Rejected Song

[ferris]

I have had a song recently rejected on RKO. I have uploaded a song before which was accepted, in my opinion, the quality of this tune is of a similar standard to the tune that was accepted. The only reason I can come up with is that I used a guitar passage made famous by Brian May of Queen. Do songs get rejected on the basis of plagiarism, even though it was just a few guitar licks?

Thanks for your suggestions in advance.

[Max Levin]

Are you sure Jan just haven't uploaded it yet?

[ferris]

Yeah it definitely has been rejected coz I got an automated email. Maybe the song isn't well known enough. It's the music that is played when you put the headphones on in 'Jack the Nipper". I thought it was a pretty good tune. Oh well.

[tas]

it's certainly not to do with if the tune is not too well known, my only guess is that it's been turned down for quality reasons.

What tune was it? that could explain some reasons, better still have up uploaded it somewhere? so we can check it out..

or e-mail the tune to myself tas@remix64.com and i'll have a listen, i should be able to have a good idea of why it was rejected based upon my ears.

Tas

[ferris]

Ok, I guess I'm still a little perplexed as to why my song was rejected when just recently I had the misfortune to happen upon an apparent remix of Wizball which was really just somebody who had found the sound effects button on their keyboard for the first time. I'm beginning to lose faith in the system...

[tas]

The Wizball tune certainly had me scratching my head.

[dan gillgrass]

The Wizball tune certainly had me scratching my head.

Was that actually a cover of anything? can't see Jan not allowing yr tune thru plagarism tho, there are some remixes that use bits from other songs/soundtracks etc.

[tas]

I had a nice e-mail from gustav regarding the piece of music. I'm asking permision if i can use extracts from his mail for the next editorial. it would describe what the wizball tune actually is.

[LMan]

Admittedly, Gustav Taxen's Wizball mix is very "unusual", yet the ambient sound follows the chord structure of Wizball, with bits and pieces of the actual SID shining through now and then. I would classify it as Ambient/Chillout music, and I rated it "Good".

If you danced all thrugh the night to Tonka's Wizball mix, Gustav's is just the one you want to hear at 6am the following morning

[Chris Abbott]

I've had a listen to that Jack the Nipper track, and my first thought was
"SID + Drums". Then the guitar came in, and I thought.. hmmm, that's
quite nifty: then I listened a bit more carefully, and "SID2MIDI, Wavetable guitar" came to mind.

So in the end, the cover comes down to (mostly):

Drums
SID bassline played through another instrument
SID Lead played through another instrument
Occasional SID chords

Which pretty much adds up to "drums + SID2MIDI" (even if you didn't
use SID2MIDI, you've still only replicated what was in the original SID in MIDI form: how you did it is no concern), which is a no-no on RKO.

There don't appear to be any extra musical tracks, plus the overall
sound is irritating, though so was the original SID. So you've captured
the spirit...

Having said all that, I would have let it through because some of the
instrument choices are quite clever, and the drums have at least
been custom-made for the track. But I can see why Jan didn't.

Chris

[tas]

it's strange to look at really. Gustav e-mailed me a nice letter and described to me the background of the music which made me alot wiser, but alas i still don't get this music.

I've given him the right to reply, we shall see if he takes up the offer.

Markus liked it, i didn't... now i dunno about what you think, but i think thats great. how shit would the world be if we all thought the same!

[ferris]

In my defence, yes admittedly the bass line from this tune was sid2midi because I thought it would save some time (and it was pretty cool anyway). However, the chords in the background were not sid2midi, the guitar is not from a wavetable - instead it is played live by myself (which was the whole point of the track because some of the passages are quite tricky). Sadly because of the simplicity of the original SID, there was not much else I could do without losing the original feel. However it would seem that a lot of the remixes on the site have been created using sid2midi but disguised by changing the form of the song and using a number of studio effects to make the arrangement sound more professional. In my experience, the sid2midi program is pretty limited anyway and does not faithfully replicate the original sid.

I agree, there was not much creativity in the remix but I did it mainly so I could play the lead tune on guitar because I thought it was pretty cool.

P.S I haven't come across a wavetable guitar that actually sounds like a guitar yet....

[tas]

Dunno here, but you might just have answered your own question regarding why your tune was rejected.

sid2midi is a gray area, use it wisely and it's a handy little program, use it not so wisely and inevitably you can tell.

Neil[/quote]

[Chris Abbott]

> sid2midi is a gray area, use it wisely and it's a handy little program,
> use it not so wisely and inevitably you can tell.

(In this post you = the general remixing community)
I'd like to add a few more shades of grey to this argument:
SID2MIDI is much maligned, undeservedly so. It's a tool produced for
one purpose: to allow the arranger to accurately convey the performance
of the SID, and to use the resulting data.

