April Contest: Gossip

[DrApostropheX]

Hey there — the cross-contest collaboration was intended to be something fun if people wanted to create one track and submit it for two contests. The goal with the KVR contest has always been to encourage people to make music and have fun and to that end the deadlines are as late in the month as possible to allow for last minute submissions and still have a few days for voting. I don’t see that changing.

Due to life and work obligations I haven’t had time to make any music myself for a while now but the KVR contest was a great source of encouragement for me when I first discovered it more than 15 years ago. It’s safe to say I wouldn’t have stuck with making music as long as I did without the encouragement and gentle ribbing from the gang here. If nothing else it was an excuse to make music, but the sense of community around the contest is its greatest strength.

It’s not about the numbers then in terms of participation. If people can’t participate due to life or if they don’t like the topic, that’s okay. For me it’s about ensuring that the KVR contest is around when people need it for that encouragement, that community and that excuse to make music. That’s why I took over (loosely speaking, of course ) the admin duties when I did — it’s important to keep this going. If anyone else has the time resources to build the contest further I’ll gladly hand over the reins or even if someone just wants to co-admin.

I don’t know if we want to see the KVR contest become something that it’s not, though, driven by participation numbers, but I’ll leave that up to the group. No hard feelings either way, the contest comes first!

-Victor

[Tbase2000]

Just noticed your from Nearish Detroit, MI @DrApostropheX. Small world. I'm from Flint. Don't live there now but will always be from Michigan.

[skipscada]

> Compyfox: I was half aware that you had set up a parallell contest and thought why not, but forgot about it. I realise now that I finished in time to enter both contests, but I never really sat down and read the rules for your competition, so I wasn't sure my track qualified, if we had to submit stems for the mix or whatever. When I sat down last night to submit my track, I was tired and had other things to do, so just posted it here and logged out. Another thing is that I don't take the competitive aspect very seriously. It's just motivation to make a finished track. I appreciate your effort, though. The mix challenge is on my to do-list, but that's a looong list.

> All: I'm not sure my track will play if you just hit "play". It seems to work if you right click and choose open in a new window. It is also downloadable.

Glad to see a couple of new faces this month.

[Jonny Quest]

If nothing else it was an excuse to make music, but the sense of community around the contest is its greatest strength.

It’s not about the numbers then in terms of participation. If people can’t participate due to life or if they don’t like the topic, that’s okay. For me it’s about ensuring that the KVR contest is around when people need it for that encouragement, that community and that excuse to make music.

[folderol]

These days I find that there is so much competing for my time, I seldom manage to put anything up at all, but try to when I can.

I very much agree that it's about community not numbers (although more would always be nice).

I rather miss some of the guys who used to post on here, and am delighted when they occasionally show up again, but that's life.

[Tbase2000]

@Skipscada. I thought your Silent Spring was a little to silent.

Will try the right click option you mentioned.

[Compyfox]

The following post might be overwhelmingly long, but please bear with me. It's currently the best way for me to respond.

Pardon me if this has been explained before...but how was the "collaboration" supposed to occur? To me, it suggests two (or more parties) working together to create a track. Was this meant to be a collaboration or a cross-platform double-entry thing?

It was supposed to be a cross-platform/double-entry type of collaboration.

Collaborating with each other is possible on both platforms (KVR Audio and Mix Challenge). On the Mix Challenge community forum, even with the capability to both collaborate and submit your own production - if your creative output is that high.

We did it on a "pick your own partner basis." And back in the old days, when we had dozens of participants, it yielded some interesting results. The "problem" I see is there are simply not enough frequently participating members.

This is why I initiated the collaboration - to boost both competitions as not everyone knows that this exists in the first place. Well - KVR is a big place (it's like what... 20 years old at this point?!). The Mix Challenge is not new (see history in Production Techniques), but the community page definitely is. And even after 4+ years of doing this, I still get to read "what? I didn't know that this place existed!".

Again apologies--I am not very familiar with the Mix Challenge community as a whole, so I'm not sure exactly what your monthly challenge is fully about. Correct me if I am wrong...is it not a mixing/remixing challenge in which participants work from the same track/stems to create new mixes? and then you guys (and gals) comment on the different entrants' approaches (e.g., using delay and compression on the vocals, putting chorus on the bass, etc.)?

No need to apologize - but we have to differentiate at this point.

