The Make A Demo game

[Billy's Little Trip]

I was trying to come up with a new contest idea.
#1. How can the contest involve all members here, including the people that post regularly, but don't record much anymore.

#2. A contest that has a scoring system similar to that of a record label for recruiting new bands.

#3. Something fun, like cover fights, yet less stressful than Nur Ein so that we don't have to put our lives on hold for two months. Basically a different kind of contest than we currently do around here.

So I started looking at the competitions that we have around here now. Reist's 55 minute frenzies where you make art to go with it, Niveous' annual Nur Ein that uses the America Idle style eliminations, the cover fights and of course Spud and JB's weekly title fights. All of these give you a title to compete with, which is fine, but what else can we do?

The contest I came up with:
#1. Put together a 3 song demo promotion package for you/your band. Use any three songs you've recorded here for any fight or contest that represents your style. What 3 songs do you think will get the record companies interest?

#2. Design an album cover. Front, inside and back. Add any info that will describe the band, pics, lyrics for your 3 songs, etc etc.

#3. The info can be real or fake. The idea here is creativity and what will make you stand out to the A&R guys.


This thread is a think tank. Let's compile ideas.

#1. Either a panel of A&R guys or just an open voting.

#2. Computer smart guys. Ideas to have a pic of the album cover, then when clicked, it opens to the inside with info and the 3 songs that can be clicked, and another clickable link to the back cover. The more I think about it, the more I think that a back cover is not needed. Can this just be done with photo bucket and use Img and URL codes?

#3. Make the final submissions stream so it shows up the song, info and art work?

#4. Should someone host it and the songs?

#5. ?

I figure this contest can involve all, plus, in the end everyone has a demo with art. This contest involves all of your creative talents and will be scored on more than just the songs.

#1. Does this sound fun and worth doing?

#2. Is it a lame idea?

#3. Do you like tacos?

[pegor]

What about make it an A&R contest?

have 3 or so teams of A&R people. Bands submit songs to them. they pick two bands and develop them.

First round: the A&R team grooms the bands songs/production and everyone votes on who did the best compared to the raw demos. A&R teams have to pick one of thier bands for the next round.

Second round: A&R team picks a single and makes a media package - fake web site/ album art / video. that media gets voted on.

Third stage: manufacture a fake scandle with a story and fake news... I dunno ... paparazzi/panties/backup singers/rehab/whatever.... I dunno... vote on the funniest...

or just what BLT said.....

[Billy's Little Trip]

HaHa! A scandal and everything. FUN!
But yeah, I like the idea of running it just like a record company.

[erik]

#1. Does this sound fun and worth doing?

#2. Is it a lame idea?

#3. Do you like tacos?

Respectfully, I think that for me what makes any creative contest fun is knowing that I'm creating something new, and then at the end, getting to compare my interpretation against the interpretations of others. If you're using old songs, then the only thing that's being created that's new is the accompanying art, and in this increasingly digital age, I think that "album art" is becoming less and less important to album success. When you throw in the fact that I'm no artist, this contest ends up not being very interesting to me.

Other people tend to think about things differently than I do, so it's likely that many people will be interested in your contest.

I like tacos al pastor.

[Billy's Little Trip]

Erik, this is the other side was wondering about. Maybe new songs should be made for this contest. I was just trying to make an easy contest to involve members that haven't recorded in a while. I hate seeing great music gone by the way side.

Also, you are right. This contest is as much a game about creating an image for yourself and creative art skills as it is about the music. In the real world, great music alone doesn't seem to get a band signed.

This could make things complicated, but maybe everyone starts out with points. Points equal theoretical interwebz money. One band can give up points to other bands that do things for them, like art, play an instrument, sing, etc. Earned points can only go to one part of the final score so that a person can't win this contest because he did everyones art work, IE.
Earned money = 5 points max
Song #1 = 1 through 10
Song #2 = 1 through 10
Song #3 = 1 through 10
Art work = 1 through 10
Creativity = 1 through 10
Etc etc.

[Reist]

When I saw the title of the thread, I assumed we'd be recording lo-fi demos and making fake albums like you said. I think if you added a musically creative element to the contest, it could muster some serious interest here.

[Billy's Little Trip]

Hey Andrew Dice Reist, I used the word muster today, too. Jinx, you owe me a coke.

Yeah, I'm starting to see that the interest may be in creating new music for this game. I was trying to come up with something different. More along the line of "easy" for all.

[pegor]

maybe have the voting be like the grammys. each team could win but in diff catagories. best vid, best website, best production, etc....

[Spud]

Hey Andrew Dice Reist, I used the word muster today, too. Jinx, you owe me a coke.

Yeah, I'm starting to see that the interest may be in creating new music for this game. I was trying to come up with something different. More along the line of "easy" for all.

It doesn't surprise me much that the people at a competitive songwriting website want to write songs.

SPUD

[ujnhunter]

sweet... i like tacos is in the lead...

[king_arthur]

I would be interested in something that focused on music promotion, packaging and selling our stuff, but the idea of making a contest out of it doesn't appeal much to me, especially if we're talking stuff that doesn't have to be real (fake bands, bios, etc.)

