. It's more than what I expected. I thought it's "Here's my stems" and that would be it.

Nope - you're a "client", we ask you to interact with the participants (the business/mix engineers). It's mandatory and part of the challenge since MC04.

I can't participate in mid May and June because I will be offline for maybe two months.
But if I participate later... where is the stems uploaded to? I don't think I saw that in the guideline.

You upload the files to where-ever, I download them, check them for integrity. Once the challenge is happening, the files are repacked with a demo mix and two TXTs, then uploaded to my FTP (which was initially a mirror - now it's the main source)

[harryupbabble]

I can't get PM to work properly, it doesn't seem to be sending.

Works fine for me - for over 10 years at this point.

Thanks for the helpful replies regarding the MC.

About PM... it worked for me in the past, if my memory is correct. I think I've used it twice at most.
Never thought PM was that important, in my case. But now I guess I should have that functional.

Here is a screen shot of it not functioning. I type anything in the reply box, I click submit,
what I typed in the reply box disappears and then a notification in red letters says:
"The requested users to be added do not exist."
I'm not sure what I am doing wrong. Any ideas?

I'll post at Site Stuff for help, later maybe.

[Compyfox]

Let's ask a different question for the time being, that is just as important.

This topic has popped up several times in recent challenges, and it just did in MC21 as well:
"The tracks aren't aligned?!"
"Should we align the tracks?! Something is off"
"I set up my project, and the tracks are misaligned - can you reupload?!"


Since each project goes through an integrity check on my end, and I use Cubase to check if the files are "aligned" (I also insist on the tracks all starting at the same bar, with 1 bar of silence in front), I am always surprised about these questions.

Granted, Cubase has a nifty function where you can note the BPM value per track, and activate the "musical mode" (as it's called) or not. Also granted, some projects I had to check had the wrong BPM values written into the WAV files (meta data). This usually happens with projects that came from Ableton Live or FL Studio. But you can easily turn that feature off (time stretching), still set the bpm manually, and then go from there. At least with 95% of the hosts on the market.

And I do understand that users are irritated, if all tracks have a different length, which depending on the used host, happens automatically. For example: Logic insists that "everything after the last signal is considered junk until the right song locator" and simply discarts it. Other hosts render from left locator to the right locator. Automatically the alarm bell rings and people think "it's not time aligned" I need to time stretch".

We had this issue once, but here only the guitars were rendered later and offset by 1 bar. Which was an easy fix, if you listened closely.



My question is however:
Is this something we need to address in more detail?
Like... written tutorial, as part of the rules (which is already part of the rules if I may add), video, etc?

Should we invest the workload on that end? Or is this issue just not that pressing enough?

Feedback would be welcome.

[Compyfox]

An update on the SoundCloud question from one page back.

Looks like SoundCloud is slowly turning into yet another Streaming Subscription service, and tries to push out the small users.
http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-36172206


I kind of saw this coming months ago with various reports here on KVR as to what route SoundCloud is going. The problem is still, that SoundCloud "blocks" out users that are not signed up. And I really, really don't want to push users on this service if we don't even need to. SoundCloud was just another way for users to present their mixes (for the OSC, MCC and the Mix Challenge - our three main challenges on KVR Audio).


The question is - how do we go from there?

[camsr]

FTP?

Honestly, man, there's so many options.
Just find the newest up and coming music sharing service

[Compyfox]

I need to bring up the track to talk about some new possible routes for the Mix Challenge, and I'd love to hear feedback from the participants. Please donate some time for this, as this is important and could drastically change the course of the challenge in the future.




As you know, we're constantly struggling with getting new content for the Mix Challenge. And I still try to understand the reason why. While doing regular behind-the-scenes stuff, I also ran into a couple of dead ends. So I started a new TXT on my HDD just to see where we're at. (note to self: should have done that way sooner!)

I'm being honest with you. As of this moment, including August 2016, we're having 4 tracks in the Song Pool, additional to that: one track that needs final integrity checks, two tracks that were offered to me in "demo stage" with no set time frame to get access to the files, and two additional tracks that "might" turn into something for a future challenge but the clients in question are not sure about that yet or didn't get back to me anymore.

So that makes it 4 definite challenges, and 5 tracks that are still in the clouds so to speak.
Sadly, among those tracks are no metal tracks for "Metal November", and no Holiday Mix for December (though, there are some things happening BTS that I can't talk about yet).


The thing is... I do have a schedule of the upcoming tracks (not only to not get confused myself). With names, song providers and the genre. My question to you as song providers, participants and fans of the challenge would be:

Should I release that schedule to the public?

I do have a couple of concerns about that however:
1) fan-bases might form around certain tracks, which might result in a lot of participation for one track, and no participation for another - this would hurt the most
2) it takes away from the suspense of "what track will we see next?"
3) some song providers might be ticked off like "why am I so late in the queue"; even though we do work "first in, first out" and only shuffle around the order if one provider really can't tackle a certain month, or is unresponsive to PMs - this could drastically backfire
4) chances are that the schedule will be shuffled around on short notice, making this even more problematic

This is including us walking the song providers through every concern behind the scenes btw.