Exactly the same thing could conceivably be done manually: though of
course it would be a bugger to do. You only have to look at the number
of crap XMs from pre-SID2MIDI to hear that. As far as I know, ironically, I was one of the first to try for 100% accuracy when I started producing
MIDIs, despite not having SID2MIDI (I was the first user, as far as I know), and despite not having SIDplay!

So the issue is not "did you use SID2MIDI": that's a red herring. The
real issue is: how accurate do you want your cover to be? If you're
going to produce an MP3 that contains the performance of the SID
replicated (no matter how it got there) and nothing else, then people
are going to ask why. In the old days, when I started, accuracy and a
couple of extra tracks was enough. People were just pleased to hear
the old tunes again: HVSC didn't really exist, and covering tunes was
more of a historical preservation project than an artistic statement:
though I did try and add some extra stuff the composer might have
conceivably added.

Think of a SID. It consists of a number of components
the notes played, the vibrato applied to the notes, the FX applied to the
notes, the waveforms the notes are played with, pitch bends, etc,
and the structure. Keep all of these intact, and you've replicated
the SID.

Now, each of these can be extracted from SID2MIDI, or indeed by
merely using a sample of SID. They are performances from the composer,
not from yourself.

Now, each component you replace with your own makes the cover more
of a performance (of course, extra tracks that haven't been anywhere
near the original SID for bonus points, because it implies you've
understood the tune enough to be able to conquer it and add new stuff).

However, there are certainly many instances where you shouldn't even
think of replacing the composer's performance unless you've got
something better up your sleeve. Now, many people seem to think that
something is better simply because they did it. That's a kind of self-
delusion it's sad to see.

Anyway, so if you put the notes of a tune into your cover, but not the vibrato or pitch-bend, then it's worse, because you have lost the feel
of the original piece, unless you know exactly what you're doing to
create a specific effect (which most people don't).

Now the reason SID2MIDI is a good thing is because if you want accuracy
but you don't use it, you tend to spend all your creative energy merely
recreating the SID. And then you feel like you own the resulting file,
since it represents hard work. But the file merely recreates something
already existing, and people go "so what?". Then you have no energy
left to actually create anything new.

There is a record label in Norway that is doing a SID covers CD with
deep-house trace remixers. Now, commercial remixes thus far have
tended to be isolated bits of SID mangled up or repeated and with a
drum beat. In an effort to avoid that, I offered them as many MIDI files
as they needed to produce covers, generated of course from SID2MIDI
(and with extra tracks added by me). This ensures that their covers
will sound MORE creative, because they will use those files as a starting
point for an adventure, as opposed to merely feeling heroic beause
they've managed to record off a C64 and pitch bend it. It also assures
that they get the DAMN TUNE RIGHT! Because you can't take anything
for granted. But we know that whatever they produce, it will differ
in structure to the original. And that's one of the most major things
that you can do to a SID.

There's another point here in the choice of SID to remix. Some SIDs
just don't support a remix because they're pretty complete in themselves,
unless you're VERY clever and imaginative (like Trauma and Mahoney hehe!!). Jeroen Tel's pretty much fall into this category. They're pretty
difficult to convert to another genre, because all you end up doing is
adding a chord track. Of course, there are always exceptions, but you're
always limited by the source material.

(from here on in, you = Ferris)
In the case of Jack the Nipper,
short of turning it into a Jungle or Techno version (which wouldn't
be a bad idea, actually), you did as much as you could do without adding
some sort of extra melodic accompaniment like block chords. But the original SID was pretty complete in itself, so the end result (even with
the nifty guitar) provokes "why did they bother?" reactions. That guitar
is an accomplishment if you played it live: that's very neat. But the end
result is appreciated more by you (who knows what cleverness went into
it) than the end audience (who hear an accurate replication of the SID
with extra drums).

Anyway, all that can be summarised in a number of bullet points:

1) Accuracy in a SID cover is generally a good thing, except when you're so accurate you end up replicating the SID. SID2MIDI makes accuracy a hell of a lot easier.

2) Whenever you ditch something the composer did, make sure you replace it with something better. The most respected remixes are those
which ditch a large amount of the original but replace it with skilful
stuff which sounds good, though in my experience a lot of people also like
to hear that ole' composer vibe going on.

Sid2MIDI is a great tool. No one should be ashamed about using it, as
long as the end result you produce is artistically worthwhile. It's not
necessarily more worthy to recreate the tune by ear, except if you
do, you get to know the tune better, which makes adding stuff later
a bit easier.

That has been a long public service announcement. I bet it changed
no one's minds... should this have been a whinge, Neil?

[Dr.Future]

Wow, nice monster-mail, Chris!

Nothin' to add, I like this

because it implies you've
understood the tune enough to be able to conquer it and add new stuff

point! Understanding the original SID, that's the holy grail of it!