A beat the clock competition with a Jury !

[gibson_ewok]

I can honestly say I've done no spamming at all in order to get to the top.

I can also say with integrity that I have not once posted my track on another contestants track.

I simply wrote this track, then I reached out to my social networks on Facebook which consists of:

- The Mr. Bill artist page: which has about 3,700 followers (which were not acquired through spam related tasks either, I toured my arse off and have been working really hard for years putting out releases regularly, networking, teaching, etc).

- The Electrocado page: which has around 2,000 followers (again, not acquired through spamming, we gained most of our followers from releasing an album on Ektoplazm which received around 20,000 downloads and became Ektoplazm's top album for the year as voted by the Ektoplazm community).

- Finally my personal page, which has around 1,200 friends (of which I've added about 200 of).

I also posted this track as a blog on my website http://www.mrbillstunes.com

I told people that if they voted then emailed me that I would send them the track for free in wav format (which I have been doing).

Also, before I entered this competition I had about 4,300 followers on SoundCloud (acquired through touring, constant releases, and just posting it around a little bit on Facebook).

All these things in conjunction with having my track on the front page of the contest is what has contributed to my plays and votes. As for the other 2 in the top 3, I have no idea what they're doing in terms of promo. However, in my experience over the past few years, spamming gets you nowhere anyway, it just pisses people off, and when you need help for something like this, you'll never get it, because you have no 'real' fans. Having 3,000 fans that really care is better than having 50,000 that don't care and just liked your page because it was being put in front of their face so frequently.

Also, for the record, I agree that popularity contests are completely retarded, and in no way a good means of judging the quality of music, however, I can't see any other way for the Ableton/SoundCloud committees (or anyone that does these bigger remix contests for that matter) to efficiently cull down the entries for a smaller selection process as well as promote their company in the process (which, in the end is what these remix competitions are always about).

Anyway, I'm not even sure if I'm being accused in this thread, but I just thought I'd throw in my 2 cents and clear my name a little bit!

Cheers,
Bill.

[erikomic]

Ah, it's great to have you here Mr.bill.

It's nice to have your reply wich calms down the whole thing.
You're not accused of anything far from it.
It is good to hear the kind of socialnetworking you've done to get there.

It's just somehow frustrating to have "Newbies" that have maybe posted their first track ever (maybe it's damn good, maybe it's just sh*t) but they have no feedback whatsoever about it but some kind of messages that says "Hey, I voted for you. Please vote for me !"
I think they deserve better.

If to get to the top you have to be related and professional, I still think the contest is biased.

That you have well worked and lots of followers is really a good thing for you and shows you're good at what you do.
Glad you threw in your two cents.

[erikomic]

So I think Mr.Bill just slapped back all our questions with "panache".

I agree that popularity contests are completely retarded, and in no way a good means of judging the quality of music, however, I can't see any other way for the Ableton/SoundCloud committees (or anyone that does these bigger remix contests for that matter) to efficiently cull down the entries for a smaller selection process as well as promote their company in the process (which, in the end is what these remix competitions are always about).

well part of the answer may be (as suggested above) indeed to hide the votes and not showing the top three..
it's exactly the same in the end but the frustration is kept at relative level.

I've also sended a mail to ableton to know what's their position about spamming into the contest so maybe we're expecting them around here maybe we don't.

Thanks guillaume for the very interesting blog (excuse my french it's in french guys)


And I must say I agree totally with "may the poorest musician win!"

[The Landwhale]

There is a pleasure to be derived from creative competitions, but for me it's not in competing but in forcing me to work differently, and treating the competition as an exercise for my "real" endeavours.
As an example: I used to do a lot of photoshop competitions and that experience really improved my photoshop skill-base. It's the same with musical competitions, for your own benefit you may as well complete the task simply as an autodidactic exercise. Looking for some kind of validation through these things is a road to producing lowest-common-denominator product. Has American Idol ever produced a truely unique talent, or piece of work? Nah.
However, it's still fun to have a go at competitions, as long as you don't aim to "win" them, use them as a doodle pad instead. I didn't enter his particular competition though.

