Take two. Hell, take the whole lot. (double take reviews)

[Spud]

Great, one more irregularity in the archive data...

hahahaha! you gotta roll with the punches, Sam.

[Caravan Ray]

A positive to this is that Maxo gets to keep his eligibility to win the King Arthur Award

[DougFunnie93]

hmmm, i didnt think i was going to (technically) win due to some hating ass reviews of one who does not like hip-hop/rap. "If people ain't hating on you, your doing something wrong" THANKS FOR THE HATE!

[fluffy]

Well, reviews aren't that indicative of voting. If it were the winner would have had 4 votes.

[Billy's Little Trip]

I definitely think that Doug Funny was the winner over him and Maxo.

[fluffy]

HaHa!!! Maxo got caught cheating. What kind of jerkoff wants to win so bad he friend floods? :lol:

I already apologized for it. It was in bad taste. I still got nothing but good reviews, maybe I would have won anyway.

You realize mine was excruciatingly sarcastic, right?

[DougFunnie93]

Doug Funnie: I am glad you have decided to grace us with your presence, as this is simply the most phenomenal rap track I have ever heard. The stylistic decision to have overpowering kick drums and clipped vocals does nothing but bring the listener in, and the double-tracked (or is that double-taked?) vocals are as tight as something that is extremely closely or densely packed together, with perfect rhythm and pitch. And, of course, rap is a severely underrepresented genre, so I am glad to hear more explorations along these lines.

Maxo: This song is incredibly brilliant! I love how you have deconstructed the title into the premise that you are trying to play a song and, despite any indication of a mistake, use a swear word to indicate that you have, in fact, messed up, and need to do another take. The instrumentation is not jarring at all, and the joke only gets funnier every time it's repeated. You truly deserve every single vote that is coming your way.

not to be a dick or anything, but neither sounded like sarcasm if at all, but thanks if it wasn't.ill try to "grace you with my presence" once more.

[Caravan Ray]

Doug Funnie: I am glad you have decided to grace us with your presence, as this is simply the most phenomenal rap track I have ever heard. The stylistic decision to have overpowering kick drums and clipped vocals does nothing but bring the listener in, and the double-tracked (or is that double-taked?) vocals are as tight as something that is extremely closely or densely packed together, with perfect rhythm and pitch. And, of course, rap is a severely underrepresented genre, so I am glad to hear more explorations along these lines.

Maxo: This song is incredibly brilliant! I love how you have deconstructed the title into the premise that you are trying to play a song and, despite any indication of a mistake, use a swear word to indicate that you have, in fact, messed up, and need to do another take. The instrumentation is not jarring at all, and the joke only gets funnier every time it's repeated. You truly deserve every single vote that is coming your way.

not to be a dick or anything, but neither sounded like sarcasm if at all, but thanks if it wasn't.ill try to "grace you with my presence" once more.

No - of course they weren't sarcastic

[rone rivendale]

I know when I read my review from Fluffy I thought he meant EVERY word of it!

yay I can play this game too!

[Hoblit]

I'm a little taken by the fact that Dougie didn't catch Fluffy's obvious sarcasm.

I mean "clipped vocals does nothing but bring the listener in," line alone...

Meh, as Masta' said, carry on.

[Billy's Little Trip]

Shwew, so fluffy WAS being sarcastic. I generally trust fluffy's advice and the song I'm mixing now I have the vocals totally clipping to bring the listener in better. It didn't sound good to me, but if this is what fluffy says is a good thing, I just cringed and went with it. He is pretty much cutting edge with his information.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have some vocal tracks to remix.

[circuit8]

So despite blatantly sarcastic remarks geared in an insulting, and not constructive, manner... Doug whooped ass. People know a better song no matter how you want to break it down. Even bigger of a victory IMO is that it was his first entry. I'm struck with a line from High Fidelity: "You feel like the unappreciated scholars, so you shit on people who know less than you."

So is this THAT kind of community? The kind that is unwelcoming to newcomers and focuses energy on more politics than the perceived goal (A good track)? I'll take the TKO. It's a better song. Carry on, indeed.

[fluffy]

If you want to do a better job of reviewing, go right ahead. Don't confuse the first set of reviews (mine) with how this entire community feels. The great thing about communities is that they have more than one person.

