Have you ever heard the expression you only have one chance to make good first impression? One of the things about OurStage.com that I’ve noticed is many artists do not pay much attention to the beginning of their recordings and should take some consideration to the type and length of their intros on their songs and here’s why I feel that way after judging approximately 3000 battles.

Often times I go into a genre to judge with the sole intent and purpose of finding a friend or friends that I would like to vote for. With so many genres and limited time I believe this is the same situation for many people. So the tendency is to try to rip through the songs and the judging as quickly as possible. If you read the rules and the explanations on how OurStage runs you might find some hidden tidbits. Now correct me if I’m wrong but playing songs for 15 seconds only, judging and moving on is clearly not the intent of the site owners here they want you to actually listen long enough to make it clearly well informed decision on who you think is the best of either the one-on-one battle or the choose four battles. But I would think every single musician that I know would tell you that you cannot do this in a 15 second period of time and yet all of us do it every time we come to judge so consider this. I also believe that it’s possible the algorithms have taken into account short plays. This is easily tracked in the OurStage database and by playing songs for over a minute or for that matter all the way through its possible although I do not have proof that you are votes or judging is counted with a little bit more weight. Do you think that’s possible?

Your intro and beginning of your song is the most important 15 seconds in terms of trying to get the listener to continue to listen and then ultimately judge in your favor. Now given that there are many many excellent bands on the site and that there are few people that are brave enough to post their music regardless of its poor quality or their complete lack of talents and we have all seen this and it is very frustrating to have to vote for a song where the singer can sing the recording is awful or the song just basically stinks. You should stop and think about this carefully I believe.

I would suggest to all artists who are actively working on the site to promote their own music and that of their friends and colleagues that they listen carefully to the first 30 seconds or so of any song they plan to upload before they upload it. The question of why this matters should be obvious to everyone. I am going to list some of the reasons why I feel so.

Number one – Dead Air, so often I start to listen to a song when I am also in somewhat of a hurry to move through them and the beginning of the song does not actually start until six or seven or eight seconds (seems like forever sometimes) after you press the play button consequently my patience level which sometimes is admittedly short has me trying to move on in 15 seconds. If by that time if the song has not “grabbed me” I will often move on, this usually results in me voting against that song where if I’d listened to it longer by many will very well have judged it much higher. So take your wave files or your MP3s and run them through a simple editor and clean up the beginning so that your song launches immediately and grabs the potential listener. This leads to the next point.

Number two – Talking, Counting in and Special Sound Effects at the beginning of the song can hurt you at OurStage. If they do not sound like the rest of the song these too should be considered for editing. I found this especially true when I was judging video and one band who is never signed a label and essentially has their own small fan base but nothing else spends the first 15 seconds of what is a very good video high-fiving each other and acting like rock stars going to a concert. I use this as an example because my immediate response is “I want to hear the music” as well as “who do these guys really think they are” in the music business proof of excellence is when a major label comes to you with a distribution deal or possibly a booking agent or manager sets up a great touring gig for any band. Everyone wants to be a star but I would suggest saving the high fives in the backslapping until you make it. If you’ve been playing the local clubs and wowing the crowds this means nothing on the huge stage that you’re all on and it’s called the Internet. This is the place where the potential for millions to hear you instead of on a good night a hundred or so at a club so don’t think that I’m commenting on these things lightly. Consider taking out all extraneous non musical sounds and silence from the beginning of your songs. If your intro is too long and repetitive you will lose listeners. I’ll be posting on how to get the millions to listen to you soon. This is another subject that I have experience in having run a free promotional website for independent musicians for 10 years as well as my day job selling advertising that works. So I know a few things about these concerns but will do that on another day.

Number three – I believe people are doing a very good job with this in general which is the quality of the image that you place for identification purposes and to grab the attention of the potential listeners to vote needs to be well thought out. No not everybody is a graphic designer, so if you are not find a friend or professional that can improve the visual response that listener has immediately when your song comes up to play.

As I said you never get a second chance to make a first impression so when you enter your songs stop take some time and think about what you are actually uploading. Does your song have silence at the beginning or doesn’t launch right into the song? Is the intro too long and possibly a different genre than the actual song, I hear this often and find it quite fascinating. The very popular effect these days is to start a song sounding like an old poor quality radio transmission and then either fade or abruptly turn it into the high quality recording that you’ve done. This is fine in many cases but in my opinion not here on OurStage.

