Feedback on 2008 Christmas Song Contest

[brandondrury]

As always, I'd like to hear feedback on the latest contest in an effort to improve it.

1) The quality of submissions improved dramatically this go around. I didn't encounter one song that wasn't Christmasy. This is a big step up from our 2008 Halloween Song Contest.

2) The number of spammers was down tremendously. After I implemented my spam reducing measures, the results didn't change too much. There were still many songs that had a rating of over 4.00. This is great!

Improvements

1) There were too many good entries. I should have definitely pushed to get somebody to give away some plugins or whatever for the top 5 runners up.

2) In an effort to equally disperse the attention to all songs, I sorted the contest so that threads with the least amount of attention would be on top. This helped to ensure that the highest rated songs wouldn't get all the attention, but it wasn't perfect.

On noon on Christmas eve, with 36 hours to go I changed the sorting so that the highest rated songs were at the top. This was good because when the bulk of the people came to rate the songs, the best songs were highlighted. However, it was clear that whoever had the higher ratings early on had the advantage.

I'm still not exactly sure what to do about this one other than picking the Top 10 myself (or with the help of the God Jrs.) and then let everyone vote on those.

3) The Bullpen didn't work the way I had hoped. I made the mistake of assuming that everyone received an email when a thread was moved. That proved to be wrong. Since the Bullpened songs weren't getting any attention, the users that posted those songs never bothered to check on them.

I apologize for this oversight.

4) I'm toying with the idea of not allowing cover songs. We are all creative people here and we should be making new stuff. When a cover song was done exceptionally well, I tended to like it. However, if a cover song was just recorded well, I was bored out of my mind.

Clear Channel played the same 6 songs for Christmas this year. Last year, it was the same 8 songs. The last thing I want to hear is those same songs especially when most of us are not capable of doing as well as the robo big boys, YET!!!

Any other suggestions?

Brandon

[broddie]

First of all, the whole thing was a blast. I've had Xmas songs in my head for years, but never had the motivation to finish, let alone record them. Thanks for all your hard work hosting the contest...

Now for the questiona and suggestiona:

I suppose it's a trade secret, but how did you decide which votes to discard?
It's obvious that people were deliberately low-rating songs regardless of the quality, but how could you distinguish between a strategic low rating and an honest one?

Also, were people allowed to vote for their own song? I didn't attempt this, because I was sure it wasn't allowed, but I did notice a lot of 5-star ratings with only one vote.

Suggestion: maybe break up the contest into two or three categories. For example, Best Vocal performance of a Xmas Standard, Best Instrumental performance of an Xmas Standard, Best orignal vocal Xmas song, Best original instrumental Xmas song, etc...

one more suggestion: Have a panel of established songwriters, producers/engineers, and/or A&R people do the judging rather than letting the people in the contest vote.

[radkins91]

im new, but i signed up just in time to see the contest and i had a lot of fun doing it. first contest ive ever done haha. it definately seemed like those who submitted early had an advantage but i think everything went well and it was fun

Yea , cover tunes are cover tunes, it would be nice to hear the talent of the members ,in writing an original and singing it them selves without a choir. as most would not have that availability to get which may only tend to sound better , or not, ?
An original song by a member done on the members own recording gear as well. and to judge the quality of the song in a couple different levels , maybe some members don't have outboard gear to give that ****er fuller sound but have the song sounding nice while others may be more pro advanced. maybe a choice of 2 entries( levels ) with 2 different prizes totally different price ranges. well maybe that would be too much time but maybe not. an original song writing, sound quality, mixing, but whos to say? some may send their song out to get it pro mastered . how will anybody know?

[brandondrury]

i signed up just in time to see the contest and i had a lot of fun doing it.

Great!

it would be nice to hear the talent of the members

What kind of talent? Songwriting? Singing? Arranging? Producing? Mixing? I gets a bit tricky. I think as long as a person participates in some part of the recording, they should be able to enter with it. So far, we've not had any major label guys with $30,000 budgets for a single song enter and simply dominate. With that said, I don't want to get into qualifications based on the amount of money you have, the gear you have, the skill you have, bla bla bla.

I think that if you are willing to put the effort into recording a local choir, by all means. I want to hear that. I think it adds excitement.

It's about all of us coming together and showing our work and listening to what our peers are doing. Some of us are fairly skilled at several areas, but may be not all of them. I do okay mixing these days, but I have ZERO singing ability. So for me I have to bring in a singer. That's just what I have to do to make anything worth listening to.

That may not be so fair to the guy that is a great singer but has practically zero mixing experience, but in the end this could be a gigantic mess if we try to split it up. It gets crazier when you factor in bands who have skilled musicians across the board.

In the end, we all have different skills and gear and that is what makes the contest so diverse and fun.

I like the idea of keeping it simple.

