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View Profile Karco
I contributed to the Newgrounds Audio community between 2007 and 2010 as an electronic music artist, a reviewer, and, briefly, an audio mod. I still make music! Go to the links section here to see where. 🏳️‍⚧️

Joined on 12/29/06

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No more submissions.

Posted by Karco - October 11th, 2008


10-27-08: The debate seems to be slowing down, so I'm going to make a new news post on top of this one in the near future sometime. I've taken a few steps back on the Instrumental #4 remix, I plan to make it TONS better. ;D The project file messed itself up somehow, but in the process of fixing it I got a few good ideas.

--

10-14-08: You'll notice that with the new personalizing feature, I moved my favorite tracks to the top of my page. I plan to showcase my current favorites, hopefully I can set up a system that people will come by to see month by month. :P

--

Yeah guys, me too. :(

I'll still be just as present as I was before, and I'll even post links to finished tracks uploaded to other websites. I'm simply no longer submitting to the Audio Portal.

The reason why I'm leaving is simply that the exposure offered here (be it through Weekly Best, All-Time Best, the Front Page, or the MACs) is completely worthless to me now. I'm not interested in the support of an audience that votes tracks like this into the Weekly Best over far better works - why is it that this was submitted in the same week, yet received nothing while the other track takes 5th? Why is it that Guitar vs. Piano 1.2 - using FL samples, FL Keys, and Slayer, as raw as you could possibly use them - has become a regular in the All-Time Top 30, and nearly has 300,000 listens, instead of the hundreds, or possibly thousands, of better tracks on this site?

What really pushed it over was the September MAC. We have judges, hand-selecting tracks to win a fair amount of money, but this track is worth $150 and a Newgrounds shirt? How did it get first place? How did this get third place while tracks like this or this (which while not flawless, were produced far, far better and more originally) fail to place at all? I seriously doubt the idea of "Madness" could skew results this much. I'm curious to know how the judging worked for this MAC, and who judged... :I

Of course, now and then good tracks do make it, but the fact that these generic or downright horrible tracks get anywhere at all makes the exposure here, as I said before, worthless to me. So why bother competing with them at all? And in any case, I can't support a system, nor an audience, that favors generic music over groundbreaking tracks.

If Newgrounds changes its system to one that will almost always bring out the true best of the week, and the truly deserving contest winners, then I'll consider putting more things up here - but I consider the former of the two impossible and the latter quite difficult to pull off.

I've got no idea where I'm going to put my music, but there's no chance I'm going to be finishing anything anytime soon anyway. Hopefully I'll know by the time I do.

(Last thing: Collabs, the preview set, and the Instrumental #4 and Air Release remixes, if I finish them, will probably be submitted, but that will be it.)

No more submissions.


Comments

:(

While I'm pretty much oblivious to the workings of the BBS, you do make a good point. Guitar vs Piano is absolutely terrible. But I do agree that it's strange, obscene even, that people like generic crap than something more emotionally driven.

Right - though good songs do make it now and then, at times more often than the bad tracks. But if people will praise both the same way, then their words are meaningless to me. :I

It's sad to see you're not submitting anymore, but I guess it's for a good reason. The voting system has always been screwy, what with amazing songs getting 3/5 and the techno equivalent of white noise gets top five. People leave spam reviews and zero-bomb for songs that should be way more popular, and they praise and vote five after listening to some explosion-noise intro... then the rest of the song ends up being crap. I'm glad there are fair people like you who actually put work into reviews and your songs.

I wish that there was a way to base the score off mod-approved reviews, but that would take a lot of work and a lot more moderators. I hope someone figures this out sometime soon...

I wouldn't say so, there are some good songs that made Weekly Best/Front Page/MAC winners/etc. You exaggerate a bit there. :P

I had a long debate about how a better voting system would work on another website about a year ago, and we had some pretty good ideas. Sadly they never implemented them. :( It's a difficult thing, to get a truly good voting system going.

Right on. Thanks for the plug :3

I have to agree that I would do the same, but I produce tracks so rarely that I might as well submit a few of em every so often. It's not like anything negative could happen.

Right, no harm in it. :) But like I said above, I can't support a system that works that way. I guess you could say I'm doing what RageVI did before the redesign.