Well that’s it for today by move on to another subject later come back and visit. Remember that OurStage is not a live performance and needs to be looked at differently than something like a play on a radio station so I hope my suggestions will help some people to realize their goals@OurStage.com.

15 seconds that’s all you get from the average listener keep this in mind and your success rate will go up.

Musically yours,

Don Campbell Webmaster and artist MP3 allies.com

This is the magic question after all is not? As an artist what you need to do to get that vote and not only a positive vote but that coveted by far vote. Of course so much of this is subjective it’s hard to put data to it but think of this.

1 – be extremely careful in choosing your genre. Songs in the wrong genre no matter how good will have a percentage of listeners voting against them for just that reason.

2 – if a specific genre requires a specific sound such as Guitar Solo and give some thought to whether or not you bring an actual guitar solo to the entire song not just a song that has a guitar solo in it. Many listeners will not wait that long to hear it and as such I think give you a negative vote for what could be a good song just again genre placement is important!

3 – Quality of recording, this is a difficult one for many people because they do not have the money nor in many cases the experience of recording in a studio particularly one that does an excellent job in its final production work. Often times this will require hiring musicians to play various instruments during the recording. I would think this would be particularly true if you are a singer songwriter and want to improve the quality of the sound of your music. This is something I have done with some great success. While there are many great live recordings out there it is obvious the difference between those that are plugged right into the mixer and those are recorded from a couple of microphones on a video recorder and this will hurt you in the voting when the quality is poor.poor quality recording will kill you in the end.

4 – Make sure the introduction to your music starts as quickly as possible. Many songs have fade ins and some people talk or use other audio techniques one of which I find to be fascinating where you use an older quality sound that blends into the more modern new sound. While I think this works well for radio and other purposes you really only have 15 seconds to capture listeners real attention. If that 15 seconds is filled up with silence, poor quality sound and talking that is not relevant to the actual listening of the song or any number of things that distract from the actual song itself and the purpose for which it was put here cannot be good for your voting. This is just all my opinion and I could be wrong but I put it out here for you to question. All comments are welcome.

5 – This is probably one of the most subjective areas but most important in my mind simply because I consider myself a songwriter first and a performer’s second. I believe that all songs should be marked if they are a cover of another band. Having your own songs covered by another band or performer to enhance your quality in my mind is a smart thing however if you are performing a cover song you should be in my opinion required to market as a cover. Also as an ASCAP member I believe that all songs should be identified by their original writers. Whether these writers are the bands members or member or whether they have been performed before and written by any writer in the past that should be acknowledged. To me this even includes writers in the public domain. As I listened the blues I heard many blues songs that were written long time ago and the writers were not given credit. I find this sad and I do believe it is something that OurStage.com should consider as a requirement. They may even have a legal obligation to do so but then again I’m not a lawyer and I will not tell them what to do I can only make suggestions as I believe the intent of the management here is all good. I will always tend to vote for an original song rather than a cover unless it is really poorly done. That’s just how I feel and how I will likely continue to feel for some time to come.

Please feel free to comment on my blogs and if you read posts and make sure I get credit etc.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and let me know how you feel.

Don “Shotgun” Campbell

PS – I find it humorous sometimes how often my personal opinion will garner only a 3% agreement response. Oftentimes I know that I’m up against another very good song or in most cases an equally sometimes in an odd choice of genre but a good song and yet the voting is way off. I believe some of this is because the song may be new on the site and some of it is because some people have built a good fan base that will actually vote it is my hope that no one will ever enter and vote on contests more than once. I mean what would happen if we did that for say the president of the United States?

Okay since the last time I put a blog up I’ve done another 700 or so battles here on OurStage.com. Most of these battles have been in The Blues Genre with a bit of looking around but concentrating on the Blues.

As I go through battles I normally prefer the head-to-head battles so that I can listen to the artist(s) more closely. I believe this month I’ve done roughly 500 battles in the Blues category and have been often amazed at how many entries there are that once listened to our clearly not The Blues. I guess what goes through my mind is the big question, why do these people put a jazz, rhythm and blues, pop, or a rock song in the Blues genre? I simply cannot give a winning vote to someone whose music clearly does not belong in the proper genre. Often I consider the song is quite excellent. I believe these songs in the proper genre would do well so I do not understand the point of putting a song into a genre it does not belong in.

