EqD Music

[Mesogears]

Oh great, here we go again...

Seriously, if you guys argue anymore I'll request a lock.

(And Freewave, Spry is a good musician. Really.)

[Navron]

Gettin a little heated in here, so here's a friendly reminder to keep things on track.

Don't be calling people out on the forums, especially fellow musicians (aka, your pre-listeners). If you have a complaint, state it. When it gets replied to, read the whole reply. There's been a few instances of people re-stating a complaint that was already answered.

For all you pre-listeners out there, sharing your Skype is your choice, but if there's one thing I do want from all of you, it's some sort of FAQ topic about how the submission process works. Even I don't have a concrete understanding of how the pre-listeners work, so I'm sure for most new folks, they have absolutely no clue.

A lot of these constant complaints towards EQD and the pre-listeners could easily be solved if we had a FAQ topic that details how the submission process works. PM or Skype me and we'll talk about it.

[CommandSpry]

Wow you guys are so silly right now!

First of all, Thorinair is very lineant as how he judges songs! He is one of the guys that passes stuff the most, so if you think he has strict standards, you're very mistaken!

Mycutieetc you haven't brought up any arguments aside from EqD prelisteners need less power, and I don't quite get that. We judge the songs...we uh...judge the songs....? We need to reduce the volume of music on EqD...so...uh..we need less power? What

ahem may not be well-versed in jazz or rap or ambient or (INSERT NON-TECHNO* GENRE HERE).

Many of our members like Lavender Harmony or PhillyPu learned music theory and listen to all kinds of acoustic; we have rappers for Rap and we're adding more as we speak; we all listen to jazz and ambient often gets passed onto spotlight to begin with. None of us have perfect music tastes; that's why there's loads of us who vote and we AVOID VOTING ON GENRES WE HAVEN'T AN IDEA ABOUT.
And Cowbell Party isn't a serious project are you even being serious here freewave one time you're like ok spry the other you're like goodbye EqD you flip flop with every post and nothing prompts it even. And, I've offered to bear all the wrath of the community by offering my skype contact to anyone having complaints, hello? All I've been doing here is taking the brunt of complaints and addressing them, and for Christ's sake I've been nothing but civil and argumentative in answering all kinds of complaints, the least you can do is like, listen to what I've said?

Indeed is melodic content a very important thing! I assume it's melodies what you speak of when you say interesting. That's why we have many people that enjoy different genres vote on the songs, to get different opinions. But in the end, if it's undecided as to whether a song is "interesting enough" or not, then the production quality is going to decide it. Some tracks might have amazing production quality but be very bland and unimaginative, in most cases we tend to say just that; and reject them..but if people are torn on it's melodic stuff, the cool production quality will push them forward. People on the other hand don't usually disagree on production quality because it's much much much much much less subjective, and that is how we avoid biases towards a genre or another.

What part of this do you not understand, that production quality does not take priority, but is judged alongside everything else, and in that manner not discarded either?

And shouldn't EqD be for musicians who are serious in their craft and do it to better themselves? By saing "EqD is a club for serious musicians", what do you mean, that we're excluding people who half ass their songs and are too lazy to do basic mixing? Because yes! That's just what I don't want on EqD; half assed songs. You shouldn't as well!

And for the last time, just go on skype and we'll have a nice civil conversation that can settle any issues in less than an hour. You can do that guys.

And as for the FAQ, it's not complicated at all:

Seth recieves links in his email; he submits the links to us, we go through the links he sends and vote on the songs; he rounds up the votes, and that's the voting process.

And I'm a terrible musician; my production quality is nowhere near good and I expect to be rejected plenty of times! Prelisteners do not vote on their own songs, and we've put eachother on MoTD many times.

[Raddons]

can i be a prelistener

[CommandSpry]

ys we are al preslitnerse in our hert

[Nine Volt]

i think we should just shut down eqd entirely and then everyone can shut the fuck up

cloud prelistener 2013

[Raddons]

ys we are al preslitnerse in our hert

good my first order of business i want music of the day to be changed to tombstone of the day and spotlight music to be changed to spotlight tomb

thank you much

[Thorinair]

Thorinair is part of the reason i think Brony trance is so damn pino and barren of personality. That guy wants ZERO samples, singing, or words in any trance track. You ever listen to those a state of brony sets? After an hour of instrumental trance music by the only 5 musicians that do it on repeat you'd be amazed to hear you were listening to music that was ever about MLP! The couple of times i sent him tracks he was like, good track can you get me an instrumental? Seriously? I really don't want to make a type of music that some listener is only going to approve if it fits his own image of how HE makes music. It's frankly a bit insulting. Who made that guy pharoh for trance music?

