Survival Of The Fittest

So, hey, I got home and got some PMs and stuff and okay, let's do this! First things first: huge thanks to Ricky's Sadtest and those who played, not because my song won but because it was a really good theme and had some of the best stuff I've heard in a good bit. Y'all rock the tragedy.

I had a bunch of hypothetical ideas for stuff to do if I ever won songtest, but a bunch of them either got done pretty well already (I had a pretty brutal spin on L-test with a revised point metric slider and RNG and stuff but it was mostly built around getting the L-test concept to work and, hey, it worked just fine without all those bells and whistles) but ultimately I wanna go back to basics.

Therefore, allow me to present:







Songtest Unplugged.

The rules are pretty simple: Songs are to be acoustic. That means, no synth, no electric guitar, no theremin, none of that stuff. If it works by plugging into the wall, off batteries, by solar energy, any of that, it's out. This does include weird vocal effects, heavy echo pedals, all that stuff.

Aside from that, anything goes.

I realize this can be a little tricky to tell at a cursory listen for some people (I'm actually one of 'em sometimes). I will be looking stuff up as it comes in, just to make sure there's nothing sneaking through by mistake. If something sneaks through by mistake anyways, /shrug whoops it's only a game, and once the round starts the entries are as they are. But please do try to engage with the letter and spirit of the rule!

I talked in chat about a difficulty slider. The difficulty slider goes like this:

Easy: Unplugged Exactly as stated above.

Medium: Solo Acoustic One voice, one instrument, nothing else.

Hard: A Capella Voice(s) only. No instruments. Also, as this is officially Unplugged, no vocal manipulation via computer either.

All options are presented in case you want a challenge, but there will be no bonuses points or other rewards for taking hard mode except the knowledge that you're a superstar. That said, if ever the dark day comes where I win again, I reserve the right to make everyone do a capella, and this serves as your official warning to start building your fallout shelters and pickling choir tracks for the winter now.

[+] The General Songtest Rules

• You can send me stuff by board PM, Discord, telephone call, whatever. Upon receipt, I will enter your votes in a spreadsheet and then let you know I received them. If I do not reply that I got your stuff, I do not yet have it! If more than a day passes without confirmation, please check in because it probably got lost in the shuffle.
• We'll probably do two rounds, each running three or more days. If loads of people sign up, maybe three rounds. If you want a specific round, please let me know. I will probably add a day to the first round because of Christmas.
• Listen to every song in the round and rank favorite to unfavorite, 12 at the top, then 10, then 8, and then down by one per until you're out of songs or points. Do not vote for your own song.
• If your song is in a round, you must listen and vote or you get DQed and I sob into my spreadsheets. If your song is not in a round, or you're not even playing, you can still listen and vote! These votes are public and count for half.
• The top chunk of songs will move to the finals. I'm think we want a finals of 14-18 songs, but we'll see how many people jump in. The amount moving on will be announced at the start of the first round and will be the same for both rounds.
• Same basic deal to rank the finals.
• I will not be letting folks jump in after the first round starts, as it throws off the math/balance for folks who care about the competitive aspect. Similarly, songs should be submitted by the time the first round starts and may not be changed after that time unless there's a really good reason (turns out to have electric bits, singer is all over the news for slathering himself in tomato sauce, spiking a furby into the Atlantic Ocean, and declaring undying fealty to God-Emporer Donald, etc.
• Whoever gets the most points will get to host the next contest. If they pass, it goes to second place, then third, and so on.
• General songtest rules: Nothing from Eurovision, no reality show covers (other covers are fine), nothing that has been submitted before (if you wanna bring an acoustic version of a song we've heard plugged in the past, be my guest, though). If your song is obnoxiously long (hereby defined as over ten minutes) people can stop at ten minutes if they get bored, though I encourage everyone to listen to everything in full!
• Music's personal to people and putting stuff up for contest/discussion can be kinda scary and make people feel vulnerable. Please be nice in chat! It's totally cool to not like something and to talk about that and to dig into why at length, but please don't totally dunk on stuff. Everyone is here to share cool things with friends (or to fight tooth and nail for the crown but you know, same dif).
• In the interests of total fairness I'll be completing my own vote either before each round starts or within the first two hours of the round so there's no possible temptation to put my finger on the scales. I probably won't be talking about song placements during the rounds.
• I'll try to remember to remind folks and stuff.
• Extensions are probably not a thing unless you suffer severe RL stuff like getting abducted by aliens or getting snowed in somewhere during holiday travel. Please try to leave yourself some wiggle room, as this is a busy time of year!
• I reserve the right to add anything blazingly obvious that I forgot.

Sign-up will last for just over three days, closing at 10:00 PM Pacific on December 24. Please have a song submitted by that time!

* = yet to submit

1. Me
2. Irene, whether she wants to play or not
3. Yugikun
4. Fenris
5. MethodicalSlacker
6. Buko
7. Brackie
8. Backslash
9. TheLordOfAwesome
10. Ricky
11. dmboogie
12. Shiola
13. Jilly
14. Jack
15. Laurels
16. Pancapples
17. Pippi
18. Jace
19. Maraoone
20. Skraal
21. Cactus
22. Rugga
23. Paige
24. BlizzardeyeWonder
25. Kermit

but how can i sign up if i am using my electric computer to do so

(in)

i will. find something

I'm in.

I've been saving this song for a long time.

In.

Hey! I never agreed to this! Where's my legally mandated waiver?

(But yes, I'm in).

Also, in case folks don't check chat:

Professor FetherToday at 8:49 PM
Ahahaha.
Real talk: I'm gonna do my best but I won't be shocked if something slips through. It's tough.
"Is it electric piano? Is it regular piano?"
I'm listening, going to Discogs to look at credits, and if it sounds pretty legit and nothing says "Electric stuff" then it's fine.
We're gonna at least end up acoustic-ish.
But I wanna be super upfront that this is a "Try our best" situation all around and like life it's gonna probably end up imperfect.

In other words: stuff happens and probably I'm gonna mess up at least once and that's just sorta baked into the assumptions here. Please don't give anyone grief for it (but feel free to assign me demerits for anything you notice that I missed).

In!

I’m ready to show off my coffee shop open mic night choice.

Back in the game baybee

UGH fine i GUESS i'll close the lid on my big box of EDM for NOW

Just posting here so I can see it in the 'your posts' bit!

In!

About thirty-two hours left to join and get submissions in!

*throws hat into ring*