I completely agree, I've done a few of these contests now for exactly this reason, because it breaks you out of routines which forces you to grow a bit IMO.
I've definitely grown from it, and thoroughly enjoyed the creative process everytime. This contest in particular was fun, because forced deadlines make you to commit to things early on while you're producing instead of developing endless tweaky wanker syndrome. For awhile now I've been imposing forced deadlines on myself when working, and I find it helps. I don't always stick to the deadline, but I find something about it just helps me stay focused and bring the song to fruition while I'm still inspired instead of letting the idea/inspiration become stagnant.

Now it hasn't helped me so far in developing my social networking skills, I still fail pretty miserably in that department. I think it's a direct reflection of my real life social skills, haha.

I suppose I should blast a spam load now : http://contest.ableton.com/tracks/1247

[yeshua]

Seems that Ableton is probably not going to take a position on this whole spam issue?

Can't say that I am entirely innocent of posting the link to my track on a few other tracks. I stopped doing that after realizing this contest will not choose my work based on its creativity/production skill/etc, but will boil down to spamming from hell to highwater across the contest. It seems the only way to get any attention (given the "culling" process) now that there are over 1300 entries. I simply don't have that kind of time and don't want to be that kind of guy. If Ableton can see this situation and they aren't scratching their head to figure out another way, well, that's simply unfortunate. A spam filter or scaling-vote would make a huge difference.

In the age of social networking, the more people who follow whatever it is you do, the more likely you are to "win" at things like this. A rather poor way to design a contest, don't you think? In what way can it really measure quality or originality of the work? All it seems to measure is popularity and an entrant's self-promo savvy. I remember a time when remix and production contests were about discovering brand new talent, not already established or upcoming artists (no offense intended to anyone, just saying it as I see it). But, given those prizes, who doesn't want to give it a shot!?

I'm a bit of an old miser. I've been producing electronic music for almost 20 years and cannot stomach a lot of what hits the dance floor or air/webwaves. Not because it doesn't have slick production or nicely designed sounds, but because it has no soul. But, I'm also a futurist, so I can't hold it against technology for how it changes the way electronic music is made. I just wish the quality of talent would match the quantity of technology.

[dinchak]

we all know how these work, no surprises here. i'm happy for the opportunity to get a few new followers and put a sweet new track up on my soundcloud. music is all subjective anyway although i think i'm in the majority when i say mr. bill's track is sweet and he is very much deserving of top 3 status on musicianship alone. i don't think the other 2 are any less deserving however as the rules are clearly stated and their votes are legitimate. i do understand the frustration as a prettymuch unknown musician myself who thinks he writes decent enough music. in fact if anyone wants to listen i'd be very grateful: http://contest.ableton.com/tracks/726! best of luck everybody.

[The Landwhale]

I can honestly say I've done no spamming at all in order to get to the top.

I can also say with integrity that I have not once posted my track on another contestants track.

I simply wrote this track, then I reached out to my social networks on Facebook which consists of:

- The Mr. Bill artist page: which has about 3,700 followers (which were not acquired through spam related tasks either, I toured my arse off and have been working really hard for years putting out releases regularly, networking, teaching, etc).

- The Electrocado page: which has around 2,000 followers (again, not acquired through spamming, we gained most of our followers from releasing an album on Ektoplazm which received around 20,000 downloads and became Ektoplazm's top album for the year as voted by the Ektoplazm community).

- Finally my personal page, which has around 1,200 friends (of which I've added about 200 of).

I also posted this track as a blog on my website http://www.mrbillstunes.com

I told people that if they voted then emailed me that I would send them the track for free in wav format (which I have been doing).

Also, before I entered this competition I had about 4,300 followers on SoundCloud (acquired through touring, constant releases, and just posting it around a little bit on Facebook).

All these things in conjunction with having my track on the front page of the contest is what has contributed to my plays and votes. As for the other 2 in the top 3, I have no idea what they're doing in terms of promo. However, in my experience over the past few years, spamming gets you nowhere anyway, it just pisses people off, and when you need help for something like this, you'll never get it, because you have no 'real' fans. Having 3,000 fans that really care is better than having 50,000 that don't care and just liked your page because it was being put in front of their face so frequently.