I love you too. <3

I was personally never against or for MOTD. It seemed like a good idea at first actually. The only thing I was fighting against was the general bias of EqD, but it feels like that never had any success, so whatever.

[Nine Volt]

well that's awkward...
ಠ_ಠ

[CommandSpry]

And to put your minds at ease, ye marry gentlemen: EqD takes in too much music; we can't have 20 songs a day. Fact. Set in stone. F a c t.
Either we take away MoTD which is 80% half assed stuff (and please argue that isn't true, we have to listen to this stuff), and 20% stuff that's been made with much effort, and would probably make the cut when MoTD is gone instead of being rejected, bear in mind 20% is a generous number, it's probably like 10% or so, or what; we take away spotlight music, leaving only MoTD, which still wouldn't work since it's like 10-15 songs a day so it's still too many.
Stop pretending like it's November 2011, there's too much brony music to count and we can't all feature them on EqD because we're afraid of upsetting something. We think much more highly of you than you give yourself credit for; religiously defending MoTD like it's your salvation. You'll get into EqD if you step up your game! We're only here to help you. Just ask away at me, but don't be pretentious or too self-righteous. I think you guys have the idea that you have to achieve deadmau5 production levels to get on; we never prioritized production, we just take it into account as much as everything else (:
Listen to what I have to say, since I"m not a perfect musical god, I can report what others thought about the song and give my two cents. I guarantee you that it will help you improve.
Another unexplored option is for MoTD to move to EqDmusic as a special section of hand picked top songs by prelisteners, from the stuff that gets rejected from EqD itself, but that hasn't even been proposed, sounds like something you guys would enjoy though.

[Freewave]

Apologies to Spry and especially Thorinair, I was way out-of line on that last post. My apologies.

Sorry to take this stuff too seriously.

[ghelded_kultz]

I was talking about both mixing and mastering, I'm pretty sure that on a traditional multitrack recording the musician is not the one who produces the final mix.

Now, I've been arguing on both the musician side and the listener side, but I haven't been arguing for our own music. If you are looking for something serious than of course you should ignore almost all our of songs (though this brings in the question at why there even is a focus on seriousness when we are singing about pastel colored, magic ponies.) To argue for other musicians I'll bring up an example from the last music of the day. Sicknessia had a song. The composition was great, and the vocals would probably have been fine on their own, but together there was an obvious mixing problem, and the vocals would probably have to be rerecorded. The song obviously did not deserve a spotlight for those reasons, but should it be completely denied? Maybe, IF meaningful feedback is given. However, there is no rejection letter, and while the Skype thing is available it's not exactly well known. With things as they were he received instant, meaningful feedback from multiple sources, and people could look at his other stuff.

Now, from the listener side Motd provides an important range of selection. You say it's a fact that 20 songs is too many, but it's not, it's an opinion. Sure, it's probably too much if you are going to attentively listen to every single song for it's entirety ( I pity you, but wouldn't you still have to listen to the same amount of crap regardless of it's destination?), but most people aren't going to do that. I'm going to argue that 3 songs a day is not enough, which is what's currently happening. Right now the Spotlight mix usually boils down to this: 1. Orchestral song from big name artist 2. EDM song from big name artist 3. Wild Card, but it's usually Rock or Acoustic and/or it's from a big name artist. That's not a lot of selection. If you look at the comments in Music of the Day recently you will see more people expressing their love for Motd both as musicians and as listeners.

-Soft D. String DeHooves

[PhillyPu]

Can you guys just contact spry already. All the issues have been addressed in the mega-thread of 137 posts, and it seems like nobody can properly keep track of anything. Hell even I would be willing to answer the questions on Skype but I have homework stacked to the brim for this week.

Ghelded, I don't understand your first paragraph. You're saying it's alright to... ignore "all our songs", but Sicknessia's song, even with all its flaw, should not be "completely denied", or at the very least, should be given "meaningful feedback"? The reason the Skype thing isn't known (pre-listeners have talked about this many times) is that Seth seemed to remove everything there is about pre-listeners! (FAQ? Ha! People don't even know who we are and what we do! We don't even have our own goddamn page). Also, with that feedback thing: we receive too many entries for music per day. It's ridiculous. We've done a rejection letter system for a couple of weeks, but even with three people to split it among (and keep in mind this is like mid-2012, where the load isn't as bad), it's really difficult to keep up this system with "meaningful feedback". When I did mine I tried to include main reason for rejection, but it's pretty difficult for me to word concisely (and less likely to induce drama) and so I spend myself spending way too long on the short rejection letters.

