What do you consider "pony" music?

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Re: What do you consider "pony" music?

Postby the4thImpulse » 07 Nov 2012 17:06

sellyme wrote:I really really don't think a basic cut 'n' paste is the way to go. If I remember correctly the music judging process is done via a Skype group; perhaps sending a few snippets from that would be beneficial? "It's not mixed well enough" isn't really helpful to a musician.


I am kinda jumping into this discussion right now..

The point of the cut 'n' paste or template message is to provide a response so the artist knows his email has been read and at the same time rejected. As Seth said they don't have enough time to give a helpful response to over 20 people a day, and a simple 'work on your mix' is better then "your not accepted". If people want to know what they can improve on EQD is not the site to go asking on, that's what MLR is for as well as other 'real world' music forums.

It would be nice if their comments during the judging process made it in, but they don't have all the time in the world for just our music community so I wouldn't expect them to include anything but a copy/paste.
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Re: What do you consider "pony" music?

Postby sellyme » 07 Nov 2012 17:09

the4thImpulse wrote:
sellyme wrote:I really really don't think a basic cut 'n' paste is the way to go. If I remember correctly the music judging process is done via a Skype group; perhaps sending a few snippets from that would be beneficial? "It's not mixed well enough" isn't really helpful to a musician.

As Seth said they don't have enough time to give a helpful response to over 20 people a day


I'm a bored unemployed student. You severely underestimate how little 20 emails a day is to me. If Seth and the rest of the EqD staff go with the points suggested above it'd be trivial to make the rejection process far more helpful and fluid, at minimal expense.

It might not be possible for the people currently judging the music to do that kind of thing, but there are far more than enough capable, dedicated bronies who would be willing to help out.
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Re: What do you consider "pony" music?

Postby itroitnyah » 07 Nov 2012 18:24

sellyme wrote:I'm a bored unemployed student. You severely underestimate how little 20 emails a day is to me. If Seth and the rest of the EqD staff go with the points suggested above it'd be trivial to make the rejection process far more helpful and fluid, at minimal expense.

It might not be possible for the people currently judging the music to do that kind of thing, but there are far more than enough capable, dedicated bronies who would be willing to help out.
Your willingness to do all that is admiral, but you have to remember that the reviewing crew for music doesn't have time to give critiques much more than "the mixing isn't all that good/dissonance/other reason". They have lives too, and even if they're all unemployed students like you, I'm sure that they want to do more than just critique 30 songs every day. I'm estimating that it would take an entire morning to just simply listen to all the songs and then choose the ones that get featured. It would take longer to critique them all as well.

Besides, if the person in charge of sending the rejection emails includes a link here, then if the subject chooses to actually come and get their music reviewed, they can get feedback.
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Re: What do you consider "pony" music?

Postby sellyme » 07 Nov 2012 18:30

itroitnyah wrote:Your willingness to do all that is admiral, but you have to remember that the reviewing crew for music doesn't have time to give critiques much more than "the mixing isn't all that good/dissonance/other reason".


I admittedly haven't seen the music review process first-hand, but I have a couple of friends involved in it, and from what I've heard from them, there's enough discussion going on to include a explanation, even a very brief one, of what is wrong. I mean, even something like "Too much distortion" is far more informative than "Bad mixing". It doesn't need to be a full musical critique.
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Re: What do you consider "pony" music?

Postby the4thImpulse » 07 Nov 2012 18:47

itroitnyah wrote:
sellyme wrote:I'm a bored unemployed student. You severely underestimate how little 20 emails a day is to me. If Seth and the rest of the EqD staff go with the points suggested above it'd be trivial to make the rejection process far more helpful and fluid, at minimal expense.

It might not be possible for the people currently judging the music to do that kind of thing, but there are far more than enough capable, dedicated bronies who would be willing to help out.
Besides, if the person in charge of sending the rejection emails includes a link here, then if the subject chooses to actually come and get their music reviewed, they can get feedback.


That's what I wish it was, "you didn't make it, go to MLR to learn how you can improve" (obviously a shorten form).

When I was reviewing tracks here in the music section I would often take 20 to 40 minutes (depending how much I like the guy and the track quality) per track, that's giving a full explanation on what needs improvement and how they could go do it. Say they do a quick listen to the song start to finish and then write for a few more minutes; I'd say 10 minutes per song (this is an example) and then doing that for 30 more songs would take 5 hours out of your day. And if songs are long (like 8 minutes) or you need a second listen to give an appropriate judging those five hours quickly become 8 hours.

