Remixing Contest....Thoughts, input?

[Lunesse]

Thomas is planning a remix contest using one of the songs from "A Map of the Floating City." Some of you may remember he entered one on his own, once, when Radiohead had a contest.

We want ours to be as fun and fair as possible.

Has anyone had experience with these? What works/doesn't work? Thomas enjoyed it immensely (the Radiohead one) but suspected there was a lot of 'spoofing' of the votes. Instead of user voting, would it work for you if he just picked my own favourites?

Help us make this great! =)

[Micistm]

I have no experience at such things, but there's some very clever TMDR fans here I'm sure could do some belters.
I'd like to see fans pick their own choice of floating city song, Thomas pick the winners...and then maybe have a floating city remix album available on the site here for download (I always want a CD rather than download but that may be a tad unrealistic).

...But death to the one that screws up 17 Hills!!!!!

[Lunesse]

Hm, that would mean creating stems for all the songs, and that might be too much to hope for. Most of the time I have seen just one song available, has anyone experienced anything else?

[BeechwoodAve]

Will there be a vote for the song people want to remix most? Or maybe we could mix multiple songs together, a la 'Get Out Of My Mix.'

I can see it now...

Mix of '17 Hills' and 'Toadlickers' = 17 Hillbillies (Jed Clampett Dub)

Mix of 'Road To Reno' and 'I'm not Your Dog' = That Dog Don't Hunt

[armydrummer]

I apologize in advance for the lengthy input, but I’m very excited with the idea of a TD remix contest! The following recommendations are made so that even those who have never entered such a contest has a better idea of what works when putting an entry together, as well as input on how to develop some fair rules.

Stems:
Would be nice if all vocal and instrumental stems would be available for use in a remix, but all vocals (to include harmonies, FX, etc.) at a minimum.

If stems are provided, would be great if they didn’t have any effects such as reverb on them: Dry vocals are much easier to work with. Providing effected vocal stems may result in many additional hours/days of editing if the person creating the remix has a different idea on how the vocals should sound in his/her entry.

At a minimum, vocal stems must be recognizable in the mix; use of instrumental stems is optional.

If making stems available from all album songs would be a challenge, I’d focus the contest on one song. There have only been a few remix contests I’ve entered where stems from more than one song were available.

Rules:
I’ve entered several remix contests on a couple of sites (Note to self: Insert shameless plug for http://www.acidplanet.com/artist.asp?AID=342290&T=473 here) and have found the rules to be very similar. In addition to Acid Planet, another site that may be of some use in developing remix contest rules is http://www.peaceloveproductions.com/remix.html. I’m sure there are many more out there, but I’m very familiar with only these two.

Entries can be any genre, any key and any tempo. However, would be helpful if BPM and original key of provided stem(s) were provided.

Entries can be no longer than (insert number here) minutes long.

Stems cannot be used for any other purpose other than the contest.

Entries may/may not be posted on other sites to share with the world. If posting is allowed, maybe consider that credit has to be given to (insert contest site here).

Entry selection:
I think the idea of you screening/selecting entries is good because it eliminates any possibility of voting irregularities (thoughts of Florida vote chads just popped into my mind). I’d then present the top 10 or 20 entries to Thomas and let him decide the winner, 2nd place, etc. However, I also think it would be a cool idea to allow the community to make comments on every entry.

Again, please forgive my ramblings: Let me know if I can clarify anything or provide even more input! - Shawn

[bduffy]

Please, I beg you, leave it up to Mr. Dobly to decide!

I just participated in the Dave Pensado remix competition at indabamusic.com, and if it had been decided by voting, it would have been a travesty. We entered on the last day, and my brother jumped from #500 to #39 instantly because he has lots of tweener studio cleintele linked up on Facebook. His mix was excellent, but that had nothing to do with it, so it's easy to spoof via popularity.

So perhaps voting on the site can for "fun", but I think the only fair way it to have a private judge (or judges) pick a winner.

[SomeYoungTopGun]

Would LOVE to remix TMDR . . . ANY TMDR, not just the latest stuff. And echoing armydrummer, would love to get stems (or even all tracks broken out, preferably) bone dry. Printed tracking EQ would be OK, and if there's some effect that's essential to the timbre, that too. A MIDI tempo map would be nice if there are any tempo changes.

I'm not fond of voting because it can be gamed pretty easily. Let the Master decide . . .

Wow - this is exciting!

[dnedwek]

+1 for dry stems and a limited judging panel.

The essence of a contest like this is getting past the dross and finding the cool ideas. I'd be more than happy to have Thomas or members of his team be the gate-keepers and judges. I am eager to hear what wonderful ideas are hiding inside the existing tunes.

With a thousand miles of real estate to choose from /
You begin to see the value of your freedom

[SkekTek]

I participated in a remix contest for Imogen Heap in 2009 she did for Twestival, and it was fun hearing everyone's take on the original. The resulting mixes were available free through SoundCloud, and are still up there. She provided only the vocal tracks (including backgrounds, chorus, and reverbs) in Garage Band, and we were asked to lay down beats, instruments, etc. We were relatively free to tweak/edit/add to our hearts content. But since it was an unreleased song, there were less legal issues.