And now for possible changes to the EQDM system that may be helpful:
Main concern I currently see on the MotD discussion is that the old music "will drown out the new". As long as there's a script that makes sure that old music that has been featured will not be featured again, this will ensure that unknown (whether old or new) music will always be on the forefront. This is what we are looking to achieve, as most of you guys seem concerned about "exposure". Second, another concern is the impermanence of the EQDM sidebar feature: there's no log. How about an implementation of the system such that every day's top EQDM non-featured-previously songs get logged and such? This will be needed to continuously track which songs are featured and which aren't. Thus, for people who want to listen to new pony music continuously for hours, they can just go on the (automated) logs and check them out.

[CommandSpry]

"You say it's a fact that 20 songs is too many, but it's not,"

It is.

And if vocals have to be re recorded that's a huge problem right there, and all you guys seem pretty confident that the skype thing is awful when I haven't been contacted by you once. Only LoreRD from out here contacted me and we resolved all issues in less than an hour.

[ghelded_kultz]

Can you guys just contact spry already. All the issues have been addressed in the mega-thread of 137 posts, and it seems like nobody can properly keep track of anything. Hell even I would be willing to answer the questions on Skype but I have homework stacked to the brim for this week.

Ghelded, I don't understand your first paragraph. You're saying it's alright to... ignore "all our songs", but Sicknessia's song, even with all its flaw, should not be "completely denied", or at the very least, should be given "meaningful feedback"? The reason the Skype thing isn't known (pre-listeners have talked about this many times) is that Seth seemed to remove everything there is about pre-listeners! (FAQ? Ha! People don't even know who we are and what we do! We don't even have our own goddamn page). Also, with that feedback thing: we receive too many entries for music per day. It's ridiculous. We've done a rejection letter system for a couple of weeks, but even with three people to split it among (and keep in mind this is like mid-2012, where the load isn't as bad), it's really difficult to keep up this system with "meaningful feedback". When I did mine I tried to include main reason for rejection, but it's pretty difficult for me to word concisely (and less likely to induce drama) and so I spend myself spending way too long on the short rejection letters.

And now for possible changes to the EQDM system that may be helpful:
Main concern I currently see on the MotD discussion is that the old music "will drown out the new". As long as there's a script that makes sure that old music that has been featured will not be featured again, this will ensure that unknown (whether old or new) music will always be on the forefront. This is what we are looking to achieve, as most of you guys seem concerned about "exposure". Second, another concern is the impermanence of the EQDM sidebar feature: there's no log. How about an implementation of the system such that every day's top EQDM non-featured-previously songs get logged and such? This will be needed to continuously track which songs are featured and which aren't. Thus, for people who want to listen to new pony music continuously for hours, they can just go on the (automated) logs and check them out.

I'm guessing you are unaware who "we" are. We are Ghelded Kultz, a duo, and because we are dumb we use the same account. When it's signed by "Soft D. String DeHooves", I, the younger, secondary member is speaking, and when it's not signed "Metronome 'Matt' Clipclop", the group leader who actually knows what he is talking about, is speaking. If you aren't familiar with our music I'll introduce you to it right now:




Real effort was put into making that song, but it is in no way serious. I think the most serious thing we did was actually a Toastbeard submission. I hope that clarifies some things. Anyway, Sicknessia's attempt was obviously a much more serious attempt. (ironically enough, that Applejack song was the only song we actually got a rejection letter from if I recall correctly. It was "too short and too noisy". Yes, it certainly is too noisy, but I fail to see how it's too short unless they are referring to a different song of ours, which is obviously both too short and too noisy.)

The point is that on the musician side consumer support really needs to be improved, and if Music of the Day is removed than relations between musicians and pre-listeners are just going to get worse. I'm sorry Seth isn't letting the pre-listeners get a FAQ, that's something which is desperately needed. Anyway, I still don't get why the prelisteners can't give any feedback when the prereaders can, and I'm pretty sure it takes more time to read a fic than it does to listen to a song. No matter is done, something needs to get done, or else the backlash is only going to get worse. Nagging Seth for the FAQ or something is probably a good idea.

