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TaintedLogic
Hi. I'm Andrew. Audio portal junkie since 2010, supporter since 2017. I always want to improve what I do! I make music, run the NGUAC, post poetry on BBS, and am the all-time #2 audio reviewer. I love this site, and I want to make it the best I can! ^_^

Andrew Mikula @TaintedLogic

Age 27, Male

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Bates College

Wellesley, Massachusetts

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NGUAC 2018 - Rules and scheduling

Posted by TaintedLogic - June 23rd, 2018


 

The following is a list of rules and structural details regarding the NGUAC 2018, my annual audio contest here on NG.

 

TL;DR: DEFINITELY DON’T DO THESE THINGS

  • Submit a piece to the Knock-out or Final Round that you worked on before the round started
  • Submit a remix/mashup/cover/arrangement to the Knock-out or Final Round
  • Submit a collaboration as your tryout piece when you’re not on a team
  • Update your track in the project system during the judging phase
  • Submit your track after the deadline
  • Use copyrighted or stolen content

 

ALL THE RULES

SECTION I: General track requirements

1.If you are entering as a solo artist (i.e., not part of a team), YOU CANNOT HAVE A COLLABORATION AS YOUR TRYOUT PIECE or as any other piece for the competition. If you are entering as a team, you cannot collaborate with anyone besides your teammate. The only exception to these rules is when you have someone sing or play an instrument for you, but you must still compose the music and lyrics yourself AND mix/master the piece.

2. You may only submit one song per round, regardless of whether you are on a team or not.

3. The pieces you make for the competition should be full-length songs of the musical variety (of any genre). We won’t accept audio that has the sole purpose of being comedic, not to mention sound effects, voice acting, or parodies.

4. You may use pre-packaged loops and samples in your piece, but be aware that after a certain point abusing presets compromises your track’s originality. Songs that use full-length acapella vocal tracks or drum loops with little modification - even if they're not copyrighted - will be accepted on a case-by-case basis. 

5. For tryouts, it's okay to submit covers, arrangements, remixes, remakes, mash-ups, and pieces with samples downloaded from the internet.

6. In the Knock-out and Final rounds, no participant may submit covers, arrangements, mash-ups, remakes, VIPs, or remixes.

7. You must be able to submit your song to Newgrounds in order to enter the competition. This mandates compliance with all general NG Audio Portal regulations, as well as that you need a Newgrounds account. No submissions from Soundcloud, Bandcamp, iTunes, Spotify, Audiojungle, etc. will be accepted!  

8. You may submit a song to the NGUAC that you had previously submitted to another contest on NG, like the NGADM, AIM, or NCHIPS, but please make sure that it's okay to use the song for both contests in the rules for the other contest as well.

9. In order to submit a track, simply link the piece you want the judges to consider in the corresponding forum thread. You can also change the piece you’d like us to judge by CLEARLY stating in the thread you’d like to change it, but only while the submission phase is still going on.

 

SECTION II: Schedule-related rules

1. The contest has 3 distinct rounds (tryouts, a knock-out round, and finals) each consisting of a submission phase of roughly 2 weeks and a judging phase of 3-7 days (the judging phases get shorter as the contest goes on because there are fewer submissions to judge).

2. There is a separate forum thread for each round, as well as one for the final results. Participants submit their songs by posting a link to the song in the corresponding forum thread.  

3. PARTICIPANTS MAY NOT start working on their Knock-out or Final Round tracks until the corresponding forum thread is posted. Anything you do to prepare for your piece ahead of time needs to be something you could do if you were blind, deaf, dumb, and wearing a straightjacket. You also can’t create samples for the purpose of using them in a Knock-out or Final round piece before that corresponding round begins.

4. No one is allowed to update their track (i.e., replace or delete the audio file in Newgrounds' Project System) during the judging phases until results are released for the following round.

5. All submission phases close at 23:59 (11:59 p.m.) Eastern Daylight Time on the final date of each phase (see the schedule below). Submission phases open as soon as the forum thread for that round is up.

6. Immediately after the tryout submission phase, the participants will be grouped evenly based on their fan totals. This ensures that the best of the “Underdogs” advance as far as possible without directly competing with more experienced and knowledgeable musicians. It’s kinda the premise of the entire competition.