There is the Mix Challenge "community page" - which is a dedicated page hosting various games

On the community are currently 4 games to join:

• the Mix Challenge itself that started on KVR Audio (get access to RAW tracks from a client, mix the material, get feedback from the client, fix your edits, get a chance to be in the top spots)
• then there is the Songwriting Competition (running for 8 months at this point), which was originally planned to be a "seed system" to get more audio material for the Mix Challenge, but is overall also the answer to the request to "let us produce something in the first place" (it's nearly 1:1 like the Music Cafe Songwriting Contest)
• we also have a Remix Challenge (in fact, another one coming up in May - in hope that there will be more than two participants this time around)
• and finally a Mastering Challenge (which was requested several times throughout the Mix Challenge history to do that "again")

The focus of the challenges is not just "join and win", but "join, have fun and learn new things from each other in the process" (hence the mandatory documentation of what you did). The incentive is to show your skills in a simulated "client to business" scheme (especially the Mixing and Mastering Challenges). The bonus is, that you can win a license to a tool or sample/soundset. Something that the Music Cafe Songwriting Contest (MCSC in short) doesn't have (or not anymore) - however you can just join for fun, are not forced to pick up anything should you place a spot on the winners podium.


The Songwriting Competition (SWC in short) is still fairly new. But we sadly had some... issues in the early games (to put it mildly), which drastically resulted in tanked participation. I hoped to revive the spark with the KVR Audio collaboration. In fact, I reached out to various songwriting and remix communities I was a part of back in the days and drummed up a lot(!) of promotion for both places. But it's really hard to recover participation numbers.

And as already talked about in here - the more participants, the more fun for everyone, the more joy and interaction to present each other's skills. And in case of the Mix Challenge community, the more feedback you're getting on top of that (as it's mandatory).

The concept of collaborating is intriguing but it seems a lot more planning, coordinating, organizing would be needed to pull it off. But I commend you for attempting

Which is why i asked who would be second-in-command - since Victor is obviously also stuffed with work and private life. Like everyone of us.

But we can talk about a possible future collaboration in here.

For example:

The next Songwriting Competition (SWC 09) on the other community page will have the theme "Spies among us" in May. The special twist this time - it won't be a traditional songwriting game, you can "produce" whatever you feel like that fits into the theme (radio play, music, etc), as long as it's not just some noise and one single sample or something. You have to be creative to stand out.

But what does NOT work out, is the different deadline.

The Songwriting Competition on mix-challenge.com ends on 24th at 11:59pm GMT+2/CEST
The KVR Music Cafe Songwriting Contest ends on 27th early morning US central time (which can be 1am, it can also be 7am)

I chose the 24th of the month 8+ months ago, to handle everything within one month. Submitting your production, and doing the voting process. 24 days production, then voting until end of the 1st of the following month, because I know from fellows in the movie and advertisement field that songwriting sometimes has to be done withing 2-3 days - including mixing. You have 24 days, but you can also give yourself a limitation and only have 1 day. It's up to you.

To combat the "short time span" (which in reality is not - 24 days are plenty of time), we tried to announce the theme/genre up to two months in advance so that people could have more time to work on their material. But this didn't have any impact on the participation. If anything, it worked the other way around. So from now on, the Theme/Genre will now be announced on day 1 of the competition, not weeks in advance.

> Compyfox: I was half aware that you had set up a parallell contest and thought why not, but forgot about it.

Actually - I didn't just set it up in parallel - I proposed it. The collaboration has been months in the making.

Originally, I wanted to to involve the Music Cafe Songwriting Contest with the Mix Challenge while it was still on KVR Audio. The idea was (and still is - as this will happen eventually on the new place) to start with a Songwriting Competition, then jump over to a Mix Challenge, then end with a Mastering Challenge.

In fact, this happened twice now with Mix Challenge productions that turned into mastering challenges.

I realise now that I finished in time to enter both contests, but I never really sat down and read the rules for your competition, so I wasn't sure my track qualified, if we had to submit stems for the mix or whatever. When I sat down last night to submit my track, I was tired and had other things to do, so just posted it here and logged out. Another thing is that I don't take the competitive aspect very seriously. It's just motivation to make a finished track. I appreciate your effort, though. The mix challenge is on my to do-list, but that's a looong list.

The rule set might be "longer and more detailed written" than on KVR, but it's basically 1:1 the same. With some minor changes (like giving feedback to each other is mandatory during the voting process, else you're disqualified - and outside people are not allowed to vote to prevent "popular vote abuse"), and of course the "what if I win" has to be made crystal clear.

The game is as competitive as you want it to be.
It is more strict for the other games on mix-challenge.com however.

Maybe you should take another closer look - if you have the time that is.
The next games start on 1st May 2018

I very much agree that it's about community not numbers (although more would always be nice).

The only reason why I say "more in numbers", is to make it more interesting. I see so many posts here in the Music Cafe with songs and people asking for feedback, yet get barely any to none. Now imagine joining a Songwriting Competition with a given theme, genre and time limit. But other than that, no interaction.

