Beat Battle Discussion

#62

In the past sample clearance was one of the main hurdles why we weren’t able to get a release. Auto has told us previously that samples must be free of copyright if they were to do a release. If we were to record our own sample pack, allow members to record and submit to a pool of samples, that would create a sample pool which is we can claim the copyright on, clearing it for a release.

#63

Hey guys. Regarding the comment above about the netlabel team helping with pinning a post…we technically can do that but I would prefer to leave that to the mods. We have those rights strictly for handling label stuff. We can and would promote a release from the BBs, but for the rest please check in with your friendly neighborhood moderator for assistance.

#64

Who’s “we”? And what’s all this “can” and “would” talk? I believe in action, not coulda/woulda/shoulda.

Are we or are we not promoting a release (we being the BB crew)?

#65

Have the rules and samples from BB #1 been preserved?

Deciding to repeat the original rules and samples for #100 would solve a lot of practical problems at once - and, at the same time, it would also be a nice tribute to the guy, who originally started it.

#66

“BB1” would actually be a completely separate sequence of Beat Battles, as this current line of battles is Beat Battles v2.0. Those original beat battles were all done through Soundcloud groups, which Soundcloud stopped quite a while ago. The samples from the first battle of this sequence weren’t saved, unless someone who was around back then happens to come and provide a copy. And as I said above, none of the rules from the beat battles were recorded for any of the battles prior to IDMf v2.0.

#67

All right. Thank you for the detailed reply. I forgot you already mentioned the rules gone missing, sorrry about that.

It seems to me, that the easiest way to move ahead, would be to stick with the original (and succesful) format, that the rules and samples are decided by ONE PERSON.

It used to be the winner of the previous battle, but I can see that that’s is no longer in use.

The idea of creating a comittee that somehow decides everything democratically, will IMO risk sucking the life and momentum right out of the whole thing.

#68

I think it’s going to stay normal, they’re just going to do a submission process for 100 and see what comes out of it. I think. Like 101 would go back to regularly scheduled programming.

#69

When the label team was discussing this we also went a few rounds (as interested partakers in the BBs) of what kind of rules would work, with a particular focus of what would make up a good release. I personally think keeping it simple in rules and retrospective in nature would be the way to go. Having a public release as a goal of this particular BB will color the process by default… for example if it is to be released to the public I (again personally) would want to emphasize the quality and variety of the entered tracks. Plus we have to consider the source material as has already been discussed…no need to draw a sueball to the label for some perceived copyright infringement…

The idea of having each willing member deliver a single sample for the pack is a cool one. That would really maximize the involvement of the community, and would avoid potential issues with unclear sourcing of old samples.

#70

If you’re going to get the community to source samples for this, you might want to already get that started, or have gotten that started. that will take a bit, by itself.

And now this is sort of delaying the next BB, for anyone that was interested in doing that.

#71

We were saying BB100 would have an extended window anyway, 4-6 weeks. BB99 is wrapping up now as it is, we can have a couple weeks for the samples and the rest for the tracks. We can try to spread the word around the site and elsewhere.

I say we go with original submitted samples, as this ensures the copyright issue is ok.

Next is the rules. What shall the rules be?

#72

As for a prize, I was thinking a Korg Monotron Duo, which is on Sweetwater for about $52, which is affordable.

#73

A prize? I thought the discussion was related to pushing submissions towards a release.

#74

It’s both. There was previous discussion on us doing a reward for the 100th battle for the winner. Nothing huge. None of us are making money doing this. Just a small kinda cool prize.

#75

This might be obvious, but I thought I’d mention it anyway:

In the unlkely event that someone from my country (in the EU) should win the prize, there would be a 24$ import fee + 40% import tax (if the prize is sent from the US). For a 52$ device, that would total around 45$. It would, in other words, cost almost then same for the winner as buying the device themselves (a Monotron Duo costs around 48$ over here).

In case of a winner in the EU, - buying the prize as a “gift” in an EU shop, and having it sent directly to the winner from there, would circumvent this problem.

#76

If we were to do this, we’d definitely probably want to find a local dealer to wherever region the winner was from.

