Rules and Prizes

[brandondrury]

2008 Christmas Song Recording Contest Rules


The winner will receive Superior Drummer 2.0



More Details About Superior Drummer

Superior Drummer 2.0 is my first weapon of choice when it comes to killer sounding drum sounds. I've used Superior Drummer 2.0 on many, many sessions ranging from country to thrash metal and I think it sounds outstanding. I give it a 10 out of 10! It's a phenomenal, mature product that not only sounds amazing, but is extremely reliable, relatively easy on RAM, and an amazing tool for both the beginner and the advanced.


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More Details About Superior Drummer

[brandondrury]

Rules

1. Songs MUST Be Christmasy!!!
2. Don't do anything illegal!
3. Cover songs and parodies of cover songs are acceptable. You will be posting this music online and therefore you are responsible for the songs you post.
4. Feel free to submit Christmas songs that you have previously recorded. (who does that? )
5. No songs that have already been submitted to previous Christmas song contests here at RecordingReview.com will be allowed.
6. Instrumentals are completely acceptable.
7. In the spirit of complete artistic freedom, you are free to use any language you feel is necessary to achieve your creative vision. However, if your song is going to offend folks, in the title please add a "Rated R" to it so that the people who won't to hear your #%^@ words can move to the next song.
8. No Song Rating Hijacking
9. "Artist – Song Title” Thread Titles REQUIRED!
10. Feel free to use outside musicians.
11. Final versions only
12. Only one song per thread, enter as many songs as you wish

How To Enter
You enter the same way that you add a song to Recording Reviews. Instructions for uploading and Guidelines for song uploading can be found here: No Myspace! No Youtube! It sounds too crappy!

The only difference between this and Recording Reviews is you must put your Christmas Songs in the 2008 Christmas Song Contest category and not the Recording Reviews category.

How To Vote
See the screenshot below. In the upper right hand corner of each thread, there is some text that says "Rate Thread". Click it to give your vote!


What Are We Voting For?
When you are listening to a song/recording in the 2008 Christmas Song contest, you are voting for how pleasing the song was to the ear while at the same time putting you in a Christmas frame of mind. In other words, if you loved it, it should get the highest rating. If you hated it, it should give the lowest rating. That's it!

How does recording quality fit?
It fits EXACTLY like it does in real life! If the recording quality sucks, but you LOVED listening to the song, it should get the highest rating. If the recording quality sucks and this is a distraction that makes the song not fun to listen to, give it crappy score.

How To Win
The Song / Thread with the highest rating and more than 5 votes will be the winner.

It's strongly recommended that you tell all your buddies about your song and get them to vote for you. Winner take all!!

Contest Ends
The contest will end selected on 11:59pm Central Time on Christmas Day.. At that point, I will freeze all voting. I'll need to de-spam the voting and I'll announce the winner as soon as possible.

Questions
If you have any questions, don't be shy about sending me a Private Message or asking on this thread.

[brandondrury]

Details
Songs MUST Be Christmasy!!!!
While you are free to record in any genre you want, the songs must be OBVIOUSLY about Christmas. While recording covers is acceptable (although you may lose creativity points from some users) simply recording Skid Row's “18 and a Life” and yelling “Christmas Tree!” somewhere within the bridge of the song is not going to cut it.

Myself and the God Juniors will move your song to the Bullpen where it may not be voted on until the problem is fixed (if possible).

While this is certainly subjective, this is just the way it has to be. If a song doesn't make me or the God Juniors FEEL like Christmas, it will be moved to the bullpen. You are free to dispute it, but the bottom line is if you aren't making a song that reminds me of snowflakes, Christmas lights, and hot chocolate I really don't think it should be included in the contest.

Pretend this song is going to be in your favorite Christmas movie. It's okay to make a pissed song about Christmas shopping. You get the idea.