But I agree with others- have Thomas decide winners, make the stems only available during the contest, and have people that download them click an agreement not to use/sell/publish/copyright any of the tracks (unless granted permission to do so).

Looking forward to the remixes!

[HeuristicsInc]

Yeah! I love the idea of remixing a song from the new album too. Interesting question of which track would be best fodder for remixing... I guess the obvious one is my favorite track Spice Train, but maybe the most obvious isn't always the best. And maybe not Oceanea since that already has a bunch of remixes!

Agree that the official winners should not be spoofable/game-voted as that is pretty annoying. The most fair in this case is probably to have Thomas decide, but who knows how many entries he'd have to listen to!

Some friends of mine who encourage remixes (Brad Sucks and State Shirt) do provide stems for all songs, but they're not as well known as Mr. Dolby.

I am always disappointed when instrumental tracks are not provided for remix, so I'd like to see everything available for the chosen song. It's like the artist doesn't think the music is worth keeping for that song, or something.
-bill (Heuristics Inc.)

[rich_h]

No particular input to make (other than dry vocals).

Just... Let me at it! Let me at It!

Can't wait!

[bduffy]

Agreed. Keep stems DRY unless it's printed/crucial to the source.

[HeavyPet]

I think the idea of you screening/selecting entries is good because it eliminates any possibility of voting irregularities (thoughts of Florida vote chads just popped into my mind). I’d then present the top 10 or 20 entries to Thomas and let him decide the winner, 2nd place, etc.

I think that it should either be a small panel of people as armydrummer suggests, maybe 3 people tops, who pare the entries down to 20. OR it should be Thomas reviewing it all. But I agree that having us all vote through all of the entries would be nothing but a mess.

I will warn Thomas and/or any who are chosen to pare the list down to a winner that by the end of it, you WILL be sick and tired of that song

-Crantzbea

[ravencraft]

Again, please forgive my ramblings: Let me know if I can clarify anything or provide even more input! - Shawn

All things posted by Shawn sound just right to me. This would be too much fun.

Dave

[shurikt]

This is the best news I've heard all year.

Back during the Floating City days, I remember TMDR mentioning that he wasn't interested in a remix contest simply because (my words) he didn't want to listen to thousands of crap mixes. Let's not begrudge him that.

On the other hand, having just participated in a Gary Numan Remix contest (and being selected as a finalist,) I think the best part is knowing that Mr. Numan actually listened to a piece of my work. That's just as cool as winning, for me.

Trent Reznor's team has also done a pretty good job with http://remix.nin.com/, which is less of a contest and more of a place to create and post NIN/HTDA remixes. Voting there simply does nothing except give you a rating, like this one (another shameless plug) rated at 86.

At the end of the day, as TMDR likely discovered during the Radiohead remix contest, the voting isn't the fun part -- the creation is. As long as the stems are mostly complete, we're good to go.

As a sidebar on dry/wet vocals. I prefer wet. I'm "re-mixing" the song, not mixing it. I'd be disappointed to get Oceanea as a track without that luscious vintage compression on the vocal.

At the end of the day though, I'm so excited that I don't care how any of the contest part works. I'm just happy to poke around at the arrangements for a few weeks.

-Andy
aka Shurikt
aka Adrian Pellew, of 17 Hills (Bench!)

[eeklair]

Only thing i ask is THOMAS, in watching your self-shot vids of you mixing stuff, there's tons of clips strategically placed inside the sessions... Um, could you mix "some" of these instruments down into single files so that we (okay, so that I..) can either choose to leave them as is or cut and paste phrases as needed...

OR

if you choose to make entire sessions available, I prefer to have the original session files along with all the wav files. I suppose I could deal with not having the session files, but as a time saver they'd come in handy - reverse engineering tracks would go a lot faster than sorting through them for a marathon of dragging and dropping...

Assuming Pro Tools?

AND

Are you taking requests? If so, please include:

"Spice Train"
"Nothing New"
and how about the potential 'b' side, "Your Karma Hit My Dogma."

[Mythosian]

while I love that TMDR offered to review and pick his favorite from the submissions, I think he underestimates how many he will receive. I agree that having a few trusted friends pare the remixes down for him to review is a good idea.

That said, I'm kind of a remix junkie and would love it if all remixes were available to the faithful - maybe have a 'fan favorite' that could be open only to registered Flat Earthers?

[postpunkmonk]

I have downloaded stems of my favorite artists [Foxx, Numan, Gabriel] for various mixing competitions but I'm a busy guy who doesn't have the young person's free time to learn the finer points of GarageBand to the extent that remixing a song would be anything but a whole weekend put aside to get into it. But I still have those stems for my retirement! So pick a good song, let Mr. Dolby pick the winner but have a team of judges to do the dirty work of winnowing it down to something reasonable. And by all means dry vocals! The mixer should have control over the level of effects the vocals have. I vote for "Evil Twin Brother" since I think it has the most potential for malleability.