What good is it if you do not get any feedback at all, or are just one out of 100s of possible users that could join? That is just frustrating. And since it's mandatory to give feedback to each other, the more people join, the more feedback you're getting, the more interesting the game.

Something you usually do not(!) get at big community pages with songwriting and remix competitions.

I rather miss some of the guys who used to post on here, and am delighted when they occasionally show up again, but that's life.

Definitely is.

Hey there — the cross-contest collaboration was intended to be something fun if people wanted to create one track and submit it for two contests. The goal with the KVR contest has always been to encourage people to make music and have fun and to that end the deadlines are as late in the month as possible to allow for last minute submissions and still have a few days for voting. I don’t see that changing.

Same on my end. Boni do apply though (as mentioned several times, feedback is mandatory, more collaboration possible, if you want to - content to win)

It’s not about the numbers then in terms of participation. If people can’t participate due to life or if they don’t like the topic, that’s okay. For me it’s about ensuring that the KVR contest is around when people need it for that encouragement, that community and that excuse to make music. That’s why I took over (loosely speaking, of course ) the admin duties when I did — it’s important to keep this going. If anyone else has the time resources to build the contest further I’ll gladly hand over the reins or even if someone just wants to co-admin.

I definitely do NOT want to step on your turf and/or take over. I was merely aware that KVR had suffered in lack of participation just as much. So I tried to get both communities involved. Sadly - this seems to have backfired for me.

Funny enough - the SWC on mix-challenge.com is the game with the "least limitations" (even though the rule set feels long and scary) - just write something and submit. If you messed up for song length reasons or you forgot an instrument, contact the mods/admin and ask if you can edit your post (most of the time it's a "sure, go ahead). But somehow, the "songwriting" games are the ones where there is the least participation.

I don’t know if we want to see the KVR contest become something that it’s not, though, driven by participation numbers, but I’ll leave that up to the group. No hard feelings either way, the contest comes first!

I'd say you should definitely streamline the contest:

• setting a new, more tighter deadline - like... use the proposed 24th 11:59pm rather than the 27th sometime early morning (again, if you want to, you can link to the countdown from my page - it's synced to Central European Time, which is also more fair towards Japanese and Australian participants!)
• one thread for both submissions and voting, while having one global gossip thread

As least this is what I'd do. My experience showed, that this also adds to more interaction since you don't have to jump between threads.

The OSC (One Synth Challenge) has a 31 day deadline, the Mix Challenge still has it's 21 day deadline. So if your creative output is super high, you can join all games still. The deadlines don't fall on the same days (a lot of feedback has gone into this decision!).

This is what I can offer. And I also offered you (via PM) themes for May (see above) and June.

It's up to you if you want to change the Contest after that long of running time.





I can do nothing but reach out, and see where this goes...

[skipscada]

At least I learnt that there is a regular songwriting competition at mix-challenge.com. I'll try to become a semi-regular in the future. Registered as "Skipscada" right now.

[skipscada]

The Songwriting Competition (SWC in short) is still fairly new. But we sadly had some... issues in the early games (to put it mildly), which drastically resulted in tanked participation.

Was it something to with the inability to take criticism/comments? If so, perhaps it could be an idea to make it a requirement to comment in a +/- format, i.e. positive things and negative things. I think I may, at some point, have contributed to scaring off some previous participants here with honest, constructive criticism. Maybe it's easier to accept negative comments if they are obligatory? Negative as in "it lacks dynamics", not "your music is shit".

[Compyfox]

The feedback "mechanic" has been overhauled/improved in recent months on my end (see rule set). But the issue (and it's results because of that) went far more deeper than that...

Do not worry, it has been sorted out - I'm still trying to recover the game though. Also - welcome to the other place.

[Compyfox]

EDIT (28-APR-2018) - user: Compyfox

The original post in this place has been redacted. It was a response towards user Tbase2000 and his extremely aggressive/out-lashing behavior/commentary towards me and the conversation with user skipscada).

User Tbase2000 has been permanently banned from the Mix Challenge community because of constant misconduct, abrasive and very demanding behavior (effectively resulting in drastic changes to the games he participated in), insulting other challenge participants (and effectively scaring them off), even insulting the CTO of the community (me) directly. He (Tbase2000) then continued to twist and turn his words to put the blame on to others. Always coming back for more, trying to lecture and having the final word. This has been going on for months.

The KVR mods have stepped in at this point and removed most of his commentary. Just to give you a perspective as to what went down that lead to this "conversation"

[Compyfox]

EDIT (28-APR-2018) - user: Compyfox

The original post in this place has been redacted. See previous post

[Compyfox]

@Fox You brought it up, not me. Go read that big article you wrote above again. Quit blaming me for your poor management.

My poor management?