Like I said earlier, MLR is form learning and judging, EQD is for promotion.
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Re: What do you consider "pony" music?

Postby Sonarch » 07 Nov 2012 19:06

I was going to read through everything in this thread, but quite frankly I don't have the time, but I will address some of the thoughts that I had while reading the first page and a half (oh god this is probably going to become a giant response).
First off, I did a lot of judging for pony-ness myself since i've gotten into the pony music thing, and in the beginning, I disregarded a lot of instrumental tracks simply because I didn't see how it made them pony. But as I went on, I found that I could really connect with the emotions in a song, whether it had vocals or not. Based on the title, and sometimes the art or description in the video, the music would paint a picture and project emotions into my head. I find that I can actually connect with pony music on an emotional level better than I do with, for lack of a better word, normal music. It gives me a general area, a world with characters, which guides my emotions, and I feel I can understand what the composer felt while writing the song. I have a few examples from the top of my head. Exhibit A: The Astronomical Astronomer's Almanac to all Things Astronomy by Makkon and PinkiePieSwear http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLG9aEZa_eg
Disregarding the silly Spike sneezing sample at the very end, this song fills my head with feelings of awe, with pictures of galaxies and celestial(hah) wonders. I can picture Twilight and the rest of them gazing up at the stars at night. One might argue that it could project images of anyone gazing at stars, but because of the title, my thoughts are guided towards ponies, and because of that I consider it a very pony-related song. Exhibit B: Everfree Compromise by Pogosama http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6B2Q28FPTb4
I'll admit I didn't find this to be overwhelmingly pony, though it qualified when I first heard it. It mixes elements of both instruments and electronic music, creating a feeling that is consolidated with the title and image, showing Octavia and Scratch together, with the word Compromise in the title, giving a feeling of resolution to a difference or problem. It's also a very peaceful song, which emphasizes that. The feelings were magnified when I heard the song at the end of The recorded version of The Vinyl Scratch Tapes first episode. It went so well with the story, where Scratch makes Celestia feel bad because she never apologized to Luna for sending her to the moon for 1000 years, and she leaves to apologize, and Octavia is freaking out the whole time thinking Celestia was going to banish them, etc... and the narrator wraps up the story with this song playing, and I was overcome when I first heard it. It brought tears to my eyes for some reason. That anecdote went on way too long, but the point is that I associate that song with the feelings it gave me at the end of that radio-play thing, and that made it double pony for me. Exhibit C (the last one, I should think): Everfree Forest by Pinkie Cake http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=in85-hCJZCM
This is an example of an instrumental electronic song that I find to be quite pony. It creates this odd feeling that makes me feel like i'm in the Everfree Forest, a quirky and dangerous place. It's similar to the feeling I get from listening to a certain remix of the Viridian Forest theme, called Out of Antidote if I recall correctly. It seems sort of off, like you're poisoned from a Pokemon battle and you have nothing to heal it with. Also a small amount of creepiness. Anyway, that's the same vibe I got from this song, so I consider it pony. For me, it's on a song-by-song basis, but most songs I find via EqD posts usually make the cut. The point i'm trying to make is that a song can be pony for me if the music in combination with the title, and sometimes album art, can define pony-ness for me.
As far as samples, I enjoy them. They can enhance the ponyness for me as long as they make sense in context of the song. Obviously this is harder to judge with stuff like dubstep, but you get the idea. But keep it original. There's nothing wrong with a "yay" or a "LOUDER" for me, but I can only take so many of them.

Although most of this is probably more relevant to the first page of discussion than the current one, I wanted to contribute. And I apologize for the great length of this post, I tend to ramble when I have a lot of thoughts on something.

TL;DR, the emotions make a song pony for me, and those emotions can be guided greatly with a title, and sometimes album art. And samples in songs are okay by me.
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Re: What do you consider "pony" music?

Postby itroitnyah » 07 Nov 2012 19:38

Sonarch wrote:Huge wall of text
Congratulations, you just repeated everything said on the first 2 pages of this thread, lol. Also in the pages you missed, was talk about a rejection letter and no longer specifying whether or not the piece of music featured is an instrumental or not, leaving the audience to listen or not listen instead of skip.
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Re: What do you consider "pony" music?