[HeuristicsInc]

Yeah, Evil Twin Brother would be a good one.
-bill

[shurikt]

That said, I'm kind of a remix junkie and would love it if all remixes were available to the faithful - maybe have a 'fan favorite' that could be open only to registered Flat Earthers?

Seconded. One way is to require the submissions to be posted on Soundcloud. That makes all the remixes available for everyone to hear.

[GypsyFox]

Sorry I have so neglected my friends on here. As for remixes...hmm how about Toadlickers where he slows it down to a sexy sounding jazz version. I think that could be lots of fun!

[vacaboca]

My votes would be Spice Train and/or Oceanea, but like others I feel it would be a treat to play with any of the songs.

[Omega Man]

No particular input to make (other than dry vocals).

Just... Let me at it! Let me at It!

Can't wait!

I think it could easily go two ways. Thomas provides all the info we need to remix based only on his original sources or he provides some keys parts of it and let's us create.

Ditto!! I am ready!!

-Omega Man

[doctor_green]

I totally agree ARMYDRUMMERs proposal to use the original stems. To keep it simple: Only use the Stems as they are, premixed and in full length of the track. There is no need to create stems of EFX Busses, Aux Busses or Returns of Outboard Equipment from the postproduction material. Except: There is an amazing sound, that is important for the track... but usually it is not for any remixer.
It´s a bit of work, but I prefer to take ALL Tracks of the recent works; each track compressed in a zip file, containing the stems of that single track.
The Size and Format is a topic too, if the results are planned to press in vinyl or CD, we surely are in need of at least 24Bit 44.1kHz files.
If the results will be used for online features, maybe we also can use 320kb MP3´s.... then you are also sure, that no one can sell any original Dolbytracks, but the result will sound good enough (except of some hihat tracks and similar)
I prefer doing a remix of
Road to Reno
Jealous Thing Called Love
17 Hills

and sure the whole ballads too, but they are so good, why do a remix ??

[Arcticboy]

I would really enjoy mixing/remixing a track! Keep the full sound including reverbs and dynamics on some stems, but make sure to leave enough dry tracks to be thoroughly creative! Add some bits and pieces of those great effects, like a foreign woman talking and other sound effects to fit the song...
And Thomas, when is your next visit to Norway? June's good for Norway!

Oh, and Thomas should decide whatever he wants to use. He could remix our remixes if he wanted...

[Mike Quinn]

Yes-yes-yes!!!
Definitely a great idea and something I've been waiting for, for a few years now. I'm all over this one - the more stems provided the better of course.

I've remixed three other tracks from online stems before and learned so much about construction and production whilst having immense fun! So far I've mostly just used an old version of Garageband but it's amazing what you can actually do even just with that.

It might be nice to have some runners up of honorable mentions, besides the winner to give a few more people some kudos and joy

So bring it on and let's have some fun!

Mike

[showpony]

Very excited to participate in this.

My 2pence worth:

~Definitley Thomas should choose the winner, not a popular vote. Its his music!

~there may only be one prize but honourable mentions would be worth while...and minor prizes even better!

~Rules should allow for the addition of original material or other other Thomas Dolby material in the remix, but not anything owned by another copyright holder

~Ideally there would be complete stems for one song - (I prefer to work with existing effects included)and it would be brilliant if there were a handful of interesting items from other tracks that you could include if so inclined

~although I love 'Oceanea' the most from this album its already had a load of remixes done, so I'd vote for 'Evil Twin Brother' or 'Spice Train' - although given how much of Spice Train is samples already, 'Evil Twin' gives us more room to move.

[zoonotic]

Shurikt has mentioned the remix.nin.com site and I would like to add that they did have a remix contest in 2010 in support of the release of 'The Social Network' soundtrack. The contest was announced on the Facebook page for the soundtrack and they released stems for two of the songs at nin.com. It was a short contest and it had some nice prizes (provided most likely by the film company). Here is a link to a forum thread which has a copy of the description of the contest (it's easier to link to than the original Facebook posts). http://forum.nin.com/bb/read.php?40,622 ... sg-1151449

Originally, they asked everyone to participate by rating the mixes in order to help find the best, but soon found that people were playing games with the ratings (downrating maliciously and creating multiple accounts to up-rate their own), so they abandoned this, and Trent and Atticus listened to them all and picked the winners themselves.

[LenaBeamish]

I LOVE this idea...I personally think I'd like remixing Evil Twin Brother or Nothing New Under the Sun the best, but any of the songs would be amazing.

I also REALLY like the idea of having Thomas judge the contest. Voting is great, but when it's online, it's difficult to make sure it's fair...besides which, they are his songs! Who better to judge this than him? Or you could even have a panel of judges (Thomas, Lunesse, etc.) to vote on it.

[Dlkrichardson]

Typical, you wait 30 years for a remix opportunity to come along, and when one does its the first time in ages I havent a studio to work in. Its all plasterboard and wood at the moment.

I will definately have a crack if made available, although I may stuggle stopping my daughters getting involved as well, and if thats the case it could go anywhere !!!!