Who came running along and started to DEMAND things left and right to "make a better community"? Who then twisted and turned this even further to "your needs" to ultimately sh#t on other participants? And who also went so far and insist that "I have an understanding issue" and that I have to learn "English"?

Sure wasn't me.

You were the only person I ever had a problem with over there. Only you. I think we can all see here why...nice reaction to criticism.

You don't criticize constructively - you go the destructive route.

And for the record, I'm the CTO of mix-challenge.com - if I say no on my place, that means "no". If I say "tune it down", that means "tune it down". You didn't, you continued to disrupt the community (as you do now - with twisting and turning to get off better, again!). You were warned several times, you continued. I then got several reports about you, and the plea to put an end to this. The end-result of all of this is that you were permanently banned on mix-challenge.com

And considering your current response (and the ones that were forwarded to me after you got booted off) - a chance of appeal is now highly unlikely.


Please do us all a favor - do not destroy this community as well.

People wanted to be to competitive and hold back their submissions until the very last day.

As is their right - same here on KVR Audio.

I had every right to say something about it and try to change that pattern. That's lame. You wouldn't do it... Doesn't matter, your ship is sinking over there and your taking everyone elses fun down with it.

I implemented your "change requests" - all of them (including the "collaborate as often as you want" and "newbie threads"). They weren't accepted/used or did not have any influence on "more participation" as you insisted it would. So it is not me to blame.

In fact, it didn't help that you tried to take over and... how shall I put it... "encouraged users to show their a-game and not f#ck around and wait until the last minute" - all in the name to "improve" the game.

Quit misquoting people...nobody likes that. Go read the history of the Song Writing Challenge over there and make your own decision.

Oh, I am fully aware of the history - CTO and all.

Should probably take it down a notch in here though or You might get Banned player.

Is that a threat, "player"?!

I don't think this community fights and argues like you do over there. "GASLIGHTING" Did you just make a word up? No street credit on that one Foxxy.

First and foremost, it's "Compyfox" or "Mister Fox" to you - not "Foxxy"

Second: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting
Read it, understand it. Though I already know your possible answer to that.




I don't need this crap from you - not again, not anymore. You don't show any respect towards other participants or even collaborators. And I've lost my patience.

I've made the host of this game aware of this days ago, I'm now forwarding this to the mods. They will not be as forgiving as I was...

Get the hell off my back, Tbase2000! And stop derailing this thread.

[Tbase2000]

Dead Fox to me bro. I don't care nothing about you honestly. I would like to give the musicians over at Mix-Challenge a plug though. Granted, it's been a small mix but all year long they have put out some very good music and deserve to be heard. Radio Ready stuff, very professional some of it, with great production. That shouldn't scare people away, that should actually attract people. You have a chance to rub elbows with people who are ultra-talented and see you as just another musician. The feedback was 99% super detailed and helpful, musicians went way out of their way to help you. So hats off to the musicians. This guy though...what a train wreck. If you haven't lost your core musicians yet, you might want to think about putting someone else in charge of that competition. Your ruining all of the hard work and songs over the past year that kept it going. Seriously...go over there and listen to the submissions for the last I think 8 challenges. There's some really great music in there that never...ever got heard by more than 5 people. Sad!

Don't ask for advice here or anywhere or for opinions if your just going to shoot them down and call them complainers. That whole SWC Gossip Thread is full of ideas...not complaints. Learn to listen bro.

And...there is nothing wrong with using Google Translate or Urban Dictionary if your unsure about a certain English slang or certain joke/sarcasm. I would encourage that verse responding defensive about something you don't understand because you mistranslated and are paranoid. Use the web.

[Compyfox]

If I'd be such a "trainwreck of a guy", then the Mix Challenge community page would be a wasteland at this point...

But thanks for the plug.
You could have done that months ago already...




BACK ON TOPIC:
Let me summarize...

• I am proposing another collaboration, maybe even two (if you want). Meaning: months May and June
• this is not a user collaboration (you can do that regardless), this is a collaboration between two communities
• you can submit to both places - one production, two entries, twice the exposure - bonus: chance to win some cool tools
• the rules are the same on both places (with minor detail changes)
• I propose to also run the MCSC from 1st of the month until the 24th of the month 11:59pm GMT+2/CEST from now on (you can use this global countdown for this purpose), to make it fair for everyone on this planet (as of this moment, Asian and Australian participants have 1 day less to create something) and to have no shifted deadlines with the Mix Challenge community. You have still enough time participate in other challenges (even the OSC here on KVR Audio)
• the Theme/Genre has already been set for SWC09 on mix-challenge.com - it is "Spies among us" (theme), and it's a "general production challenge" this time around (nothing is fixed to songwriting, genre doesn't matter)

If you're up to that, let's discuss before the turn of the month and make this happen


Victor - you still got a PM