7. Late submissions will be accepted up until 24 hours after the deadline with a “tax” on your score, according to the following paradigm: <1 hour late = 5% off final score; 1-3 hours late = 10%, 3-6 hours = 15%, 6-24 hours = 20%; >24 hours late is unacceptable. If you’re, say, EXACTLY 3 hours late, your tax will be accounted for in the “3-6 hours” category.

 

SECTION III: Regarding teams

1. Participants are allowed to enter the competition as a team of two.

2. If the members of your team would otherwise be placed in different groups as solo artists, the team will be placed in the group corresponding to the highest fan total among its members (e.x., if one member has 20 fans and the other has 60, and the All Stars each have 50 fans or more, the team will compete in the All Stars group).

3. Both members of a team don’t necessarily have to contribute to all of the pieces submitted as part of the contest.

4. Teams of more than 2 are not permitted.

 

SECTION IV: Code of conduct

1. If you have any complaints about judges’ scores or the contest in general, please PM THEM instead of embarrassing yourself by whining about how great you thought your piece was in the thread. Standard BBS and Audio Portal rules ALWAYS apply.

2. The judges should give participants a score out of 10 and be able to thoroughly explain how they arrived at that score by considering a variety of parameters. These parameters may vary by judge, however. Scores are averaged among the judges to determine who advances to future rounds. Most rounds, any given judge won’t score all of the competitors; we’ll divide it up by group.

3. If you change your username at any point during the competition, please let me know. Keeping track of username changes is time consuming and confusing.

 

SECTION V: Prizes

1. Prizes will include forum signatures for the top 3 finishers boasting of their success in the competition, as well as spots on the front page of the Audio Portal the week after the competition.

 

Contest Schedule:

Phase - Start date - End date

Tryout submission - 6/22 - 7/15

Tryout judging - 7/16 - 7/22

K-O submission - 7/22 - 8/5

K-O judging - 8/6 - 8/12

Final submission - 8/12 - 8/26

Final judging - 8/27 - 8/31

 

Thank you in advance for following the rules. Good luck and (most importantly) have fun! :D

 


15

Comments

What score is a passing score?

No score in particular. Instead, we'll indicate a certain percentage of the contestants to accept into the next round. Usually, about 50% of competitors get past tryouts, and of those about 20% get past the Knock-out Round.

Thanks

TL;DR have fun, no cheat and don't start drama...

I wonder where Samulis was...

I asked him to judge, but he said he was too busy. :( Thanks for stopping by, though!

So, where do we submit?

This thread please: https://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1433195/1 . Good luck!

Are bought drum loops legit to use if I don't abuse them?

Where did you buy them from? Send me a link and I'll check it out. Thanks!

For the KO round and later, am I supposed to make a song from scratch or can I use one of my already made slightly less garbage songs?

You are supposed to make a song completely from scratch. That means that you can't start working on it until the minute I post the knock-out round thread. Thanks!

Also, can we submit tracks to both the ADM and this? (as in the same track)

As long as it follows the criteria for both sets of rules, yes. :)

Am I allowed to use samples/sounds that were made for FL studio (both mine and ones I do not own) in my song for this contest? Do I have to give you links of them if I use them?

If you're talking about browser or VST presets, those are fine to use. Ideally, you would at least modify them, as after a point using generic presents can compromise the originality of your track. If you're talking about loop packages, especially ones that are already used in demo songs, that's a bit hairier. Regardless, I'd appreciate it if you indicate which samples you used in the author's description of your song. If you want to check about particular samples up-front, please PM me. Thanks for asking!

Does the lenght of my track matter? If it does, how long does it have to be?

There aren't specific requirements for how long your track should be, but keep in mind that tracks that are either too long or too short usually have some serious drawbacks. Tracks under 2 minutes long are rarely structurally complete, while tracks longer than 6-7 minutes are often either very repetitive or structurally incoherent. Again, that's not a hard and fast rule, but if you're planning on going too far outside the 2-6 minute range, it's worth thinking about these things pretty carefully. Thanks for asking!

When can I hear about my music?

Results come out on July 22nd. Thanks in advance for your patience. :)

i see i had forgot i entered was just slightly worried

Today's the day but I haven't gotten anything back about this. Are you guys still judging?

Yes, we are! Results should be out before midnight eastern time...so, probably 9:00 or so for you in Oregon. ^_~