The Song Fight Bulletin Board

Spud wrote:

fluffy wrote:Or there's doing technological fixes like not using email for submission, or at least scripting the ingestion of the emailed file attachments into reasonable filenames with format validation, or whatever.

The only technological upgrade that will work is an upload form that renames the files to the standard. Otherwise, people will always screw it up, no matter how clear you make it. And even then, .wma?

yes, some people will always screw it up. But you can reduce the proportion. It would never occur to some people that there is a standard for file naming. They write the song, they name it something likely, they send it in -- no reading or thinking involved. So you advertise the file name. That's one bunch of errors eliminated

Then they'll put caps or spaces in. So use regex on all the names in the folder, for gosh' sakes. Am I missing something here?

Or they'll write literally "mybandname," the stunned bunnies. But here, Windows is on your side. Microsoft has made "mywhatever" into an English word, practically. They've trained almost everybody to know what it means.

Then they'll record as .ogg or something and change the extension to .mp3. OK, there you need to test and convert.

And finally they won't get the body right. So, yes, a form where they just type their band name is what you want. But if you don't get around to that, the other steps are not taxing and will get rid of a lot of the problems that make you complain.

This whole conversation is taxing. The proper protocol is posted on the boards, in the pre-fight thread. At least you board regulars should get it right, right?

@fluffly sorry if my mislabeling caused you that much pain

If this helps

artist name : Darrick Lucas
song title - my lovely obsession


I was on borrowed time to get this recorded as I do not own the facilities and the engineer was doing me a favor and was literally striking down and heading out to a gig. I'll do better next time

Tbh it was a huge, yet gratifying, challenge to conceptualizer, write, score, find musicians and record it in one week. Frankly I don't know how you guys do it!

Spud wrote:This whole conversation is taxing. The proper protocol is posted on the boards, in the pre-fight thread. At least you board regulars should get it right, right?

Yeah, I shoulda got it right. I'm two weeks into a new job and kind of distracted, so I followed the rules as I remembered them. Which I didn't. I apologize for the nuisance.

First time here, apologies. And for crying out loud, wma? ....Cubase spit it out and I failed to notice. So sorry. Im the super dunce....

AJOwens wrote:

Spud wrote:This whole conversation is taxing. The proper protocol is posted on the boards, in the pre-fight thread. At least you board regulars should get it right, right?

Yeah, I shoulda got it right. I'm two weeks into a new job and kind of distracted, so I followed the rules as I remembered them. Which I didn't. I apologize for the nuisance.

Well, for what it's worth, I should know better yet every time I manage to submit it with sockpuppet-title.mp3 instead of sockpuppet_title.mp3.

darricklucas wrote:@fluffly sorry if my mislabeling caused you that much pain

It's Spud who handles the files, but...

artist name : Darrick Lucas
song title - my lovely obsession

That wasn't this week's title at all.

fluffy wrote:

darricklucas wrote:@fluffly sorry if my mislabeling caused you that much pain

It's Spud who handles the files, but...

artist name : Darrick Lucas
song title - my lovely obsession

That wasn't this week's title at all.

As far as I understand it, you are posting a prompt. The song I composed is obviously based on the prompt as it is the first line in every refrain. When the song was finished it wasn't the scale that was important, or the why of the song - it was the narrators love for this idea of a woman he had, his 'lovely obsession'.

darricklucas wrote:@fluffly sorry if my mislabeling caused you that much pain

If this helps

artist name : Darrick Lucas
song title - my lovely obsession


I was on borrowed time to get this recorded as I do not own the facilities and the engineer was doing me a favor and was literally striking down and heading out to a gig. I'll do better next time

Tbh it was a huge, yet gratifying, challenge to conceptualizer, write, score, find musicians and record it in one week. Frankly I don't know how you guys do it!

*edit* @spud sorry if my mislabeling caused you that much pain. Please refer above for rest of message.

darricklucas wrote: As far as I understand it, you are posting a prompt. The song I composed is obviously based on the prompt as it is the first line in every refrain. When the song was finished it wasn't the scale that was important, or the why of the song - it was the narrators love for this idea of a woman he had, his 'lovely obsession'.

Well, you understand wrong. We are posting a title. From the leftmost column on the front page:

subject:
This Week's Title
message:
Your Band Name
attachment:
yourbandname_twt.mp3

This is formed from your band name (not including "the"), all lower case, with no spaces, an underscore, and an acronym of the title, followed, of course, by a period and the file extension "mp3". More in the faq.