[AJOwens]

So despite blatantly sarcastic remarks geared in an insulting, and not constructive, manner... Doug whooped ass. People know a better song no matter how you want to break it down. Even bigger of a victory IMO is that it was his first entry. I'm struck with a line from High Fidelity: "You feel like the unappreciated scholars, so you shit on people who know less than you."

So is this THAT kind of community? The kind that is unwelcoming to newcomers and focuses energy on more politics than the perceived goal (A good track)? I'll take the TKO. It's a better song. Carry on, indeed.

As a recent newcomer, I can say that this is a very welcoming community. You picked a bad place to start though -- I think Fluffy was having a flippant moment. Also, for some reason, this fight developed the lamest review thread I've seen. Have a look at some of the others before you get too worked up.

[Billy's Little Trip]

So is this THAT kind of community? The kind that is unwelcoming to newcomers

F**k you! We are VERY friendly and welcoming.

[jast]

If we were that mean, someone would already have denounced you as a troll.
Not that I'm doing that right now. Just saying.

[DougFunnie93]

yall are just justifing what circuit8 is saying. I would appreciate full on opinions than some sarcastic bs that niether helps me, or you, as a musician but only fullfills your want to walk away from your desktop, softly giggling to yourself. As a starving musician, and i dont mean that figuratively, i dont have good enough equipment for clear vocals, so how about a tip? no? sarcasm? hmmm? ok? well, i will still continue on making the music you 'oh so love' the way i do. 8)

[fluffy]

Well, see, the thing is this: I am not a fan of lo-fi rap. But I am also not a fan of negative reviews. But I also don't want to go out of my way to provide constructive criticism to something that I don't want to spend a lot of time trying to appreciate. If I were to, say, only review the songs that I really like, or which I had specific constructive feedback for, I would only end up reviewing a handful of them, and then people would feel left out, much as how I'm sure people felt left out when you only ended up reviewing the other rap tracks.

It's also not very useful to give reviews that are only the parts you like. Most people here actually want to improve (there are occasionally people who already think they're the best at their game and tend not to take any sort of criticism at all well). But of course, simply being negative tends to make you come across as an asshole. So this time I tried just posting reviews which were either positive (and sincere) or over-the-top positive (and intended as a gentle way of ribbing people about how things could be a bit better).

I'm surprised that I managed to review the songs before everyone else. I'm also surprised (and dismayed) at how few reviews ended up happening. And, reviews have basically no influence on the vote anyway - people will vote what they want to vote for.

So, sure, my bitter, over-the-top sarcasm of the few songs I didn't like at all may have seemed a bit mean-spirited, but that's just a reflection on me, not on the community. And I really did mean it in a constructive way - if I made fun of a track for having, say, horribly-clipped vocals (as an example), that just means that I think that your vocals could do with a bit better levels. Also, you don't need top-notch gear to avoid that issue. You just need to back off from the mic and turn your levels down a bit.

I did mean it all in good fun, and if someone was personally hurt by it, I simultaneously apologize and think they should get a thicker fucking skin, because this is the Internet and you're posting stuff for the world to hear, and not everyone's going to like it. But that's okay. If we all liked the same things the world would be boring.

[Lord of Oats]

dude like

specifically, get a more original name

generally, stop being a lame-ass

[jast]

No, "Doug". Nobody here is "justifying" what circuit8 is saying. That said, how about we all take a nice cup of calm the eff down? Also, here are some reviews that are completely free of sarcasm. In exchange, you are not allowed to complain about my opinion.

Banditt -- Doubled vocals are pretty out of rhythm. Uneven-sounding vocals; more compression? Clipping, too. Semi-interesting backing track. Your singing is really bad (and your speaking is not that much better...). Vocals slightly too loud in the mix.

Berkeley Social Scene -- I like me some interesting panning. As usual, pretty busy-sounding arrangement. Somewhat jerky-sounding vocals (first vocalist). Somewhat held back vocals (second vocalist), and it sounds especially bad by comparison in the duet part (not to mention that the two vocalists sound extremely uncoordinated). On the other hand, this is probably one of my favourite BSS songs... it has a lot more subjective songiness than most others. Almost would have been a vote candidate.

BLT and the Hoblit -- This is classic BLT rockiness. Vocals are surprising in that I've heard much better from you. Or I've been getting pickier. Or it's something in the mix. I dunno. Awesome instrumentation. Would have been a vote candidate.