Postby Freewave » 07 Nov 2012 19:50

sellyme wrote:
the4thImpulse wrote:
sellyme wrote:I really really don't think a basic cut 'n' paste is the way to go. If I remember correctly the music judging process is done via a Skype group; perhaps sending a few snippets from that would be beneficial? "It's not mixed well enough" isn't really helpful to a musician.

As Seth said they don't have enough time to give a helpful response to over 20 people a day


I'm a bored unemployed student. You severely underestimate how little 20 emails a day is to me. If Seth and the rest of the EqD staff go with the points suggested above it'd be trivial to make the rejection process far more helpful and fluid, at minimal expense.

It might not be possible for the people currently judging the music to do that kind of thing, but there are far more than enough capable, dedicated bronies who would be willing to help out.


I think people are forgetting that they likely won't have to send 20 rejection letters each day. So that may be on average 10 or so (maybe a few more) that can't make it onto the daily feature because not-pony (what we did in the exercise a few pages back) or poor quality so not a load of emails going out in comparison to what is coming in. Also the screening for poniness and general acceptability is pretty quick. If a song is clearly not pony or is horrible quality its evident in about 60 seconds. I wouldn't expect that they would have to listen to the entire song but it would still be able to give a quick and thorough reason WHY it couldn't make the cut from a template. Again if you need people to do the work for the emails to make this possible I think people here will help out.
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Re: What do you consider "pony" music?

Postby Sonarch » 07 Nov 2012 19:53

itroitnyah wrote:
Sonarch wrote:Huge wall of text
Congratulations, you just repeated everything said on the first 2 pages of this thread, lol. Also in the pages you missed, was talk about a rejection letter and no longer specifying whether or not the piece of music featured is an instrumental or not, leaving the audience to listen or not listen instead of skip.


Excellent.

I like the idea of a rejection letter, personally. When I've sent things to EqD in the past, I feel sort of excited about it and check my email for a response frequently after. If I didn't get a response, I would be worried that they didn't get it, or otherwise never saw the email, and might end up being obnoxious by resending or asking if they got it. A simple rejection letter, perhaps made with a generic template, would at least confirm why I never saw my song/content on EqD.

I also would have no issues with taking the instrumental title off of the music posts, since I just go ahead and look at it all anyway, and it would make people have to judge on a song-by-song basis rather than say "meh, I don't like instrumentals." I mean, I was resolute in my hate of dubstep until I started actually listening to some of the songs that were getting posted, and I found that I actually like it just as much as any other genre. So it may help with exposure as well as people accidentally discovering that they like a song from a certain category they think they don't like.

Look at me, typing another text wall. At least it's relevant this time.
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Re: What do you consider "pony" music?

Postby Magnitude Zero » 07 Nov 2012 21:55

Sonarch wrote:I also would have no issues with taking the instrumental title off of the music posts, since I just go ahead and look at it all anyway, and it would make people have to judge on a song-by-song basis rather than say "meh, I don't like instrumentals." I mean, I was resolute in my hate of dubstep until I started actually listening to some of the songs that were getting posted, and I found that I actually like it just as much as any other genre. So it may help with exposure as well as people accidentally discovering that they like a song from a certain category they think they don't like.

What people seem to be forgetting is that EqD is, first and foremost, for the general public, not the musicians. People want their specific pony content as quickly and painlessly and possible; it's why there's a "no fanfiction" mode. Splitting the posts between instrumental and vocal makes it more convenient for the listeners, because some people just don't like instrumentals. Sure, grouping them together without a label might get the musician more exposure, but at that point you're appealing to the minority.
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Re: What do you consider "pony" music?

Postby sellyme » 07 Nov 2012 22:33

Magnitude Zero wrote:
Sonarch wrote:I also would have no issues with taking the instrumental title off of the music posts, since I just go ahead and look at it all anyway, and it would make people have to judge on a song-by-song basis rather than say "meh, I don't like instrumentals." I mean, I was resolute in my hate of dubstep until I started actually listening to some of the songs that were getting posted, and I found that I actually like it just as much as any other genre. So it may help with exposure as well as people accidentally discovering that they like a song from a certain category they think they don't like.


What people seem to be forgetting is that EqD is, first and foremost, for the general public, not the musicians. People want their specific pony content as quickly and painlessly and possible; it's why there's a "no fanfiction" mode. Splitting the posts between instrumental and vocal makes it more convenient for the listeners, because some people just don't like instrumentals. Sure, grouping them together without a label might get the musician more exposure, but at that point you're appealing to the minority.