Brandon

Yes Brandon ,you said it right. its the fun of it and most of all you took the time to make it happen as all of that takes time. Next year i also will enter for the fun of it as well as the art of it But , i too can only try to do my best,and in most cases i will not win but, to try with other fellow musicians and to compare sounds all help each. And for myself . I am not a lead singer ,more of a musician than a singer to "really" cut it as a singer but "i still try and try. Good luck to the winner,I guess it really took a lot of time to get all the people together to make it happen etc the effort was maxed out .

[scooterlow]

Well its nice to see everyone's opinion on these kind of contests. If the rules were different and more specific I would be kinda pissed that it ended up this way. But since the criteria was just that you had to have some involvement in the song , I can't say much. I did notice that Metaltyme never said anything about actually sequencing the midi parts in his song. Guess he just left that up to our imagination. So as far as ease of doing the song made it simple for him to throw a guitar part and some drums on to an predone midi track and take all the credit as if he spent weeks on the song and Blaa Blaa... Oh and if you want proof , I have that too. I have been collecting midi files since they come out on the net years and years ago and have quite a few gig of them. So I thought I had heard his version of Oh holy night before. So I did some searching and Woow I have the same track too!!! Imagine that.! I still give him credit for playing the guitar though. But really come on... It was just a popularity contest, not who's song is really the best.

[cliff keller]

Good job Brandon, lots of great entries. Obviously, i think i should have won because my hot girlfriend was singing!

Contests like this always get people riled up to win and then a bit hurt to lose. But what the heck. Next year i would like to see a couple categories if you are able to get more sponsors. For instance, best production value, best original composition (my biased view is that only originals should win, but i am a budding songwriter), best musicianship, etc...

I also would set up a jury of judges who are impartial just to avoid any suspicions.

once again, thanks for setting this up. It was fun!

And congrats to the winner, if you don't use the drum software please donate it in the Christmas spirit.

Regards
Cliff

[cliff keller]

Thanks again for putting this together Brandon. Contests can be tricky, I thought this one was well done. I like the idea of having a winner in different categories, such as: best original composition, most original version of a cover, best performance (musicianship), best recording by a member (not a pro studio), best vocal performance, etc...

I agree with some of the sentiments about covers, frankly, by late November i am going crazy listening to the same songs over and over and over, year after year after year. but that's just my opinion, and as you may have surmised from my entry, i am a bit cynical about the whole Christmas thing.

Anyway, once again, it was fun and it got me off my ass to write and record a Christmas song which made my friends and family smile so it was all worth while.

Adios
Cliff

[brandondrury]

So as far as ease of doing the song made it simple for him to throw a guitar part and some drums on to an predone midi track and take all the credit as if he spent weeks on the song and Blaa Blaa...

Let's assume you are right and all he did was add a guitar track (or 10) on top of a MIDI orchestration, how do we handle it? EZ Player (MIDI loops that come with Superior Drummer) and Kitcore (among others) come with all sorts of MIDI drum loops. Do we allow these? Loops are what make up ACID. Do we allow those? If so, how do we distinguish? I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you, I'm just not sure how to come up with objective criteria that I can place in the rules (for even further scrutiny).

If you are right, I have to admit that it does seem a bit "weird" playing guitar on top of a MIDI file you downloaded, but if people democratically rated that song the highest, is this a bad thing? This may simply reflect that your peers have different taste than you do.

With that said, ANYONE who has ever done a serious recording production knows how damn long it takes. I spent 40+ hours on my Halloween song. I've learned that my reputation is on the line and I have to put up good stuff. There is no tolerance for me putting up half-assed work (it'll cost me book sales for sure!). I couldn't swing doing a Christmas song simply because the amount of time it would take.

I bet it would take me a good 20 hours (maybe longer) to take a MIDI file and make it sound great. So I don't think lack of effort was an issue.

It was just a popularity contest, not who's song is really the best.

Actually, it was both. The members of this site logged in and gave the highest rating to the songs they liked the best.

I personally really wanted an original song to win, but that's not how the cards fell, unfortunately. That's okay. I thought Metaltyme did a fanastic job. He's a hell of a guitar player. (I would have loved to mix it, though!).

Obviously, i think i should have won because my hot girlfriend was singing!

Maybe some pics would have sparked a higher rating! ha ha

I also would set up a jury of judges who are impartial just to avoid any suspicions.

Do you really think a panel of judges is going to avoid suspicions more so than a democracy? I have my doubts.

once again, thanks for setting this up. It was fun!

You are very welcome!! It's nice to actually hear some positive feedback. It appears that the better the contests get, the more person ridicule I receive. Hell, one guy even intentionally insulted me because of the contest. Wow! I'm seldom attacked personally here at RecordingReview.

Next year i would like to see a couple categories if you are able to get more sponsors. For instance, best production value, best original composition (my biased view is that only originals should win, but i am a budding songwriter), best musicianship, etc...

If we continue to grow like we did this year, this may be a possibility.

Anyway, once again, it was fun and it got me off my ass to write and record a Christmas song which made my friends and family smile so it was all worth while.

Mission accomplished!!