Also, for the record, I agree that popularity contests are completely retarded, and in no way a good means of judging the quality of music, however, I can't see any other way for the Ableton/SoundCloud committees (or anyone that does these bigger remix contests for that matter) to efficiently cull down the entries for a smaller selection process as well as promote their company in the process (which, in the end is what these remix competitions are always about).

Anyway, I'm not even sure if I'm being accused in this thread, but I just thought I'd throw in my 2 cents and clear my name a little bit!

Cheers,
Bill.

I totally respect what you've done, you've clearly worked your ass off on both the song and building your following, and I think the free download when someone messages you is a great idea. You work hard for hours and hours on your music, and if all someone has to do to get a free copy is take 5 seconds to send you a message, it's a pretty fair deal if you ask me. If you don't mind, I may just borrow that idea myself.

My only gripe with the contest is that for most of us, like myself, who have not built up a proper social network following yet, it means there's essentially no chance of winning. Which is fine, but who doesn't want a trip to Berlin? I'd be real happy to win Ableton Suite, I genuinely just can't afford it right now and I refuse to torrent it. That said, I haven't thought of a great alternative method for the contest that Ableton and SoundCloud could have used that would have resulted in any less frustration... so there's that, haha.

If you don't mind me asking Mr. Bill, when you were building up your Facebook following, did you post links to your stuff on other people's pages and/or group pages, etc.? I haven't done this yet out of fear as being seen as spam, so I just post in a handful of forums here and there. It works slowly and people keep finding me, but I feel like there's a lot more I could be doing to spread the word without being a spammy prick.

[daft-e]

I agree there should be some face-offs to make this interesting. But rules can not be changed, even if you suggest this happens it will not, they will most probably say 'thank you for your suggestion, we might consider it for another contest in the future', not this one cause changing the rules at this point is unethical (even though I wish it happened).
I'd like to see some real face offs with longer timespans to deliver quality. I mean, I can rush a track in 4 hours no prob (Like this one http://soundcloud.com/dafte/junior-boys-remix) But c'mon this isn't worth taking to a face-off... Some days to prepare a track before actual face offs would be nice.

By the way thank you for giving my track more publicity. http://soundcloud.com/dafte/give-some-g ... ment=reply - the website to earn cash is 'megatypers'... so yeah, if you're gonna quote stuff you'd better do it right.

[erikomic]

we have special guests here ! Top three are rushing in !
So we do now have the sowhewhat less "flamboyant" daft-e answer, where we do learn he can "rush a track in 4 hours no prob".
Well good for you daft.(we really didn't doubt about your ability to "rush a track").



Rules can't be changed. I guess not but it is still the artistic jury that will decide. let's see what happens on june 15th.

[Cikadas]

I attend to agree and disagree about the "spamming" your track, on other peoples tracks to get them to at least check it out, is annoying but you have to look at it at a different point of view. Yes I am very guilty at "spamming" 100% but I had maybe 20 followers since I started soundcloud before the contest and how else could I promote myself? It may be looked as spamming but It also is really just self promotion. No one will know you if you don't speak out. As irritating as it maybe it is just the sad reality of it. Some may think "Well if you made good music, you will get fans.". Well how are they going to know who you are if you don't say anything? Maybe a few will "stumble" across you or your site but to really get your music out there you have to promote yourself. When a new artist comes out and you have no clue who they are, how else would you have heard about them? Promoting. Promoting on the radio, TV, websites, social networking sites etc... anything that will increase the chances of someone being at least a bit curious about who they are so people can check them out. What do you think Dr. dre, snoop dogg and all the other old school rappers did back in the day. They made mixtapes and sold them on the streets for money. They were promoting themselves on the streets to anyone who wanted to buy them. That's how they started their "followers".