In past contests, I've been very lenient about this. Simply posting some heavy guitar riffs with drums is not a Halloween song and simply writing a song that implies a bunch of Christmas stuff but doesn't hit me over the head with Christmas isn't really good enough anymore. A Christmas tree that has lost its scent is not quite the same. Go all out!

This is supposed to be a fun contest so even if you aren't big on tossing jingle bells under your Metallica “One” style riffage, maybe it could be really fun!! Try it!

Because this is subjective, I'm ultimately the boss here. I'll be fair, but I reserve the right to move any song to the bullpen that I choose.


Eliminating Song Rating Hi-Jacking
I've put my noggin' to work and I feel like we can dramatically improve the accuracy of the rating system with a few change I will be implementing. For those who don't know, it appears that quite a few people had friends who came to the site and posted a high review for their buddy's song. I can live with that. However, I can't live with idea that these same buddies went along giving low scores to all the other songs.

I'm not going to tell anyone what I'm doing to remove the song rating hi-jacking, but I have to say that due to technical reasons I can not run these "spam filters" until the end of the contest. So you my be in 40th place at the end of the contest, but once I de-spam it you may end up winning the contest. So hang in there until the very end!

I'm confident that I can pretty much wipe out 95% of all Song Rating Hi-Jacking.

Tips: If you want your vote(s) to count, it's recommended that you become at least a semi-active member here at RecordingReview.com.

“Artist – Song Title” Thread Titles REQUIRED!
When you create a new thread, you MUST name the thread - “Artist – Song Title”. It gets extremely confusing when threads are titled “Here's another one” and it works out badly for everyone. If the thread title is not in the correct format, I will move it to the Bullpen. You are free to PM me with the name and artist of the song.

Can I Use Studio Musicians?
Sure! While you must have taken at least some active role in the recording of the music, it's pretty open what that role can be. The way I see it, it's about cranking out exciting music that has your name on it somewhere. Whether you are the producer, the engineer, or the bass player in a project, it really doesn't matter to me.

Us engineer/producer types may need to trade some favors / beer so drummers and singers can come in to help us realize our creative vision. I don't care who you use as long as the end result is musically exciting in a Christmas way. That's the only rule.

Final versions only
If you need help with your mix before entering in the contest, that's fine. Just make sure you post it in Bash This Recording first to work out the bugs. When it's finished, feel free to toss it in the contest.

Only one song per thread, enter as many songs as you wish
Because the rating system is really rating the thread, it's required that all songs are placed in individual threads. Threads with more than one song will be moved to the bullpen.

New Posts Move Thread To The Bottom
In an effort to ensure that all songs get a fair amount of attention, the threads will be sorted in a way that helps give everyone a fair amount of exposure.

When you create your new song, it should end up close to the top. As people respond to the thread, it will be moved to the very bottom of the list.

[sherok]

Eliminating Song Rating Hi-Jacking
.... For those who don't know, it appears that quite a few people had friends who came to the site and posted a high review for their buddy's song. I can live with that. However, I can't live with idea that these same buddies went along giving low scores to all the other songs......

Song Rating Hi-Jacking ?? LOL Wow... and I thought I'd just about heard it all. I've never heard of this one. I'm still not sure I follow you with how that ends up working? LOL "Song Rating Hi-Jacking" Sounds like terrorist at work. That's terrible! (honestly it really is) Well, I guess you'll have to put the website on "orange" or "red" alert until the contest is over and the threat is lifted and then it can go back to "green"

[brandondrury]

While I regret mentioning it now, basically there were a lot of guys in the Halloween song contest who were voting 1's for everyone else but their buddy.

Brandon

[VicDiesel]

it appears that quite a few people had friends who came to the site and posted a high review for their buddy's song. I can live with that.

If you basically want to run a popularity contest.

You could also require people to have at least 10 posts (or something like that) for their vote to count.

Victor.

[scooterlow]

I noticed that up until yesterday there were a few people that were carrying 5 stars for quite some time then all of a sudden no one had 5 anymore. That seemed a bit odd. Like someone was running through and going some mass voting for lowering ratings.