EqD Music

[Mesogears]

Equestria Daily has recently posted about a new website they have in the works called "EqD Music." Not only that, it's currently in an open beta.

So, what are your thoughts on this new site? Personally, I think it sounds pretty good! (No pun intended)

[Callenby]

The fact that they're trying out different solutions is something I appreciate.

However, for this new site I'll take the "wait and see" approach. The fact that it's a separate entity from EqD might cause as many complaints as it addresses. Besides, I never thought there was anything particularly terrible about their method up to this point. Still, I'm willing to give this a chance. It's important to remember, though, that the most we can reasonably work for isn't something that will somehow solve every issue forever, only incremental improvement.

[Mesogears]

The fact that they're trying out different solutions is something I appreciate.

However, for this new site I'll take the "wait and see" approach. The fact that it's a separate entity from EqD might cause as many complaints as it addresses. Besides, I never thought there was anything particularly terrible about their method up to this point. Still, I'm willing to give this a chance. It's important to remember, though, that the most we can reasonably work for isn't something that will somehow solve every issue forever, only incremental improvement.

This. I agree wholeheartedly.

[itroitnyah]

I can see this going far. Like, people just put a youtube link up, and their song appears in the "newest uploads", where people can vote on it. There'll be a Hot Right Now link that will lead to the highest voted songs by genre for the time being until they expire from the top list. And then there will be another link that leads to "All time top" where the top songs of all time are listed there by genre, and people can just go down the list listening to the top songs! It'll be great because then people will be able to find new music without waiting for the MotD!

Also, I'm really surprised that Loyalty and Party with Pinkie (VIP) got as many downvotes as they did, I thought they were fandom favorites. Whatever.

[Ed Viper]

Interesting idea. Nice to see they're trying some different approaches to this whole music submission thing.

[Raddons]

maybe everyone will stop their bitching now cool

edit: The admins might want to group songs into the proper genre. The submitters aren't very good at that. (lmao@ rainbow factory being drum and bass)

[LFP]

I fear that this might become a vote whore contest... but it surely has lots of good potential :3

[Mesogears]

You know, it kind of bothers me that there's virtually no quality control on this new site. I mean, I know it's not supposed to be very strict, but having even the slightest bit of quality control would make it easier to find good music on the site.

[CommandSpry]

Welcome to EQD team, we make sites, I think???????????

[Motivfs]

I'll be open-minded to the idea but I don't really like it. I feel like what they already had was working fine.

No quality control is something I disagree with, and I feel as if this is just going to be all the already popular artists still seeing the votes. Apparently this is suppose to be for the lesser-known, but I really don't see that happening, I mean it's the brony fandom after all.

[colortwelve]

My gauge of this one is gonna be whether or not my previously featured stuff gets on

[Ptepix]

The system is already NOT working XD
Not because of site bugs or anything...go look at the top 6 list

[the4thImpulse]

The system is already NOT working XD
Not because of site bugs or anything...go look at the top 6 list

If they can cycle that list regularly it could work good, like making votes count for only week or two at a time so the list is always changing. They should have a few different lists like top monthly/weekly/daily and most views monthly/weekly. The newly posted tracks are going to fall though that list fast knowing EQD gets 15-30 submissions a day.

Its not going to help the lesser known artists anymore then what happens currently, the popular artists will stay at the top with the odd remix slipping through. There's not much anyone can do about it either, its the way of life, we just need to get used to it.

[Navron]

I share a lot of the same concerns. The biggest of which is the lack of any kind of solid judging criteria, and a popularity system based more on luck than anything else.

With how many tracks get submitted each day, it doesn't matter if you make a killer track. If you happen to unfortunately upload it right before 10 people upload theirs, all of the sudden your killer track is pushed off the new list, to be forever lost among the masses.

That's my biggest fear, but as others already said, the site's brand new, so let's see how it rolls. Over time, I can see this turning into a great site, but that largely revolves around how receptive the admins are to feedback.

[ghelded_kultz]

I'm optimistic for this so far, but I have some ideas.

First, additions/opinions to their stated future updates (pending stability):

1) Better searching, such as by artist, or date or (if things similar to later ideas I have for implementation) theme. The current search system (so to speak) is pretty meh. Yes one can search (well categorize) by genre, which is nice (I'll have suggestions for that later) but there are other things that would be helpful too. Also support for songs listed under "other" (which won't be necessary, I hope, if my ideas on genre are taken into consideration), since there is no other category currently.