Now..... about the 2nd and 3rd placed "top songs" right now....I'm sorry but they are just not "top tracks". I do know Daft-e is a fake and he purchased votes from fiverr.com so he can get to the "top tracks". Apparently you can buy 200 votes for $5 and of course pay $10 for 400. I remember "stalking" the top page and seeing the original 2nd and 3rd place "top tracks" and out of nowhere when I refresh my webpage Daft-e comes in second. I'm sitting here thinking, "how the hell did this just happen in the matter of minutes?" but I pay it no attention. A day or two passes by and all of a sudden I get this message in my soundcloud inbox stating "Hello, I see you are involved in a contest, I see it seems some people are buying a few packages "Vote" on Fiverr. for example: . I just wanted to answer the question "how they can make Vote for the tracks". wish you luck." After reading that I immediately investigated it and found out it was real. I looked at Daft-e's comments and found fake user account comments from users like user2474839 and user20843874 with 139 followers. Then it dawned on me... he is one of the people who bought votes. I did say something all over his commenting section and yep... Daft-e of course is so adamant that he did not. But of course according to him he has all these friends, family and followers etc... He said he had over 7k friends he promoted his track to but I call BS on that. I was promoted by a band that has over 7k + friends.

I also found another user who, originally had maybe 6 votes, 3 followers and then all of a sudden had 206 the next day. I also looked at his commented section and he had fake user comments from accounts like i mentioned earlier all over his page. Of course I called him out on it and all of a sudden he had 96 a day or two later.

I know mrbill has legitimate votes. He's got a huge fan base but I definitely feel he deserves to be in the top. No doubt about that.

Overall tho, I do not like the voting because it is severally flawed and a lot of people do the "vote for me and I'll vote for you" which completely waters down the chances of a good track actually being heard. But... what can you do. I do know tho, when it comes down to the real judging that's where the real "top tracks" will come out and yes I will say it Daft-e... you wont be one of them by far.

This is me Vote if you like it...lol sorry I had to throw that in there.

[erikomic]

Thanks Cikadas for your experience and investigations !
I didn't expect the cheating to be that easy (and for such a motive!).
I didn't even know the existence of those kind of site.

Well I DO hope Ableton is going to react about this. Because it is really not normal.
I guess they can analyse site statistics about the votes and sort out who's cheating and who's not.Let's hope they do. Altough they'll probably not communicate about that.
I do hope there are some in the Top 25 that will get the good prizes and not cheaters.

[Shine Boxx]

I just listened to some of the top songs and I am scratching my head......http://soundcloud.com/foomas/shine-boxx-beat-the-clock Here is a link to an effort.....You don't have to vote for me. Just have a listen to what I thought was a fun effort....I am glad some rich little college kid will win. He deserves more free stuff. I worked my ass off to afford even what I have. For the love of just making music. I still feel that passion and art win over shit like this everyday Many blessings folks....And thanks

[gibson_ewok]

If you don't mind me asking Mr. Bill, when you were building up your Facebook following, did you post links to your stuff on other people's pages and/or group pages, etc.? I haven't done this yet out of fear as being seen as spam, so I just post in a handful of forums here and there. It works slowly and people keep finding me, but I feel like there's a lot more I could be doing to spread the word without being a spammy prick.

I did some of that, but not much. Basically if someone adds you to a group that's related to sound or something like that, and everyone posts links to their tunes in there everyday, then that's fair game I guess, and sometimes I post in there (but generally I find it's not even effective). I've slowly culled out things that I've found to be almost not effective, such as posting on forums all the time (you might get 50 or 100 plays max from a GOOD forum, where everyone's heaps involved). I don't understand why people are posting the links to their tracks on every other entry out there, how many people do you think will honestly listen to it just because you posted it on another entry? I'm a firm believer of promotion not being about quantity, but quality, which is exactly why I haven't posted my link on anyone else's entry. First of all it's rude, but secondly, no one's going to listen to it that way anyway.

I released a lot of free music, and did a lot of Ableton tutorials all for free, so a lot of people found me that way in the early stages, again playing a lot of gigs (in the start I played a gig almost every week for free, which actually cost me money).

Also, getting affiliated with labels can be a good thing, even if you are releasing things for free, and making proper personal connections with these people, for instance, like if you have good friends that run decent sized labels that have hardcore followers that will listen to anything that label tells them too, then sometimes you can reach out to those friends and get them to post about your stuff also (no point getting just anyone to post about it, you want to target the correct crowd otherwise they just don't get interested and won't become a fan anyway).

