A beat the clock competition with a Jury !

[cpyatak]

Hi everyone - I'd like to address some of the concerns here.

Regarding spam - a certain amount of this is inevitable with any competition. There's a difficult line to draw between active self-promotion across different networks, and going overkill. If you're looking for sincere feedback on a track, then it's best to send it to people that you trust, or communities that might be interested in giving you some tips. Otherwise, there are nearly 2,000 entries - it's hard to expect deep and sincere feedback, unsolicited, with such a large pool of entries.

Voting in the Beat the Clock is limited to one vote per track per person. In cases where we can positively identify that an entrant has obtained votes through illegitimate means, we will take appropriate actions and the entrant risks being disqualified. Please leave it to us, however, to identify these cases. I know some things might look suspicious on the surface, but without proof it can quickly turn in to an online shouting match - and no one needs another one of those. Try to focus instead on promoting your own work, and checking out some of the other incredible entries.

Lastly, some clarification about the judging process. The 25 entries with the most votes will be judged by M83, Junior Boys and Nosaj Thing. Their top 10 picks will win prizes. As such, even if someone did manage to get his/her track into the top 25 through shady tactics, it's not likely to make it to the top 10.

Of course, no competition is fool-proof, and no voting system is perfect. We have strived to make Beat the Clock as even and fair as possible - for example, through adding a random list of tracks that appears on the home page every time you refresh it. Thanks again to everyone who has entered - and remember that you can keep voting until June 15!

Man, you got this rowdy classroom quiet in a hurry!
Seriously, thanks for the input, and taking time to address this.

Chris

[polybiusmusic]

Yeah, spam is inevitable. However we users can do something about it. There is a little option in soundcloud that lets your report as spam a comment. There is this guy who posted over 400 equal comments on different tracks. I reported him, he spam the same, I reported him again.
If you really want to see if someone is spamming, just go to their soundcloud accounts, comments sections and you will immeadiatley notice!

Its too late now, but I think the voting period should have started at the same time. People who submitted their work at the last minute where already almost 10days behind from someone who submitted it on the first day. Nothing to do with this now, just a comment.

TOP 3 tracks have AN ABSOLUT UNFAIR ADVANTAGE!

Nothing else to say.

Cheers!

[COSM]

Thanks David, I'm watching this with interest as the handfull of competitions I've run in the past always attract cheats, which completely sucks, but it's a reality. The only solution I found was to use a Facebook style poll, so all votes are associated with real peoples accounts, and it's public who made each individual vote.

[pencilrocket]

Ableton can use your trusty, at least if you trust them, paying costomer as legit voter. On the internet whatever method except customer ID won't prevent from cheat. See the online game, even the bloated anti-hack can't exclude cheaters completely. It shows software technological gimmick never help.

[erikomic]

@david.
thank you for those "official" clarifications.
I'm yet curious to hear the finalist.

Man, you got this rowdy classroom quiet in a hurry!

yeah, well that's what we hoped for.

[Wbowers]

Did you all notice that those suspected of Vote buying have had their votes thrown out. something close to Six people in the Top 10 are down 200 votes from two days ago. The well known suspect was Daft-e who still is in the top 10 but now resides at 7th instead of 2nd. Others are as low as 50.

[needaname]

Did you all notice that those suspected of Vote buying have had their votes thrown out. something close to Six people in the Top 10 are down 200 votes from two days ago. The well known suspect was Daft-e who still is in the top 10 but now resides at 7th instead of 2nd. Others are as low as 50.

Ye maybe Ableton did something!

[Cikadas]

Did you all notice that those suspected of Vote buying have had their votes thrown out. something close to Six people in the Top 10 are down 200 votes from two days ago. The well known suspect was Daft-e who still is in the top 10 but now resides at 7th instead of 2nd. Others are as low as 50.

Yep totally noticed and Yet he claims he wasn't cheating. I wish all cheaters were DQ'd because cheating is cheating no matter how you cut it and if you have to stoop that low to "get heard or seen" it's very sad and shows how talentless of a person you are. It also threw the voting system out of whack.

