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-- THE SIMON COWELL SECTION / THE 'BRUTAL TRUTH FEEDBACK THREAD'.
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Bob Dylan is folk rock, maybe blues, but not country western. I'm pretty sure tehlord is talking about stuff like Toby Keith.
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| Originally posted by tehlord Point me in the direction of a C&W song that transcends any boundaries and i'll agree. |
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| Originally posted by kitphillips |
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| Originally posted by floyd741 Not a terrible idea but, if you want to give brutal feedback just do it in Music Producer's Promotion. I see no reason why there should be a special thread if there is already an entire forum. |
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| Originally posted by G-Con I think that is the problem though. I don't think ANYONE gives 100% honest feedback in the music promotion section. We are all too nice, and will always be as positive as possible. I'm not saying that no one gives any criticism because they do but it will always be sugar coated. Comments like, "nice tune, bass is a bit weak and the percs could be with more variation but overall nice work. Well done." Had that same tune been on beatport, we most likely would have dismissed it instantly because in all honesty, its generic, boring and forgettable. Many of us who post in the music promotion section do so when we have a tune on there so we give feedback to others to then receive feedback ourselves. There is nothing wrong with this but no one wants to be too harsh on other people's work from fear of getting a bashing in return. Instead we try to be as constructive as possible, but always with a positive slant. Some of you may not agree with this, but I read some of the glowing feedback of someones track and I just do not believe that the feedback would be the same if it was a track on beatport by an artist no one knew. Some people in the music promotion are particularly bad for always giving rave reviews and feedback to others. I'm not mentioning any names but I'm sure some of you will have witnessed this yourselves. The problem with those who are always give over the top, positive feedback is their opinion loses all credibility. Personally I do try to be honest with my criticism and suggestions but I'd never tell someone that I think their tune is boring and generic, even if deep down this is what I felt, so in this respect I'm as guilty as anyone else. |
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| Originally posted by G-Con I think that is the problem though. I don't think ANYONE gives 100% honest feedback in the music promotion section. We are all too nice, and will always be as positive as possible. I'm not saying that no one gives any criticism because they do but it will always be sugar coated. |
It does suck to receive harsh feedback on something that has taken weeks to perfectionise. It is however fun to come back with something even better, and I think that is preferable to stagnating.
I'm not sure of the need of a dedicated thread for such critisism, but I'd gladly give it a shot!
I'm quite aware of the errors in most of my tracks since they're all more than a couple of months old. It would however be cool to hear what ideas other people have.
As mentioned, imagine you're listening to it on Beatport, or something along those lines:
Epic Robot by Fjern
I don't think it's very fair to say it's wrong for giving positive feedback to something in the MP forum that you wouldn't give to it if it were on Beatport. I imagine most people get pissed hearing subpar music on Beatport because of the idea that it doesn't deserve to be released amongst legitimately good tracks. In the MP forum it's usually just hobbyists posting for the sake of showing off what they did in their free time, and in that environment it's pretty fair to say "Hey, nice job, but [insert faults here], nice work though". In that situation encouragement is probably for the best.
Like digi said you can say this new section might fall under the same social contract but people posting there would be doing so for completely different reasons than they would for posting in the MP forum. Instead of getting people to hear their track and get a few comments about it, this section would be pure criticism. And I don't think the people posting there would expect anything less from everyone else, so that would probably inhibit them from trying to dish out praise on the off chance they might get it back. That negates the whole point of the forum and I'm pretty sure most people here are mature enough to realize that.
I don't see the need for a whole new subforum - just ask for brutal honesty when you post the song. If there's something concerning your track that you're not 100% happy with or just unsure of, point it out in your thread and ask for specific feedback on it, how to improve it, or toss it, etc.