Chopped Liver Meat God -- The reverb on the guitar is bordering on too much. Guitar and drums make for a cool combination. Slightly wacky timing. Pretty long intro. Slightly sharp vocals. A distinctive chorus would have been cool. The way it is, it sounds rather drawn out.

Dale Chase -- Okay, I get it, but the backing track is still annoying. Decent rapping (I'm not a fan of rap, so I suppose that might be construed as a compliment). Nothing happens in this... boring.

Doug Funnie -- Last time I checked, rap wasn't about sounding like you had a potato in your mouth. Neither was singing. Sounds stupid. Reminded me a lot of this. Even if I manage to ignore that (and I can, in some parts of this song), the vocals sound completely uninteresting. Get yourself some technique. Apart from that I guess it's sort of okay. I don't find any "sweet beets" in this, by the way. The beat is pretty standard. And some of your vocals are clipping.

Flvxxvm Florvm -- I'm tempted to stop listening just because of the effect on the vocals. And then it's also pretty generic. And the arrangement is boring. That's not exactly a good combination. The switch to double time saves it a little bit.

Jonathan Mann -- Nice. You're singing a bit below your range in the first verse, or whatever it is. Your falsetto needs work. There's a lot happening in this song, though, and that makes it interesting. Some might complain that it loses cohesion; I don't care. I think it's great, and I would have voted.

Maxo -- I would have voted for this no matter how bad it is, and no matter how good the others are. And this is, to quote you, "shit". I mean, I can't fault the composition itself, but the talking absolutely doesn't fit. I don't see any connection to the title either. The mix is way oversaturated in some places.

RE:FLEKT -- The singing is hard to make out, thanks to the weird ringy reverb. This is a good example for how, if you try to make your rapping sound "urgent" all throughout a song, it stops being interesting. This completely fails to engage me in any way.

Remus and Romulus -- Singing is not very good... frequently the notes are hard to make out. Composition doesn't appeal to me, especially how the synth in the coda works against the guitar. Interesting arrangement. Vocals slightly lost in the mix.

Rone Rivendale -- Vocal technique isn't good; speaking technique almost is. Singing is horrible. Backing track is extremely boring.

Ross Durand -- I can't think of anything I haven't said often enough before. You know your songwriting, of course. The vocals could be better.

Rycehat -- This pretty much only lacks polish, like more accurate vocals. Well, and I'm not quite in the mood for this kind of song.

Shawn Loveless -- Do I have to comment on the mix? Fairly generic blues stuff. Almost no melody. Yawn. Pretty good vocals at least.

Sockpuppet -- Held back vocals. Cool overall sound. Nice composition. I love the slightly distorted synth. A bit of structural change-up would have been cool.

State Shirt and Glenn Case -- This pulls me in almost against my will, but the chorus makes up for the lingering resentment. This is a pretty epic collab. Vocals get lost in the mix during the chorus (I'd love a new mix of this). Great development. Definitely would have voted.

Stucco Lobster Breadbox -- Cute. Seriously, not bad at all. Of course the vocals are not very good and the accompaniment-in-a-box is lame, but somehow the sum of it all is charming.

The Weakest Suit -- Held back vocals, and slightly lost in the mix, too. When the drums and bass set in it's almost instant bliss. With punchier vocals I probably would have voted.

WTFBBS -- Several of the synths might have benefitted from a bit of delay added. If this song actually went anywhere I might have liked it.

Hum. Pretty low turnout.

[Billy's Little Trip]

i dont have good enough equipment for clear vocals, so how about a tip?

Buy a condenser mic?

[Billy's Little Trip]

BLT and the Hoblit -- This is classic BLT rockiness. Vocals are surprising in that I've heard much better from you. Or I've been getting pickier. Or it's something in the mix. I dunno. Awesome instrumentation. Would have been a vote candidate.

I used my new condenser mic for this song. Could it be that it's picking up more room ambiance? It's very clear, but picks up so much and it's so sensitive that I can't break loose with my usual mojo, lol. I'm still getting used to the settings.
Oh, and I sang sitting down because my mic stand broke, lol. I'm usually standing when I sing with my hands around the mic with my eyes closed while I'm making love to my imaginary audience and the girls are throwing their panties on stage with tears streaming down their faces screaming that they wunna have my baby.

....could that have something to do with it?