[parable66]

Yea, at first, I thought it was %100 musical skill. I am very proud of what I did as well. Now, it seems as if 1/8th of the competition is musical skills and the other 7/8ths is running for president.
But! I have learned alot about music production, my skill levels, music distribution, soundcloud (i haven't really used it till this competition) and reconnected with a ton of friends at the same time.
It is very nice to get some genuine feedback on your arrangements. I tried like hell to do it for everyone. I wish the best of luck to everyone, Sincerely.
The whole spam thing has just become an OCD behavior and makes me giggle. But in order to get heard, we must market ourselves.

Speaking of which! ha ha. If you want to vote for a slight underdog with tons of real ableton creativity, please vote for me (i think im in 30th or so).
I used tons of side-chaining, all the original samples, sweet vocoder effects and so on. I am very proud of what I did:
Lots of love everyone!
http://contest.ableton.com/tracks/598

[Wbowers]

Have you all noticed the "new top ten"? two tracks took over bills in under an hour(currently at 753 votes). there is no way to get 100 votes in under an hour unless you buy them. Then there is this Darklight guy with stats like Daft had 200+ favorites and plays numbering the 10000's. Geez.yesterday he wasnt even in the top 25. it would be one thing if the songs were good but.... There are really good tunes up there though, but I predict that they will be pushed out by the 15th. The jury can only elect the winner from the "top" 25 if all of those are crap well then... Im sure you get the idea.

[parable66]

Have you all noticed the "new top ten"? two tracks took over bills in under an hour(currently at 753 votes). there is no way to get 100 votes in under an hour unless you buy them. Then there is this Darklight guy with stats like Daft had 200+ favorites and plays numbering the 10000's. Geez.yesterday he wasnt even in the top 25. it would be one thing if the songs were good but.... There are really good tunes up there though, but I predict that they will be pushed out by the 15th. The jury can only elect the winner from the "top" 25 if all of those are crap well then... Im sure you get the idea.

Yea, Im not too sure about some of those But hey! Im in 31st! Wanna vote for an underdog? http://contest.ableton.com/tracks/598
Maybe we should join them? ha ha ha

[Wbowers]

And just like that Bill is out of the Top 3. Louis Luca Now has 111 favorites and over 6000 plays, however only 124 comments. Friday is going to go crazy with cheaters just watch....

[Cikadas]

Have you all noticed the "new top ten"? two tracks took over bills in under an hour(currently at 753 votes). there is no way to get 100 votes in under an hour unless you buy them. Then there is this Darklight guy with stats like Daft had 200+ favorites and plays numbering the 10000's. Geez.yesterday he wasnt even in the top 25. it would be one thing if the songs were good but.... There are really good tunes up there though, but I predict that they will be pushed out by the 15th. The jury can only elect the winner from the "top" 25 if all of those are crap well then... Im sure you get the idea.

LOL yep I noticed that too. It's called buying votes from fiverr.com for $5. You can get 200 for each $5 you spend. Don't worry tho, all those that cheated will get caught and they will get what is coming to them.

Voting:

A Soundcloud account is required for voting
Public voting is open from May 14th to June 15th, 4 p.m. GMT (or 9 a.m. PDT - US West Coast)
You can vote for as many tracks as you like, but only once per entry
Voting is strictly limited to one vote per person per track. If it is discovered that you have used false SoundCloud accounts or other illegitimate means to boost your vote tally (e.g. purchasing votes or automation), you risk being disqualified.
The top 25 entrants will be asked to hand in their Live Sets, so we can take a look under the hood and judge techniques.
The prize winners will be selected from the top 25 tracks by M83, Junior Boys, Nosaj Thing plus the Ableton and SoundCloud contest committees.

And the top 25 entrants.. i don't think there will be "top 25" with just the votes but that's what I'm hoping.

[parable66]

Definately a sweet Idea! I loved hearing everyones approach on the sample usage. I think that was the main point.

[erikomic]

Mmmmh, there seems to be "All-in" cheaters back in the Top.
This Is the only suspense that keeps me coming back to the contest. Eager to see how ableton's going to handle all those "popping microwave instant 200votes"...

This begins to make me think about "Pro cycling". I hope there are still "clean" persons in the top 25.

Last chance to support an outsider... http://contest.ableton.com/tracks/1098