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| Originally posted by Kysora In the MP forum it's usually just hobbyists posting for the sake of showing off what they did in their free time, and in that environment it's pretty fair to say "Hey, nice job, but [insert faults here], nice work though". In that situation encouragement is probably for the best. |
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| Originally posted by cryophonik I don't see the need for a whole new subforum - just ask for brutal honesty when you post the song. If there's something concerning your track that you're not 100% happy with or just unsure of, point it out in your thread and ask for specific feedback on it, how to improve it, or toss it, etc. |
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| Originally posted by DigiNut While this problem is easy to see in the MP forum, it stands to reason that the original intent was for people to provide honest feedback. I can remember a time when that forum seemed to be a lot more active and you did, sometimes, get honest feedback. So let's hypothetically say that (a) I was wild about this idea myself and (b) I could convince Swamper to go for it - neither of which I can claim confidently right now - the question is, how would you prevent the exact same thing from happening to the "feedback" forum? The same social contract is still implied; you review mine, I'll review yours. You give me a good/honest review, I'll give you a good/honest review. It's just human nature, it's how people think. The only way I know of to break out of this pattern is if the feedback system is completely anonymous and automated, which means it generally has to be simplified into something as basic as a thumbs-up or thumbs-down vote. This is how many Q&A sites work, but it's not entirely reliable for subjective discussions, and in any event, I think that's too drastic a change to implement here. The location or title of the forum really doesn't matter. What matters is how people are incentivized to interact. What incentives are there for people to take significant amounts of their time to provide critical reviews of tracks (especially when criticism does not tend to be well-received)? Do any of you have a way around these problems? |
One other potential pitfall with the Brutal Honesty forum IMO is this: I assume that a lot of people are like me in that they don't bother replying if they just don't like the song or it just isn't their cup of tea. That doesn't mean that it's not a good track or doesn't have commercial value - it just means that I don't care for it, so criticism would just be a personal preference. I actually listen to more songs than I respond to, but I tend to only respond to the ones that really grab my attention. That's partly because I do most of my listening during the day when I'm at work, so I don't have time to respond to each and every one. But, it's also because I don't follow Beatport and I really don't have a good idea of what sells and what doesn't. So, I find myself only bothering to reply when I hear someone that I really like, which is often from the same handful of producers.
I have had quite a few people PM me and ask me for criticism on a track, and I'm always happy to go the extra mile and point out both the strengths and weaknesses in a track when someone goes to the lengths of asking specifically for my advice. But, I always caveat it by mentioning that I'm not the best person to determine how marketable their track is. I think that because I post a lot (too much?) it leaves the impression that I know a lot about every aspect of EDM, but that's simply not the case. I'm sure that this applies to many of the regulars here. There are a few people here who really seem to know the marketing end of music, but I'm not one of them, so I tend to critique songs based on their musicality (very important to ME) and their technicality, but I try not to get too bogged down with nitpicky things (unless something really bothers me), and focus more on the overall mix.
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| Originally posted by DigiNut While this problem is easy to see in the MP forum, it stands to reason that the original intent was for people to provide honest feedback. I can remember a time when that forum seemed to be a lot more active and you did, sometimes, get honest feedback. So let's hypothetically say that (a) I was wild about this idea myself and (b) I could convince Swamper to go for it - neither of which I can claim confidently right now - the question is, how would you prevent the exact same thing from happening to the "feedback" forum? The same social contract is still implied; you review mine, I'll review yours. You give me a good/honest review, I'll give you a good/honest review. It's just human nature, it's how people think. The only way I know of to break out of this pattern is if the feedback system is completely anonymous and automated, which means it generally has to be simplified into something as basic as a thumbs-up or thumbs-down vote. This is how many Q&A sites work, but it's not entirely reliable for subjective discussions, and in any event, I think that's too drastic a change to implement here. The location or title of the forum really doesn't matter. What matters is how people are incentivized to interact. What incentives are there for people to take significant amounts of their time to provide critical reviews of tracks (especially when criticism does not tend to be well-received)? Do any of you have a way around these problems? |
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| Originally posted by Beatflux Example questions: Does this sound like song that could make Beatport House top 10? I want my kick and bass to song like wolfgang, does it sound similar? I am going for a Electro-Tiesto meets modern ATB sound, did I nail it? I worked on this percussion to sound like popular tech house, does it sound professionally done? I want my percussion to sound like song X and my melodies to sound like producer X, does it sound similar? When people have a certain sound to reference, it becomes much more of an objective experience rather than relying on someone's years of music listening and nuanced preferences of music to tell you how much they enjoyed the music. There's always a way to check the quality of the feedback: an A/B sound check. |
I wish I had time to give a more detailed reply, but I just wanted to voice that I am for the status quo. I'll try and come up with a more in depth reply, but I don't believe I've ever shrunk from delivering honest critique.