But this is where your feedback comes in. You can say "okay, this sounds like a cool plan", or "nah, I'm not liking that, because...". I try to offer a bit more interaction between the challenge hosts, the song providers and the audience. But I don't know if this would seriously backfire. My hope is, that this results in a "these tracks are interesting - I want to submit something as well", rather than a "ugh... my track would be so late, it doesn't make any sense".

Any feedback is welcome.





The next topic I want to talk about, is a homepage.

I'm sadly not that skilled in terms of designs and creating homepages anymore (I'm aware of tools like Adobe MUSE). And it would take away a lot of time for other things. But looking at the competition (like the OSC), a dedicated web page for the challenge would provide a better venue for the challenge IMO. People would find a central point where the rules are, what the last challenges were, they can submit tracks outside of KVR's PM system, etc.

My questions to you would be:

Would this make any sense?
And if so, should the Mix Challenge move away from KVR on the long run, with an own dedicated forum? (which in turn results in a new user account, etc)

I don't know if this is possible on the long run (depending on the server location), but in (my) theory a dedicated FTP could also make providing songs easier. I often had the question "where should I upload the files to? I don't have an account at Google/DropBox/etc". This would solve one issue. In theory, a folder can be created for collecting all mixes at a global place rather than spread all over the world or being locked away in SoundCloud without having an account (no account = no WAV download these days). But once more - "theory".

It will be a lot of extra work for us as hosts however. So simple solutions would be preferred. But it's a possibility that I've been kicking around for a while at this point. Especially considering the pretty much non-response regarding getting new songs.

My only main fear is - what happens if the song influx stops? Then we put a lot of effort into a webpage and new presentation, then things came to a grinding halt.





Another question would be:

If we'd start a Patreon Account, or some other form of donations to compensate the workload behind the scenes, would you go for it?

Now I'm fully aware that this is a controversial topic. But the challenge is (no doubt) a lot of work. Yet I also understand the notion "why should I pay/donate for something that is offered for free?!". I'm just trying to get some feedback on that behalf. What you would do, which route you'd support, etc.





And finally, I'd love to hear some general feedback about our license donations.

Considering that the OSC now has "money prices", and we're on classic "won license", with more and more challenges popping up daily offering "huge deals!"...

Are you happy with what we are offering to the participants?
Would you love to see another developer as sponsor, and if so "which"?
Is your motivation to join the challenge due to the offered licenses, or to you join just for the fun of the game?

To get general feedback for our Donors/Sponsors.





So yeah... these are the main point I'd love to talk about.
Feedback is welcome.

[Compyfox]

The following is a continuation of a discussion in the "Campaign Thread":
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 2#p6524302

I can only speak for myself, but it's the amount of work required by the submitter reviewing other peoples remixes that is rather off-putting. It's more lack of time than lack of interest.

I agree. The deciding of who should win is kind of hard, no? It's numerous and time consuming. And it's public. If I were to decide to hire a professional mixing company to mix my song I would probably do some research and chose one and therefore that company is automatically the winner.

One doesn't hire so many mixing pros all at once. And all is done in private. But with the Mix Challenge, if I decide on one winner, the others who didn't win might remember "that's the guy who rejected my mix".

I prefer that listeners do the voting. No one will know who voted for who. And in the end, it's the listeners that really is doing the voting by buying the final result (the CD or whatever). Just my opinion of course.

We had this discussion in the official gossip thread ad nauseum.

We went away from "community voting" since this caused a lot of uproar. Most notably "participants know jack sh*t about productions/mixes/music". Then we switched to "evaluation by the staff" for a month, and then quickly moved to "song provider has the final word". Which in turn resulted in a load less workload for us hosts.

Ultimately, only the song provider can decide which mix of his/her production(!) is the best that represents his/her the most, and builds upon the source material. This is not a songwriting challenge where the most popular production song wins, which can be rigged with outside commentary on social media like "vote for me, so I can win!".



Yes - in a real scenario, there wouldn't be a 20+ mass engineer shootout, but more like a 3-5 studios max. But we're merely simulating that. It's still a challenge (or "a game" so to speak), like so many that can be found all over the web. But we have to have certain rules - else things would just fall apart.

We also had this that only the top 5-7 spots for Mix Round 2 were judged, which ultimately left out the other participants. However, the challenge is also about a "learning process". So far, it works great and is more than appreciated by the participants. Especially since we do ask the song providers to at least comment on all mixes.

If you find this too hectic - that's your opinion and more than adjusted. Though keep in mind the song provider has 3-5 days for judging the material, and we're currently still talking 8-10 participants on average. Not hundreds of participants (and even then, there are companies with a team of judges that listen to all of these entries!).




Honestly, I haven't seen either of you two being overly active in the challenges. Why not join them for the next month, see what it's about, maybe find your own personal strengths and weaknesses. Then go from there rather than shooting at the sky right of the bat?