Maybe it’s because there’s fewer songs than the proper genre they should be putting the song intoand they fear it will not perform as well when there are more songs to go up against. I don’t know and I simply don’t really understand. I am posting this blog so that I can make a comment “read my blog on putting your music in the right genre” and not publicly put them in a situation where they may feel embarrassed because I commented on their song being in an incorrect genre in a public manner, whether the song was placed there by mistake or on purpose to me is not even a consideration if it does not belong there. I know there is some gray area for some songs and I allow for this when I make a choice. But at the end of the day it is clear that some people are knowingly (let’s face it they are musicians who know what genre they should be in) putting their songs into an incorrect genre thinking there is some advantage to this. I would welcome commentary on my songs if someone felt a song was in the wrong genre however it is my concern that not everyone would respond the same way and some feelings would be hurt, I have pretty thick skin but not everybody else does.

If you’re an artist or a band who has come here because I put a notation about “seeing my blog on putting your music in the right genre”, I would hope you would take it in the spirit in which it was given. Which is to be honest and forthcoming with my opinion and not to say just what makes people feel good It is difficult sometimes to have to default to the other artist in a head-on head battle when you had the superior song in the wrong genre but they had a mediocre song in the right genre. Every time I am going to give them the win, because to me I am supposed to be voting on in this case a Blues song and not a song from another genre. So it rubs me the wrong but I think that if I honestly put my feelings out here maybe it might generate some conversation about music and its development and where the gray areas are in naming a genre in the first place. After all this is is a serious contest that pays a prize and should be taken seriously.

Well that’s my version of how I see it. What’s yours?

Don Campbell MP3 allies.com

The finals are over for September and a decent band won…that being said here’s my experience with the final day. I was able to fight approximately 115 battles during the day. I spend my time with these battles and usually listen to it least one minute of each song except for when the song is presented repeatedly. Many times I know which way I’m going to vote because I’ve heard the songs quite a few times at that point. When a new song comes up I try to make sure to listen to it as much as I can and make a real true value judgment on its quality of recording, originality, professionalism and many other details that I seek to truly give what I consider to be an honest valuation on the song.

I know people who said they completed the 1035 battles in 24 hours. To do this you have to work nonstop and the math comes out to 85 seconds per battle. Keep in mind this does not consider any breaks whatsoever. Certainly many people do this kind of things because they have friends and I don’t want to judge their intent but I do want to comment on their actions. I believe if you’re only agenda here is to promote your favorite band and you rush through the battles my hope is that the algorithms are taking that into account.

I also had difficulty logging onto the site and got it least one error message that the site was down for maintenance during the 24-hour period ahead to judge battles. I would’ve done a few more if it hadn’t been for this and I expect there are many others who likely ran into the obvious bandwidth problems that occur during these times as websites such as OurStage cannot handle bandwidth they cannot predict and I believe they will be ready next month to handle it better. The one thing I love about this site is that they do respond and make things better as they see fit.

I came to this site because of one person who was in the finals and signed up originally back in February and only recently have had time due to a broken foot to really spend here during my recovery. I have listened to quite a few songs that I really really like a lot. I try to vote truly and honestly with what I consider to be integrity and an ethical vote. This does get difficult as you listen to the same song quite often in six out of 10 battles in a row sometimes. It least it seemed that way.

I hope everybody who visits this site and judges battles will consider what they are doing in honesty and integrity are what make this site such a great place.

What do you think?

OurStage has an interesting approach to what’s been done before on other websites, their unique algorithms make it very difficult for people to actually cheat from my observation. This is a common theme among musicians that sites like these are easy to cheat. It seems to me this based on recent time that I have had available to spend here that one has to be very careful if they are to be honest in how they judge a battle. Personally I prefer the head on one on one battles because it’s easier to make a clear choice between two songs than four, that being said here some of my criteria. Recently I finished all the battles in the cover bands quarterfinals. Cover bands are very different than original bands. While many of these bands play original music making a cover is an interesting bit of work. There are songs you have to be extremely good to cover. Your music needs to be excellent and not sound like karaoke. That being said here’s how I judge in this cover band genre.