I'm willing to bet that the minority of people who don't listen to instrumentals actually dislike instrumental songs. I can almost guarantee that it's the same thing that makes people go "Wow, this is a really nice song" if it's tagged "Electronic", but "eww, generic dubstep shit" if it's tagged "Dubstep". You've got to question whether the change will actually affect users in any significant way. A website's goal (or any other service's for that matter) is not to give people want they want, but to make people happy, so they return. I, and many other people who have expressed their opinions in this topic, believe that removing instrumental/vocal segregation will be beneficial to both the musicians and the listeners, because people will hear good music they wouldn't have heard otherwise.
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Re: What do you consider "pony" music?

Postby Sonarch » 08 Nov 2012 14:51

IDEA:
Try taking those category tags off. Mix all the vocal and instrumental and remix stuff, and see how it affects the hits. If everyone flips out, you can always go back to the old way.
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Re: What do you consider "pony" music?

Postby Sethisto2 » 08 Nov 2012 16:19

That would be an inconvenience to a lot of people. They may not "dislike" instrumentals, but they don't want to dig through 3 songs to find a vocal if that's what they are after. I know I wouldn't bother if I had to dig through 10 unlabeled country music songs to find a genre I like.
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Re: What do you consider "pony" music?

Postby Flinckie » 08 Nov 2012 16:54

Sethisto2 wrote:That would be an inconvenience to a lot of people. They may not "dislike" instrumentals, but they don't want to dig through 3 songs to find a vocal if that's what they are after. I know I wouldn't bother if I had to dig through 10 unlabeled country music songs to find a genre I like.

We're not suggesting the removal of genre tags. Of course they should stay.

Regardless, I doubt removing instrumental/vocal tags will be a big inconvenience in the long run for those who prefer vocals. Like others have said, they will undoubtedly run into instrumental music that they like, so this may end up expanding their tastes. And I know that this community is notorious for expanding tastes.

Still, if you think a lot of people will ditch EqD as a means of finding pony music just because of this change, then so be it. You know them better than I do.
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Re: What do you consider "pony" music?

Postby itroitnyah » 08 Nov 2012 18:37

Ok, so now a lot of ideas that have already been listed are being repeated and contemplated again. So, I will repeat all the ideas that we've already discussed and decided upon:

1) Rejection emails. Find a volunteer willing to send rejections. Keep it at a simple and soft copy pasta giving simple reasons why they didn't make it and pointing them to this site for further help.

- Template: "Thank you for your submission to Equestria Daily. Unfortunately, your submission, "Song Name" has been declined due to [mixing quality/dissonance/not pony enough/other reason]. If you have any questions regarding this submission, please ask for feedback at http://www.mylittleremix.com.

2) Remove instrumental/vocal labels leaving just the genre labels. Leaves the audience with listen or not, and they'll find some pretty good music that comes with it.

3) Use logic, youtube/soundcloud description, background, and mood of song, a combination of all of those to decide how pony a song is.

These things listed above are all things that we've agreed are fair and good. Now we're just really waiting for Sethisto to confirm whether or not he'll be doing these things and making the changes, or at least his final opinion. He's mostly just been beating around the bush with his opinions. Either that or I'm horrible at comprehending what he's saying, lol.
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Re: What do you consider "pony" music?

Postby Sonarch » 08 Nov 2012 18:55

Brilliant.
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Re: What do you consider "pony" music?

Postby Rainbowdutch » 09 Nov 2012 05:29

itroitnyah wrote:Ok, so now a lot of ideas that have already been listed are being repeated and contemplated again. So, I will repeat all the ideas that we've already discussed and decided upon:

1) Rejection emails. Find a volunteer willing to send rejections. Keep it at a simple and soft copy pasta giving simple reasons why they didn't make it and pointing them to this site for further help.

- Template: "Thank you for your submission to Equestria Daily. Unfortunately, your submission, "Song Name" has been declined due to [mixing quality/dissonance/not pony enough/other reason]. If you have any questions regarding this submission, please ask for feedback at http://www.mylittleremix.com.

2) Remove instrumental/vocal labels leaving just the genre labels. Leaves the audience with listen or not, and they'll find some pretty good music that comes with it.