Old stuff drowning out the new is one of the main complaints of EQDM replacing MotD, but it definitely isn't the only one. The other big complaint I'm seeing is the lack of an archive. In MotD once it's posted it's permanently accesible and the featured songs can be found at anytime, with EQDM once a new song get's more votes the bottom song will get bumped off, and no matter what it will be gone in a day.

"You say it's a fact that 20 songs is too many, but it's not,"

It is.

And if vocals have to be re recorded that's a huge problem right there, and all you guys seem pretty confident that the skype thing is awful when I haven't been contacted by you once. Only LoreRD from out here contacted me and we resolved all issues in less than an hour.

No, it's not a fact, it's solidly an opinion. It doesn't need to be true to be a fact, it just needs to be objective so it would be true or false for everyone. Unless you are referring to a very specific task "too" anything is always subjective.

That was only one song, everything else had much better mixing quality. I did say that maybe it should be completely rejected from the site, but consumer support needs to be improved one or another.

Anyway, I already explained why I haven't used Skype, timing will probably not be convenient (though if you do live in Serbia it probably wouldn't be that bad, I need to check the timezones, but that may in fact be more manageable for us than for most people), and I think it's fairly obvious why our stuff is getting rejected. Maybe I'll consult you when we realized a certain other song in the works, but right now I don't think it's worth the effort because we aren't looking for feedback right now. Here on MLR it's more public, better recorded, and most importantly this thread is already made and being used, so that's why discussion on this topic is staying here.

-Soft D. String DeHooves

[CommandSpry]

It is a fact. Checking the numbers of hits and comments/subscriptions, it is definetely a fact. It started before MoTD because of song overflow, and it was time it was addressed.

And prereaders give you one line feedback about something vague, as I've talked to some people who knew artists who would get feedback. And we do provide feedback, if you ask about your song on EqD's submit box, Seth will give you my skype and I'll talk to you about your submission; I have in the past, and it was great.here on MLR it's way more impersonal, and unconvenient, and people read these like one post per 7 hours and they forget what has been said in a previous point and bring it up again.

[Viricide Filly]

I think we should just accept that all music is terrible and that pony music is a cancer that can only be cured by a plague.

[CommandSpry]

k

[GumsOfGabby]

I think we should just accept that all music is terrible and that pony music is a cancer that can only be cured by a plague.

You being the catalyst!

[ghelded_kultz]

It is a fact. Checking the numbers of hits and comments/subscriptions, it is definetely a fact. It started before MoTD because of song overflow, and it was time it was addressed.

And prereaders give you one line feedback about something vague, as I've talked to some people who knew artists who would get feedback. And we do provide feedback, if you ask about your song on EqD's submit box, Seth will give you my skype and I'll talk to you about your submission; I have in the past, and it was great.here on MLR it's way more impersonal, and unconvenient, and people read these like one post per 7 hours and they forget what has been said in a previous point and bring it up again.

No, it's definitely an opinion. I argue that a lot of things are technically facts when other people say they are opinions, so when I say something is an opinion it's probably undoubtedly an opinion. Anyway, we are debating grammar, semantics, not an actual issue.

One line vague feedback is better than nothing. No feedback at all with just a letter saying you have been rejected is better than what happens now. In the very least that should be a start, that way people would know they have been rejected so they are more likely to directly ask why they rejected. Also, there really needs to be more information about music submission on EQD. The current information is next to useless. We've all talked about this on the forum countless times and still nothing has changed.

-Soft D. String DeHooves

[Viricide Filly]

I think we should just accept that all music is terrible and that pony music is a cancer that can only be cured by a plague.

You being the catalyst!

Yes I will initiate the great Jihad against horse music

[ghelded_kultz]

I think we should just accept that all music is terrible and that pony music is a cancer that can only be cured by a plague.

You being the catalyst!

Yes I will initiate the great Jihad against horse music

The infidels have brought disgrace with their horse music, only camels may be used for music, horses are strictly for poems only.

-Soft D. String DeHooves.

[CommandSpry]

You act as if I don't already give out feedback that's actually more than one vague line; I will tell anyone what I think of a rejected song if they ask. So there's that.

[ghelded_kultz]

You act as if I don't already give out feedback that's actually more than one vague line; I will tell anyone what I think of a rejected song if they ask. So there's that.

That's you specifically, not the music submission system in general. All the problems that have been stated still stand. Maybe denied songs could have an email saying "Sorry, but your song does not meet Equestria Daily standards, if you seek for further information on what went wrong and on how you can improve please consult ____" or something.

-Soft D. String DeHooves

[CommandSpry]

sitting so high
I try to remember
how many bench
did I cigarette