Commodore Remix

First of all i want to say that im a huge fan of AmigaRemix for many years.

However recently i met someone in IRC in an amiga channel and we started talking about AmigaRemixes - and he said that he also had sumbitted one but was rejected with the following email:

You've recently submitted the following remix to AmigaRemix:
Your remix submission was rejected for the following reason:
Low Quality Remix
The tune has been rejected due to low quality.
The quality in question might either be bad mixing or overall production quality.
This is the verdict of the AmigaRemix.com jury and is a final standpoint.
Do NOT resubmit your upload without improving it.

--

Ok, my question now is - who is this Jury?
We (the listeners/fans etc...) dont need no jury to make decisions for what we will like or not - we decide this on our own. If the jury doesnt like certain productions, it doesnt mean others wont like it either.

If the number of released remixes is hurt by decisions of this jury, than i rather say get rid of them. I dont want quantity over quality - but with the current system its probably pretty hard for not so skilled people to release something that people might have enjoyed anyway.

A similar discussion caused the splitup of 2 major remix sites - the 2 admins of OCRemix.org had exactly that discussion about "reviewed music only" vs "everything goes". As they couldnt find a common base about this , they splitted up and the other guy created VGmix.com

What i want to say with that is - instead of rejecting those files - put them in a special section on the page, so we can download them anyway - even if the jury doesnt like them - WE might like them.

Thanks for reading!

I`ve had few of my mixes rejected in OCRemix and in RKO. It didnt feel nice back then, but after little time had passed i found out that those remixes usually sucked badly (i mean really badly ). So i was glad that these jury people guarded me from releasing those mixes and i now thank them for that. So you see that they arent there just to bully you, they are there to protect you and to quide you to better future . Also its is their site, so if they think that your production quality is too low. Then it is too low. You can always release it in different site ie Vgmix (when it is back in business in next year). Also you can take it as a learning opportunity to improving your skills as a music composer/mixer.

Creating different section for rejected mixes is imo tricky thing, how many actually wants their rejected songs to be in rejected box. I know i would not want it. Also it eats bandwith, which cost money. So my vote would be no.

What i would like from amiga remix jury or any jury to do is submit little more reasons of their rejection. So that composer would know what he/she would have to improve. "You suck" isnt much to start with. I know that is actually alot to ask, but it might help starting remixers and help to keep the scene alive.

I hope my ranting makes any sense, hard to write my thoughts in foreign language.

RKO used to have the "everything goes" rule at the start, and the site was full of original SID's converted to Wave format and than Drum Loops superimposed on top of them. But that all changed most if not all of those tunes were deleted from the board and now the quality of submissions is much higher.

the Admins who run any of these sites put a lot of time and effort to run them and should have the final say of what is available for download and what is not.

I do agree if possible to give a detailed description of why the submission was rejected, and not a bunch of automated or standard answers.

What is considered a Low Quality Remix? What if I decided to record a song and give it a real retro sound by recording everything in 8-Bit and Staticy? Would that be considered a Low Quality Remix?

This may sound very harsh and you'll probably hate me for this but...

There are many remixes on AmigaRemix that are downright poor for my taste. Those remixes, that sound like someone just opened the original tune in a tracker and replaced 8-bit mono sounds with 16-bit stereo sounds.
I feel my toe nails rolling up with most of them...

And even they passed the "quality check".
How bad has a AmigaRemix to be - to be rejected?
Just wondering...

No bad feelings, guys. Just my impression. Sorry.

About time there was a filter on AmigaRemix, I mean I could of probably get a remix on there.

Hi ScHlAuChi!

I am a jury member at RKO, and have as of yet never been involved with the everyday running of AmigaRemix, but I might be able to say a thing or two about the jury-stuff anyway.

Speaking for myself (i.e. what I’m about to say may not be in line with the official standpoint of RKO or any other member of the jury), I’d like to give my view of the benefits of having a jury system.

I was asked by Jan Lund Thomsen – the guy who runs RKO – to be part of the jury to “help increase the quality” of the remixes that are posted on RKO, and also to make sure that the judging was more “fair”.
Before Jan implemented the jury system it was just his opinion that mattered. This meant that if Jan didn’t like a remix, it didn’t go on the site. Now each song usually gets comments and votes from four or five of the jury members before they go on the site. Jan takes our opinions into account before deciding to post or reject a tune.

This means that each song gets more than “one chance to impress". Although the jury quite often are of the same opinion, there have been times when a few members of the jury thought the tune should be rejected, while others thought it was great! These tunes might have been rejected had they not been voted on by several people, with different tastes in music.