3) Use logic, youtube/soundcloud description, background, and mood of song, a combination of all of those to decide how pony a song is.

These things listed above are all things that we've agreed are fair and good. Now we're just really waiting for Sethisto to confirm whether or not he'll be doing these things and making the changes, or at least his final opinion. He's mostly just been beating around the bush with his opinions. Either that or I'm horrible at comprehending what he's saying, lol.



I am not in any decision-making position but I do have to play devils advocate here.

1. This sounds like a good idea if that person would be able to consistently do this everyday. I am saying it is a good idea because I actually tried to introduce this myself a couple of months ago. However this faded away after about 3 weeks because I and the other prelisteners helping me just couldn't afford to spend 1 or 2 hours every day sending e-mails.

2. I myself am not to sure about this idea. The music of the day posts get quite some views but the songs itself don't get that much. This is why (and I think this has been said before) people will listen to the genre they like. If you delete the genre tags off the song one of two things could happen. Either people will check out all the songs to see if they find something they like, or people will stop visiting the music posts because it is too much of a hassle to find anything they like. I myself think the latter will happen.

3. This sounds like something we can roll with. We would probably have to create the actual boundaries internally but it is something we can continue working with.
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Re: What do you consider "pony" music?

Postby itroitnyah » 09 Nov 2012 10:16

Rainbowdutch wrote:I am not in any decision-making position but I do have to play devils advocate here.

1. This sounds like a good idea if that person would be able to consistently do this everyday. I am saying it is a good idea because I actually tried to introduce this myself a couple of months ago. However this faded away after about 3 weeks because I and the other prelisteners helping me just couldn't afford to spend 1 or 2 hours every day sending e-mails.

2. I myself am not to sure about this idea. The music of the day posts get quite some views but the songs itself don't get that much. This is why (and I think this has been said before) people will listen to the genre they like. If you delete the genre tags off the song one of two things could happen. Either people will check out all the songs to see if they find something they like, or people will stop visiting the music posts because it is too much of a hassle to find anything they like. I myself think the latter will happen.

3. This sounds like something we can roll with. We would probably have to create the actual boundaries internally but it is something we can continue working with.


No, it's fine that you want to point out where there will be flaws. However, some of the flaws you have pointed out have actually been worked out already.

1) It wouldn't be a prelistener that would be sending the rejection emails, it would be a seperate volunteer who sends them. This volunteer doesn't have to participate in listening to the songs and help decide which ones should be featured or not, this volunteer's main objective is to send the rejection emails. Sellyme has already volunteered, but I'm sure that you guys will be able to find many other volunteers.

2) *facepalm* No no no, not the genre tags. I mean the labels that say whether or not it's an instrumental or vocal track. Here's a picture of what I mean: Image Sorry if I was confusing you earlier.

Tell me if there are any parts that are still confusing or you can still find a flaw in.
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Re: What do you consider "pony" music?

Postby Freewave » 09 Nov 2012 11:44

Rainbowdutch wrote:
I am not in any decision-making position but I do have to play devils advocate here.

1. This sounds like a good idea if that person would be able to consistently do this everyday. I am saying it is a good idea because I actually tried to introduce this myself a couple of months ago. However this faded away after about 3 weeks because I and the other prelisteners helping me just couldn't afford to spend 1 or 2 hours every day sending e-mails.


If you need more people to make this a reality i think EQD has support to make it so and could get more people to volunteer. I think adding this in addition to a dedicated listeners tasks would be a tough sell but having dedicated people who can copy and paste adequite information via ready to go templates from skype listeners comments (as their mane role) on those tracks could be done without a whole lot of effort. If there's an average of 10 people getting reject letters (cause the rest are getting a daily feature at a minimum) this could be 15 minute job if done smoothly. That way everyone gets in or gets notified of a rejection. Nobody comes away w/o any reponse whatsoever. I'm assuming you might still send out "you are in the queue" letters but if multiple people besides the author are sending those then it's a little more a moot point if the track makes it onto the site and their goal is met. Not sure if there is an auto-reply msg that could be implemented into EQD's email system for original submitters. They could rcv if their email made it (your submission was received, thanks for submitting) which is half the battle for confirming receipt. Possible?