Ektoplazm was a big one for me. I did a few releases through there which all got around 10,000 downloads, which helped a lot when it came to sorting out international tours. Also, collaborating with a lot of people, and doing remixes for people, that gets that whole cross-promotional thing going which helps a bit, too. Especially in Australia, where at the moment everyone is remixing everyone else's tracks, it's really helping build the scene a lot.

Also, mailers. Like I just released some stuff through BeatPort (about a week after my Beat The Clock entry) and I got the label (Adapted Records) to attach the link for my track to their mail out which was initially just going to inform people about my Cerebellum Serenade release on BeatPort, it was also made very clear on that mail out that it was a free track if they voted, also with the voting/giving the track away for free system, I made sure to make it very clear that I was just going on an honesty based system, so if people voted, they just had to tell me that they voted and I would give them the track for free without any solid proof that they actually had. I think that kind of built a small level of mutual respect which people also like I think.

Anyway, you just have to be creative with promotion I think, figure out new ways to contact people, and new ways to deal with getting your music to them. Free music is a good one to begin with, Ektoplazm is worth checking out, also BandCamp. I also put a new track on SoundCloud on almost a weekly basis (I don't hold on to any tunes for too long), I think it's important to keep a constant buzz going and keep people interested.

There's plenty of ways to go about it, you just have to get in contact with the right people, and aim your music at the correct audiences to build up a true fan base that actually cares about what you're doing, as I said before it's pointless having 50,000 Facebook and SoundCloud followers that just don't listen to your music or come to your gigs, and you can tell exactly when someones bought their fans, they'll have like 10 or 20,000 followers, but their statuses on Facebook will get like 5 likes and 5 comments, then someone will have 3 or 4,000 true fans, and they'll get 100's of comments and likes and much more plays on SoundCloud etc..

Anyway, hope that helps.

Cheers,
Bill.

[mazaibuzai]

There is a pleasure to be derived from creative competitions, but for me it's not in competing but in forcing me to work differently, and treating the competition as an exercise for my "real" endeavours.
As an example: I used to do a lot of photoshop competitions and that experience really improved my photoshop skill-base. It's the same with musical competitions, for your own benefit you may as well complete the task simply as an autodidactic exercise. Looking for some kind of validation through these things is a road to producing lowest-common-denominator product. Has American Idol ever produced a truely unique talent, or piece of work? Nah.
However, it's still fun to have a go at competitions, as long as you don't aim to "win" them, use them as a doodle pad instead. I didn't enter his particular competition though.

well said mate. this competition was a good exercise in production, fun too. sad that people do what they do to get ahead, but such is life

time to get back to work makin music...
peace

[Philipp Mann]

I feel, that it is just very disrespectful to spam someones entry with comments like: " very nice!!! check out my song too! link XXX " ... some of these haven't even listened to the track. you just don't do this, when you are serious with music and when you are respectful. do you want to win, because you are the best spammer? don't forget, the contestants are the spammers...

here is a possible solution for the problem (it does not help just to complain):

ABLETON CONTEST:
" ... Use these loops, stems and presets to create a new, original track. "
" Creative use of the Live Pack contents will be a major criterion for selecting the winners. But you can use other content as well, as long as you use it to create something that sweeps us off our feet."

ABLETON jury could maybe make a system of points: 50 points max (depends on how they want to split each 10 points on entries, you can split these 10 points on max 100 entries, when you split them like 10 - 9,9 - 9,8 - 9,7 - 9,6 ...) - this should be enough.

some categories could be (just an example, Ableton judges could add more and increase the total points):

+ VOTING: 10 points (max)
+ PROVIDED SAMPLES USED ONLY: 10 points (max)
+ CREATIVITY: 10 points (max)
+ APPLIED TECHNIQUE / SKILL: 10 points (max)
+ SURPRISE / GROOVE / SOUL OF SUBMISSION: 10 points (max)

voting goes till 15th of june, so there is enough time for the judges to click through all ~2.000 entries (to select the top 100) and then the rating system would start... the one with the most points is the winner.

with this kind of system it would be a more "fair" contest (because the focus is NOT on spammer votes anymore and also gives a chance for someone, who has no BIG fan base). I kindly ask you: please stop spamming others entries and respect their submissions, thanks & good luck!

greetings - philipp
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http://www.philippmann.com