Something I've been thinking about starting here would be a thread in the "HowTo" section about internet music sites that songfighters could potentially use to distribute / sell their songs. For each site, post information like:

-site URL
-what styles does the site focus on?
-do they HOST your songs for you?
-what COSTS are involved in putting music online? registration fees, per-song hosting fees, etc.
-what RULES affect songs (for example, at songfight, songs have to be written to specific titles during a specific time period)
-what do you have to provide (song formats, artwork, artist info, photos, link to artist website, etc.)
-does the site seem to provide useful song REVIEWS?
-are there discussion forums?
-how are songs made available? free downloads, free previews and then available for purchase? sold as albums?
-general idea of what the average writing / performing / recording quality of songs on the site is
-is there a possibility of the artist actually earning money from the site?
-what sort of site promotion does the site do, and what has to happen for your song(s) to be part of that promotion (songs in top 20 playlist are on front page, etc.)
-are there any (current) songfighters active on the site who would be willing to answer questions or provide general impressions of how well the site works?

And then, instead of making another sidefight out of it, if any songfighters decide to post music on the site, we critique each others' presentations, help out where we can (help with photo editing, graphics, maybe even song mixes and such), etc.

So, umm... I guess for me, I'd be more interested in something that looked at the actual promotion we're currently doing and tossed ideas back and forth for improving that... rather than putting together pretend promo packages for pretend A&R people and voting on that...

Charles (KA)

[Billy's Little Trip]

Hey Andrew Dice Reist

In hindsight, I should have called him Andrew Reist Clay. Must have been off my game.

OK, so here are the possible updates:
#1. From Erik and Andrew: 3 new song should be made for this game. Maybe can make where you can use 3 old songs if you like, but each new song is worth extra bonus points. IE: 2 new songs and 1 old song. Bonus points on the 2 new songs.

#2. From Pregerz: Maybe have the voting be like the grammys. each team could win but in diff catagories. best vid, best website, best production, etc....

#3. From Pregerz: What about make it an A&R contest? Have 3 or so teams of A&R people. Bands submit songs to them. they pick two bands and develop them.

[Billy's Little Trip]

KA, we could get rid of the idea of fake bios so that the package for this game can really be used. I just tossed that idea out there to make it more fun and entertaining.

But it would be cool to make this game end with everyone having a real promo package. I personally don't care for games that aren't productive in some way and this could kill two birds with one stone.

[Rabid Garfunkel]

I'm not sure I get this.

Are you trying to do a DemoFight! sidefight (3 songs + packaging) or are you proposing a Guitar Hero expansion pack for a LARP* Sims game?

*LARP = Live Action Role Play

[roymond]

I would be interested in something that focused on music promotion, packaging and selling our stuff, but the idea of making a contest out of it doesn't appeal much to me, especially if we're talking stuff that doesn't have to be real (fake bands, bios, etc.)

I think there are others like myself who have been making music (ok, not lately) but haven't focused on promotion activities. As SF got me off my ass to produce music, a sidefight type thing around promotion may get me off my ass to get that done. Seems like they're complimentary. Then, folks have the package concept better in hand to do what you have suggested, which is create a forum for promoting and supporting each other.

I've gotten so far as to create "album" web collections for my music (link to come) but not the whole package. I like it.

In fact, I'm inspired to produce new music for this which would be geared towards promotion (not that weird crap I sometimes output) just for fun.

[Billy's Little Trip]

I'd be willing to douche my ClusterFudge.com website for this project if someone wants to help run it. I originally started it to help promote music, in the first place, so I guess I can give it a fancy face lift, knock down a few walls and make it strickly a band promo site. Right now the site isn't really doing anything but taking up cyber space. Ha, see that....there? See what I did there?

I don't know how to set it up as an MP3 host, though. I'd need some help from the Fluffy types here.

Hey, we could call it Cluster Fudge Records.
Our slogan:
"At Cluster Fudge, we'll sign anyone, no matter how crappy you are"

[Niveous]

Maybe some kind of Songfight Record Label challenge?

Get the Spewgrass crew going. Contact the Jeshimoths. Sign on some people to Clusterfudge. Maybe see if Soul Tree wants to play. Maybe even I could get New Zero into the mix.

Some sort of challenge to release albums and garner new fans. I can see all sorts of crazy categories like most successful myspace page, best band photo, most downloaded album, etc.

Just a crazy thought, don't hold me accountable.

[Billy's Little Trip]

Damn, more good ideas to get the brain spaghetti zappin'.

[Niveous]

So c'mon BLT. Where's this going? Brainstorm. Let's see if this idea can become something...

I would also like to state that I'm very proud of the songfight boards today. This thread has been up for a day and no one has made a pink tacos joke. Bravo.

[ujnhunter]

hey, i like all kinds of tacos... i don't discriminate...

[Billy's Little Trip]

This thread has been up for a day and no one has made a pink tacos joke. Bravo.

Bravo indeed.

Now I'm trying to get some bids finished. My brain can only do one thing at a time.

I'm hoping one of the braniac mathletes will itemize a 1,2,3 list and the perfect scoring system, lol.

[Caravan Ray]

I think there are others like myself who have been making music (ok, not lately) but haven't focused on promotion activities. As SF got me off my ass to produce music, a sidefight type thing around promotion may get me off my ass to get that done. Seems like they're complimentary. Then, folks have the package concept better in hand to do what you have suggested, which is create a forum for promoting and supporting each other.

I've gotten so far as to create "album" web collections for my music (link to come) but not the whole package. I like it.

In fact, I'm inspired to produce new music for this which would be geared towards promotion (not that weird crap I sometimes output) just for fun.

I'm not entirely sure what is happening here, but yeah - I think I agree with Roymond