Rainbowdutch wrote:2. I myself am not to sure about this idea. The music of the day posts get quite some views but the songs itself don't get that much. This is why (and I think this has been said before) people will listen to the genre they like. If you delete the genre tags off the song one of two things could happen. Either people will check out all the songs to see if they find something they like, or people will stop visiting the music posts because it is too much of a hassle to find anything they like. I myself think the latter will happen.


I agree the genre tags reamining will help people get what they want to listen for. Instrumental and Vocal aren't really genres so they are not really needed a whole lot i would think. But its good to let the audience get some forewarning on what a track is otherwise people will not click on every track to find out and the daily feature will not work. It's a smaller burst of traffic, which people will realize then a full feature, but it's still quite a considerable burst than not having it at all which makes a real difference to people who put out the track.

Rainbowdutch wrote:3. This sounds like something we can roll with. We would probably have to create the actual boundaries internally but it is something we can continue working with.


I think the parameters discussed in this thread are pretty clear and if artists bypass what IS considered pony music then they are really hurting themselves (and the community by watering it down or diverting into unrelated non-pony music) and not getting on there when they get lazy on the description or the images. It is fair i think that people be able to incorporate some outside influences in their music as long as they still make an effort to incorporate back in pony influenced in some sort of fashion. It sounds like the listeners have the guidelines already in place and then it just becomes just continuing to listen, judge, and enforce it while still allowing a lot of the music to make it onto the daily feature unless it clearly does not qualify. Those people can get notified why via email (in new rule #1) and can improve (or get butthurt) but the system improves accordingly.
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Re: What do you consider "pony" music?

Postby DijiTwitch » 09 Nov 2012 13:17

As for volunteers, maybe we could have seven different volunteers who each handle the rejection letters on their day of the week. It'd lighten the load considerably and I really doubt we'd have any trouble finding seven reliable people to take it on. It's just an hour or two a week.
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Re: What do you consider "pony" music?

Postby Sethisto2 » 09 Nov 2012 13:39

itroitnyah wrote:
2) *facepalm* No no no, not the genre tags. I mean the labels that say whether or not it's an instrumental or vocal track. Here's a picture of what I mean: Image Sorry if I was confusing you earlier.

Tell me if there are any parts that are still confusing or you can still find a flaw in.


It's just not something I'm going to do to people. There is a difference between hits and fans, and you aren't going to get any fans by forcing people to slog through a bunch of songs they don't want to listen to.

Since hits seem to be the topic of the day here, I'm going to drop my idea on why some get tons, while others get few:

First off, you need to forget about hits and build a fanbase first, and creating quality music that gets people excited is the way to do it. EQD will get you hits, but the only way that song is going to skyrocket to popularity is if it's actually genuinely appealing and good, not just to musicians, but to the audience. The people that like it will tell their friends about it. Word of mouth is and always has been the strongest point of this community. You may get 50 comments saying it's the best thing ever, but these are the dedicated few that click on and love absolutely everything. EQD gets 70-100k unique hits a day, and music posts get 5-10k views. The majority will see a dubstep/trance song with Scratch on top, "Maybe" listen to it, and forget about it 10 minutes later.

Every popular musician in this fandom started the same way, and if you really look at each of them, their unique styles and excellent tracks are the reason they don't even need EQD anymore for obscene amounts of traffic. Glaze, Tomb, Mic, Eurobeat Brony, Mandopony, Aviators, Replacer and others all have their own niche that appeals to the audience. The majority of musicians in this fandom follow templates that, while unique and amazing in their own circles, sounds similar and forgettable to the masses. It's something instrumental dubstep, trance, rock, and orchestral musicians have to overcome on their own. So far very few have, but it is possible (http://www.youtube.com/user/SimGretina / for example - In fact, look at his videos and see it firsthand. Even with a huge subscriber base, some of his songs get tens of thousands less hits than his others. That is all word of mouth).

We have shown a few times that even the power of single posts will get you more "hits", but won't necessarily make a song popular. Word of mouth is key.

I love more than anything in this fandom watching a musician rise to fame. I still remember Mic's, Tomb's, and Mando's first contributions and knowing that these guys were going to rock. Their reactions to the sudden surge in interest in their music was straight up heartwarming.

But the most important thing is finding your niche, and really giving the audience something to remember.
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Re: What do you consider "pony" music?