Now, what you need to remember, and this is the most important point of them all, is that these sites (AmigaRemix, RKO, OCRemix etc.) are not in any way public domain – i.e. you can never DEMAND to have your work published there. It’s up to the administrators and the owners of the sites (who pay for and maintain the servers and services) to decide what they want to post on them, and they’re fully in their right to reject your work.

Like Vosla indicated, most consumers of these sites are not interested in poor quality remixes. They want good stuff and don’t want to waste their time and bandwidth downloading songs they’ll simply delete after one listen.
And, like Raven Squad said, it might be a good thing to have your work rejected if it’s not up to the test. I think you’d rather have your songs rejected before you were subject to public ridicule, which can be the result of a poor remix posted on a popular site.

I’ve also had songs rejected from RKO and OCRemix. Tough shit, but if the guys who run the sites don’t want the tune on there, you and I and everyone else will have to respect that. It’s as simple as that – it’s nothing personal.

There are plenty of sites that can host your files if you want to – for example VGMix or Overlooked Remix. These sites have a policy of “anything goes”, RKO and AmigaRemix have not.

I think I've rambled enough now.

Oh, just to get this right - im not a composer or music guy in any way - im a LevelDesigner - i never touched any instruments in my life
And no, no friends of mine´s submission were rejected either.

It was pure coincidence that i did meet this person in IRC who told me that his stuff was rejected - which for me, was something new, as i didnt hear about a Jury at AmigaRemix before.

So the reason why i made this thread afterwards was to get more information about this whole process of how it is decided what gets on the page. As this might be informative for other people too.

Also even if alot of people dont like the work of (for example) Hege8, it doesnt mean that there arent people who will like what he does - i mean even if his productions arent that high in quality as others, i personally still appreciate any single Amiga Remix and listen to it

After all this is such a small community, so as a "end-consumer" im probably not very picky about these productions, im already happy if people do them at all



Thanks everyone for the input

@Makke
Special thanks for these inside infos - as i can see now this has pros and cons - is there any way to get those rejected remixes you did? I already bought your CD and it was great!

I have to agree with Makke here, but I do understand your point of view, ScHlAuChi. Earlier on, the ONLY person that decided whether a remix should be released or not was Paul Vanukoff, but from now on, me and Chris Abbott will run the site, and we will do it the way Jan runs R:K:O, i.e. we will use a jury.

We want to increase the quality of Amiga remixes, since MANY of the current tracks on the site just doesn't cut it. Using a jury for this will give it a broader scope of opinions and therefor also a more honest base for the final decision, which still will lie with me and Chris.

I also agree that the rejection-comments have been a bit TOO automated, but it's totally understandable due to the backend-setup of the site as well as the fact that Paul have had a real life besides amigaremix.com. We'll try to raise that level of notification a bit as well.

There won't be any kind of sanitising of old remixes done at this phase, but that's certain to be done sometime in the near future.

We're not rejecting tracks out of pure evilness, but the simple fact that some people just take the original track and adds one or two minor elements to it before submitting it really gives us no choice but to reject it. As Makke and others have said in this thread, this happened at R:K:O as well and as both a jury member over there as well as a frequest downloader, I must say that it works a lot better now.

Well, keep coming with suggestions and remarks, especially after the release of the new version and we'll do our best to make sure amigaremix.com grows in a good fashion. We can handle criticism as well, as long as it's constructive.

Regards,
Ziphoid

A sidenote: you all know the Remix64 smiley voting and shout system. The Remix.Kwed.Org jury employs it to rate and comment a track before release. If a remix is being rejected, the comments and rating are included in the rejection notice, and in most cases those comments contain specific hints where a remix lacks. So an open minded arranger receives valuable feedback, and occasionally a track gets re-submitted with those things mended.

ScHlAuChi wrote:@Makke
Special thanks for these inside infos - as i can see now this has pros and cons - is there any way to get those rejected remixes you did? I already bought your CD and it was great!

I'm really glad you like the CD!

And to answer your question - yes and no.

The RKO song that was rejected was rejected for a good reason, and you're not missing out on anything. Most other remixes can be found either on RKO, AmigaRemix or VGMix (though it's been down for quite a good while now).

I agree, the filter has the right coarseness right now.

In any case there is no quality filter on this board, just post a link to your remix here.

If someone want to get feedback before submitting to RKO or AR, why not post a preview of the track here and get some valuable feedback which might push it over to the published side once submitted?

exoskeleton wrote:I agree, the filter has the right coarseness right now.

In any case there is no quality filter on this board, just post a link to your remix here.

Which is a very good idea! since comments a usually very fair and helpful. It may even get you in touch with people who can help you to improve your work in areas your aren't so familar with now. IMO this worked fantastic so far.

Or you could just release it here:
http://olremix.org/

klasman wrote:Or you could just release it here:
http://olremix.org/

/me crosses off another item on the to-do list..