2) Album support. I personally don't think this fits as well as it could with the site and it's stated goal, but if they can make it work, more power to them.

Next, my opinions (which may not be feasible, right or good but with my current knowledge seem reasonable) on categorization and how to make the site more user-friendly/better.

1) More booru-like, mostly though a "tag" system. I'll eleborate this soon. Users (anon or registered. I prefer anon, but can see and understand reasons for only giving power for registered users, especially uploading.) should be able to tag songs that have already been submitted, correcting information (assuming that the golden mean and argumentum ad populum has merit, which I believe in subjective things like music to be more or less true) and "organically" improving the system. Upvoting/downvoting is not enough for user moderation, nor is it all that efficient or effective for improvement or moderation.

2) Improved genre system. This is a pet interest of mine, so bear with me and my rant. I see why in the current system there is only one genre (the current implementation of the "acoustic"/"electronic" split and vocal vs non vocal seems fine to me) as it is nice when looking at the top lists. Unfortunately, genres aren't so clean cut and many songs can easily be classified into multiple genres. Under my system, the submitter puts it into a broader genre, and then can tag subgenres. The broad genres would be mostly based of the current ones with some changes. For example speedcore and hardcore should be combined (I'll complain about the hardcore category later. It has some unintended problems dealing with the ambiguity of the word hardcore), rock and metal (which should fix part of the hardcore problem) and house and electro house should be split. Maybe additions of an idm/experimental tag and other such things. The subgenres would not be displayed (or would be, depedning on if it is lumped with other tags or if all tags are shown. This is a logistics/aesthetics issue and one that I am not well prepared for) but would be an integral part of searching. Having these subgenres (which could either be suggested in something such as a drop-menu or typed in directly. Or both) would allow submitters to better place their music without losing the broad genre as a whole. It will also allow multiple genres for a song (I think that the max subgenres should be 3-5 but again, it's all subject to testing and feasibility).

3) Other tags. These would include artists (so that collabs could be better searched), themes and subjects, and characters mentioned/about, etc. Tags would aid in searching the like. They should be editable by anyone, crowd sourcing much of the labor and hopefully rectify mistakes much better than the current system (I'm looking at you hardcore!).

Complaints and Observations about the current system.
1) The unintended consequences of the hardcore tag. In music hardcore generally means one of three things: hardcore punk, hardcore techno, and hardcore hip-hop (If you combine them you get digital hardcore). It appears to me that EqD wanted to have a way for the various artists how make harder-edged electronic music recognized, resulting in the hardcore tag (underneath electronic). Unfortunately there is no metal (or punk) tag so many harder rock artists (especially punk, metalcore and deathcore) looking for a good category for their music saw hardcore and placed their music there, a reasonable mistake because of the ambiguity. This is not a complaint over metalcore and deathcore being labeled hardcore (punk) (I feel they aren't and have many reasons, but this is not the time or place to discuss this) but rather rock being labeled as hardcore techno, thereby confusing everyone looking for either "genre" of music.

2) Remix vs Show Remix. There is a way to label your song as a remix, which is good. However "show remix" made it seem like it meant that you want to the song to be shown as a remix, as opposed to your song being a remix of a song in the show. This why, as of writing, the top show remixes (it becomes less ambiguous outside of the submissions box) include a discord remix, a flutterwonder remix and a few others that I am pretty sure weren't in the show. Instead they should have a remix box, that when selected has a yes no box for "was the song from the show" (or something similar) or just ignore the differences between remixes in the broad categories (instead having show remix be a tag).



In all, this has potential, but it needs some fixing for both usability and efficiency sake. Also an on site FAQ and help page.

[MYCUTIEMARKISAGUN]

#1, losing Music of the Day is a major blow. Let's not kid ourselves, when it comes to getting exposure in the fandom there is no substitution for a post on EQD. Its the portal for the fandom. Have you ever talked to a serious fanfic author? They have the glory that is FimFiction, but they will LAUGH at you if you suggest they don't still need EQD. No matter how big EQDmusic gets, it can never be EQD.

tbh, I've gotten the distinct vibe that Sethisto is pretty much tired of pony music in general and this would be the perfect opportunity for him to just wash his hands of it completely. He can dump all the music on EQDmusic and leave it at that. Post a big song on EQD every now and then. One less thing to worry about.

#2, these comments on EQD make me very pessimistic:

"This really isn't going to work at all. It's going to be a competition of who is already popular"

"I thought this was supposed to be for lesser known artists? Its just another circle jerk of people we already know."