From the first paragraph of the FAQ:

Song Fight is a free Web site where Internet musicians enter their work into competition. Every ten days or so, one or more titles are posted, the competitors write a brand new song inspired by one of these titles, and the Internet at large is invited to vote for their favorite song for each title.

And so it goes. I do not see the word "prompt" anywhere on the site, and yet this crops up from time to time. Spin and his buddy the negative reinforcement reviewer, Sammy Kablam, prefer to use that term as well. Not sure why, but it's wrong, and they both turned out to be jerks. Not assuming a correlation in your case, but just sayin'... SongFight posts TITLES.

Hope this clears that up.

Although the song you wrote definitely fits the title, so it's okay. But you'd be surprised at what people submit.

Yes, fluffy is right on. You would. I am not criticizing your song at all, Darrick. Just trying to bring clarity to the situation.

People wonder why it takes so long to post the songs. Sometimes I have to listen to them to find out if they are actually entries are not (a lot more songs get submitted than get posted). Sometimes I have to go out and find a converter that will do justice to their .wma, .ogg, or whatever. Sometimes I have to do some personal emailing back and forth to get a band name out of them.

Whatever. The reason I post the suggested filename in the thread is to cut down on this sort of thing. It's not like any of it takes a long time. Sometimes, however, I have ten minutes between things, and I think, OK, I'll go post the songs. When I see a bunch of problems, I say "fuck it" and wait until I have more time, maybe tomorrow. Maybe the next day.

It would be a lot faster if I just posted everything that came in, and posted them the way they were and let the chips fall where they may. If you would all prefer that, I'm cool. Just trying to help YOU guys out here. OK?

Hey Spud,
Thanks for doing all of the wrangling!

Cool guys - I get how giving all the songs the same title makes it easier to post and I have no problem naming the file as such but going into a songwriting process with a title already set in stone is similar to climbing a rope with handcuffs on or trying to shove a square peg in a round hole.

Spud wrote:Yes, fluffy is right on. You would. I am not criticizing your song at all, Darrick. Just trying to bring clarity to the situation.

People wonder why it takes so long to post the songs. Sometimes I have to listen to them to find out if they are actually entries are not (a lot more songs get submitted than get posted). Sometimes I have to go out and find a converter that will do justice to their .wma, .ogg, or whatever. Sometimes I have to do some personal emailing back and forth to get a band name out of them.

Whatever. The reason I post the suggested filename in the thread is to cut down on this sort of thing. It's not like any of it takes a long time. Sometimes, however, I have ten minutes between things, and I think, OK, I'll go post the songs. When I see a bunch of problems, I say "fuck it" and wait until I have more time, maybe tomorrow. Maybe the next day.

It would be a lot faster if I just posted everything that came in, and posted them the way they were and let the chips fall where they may. If you would all prefer that, I'm cool. Just trying to help YOU guys out here. OK?

If the email containing the songfile has the subject of the current fight would your email browser organize them nicely if you searched the just the subject?

Again, here to play ball - I just don't agree with naming a song until after it is completed. For a few reasons.

mico saudad wrote:Hey Spud,
Thanks for doing all of the wrangling!

*thumb*

darricklucas wrote: If the email containing the songfile has the subject of the current fight would your email browser organize them nicely if you searched the just the subject?

Well, here are the subjects of the emails for this week's entries, in the order that they arrived:

On a scale from 1 to 10
On a Scale of 1 to 10
on a scale of one to ren (sic)
On A Scale Of 1 To 10
On A Scale of 1 to 10
Tobyroktot_fr.mp3
On a Scale of 1 to 10
Grill Shotz - On a Scale of 1 to 10
1 to 10
on a scale of 1 to 10

So, yeah, it would, but since they don't, even though it is requested on the boards, the reality is that I have to look through the emails randomly. Your next suggestion will be that I could at least filter for files with attachments, but some people forget to attach their file, so I have to recognize those as entries and email them asking for a file. I am sure I have missed a few where they forgot to include the song title, their band name and the attachment

I do not dispute the argument that it would help if it was on the front page since not everyone is on the boards. Will look into that.

darricklucas wrote:Again, here to play ball - I just don't agree with naming a song until after it is completed. For a few reasons.