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| Originally posted by G-Con I disagree. I do this purely as a hobby and have no intention of trying to become successful with it in the pro sense. BUT I want people to critic my tracks as they would any other tune. The idea that they will critique it in a way that takes into consideration my amateur status is patronising beyond belief. |
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| Originally posted by Kysora Yeah, me too. I'm not saying it's ideal, I'm just saying using the comparison to Beatport isn't a very fair one, because the comment "Hey, this is really good for a semi-serious hobbyist" doesn't translate well into "Hey, this is really good for a signed track being sold through a distributor". People have higher standards. It's more of a bad thing in terms of reviewing tracks on Beatport and such than it is here; people generally review tracks here as they see them, whereas for tracks being sold their standards suddenly become much higher. After thinking about it though I honestly don't think we need a "brutal honesty" section. I can go ahead and start reviewing tracks when I have the time and be as straightforward as possible but I honestly don't think we need to have an actual division of criticism to achieve what you guys seem to want. Hell, whenever I review tracks I point out as many flaws as I can, since that's generally what I listen for anyway. If more people want to step and do this I think it'd be perfectly manageable to do so in the forums already established for it. |
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| Originally posted by Beatflux If you split up the forums, the more "serious" forum would invalidate comments on the less serious forum and you would have people move over to the "serious" forum because people would feel like the comments would be more "sincere." |
Wanted to respond to this as well:
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| Originally posted by G-Con I agree that we don't need a separate section for honest criticism but I do think that the kind of feedback many of us give in the MP section isn't honest enough. I'm know I'm repeating myself now but we all want to know if our tunes are genuinely good, not just decent for an amateur but as good as the pro's. And I'm not just referring to the production quality but the musicality of the track (far more important in my eyes) |
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| Originally posted by DigiNut Wanted to respond to this as well: Thing is, a lot of pro tracks aren't very good. Even on many of the major labels. Standards and tastes vary significantly, and a really shitty track can make it into distribution if the label dude happens to think it's catchy. Depending on who you ask, "really good for an amateur" could mean anything from "not release material" to "might make it out the door" to "better than most professionally-released tracks." I also doubt that there are many reviewers here (or at the labels) who are even qualified to review the musicality of the track - that would require at least a passing knowledge of music theory - and even then, so many tracks being pumped out nowadays don't really have any tonal elements to speak of (or they're bland one-chord repetitions that it's impossible to really say anything definitive about). Believe me, I share everybody's sentiment about the honesty and level of detail in reviews. The devil is always in the details, though. Writing the kind of review people seem to want is hard work, requires a decent body of knowledge and a good ear, and is generally a pretty thankless task. Ask yourself, honestly, how many tracks you personally would review this way if there were an infinite number of tracks to be reviewed. Once upon a time I can remember writing 3 or 4 such reviews a day in the promo forum - now, I think I'd find it hard to motivate myself to do more than one a week. So, yes, the inability to get good, detailed reviews is an ongoing problem, but we can't blame the reviewers who are taking up their free time listening to other people's crap and trying to come up with the right words to describe it. I think that the best solution, right now at least, is just to set an example - write the kinds of reviews you would want to receive, and lots of them. |
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| Originally posted by DigiNut (b) people don't ask for the right kind of feedback, and often react negatively to it when given. [/COLOR][/FONT] |
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| Originally posted by DigiNut I'm still interpreting the proposal as: Phase 1: Create a new sub-forum Phase 2: ??? Phase 3: Profit! (Excellent detailed reviews!) What's in phase 2? What is the mechanism that would make this effective? So far, nobody has addressed the issue of incentives, other than to say "that's what the forum says people should do, so that's what they'll do." You yourself just listed a number of ways to get better feedback without the need for a special forum. Just specify the kind of feedback you want when you post the track instead of asking for general thoughts (which implies the desire for a favourable review). If it's a specific question about a specific track element, it's fine to post here (but a sample demonstrating this element is better than an entire track). Otherwise, it belongs in the promotion forum. Maybe that forum just needs a name change, like "Promotion & Reviews" or even just "Reviews." The real issue, though, isn't that reviewers don't give honest enough feedback. It's a combination of the fact that (a) there aren't enough reviewers in the first place (incentives!) and (b) people don't ask for the right kind of feedback, and often react negatively to it when given. |
Well I think this thread just shows that we all want honest reviews. So next time, just give an honest review.
I really tend to only reply to songs that I feel need work, or songs that I think are really good though. Songs that need to much work I usually do not reply to because someone has usually already said it. Usually I'd listen to a song and just not reply, I think that speaks for itself in that the song is ok, but not great.
A critique subforum would be great...I feel the Music Producers Promotion is really for showing off finished products, whereas I would want a dedicated critique forums for WiPs, completed projects, "How does this melody/synth/loop/fartbass sound," and such.
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