So its dependent on FAN VOTES. Gee, I wonder who will win....Sci or TLT? Rhyme Flow or Mic?

And we're submitting old songs into this system too???

Wow, sounds like this site will do a great job of giving underrated, overlooked jams like RAINBOW FACTORY the exposure they so desperately need!

I really hope they read Mattatatta's comments. Wisdom, there.

btw ghelded_kultz is right. I know some ppl (Zovi) think that "Hardcore" obviously refers to a certain kind of electronic, but its far more ambiguous than that for most ppl.

damn, there's lots of ppl in the comments asking why EQbeats can't just get a link and some love from EQD. Do codl & seth have beef or something lol

[Genkar]

Yeah, so far my biggest problem with it is the fact that everyone is going to be uploading old stuff. It's going to be taking up all the room on the site, and nothing new will be there for a while, which is pretty disappointing.

I also agree that it's just going to revolve around popular musicians anyway. If people hear some big musician has a song out, it'll just get upvoted, regardless of whether it's worthy of it or not. There's no real organization to it yet, it's kinda cluttered, and just full of music we've all heard already.

IMO, they should have just kept Music of the Day, because it was a good system. It was organized, and a good way for talented small musicians to promote themselves. I think this system will be good once they clean some stuff up, but right now it's kind of a mess.

Personally I think a good idea would have been to use EqD Music as sort of a way to sort out good tracks from bad tracks, and then use the real EqD to promote some of the tracks on EqD music. That way, smaller musicians can still be featured on the main site, because I'm pretty sure everyone knows it's not going to feel the same to get a "Highest rated song" or something like that as opposed to being featured on EqD.

I realize now that I basically echoed everything already said.

[Gray Ham]

Well, there goes MOTD. There needs to be a better way to navigate the site and make it less cluttered. Quality control needed, etc.
Everything has been said already.

EDIT: It seems that they only started coding this over the weekend. Not well thought out at all.

[K3WRO]

Just look at all the "top voted"

[Soultension Music]

Im taking guns advice here and just sticking to the projects and contests in this community.

[Ptepix]

I've given up on EQD just about now. I'm hoping R&R is a success. Mebbeh I might get some 'recognition' from it. Though people seem to always say wanting recognition is bad >.<

[colortwelve]

My instrumental remix of My Cadence got up, but not Ex Favilla. I've kind of already lost a bit of faith in this system >.>

[Navron]

The only question I really have, is why nobody came here to discuss this? Where are the admins of this new site? Where's the topic that should be on here called, "Please give us feedback." For that matter, where's the feedback system in general? Who are we to message? Is there any kind of feedback submission on the new site?

What we need is somebody to serve as a liaison to the admins of this new site.

Or you know, the admins could come here and actually ask the musicians themselves.

*Edit* Sent them an email asking them to come here, in addition to adding an easy to find button on the site itself to submit feedback.

As it stands right now, all feedback should be sent to [email protected] with the subject "EQDMUSIC"

[JSynth]

Here's an idea.
What if EQD made a Top Six Tracks of the Day post.

Everyday, "the top six tracks of today" get posted on EQD. The tracks have to be submitted to EQD Music within the last 24 hours in order to qualify.

[Pickslide1992]

I've given up on EQD just about now. I'm hoping R&R is a success. Mebbeh I might get some 'recognition' from it. Though people seem to always say wanting recognition is bad >.<

Amen, me too. I just tried the site, and maybe it's because it's brand new, but it seems very buggy in terms of submitting music and navigating the site (I sent in my Love is in Bloom collab as a test and I didn't get an indicator that it was sent in) and when I tried navigating it was very bare bones. I haven't been keeping track of any hoopla from EqD as I too have just given up and tried other outlets for exposure, with moderate success (I guess I'm trying to prove that you don't always need EqD to get known, you know, the old fashioned way without any red tape and drama).

That said, this shows some promise and it might go far if its kinks are worked out (Rotate the top tracks so that the big names don't dominate and everyone has a chance, clean up the submission system, etc.), but again, I probably won't use this personally, again with the alternate means of promotion thing and the fact I barely, if ever, look at EqD anymore. At least they're trying, so I can't fault Sethisto or any of his cronies since they are making an effort to fix a major problem. But you know, in the grand scheme of things, I don't care if 1 person or 1,000,000 people listen to my music, as long as they enjoyed listening and maybe want to stick around, it makes the effort worthwhile, but that's another topic.