Every ballgame has rules. That just happens to be one of ours. You can call it whatever you want on your own website or album.

Tunes sound good this week. I'll review later.

Spud wrote:

darricklucas wrote: If the email containing the songfile has the subject of the current fight would your email browser organize them nicely if you searched the just the subject?

Well, here are the subjects of the emails for this week's entries, in the order that they arrived:

On a scale from 1 to 10
On a Scale of 1 to 10
on a scale of one to ren (sic)
On A Scale Of 1 To 10
On A Scale of 1 to 10
Tobyroktot_fr.mp3
On a Scale of 1 to 10
Grill Shotz - On a Scale of 1 to 10
1 to 10
on a scale of 1 to 10

So, yeah, it would, but since they don't, even though it is requested on the boards. So the reality is that I have to look through the emails randomly. Your next suggestion will be that I could at least filter for files with attachments, but some people forget to attach their file, so I have to recognize those as entries and email them asking for a file. I am sure I have missed a few where they forgot to include the song title, their band name and the attachment

I do not dispute the argument that it would help if it was on the front page since not everyone is on the boards. Will look into that.

darricklucas wrote:Again, here to play ball - I just don't agree with naming a song until after it is completed. For a few reasons.

Every ballgame has rules. That just happens to be one of ours. You can call it whatever you want on your own website or album.

For what it's worth, I just gave the songs a listen. Votes to Paul Hubert, Grill Shotz, Darrick Lucas, and Lightning Shark. Some good stuff, way too much 'going to eleven'. Not gonna be too critical since I couldn't even get my shit together and submit.

jimtyrrell wrote:For what it's worth, I just gave the songs a listen. Votes to Paul Hubert, Grill Shotz, Darrick Lucas, and Lightning Shark. Some good stuff, way too much 'going to eleven'. Not gonna be too critical since I couldn't even get my shit together and submit.

Yeah I agree - this title can get one dimensional.

Thanks for the vote!

1) Paul Hubert--- Kind of a troubadour-esque song. I liked it. Probably wouldn't buy the album but it might get a vote.

2) Berkley social scene--- Almost a really good song. Its a producer away from being really good. Its like a not so great wilco song----still a good song---but not good enough for the album. That being said, Ive been trying to write a not so good wilco style song for ages, so congrats. Maybe a vote also.

3) Toby Roktot----- Needs a tuning badly. Ive really learned to check tuning on every take----the hard way. Not that Im this amazing ear for music guy but an out of tune guitar is equal to a punch in the face. I cant even give it a fair review, it could be the best song ever but I cant get past the out of tuneness, sorry.

4) Lightning Shark--- Wrote and recorded this in 25 minutes. Not my preferred style to write in but it was fun. Lyrics are silly, I like the scream, I think the bridge/inst part sounds pretty pixie-ish, and I think the mix could have been tons better, but for a quasi-punk quickie Im happy with it.

5) James Owens---- This was my favorite on my first pass through. I could picture this on an opening of a movie----- credits rolling---cityscape---guy walking down the street-ish scene. That being said I do think the "go to eleven" thing is low hanging fruit and anyone that used it---shame on you. Vote

6) Paco del Stinko---My initial thought is it sounds incredibly dorky.....still thinking that....wait ....is that a Theremin? A ripping guitar solo? Vocals sound like a clown, music is performed very well though.

7) Ledford-----Started ok. Vocals in key but uninspired. I sort of like how the guitar follows the vocals. Mentioning Aquaman got points with me

8) Grill Shotz--- Sounds really well done, vocals are pretty good---I think it could benefit being a little grittier, and louder. Sounds very clean, too clean. However, I do think it is well done. Vote contender .Ugh, I cant vote for all of these----any personal voting numbers anyone sticks to?

9) For Rachael--- Sounds ok. Vocals really restrained----cut loose man----sounds like you are doing this in a house full of sleeping people that you dont want to wake but still trying to be intense.

10) Darrick Lucas---Obviously well played but a bit on the snoozy side---and not because I don't like the genre. I spent most of my 20s studying/playing jazz, love Harry Connick Jr, Rufus Wainwright, Joe Pass, Monk etc. Vocals have good moments, some quite good--- and the arrangement is very nice, but as a whole pretty so so. And again, lyrical low hanging fruit. That being said, I bet you've got some better stuff and Id like to hear it.