Freestyle Music
The purpose of the competition is to create an original track with whatever tools you want to use. All genres of music are welcome, and will be treated equally.
Former winners
Here are the winners for the last ten nine years:
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Nostalgy by Stian K (2008)
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Commando by Kaktusen feat. Ras Stevens (2007)
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Sunset in Alcudia by Edzes (2006)
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Søta vennar by Ola Prøis (2005)
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30000 and counting by Flipside (2004)
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Fitte i slipset by Dezerate (2003)
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These Walls by lug00ber feat. Liz T (2002)
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Goblin construction by G0NZ0 (2001)
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Unreal by Anone (2000)
Rules
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Hand-in
Entries in the freestyle music competition must be delivered through the web-based compo system.
If you really want to make us happy, please hand in a Zip or Rar file containing the track itself and a short text file (file_id.diz/.nfo/.txt) with information about the entry (author, track name, additional credits) as well as contact info.
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Pre-selection
A jury will select a maximum of ten (10) tracks to be played during the show. The jury's decicion is final, and there is no room for appeals.
Tracks not selected for the show can not be voted for.
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Deciding a winner
The winner will be chosen by combining the results from the popular vote with a jury vote. The popular vote will account for 67% of the total score, and the jury vote will account for 33%.
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Allowed formats
- MP3
- Ogg Vorbis (.ogg)
Other file formats are not allowed, and will result in a disqualification.
Do yourself and everyone else a favor, and use a quality encoder with high bitrate settings. Your track will sound better, so don't be cheap. Don't forget to tag your file properly!
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Use of copyrighted material
Use of unlicensed samples is not allowed. Any participant must be ready to provide documentation that samples used are licensed for use and publication. Failing to provide such documentation upon request will result in disqualification of the entry.
If you are in doubt, ask someone from the compo crew before the deadline (that way, you will have time to remove any problematic samples before submitting).
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Maximum length
4 minutes. Entries lasting significantly longer than four minutes will be disqualified, entries lasting just over four minutes will be cut off at exactly four minutes when played.
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Number of entries per participant
One entry per participant. Co-productions are allowed. If multiple people cooperate on a track, neither will be allowed to hand in other tracks.
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No-go limit
The compo will be held if we receive 3 or more entries.
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General rules
The general rules for the Gathering 2009 creative competitions apply to this compo.
Deadline
The deadline will be announced later.
Prizes
| Place | Prize |
|---|---|
| 1st | 7 000 NOK |
| 2nd | 3 500 NOK |
| 3rd | 2 000 NOK |
See the Prizes page for an overview of the prizes and awards for all compos.
Getting started
Music software is typically expensive, and there are not many free sequencers around. Our best advice is to buy a copy of the magazine Computer Music. Every cover disk includes their "Computer Music Studio", which contains a free sequencer and a lot of quality instruments and plugins to get you started.
Free or cheap plugins (VST)
- Kjærhus Audio Classic Series
- Togu Audio Line - free instruments and effects
- Vember Audio Shortcircuit - a discontinued sampler that is now offered for free.
- Stillwell Audio - cheap plugins with fully functional trial versions (nagware)
- Audio Damage - really cheap and great plugins, with a couple of freebies for download as well.
Tools
- winLAME - a nice frontend for the LAME mp3 encoder.
- OggDropXPd - drag and drop Ogg Vorbis encoder.
- Audacity - free audio editor for Windows, Mac and Linux.
Sponsors
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