Postby Sonarch » 09 Nov 2012 14:08

I think, as far as rejection emails, it should work if you have a group of reliable people who can use some premade templates. I agree it's too much for one person to have to do every day, but if you got a few people who aren't prelisteners and had them share an email account, the prelisteners could forward/send the rejected songs to that account, and add a reason so the rejection emailers know which template to use. I feel I am explaining this poorly, so let me use an example:

A song is submitted to EqD and gets rejected by the prelisteners. The prelisteners forward the submission to the rejection email account, and add the reason for the rejection. This could be as simple as just typing "mixing" or "not pony". A rejection email person then replies to the original submission, using the appropriate template to explain why their song was rejected. The rejection account would be shared by a group of volunteers so the work is not all delegated to one person, and the group could decide among themselves how to divide the work.

Sound good?
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Re: What do you consider "pony" music?

Postby itroitnyah » 09 Nov 2012 15:39

Sethisto2 wrote:It's just not something I'm going to do to people. There is a difference between hits and fans, and you aren't going to get any fans by forcing people to slog through a bunch of songs they don't want to listen to.

Since hits seem to be the topic of the day here, I'm going to drop my idea on why some get tons, while others get few:

First off, you need to forget about hits and build a fanbase first, and creating quality music that gets people excited is the way to do it. EQD will get you hits, but the only way that song is going to skyrocket to popularity is if it's actually genuinely appealing and good, not just to musicians, but to the audience. The people that like it will tell their friends about it. Word of mouth is and always has been the strongest point of this community. You may get 50 comments saying it's the best thing ever, but these are the dedicated few that click on and love absolutely everything. EQD gets 70-100k unique hits a day, and music posts get 5-10k views. The majority will see a dubstep/trance song with Scratch on top, "Maybe" listen to it, and forget about it 10 minutes later.

Every popular musician in this fandom started the same way, and if you really look at each of them, their unique styles and excellent tracks are the reason they don't even need EQD anymore for obscene amounts of traffic. Glaze, Tomb, Mic, Eurobeat Brony, Mandopony, Aviators, Replacer and others all have their own niche that appeals to the audience. The majority of musicians in this fandom follow templates that, while unique and amazing in their own circles, sounds similar and forgettable to the masses. It's something instrumental dubstep, trance, rock, and orchestral musicians have to overcome on their own. So far very few have, but it is possible (http://www.youtube.com/user/SimGretina / for example - In fact, look at his videos and see it firsthand. Even with a huge subscriber base, some of his songs get tens of thousands less hits than his others. That is all word of mouth).

We have shown a few times that even the power of single posts will get you more "hits", but won't necessarily make a song popular. Word of mouth is key.

I love more than anything in this fandom watching a musician rise to fame. I still remember Mic's, Tomb's, and Mando's first contributions and knowing that these guys were going to rock. Their reactions to the sudden surge in interest in their music was straight up heartwarming.

But the most important thing is finding your niche, and really giving the audience something to remember.
Well, the quality of the music isn't really EqD's fault, it's the musicians fault. As I'm sure you've heard and experienced in the past, possibly recent past too, not every day will there be tracks submitted to EqD that are top notch quality. We aren't necessarily trying to force the audience to listen and subscribe because we made it to EqD, we're trying to equalize the amount of views that the music will get and get our names out there, even if we aren't instantly popular. Sure, cliches' in music (like the vinyl scratch cover dubstep) will get less views, but once again, that's more of the musicians fault. Which is why the spotlight music is reserved for the best music submitted.

I'm not sure that what I said will make sense completely, but in all, we're just trying to get our names out there when we submit to EqD, and even if we don't earn 1,000 subs, we'll still be happy.
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Re: What do you consider "pony" music?

Postby Navron » 10 Nov 2012 00:48

Let's take one thing at a time then. Going about and changing everything at once wouldn't be a good way of doing things, and might end up having the opposite effect as intended.

For that reason I suggest we just stick with setting up some sort of reply system for music submissions. That seems to be one thing we all agree can definitely help everybody out. Basically roll with that now, and focus on later changes at a later time.
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Re: What do you consider "pony" music?

Postby Matthew N. » 10 Nov 2012 08:09

What EqD could do is make an open "job" offer; people that would compile the judges' opinions on the rejected tracks, write them down into a single message that would resemble a critique and send it as a rejection letter.

I just won't believe if there is nobody that would like to do this in their free time. I know there are people that would like to help out in the community, and what OUR community needs are those e-mail from EqD on why the track was rejected, or if it even went past the judges.
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