#77

I guess really we could worry about the prize a little later. For now, we should probably focus on getting BB100 on track towards a netlabel release.

Duration: We’re saying 4-6 weeks
Host: I think this essentially should just be a collective effort, with no real host exactly. We can make the thread once we have everything decided.
Rules: ?? We were saying something more simple. I personally would like additional instruments permitted, that’s just my vote tho. Perhaps a certain genre? We could do electro.

#78

I’m just going to throw this out here.

Don’t do a genre-specific thing. With activity low on the forum and generally much more so in the regular BBs(not as much lately but I figure that’s for a different reason), might be counter productive.

Need numbers of people submitting quality stuff to even think of going ahead with a release, yea? While the last release was nice, there were a number of duplicate members on there. But if everyone wants to do a specific type, ok.

And since the idea of using the archive is pretty meh at this point, more because they can’t be ruled out for legal derps, I’m all for the use of instruments outside of samples. But I’d like to make sure people at least use one of them. So some rule towards that would be nice. Not saying people wouldn’t but it’s possible.

Like at least one of the community formed samples from the pack must be used in a fashion that is noticeable and unmolested.

Also, just to put this out here but I assume the same rules apply to submissions, if these were to go on to something. Follow the no master stuffs, leave -6dB headroom, and submission doesn’t guarantee it makes release or the fact of a release? Or am I blurring the idea that this is related to the the netlabel, after it’s built up?

And as for a piece of gear as a prize, if that’s going to be a thing anyway…I actually recommend one of the cheaper pocket operators for $49. There are a few options. I have the Korg monotron duo and it’s pretty meh. You can get one of those pocket ops naked, way more interesting a prize, I think. They look fun. Almost bought a few of them before I got my Digitakt.

And…can we sort out the sample pack. That seems like a week, if not more, of dealing with gathering, while we continue this nailing down stuff.

#79

Hey all, for what this is worth, I think we’re going to be publishing our netlabel plan for the next 3 months or so with all our release ideas on it sometime this week or next week at the latest. When we do, you’ll find that we have at least one genre-specific compilation planned over the summer already. So I think leaving this open is fine. As long as we give a decent sample pack that people want to use in these tracks, I think we’ll have enough of a thread to tie a release together.

As far as samples go, I’m all for community submitted samples. I imagine a week should be enough time to put a solid pack together with multiple people submitting stuff, then we’d need a few days to look everything over and organize it for you.

For this BB, it would certainly be ideal if normal mastering rules applied (no master buss effects, track peaks at -6db or less) but the reality is I can and will master whatever you hand me. It just might not sound great when I’m done…

#80

I think we all should come up with quite a large sample pack so we could have extensive sound design choices, more samples to work with - more unique ideas. Everyone who participated previously or not could bring something in, not just 1 sample each, maybe 5 of them at least. It need such variety to succeed in a compilation release.

I’m against genre restriction rules. It discourages people in participating completely if that genre is something they don’t like/listen to. You need everyone to make the best out of samples in their own comfort zone and the goal is high quality, not just some some very abstract fun experiment made in one day that leads nowhere later.

#81

Having read through the thread, and taking note of what other’s have said, and having thought about it for a while. The problem as I see it would be coherence for the release. If it’s open genre, how do you know what kind of samples to pitch in. The normal beat battles are usually around a theme or genre that is predefined by the OP, and the samples match that. If there are too many samples, there could be a possibility that all the tracks have completely different samples in them, so again you loose coherence. The battle side of it is using the same samples, otherwise it’s not a battle. Now, it seems that most are against fixed genre, so I came up with this idea.

As this is open genre, the use of other instruments should be permitted, but not samples from outside the pack.

The samples can be effected, sped up, slowed down, reversed and otherwise twisted, as long as they are still recognizable as the original.(This is to help keep coherence.)

Each member puts say 5 samples in that he wishes to use in his own track. That way everyone knows there is something suitable for their chosen genre. The catch is, that for each one of your own samples you use, you must use a sample from another member, you can only use 1 sample per member, so you have to dip into other members samples.

Well, that’s the idea I came up with.