1 – The instrumentals must be real if I even consider they might be a karaoke it lowers your chances for even getting a slightly better rating. Vocals recorded over a karaoke track do not impress me.

2 – The song choice is extremely important in this area. As I mentioned above its the most important part possibly however since this is a subjective choice rather than an object of choice that needs to be taken into account as well. Regardless covers should be chosen to fit your band and your voice. Three to four minutes should be the maximum length of time as a long song I will not listen to more than that time. There is one song that made it to the quarterfinals it’s over 12 minutes long and that’s a bit much for a contest like this in my opinion. Not a bad cover but not a great choice in my humble opinion due to its length.

3 – The mix must be extremely good with vocals are on key and harmonies that work. Out of the 20 bands that survive to the quarterfinals I would say that I found approximately 6 that were cut above everybody else. So I often found myself voting for those six to win either more or by far no matter who they were in battle with. It did get tough to make choices when the six were head-to-head.

4 – I play the songs for at least 60 seconds. I know there are many people who are trying to help their friends I personally believe the algorithms on the site from what I understand your vote is counted as stronger if you listen to the entire song or anything over a minute rather than just 15 seconds and vote. Anyone who is voting after 15 seconds of listening has an agenda in my opinion it is trying to get their friends ahead. I don’t blame them for this I just think they do all the artists and injustice by not actually listening. So anyone actually listening for only 15 seconds and trying to vote their friends up is going to find I think that their votes will count towards a lower score than if they listen to the whole song. I may be wrong about this and would be interested to hear other people’s thoughts.

5 – In the covers section you have an interesting choice to make when you’re judging a battle. You may have a rock song going against a country song or something like that where the genres are very different and your personal taste leans one way or the other. While I like probably everyone here tend to vote towards the genres I prefer I found that in covers I had to be extremely careful when I listened to the song and try and put aside my personal taste before I voted. I believe the quality of the cover is more important than the genre. This is hard to do sometimes as personal taste is so much to do with making a decision. I actually believe that I should have a good number of people I vote for where I am in the minority when thinking they have a better song. Making an honest call can be difficult but it’s only the right thing to do.

These things being said I’m going to move on to some of the other genres and vote in their quarterfinals. Currently I’m sitting at home with a broken foot and actually have time to do this a bit more than I normally would. In the covers band contest I just finished 190 battles which took me at least four days. I know people who finished the hundred 90 battles in the first day before noon. To me going into a judging of the contest should be taken seriously with honesty and integrity being the focus of how you make your decisions regarding who is the better artist. I look forward over the next several days that I may have time to continue to do this to seeing how things work out in other genres. As a songwriter, musician and listener I believe that I must put a high standard on myself which is to be fair to all artists here are at OurStage. If you think you can beat the system let me know how because I do believe this site has the best algorithms to prevent you from doing so and anybody who creates multiple accounts and are just trying to score their favorite artist so they can win will likely have very little success in affecting the results. I’ve been online promoting independent musicians for approximately 10 years with my own website called MP3allies.com and it made many fine friends in the independent music community in all kinds of genres and all types of music over these years. I’ve been a DJ on an online radio station and my experience of doing so I believe not to mention my 53 years of listening to music of all kinds being an eclectic music lover uniquely qualifies me as long as I do one thing. That one thing is maintaining my honesty and integrity when I come on the site and judge bands and artists who are working very hard to promote their music. To try to cheat the system is counterproductive in my opinion and dishonest. It has been my experience for many years that no matter where on the Internet you find the contest for music inevitably before following an agenda and not being honest. I find this quite sad.

I must congratulate OurStage for creating the first site that I’ve seen that holds their visitors to a high community standard so there are no flame wars like there used to be in the old days of MP3.com. I watched as they prevented this from happening to one of the many artists I am familiar with on this site. Kudos must go to this site for how they handle these things. And as I mentioned before their algorithms which I expect to evolve as time goes by are well thought out and difficult to bypass. Anyone who thinks that they alone can manipulate the site I believe does not understand how the site actually works.

So these are some of my thoughts what are yours?

Musically yours,