And the plug's well-deserved. :D

Nav gets a plug, but not meeeeeee :P

Altho, there I am down there on the bottom for your fav submissions :)

You look into the Top 5, you know someone in their is guilty of 0'ing. I never even expected the Top 5 this week, it was at around 4.25 on my score and I got it =/

Happy trails xD

I considered plugging you, but it's not about the plugs, it's about making a point. And besides, you're leaving too, so why do you care? ;D

Right, the same thing happened to me with Time for Morning. I submitted the track and left it, and what do you know? Weekly 5th. :D

If you find a good place to submit, let me know, I'm looking too. :)

shit rules this place

WHY IS EVERYONE AGREEING?! D:

Totally agree...
*sigh*

EVERYONE! D:

People have a good reason for agreeing. So do I.

I want to write a long, thoughtful text about this, but I feel like it's going to be a waste of time as it won't help the situation at all. Anyway, if you find a great internet community of musicians, please tell me about it. I won't leave the audio portal anytime soon, but I want my main source of feedback to be from musicians rather than random people on the internet.

I'm sad to see you leaving, because you're a prime example of a good member and a talented, helpful musician.

But remember to keep being a happy happy person

I feel the same way - Newgrounds members don't cut it for me anymore, not if they're going to praise songs of such different quality the same way. I'll definitely let everyone know where I'm submitting if I do find a new site, and then perhaps you can join too. :D

Like I've been saying, I'll still be reviewing, posting on the BBS, and even posting links to where I've hosted my music. I'm just not submitting to the Audio Portal anymore.

:)

First off, though i'm not going to try and defend the judge selections (I don't agree with all of them, I doubt anybody would fully agree with all of them) those two songs you plugged in your selection were not the kind of energy and raw emotion people are accustomed to in Madness. Nav's submission has ample reviews stating that it's not Madnessey enough and I agree. It's a great song don't get me wrong, but it's not madness. It doesn't have the rough and swift movement, and if you push that aside it doesn't really strike any specific "Madness" element. Whether it be sad (Hank dies EVERYWHERE), brutal (the usual Madness song), or twisted. In my personal perspective it failed to fit into any one of these three elements and tried to spread itself over Brutal and Twisted, but failed.

The other plugged song also doesn't move anywhere. It has a tense energy that holds throughout wonderfully, but the melody the piano plays depicts a king of horror gameish feel. There is nothing "horror" based in Madness. I doubt anybody watches a Madness flash and goes "damn that was creepy". Unless of course they find getting shot, torn, and ripped apart like crazy creepy. But even then, it's not "boo!" creepy. I personally didn't place either on my top 10 for this reason. It's obvious RealFaction has a rather large hate club on him, i'm not a fan of his attitude myself but his song DOES exhibit the right energies and the right vibes. Though I didn't vote him as the winner, I DID place him third.

So no offense, but to use the MAC as a reason to leave seems a little childish to me.

But leaving that aside, I know that the MAC was only a straw in your thicket of reasons to leave. Your largest being that songs of little to no real quality gaining infamy over incredible tracks. But you've answered your own reason for this.

The reviews we get are from the average listener, and the average listener doesn't care that it took artist A five minutes to find the slayer VST and sploorge out their melody. Nor do they care how complex or layered a song is. For them it is, and will always be about the final product. Like how in the Flash portal sprite movies and game parodies draw in a lot more attention then very serious and hardcore flashes. Talk to Notorious, he complains about this issue every chance he gets or whenever a new sprite/parody flash becomes popular.

Yet it's a valid point to note the truly immortal flashes are all serious projects that have taken their authors months to carry through.

So what is the problem here? Too much attention from the ignorant? No, too little from everybody else. It's ironic that musicians 0 bomb, leave no reviews, but demand them by the boatloads and expect 5 ratings from all over, while the average listener who doesn't care to give any tips (mostly because they can't), but wish to drop their support anyways, leave "spam" reviews.

The Newgrounds Audio Portal like the Flash portal is growing up. Their demographic is likewise. Did you know that only about 3 years ago a flash with a score of 3.5 was considered brutally amazing?! The flash audience then is where we are now. Youngsters who want attention and are willing to collectively destroy each other to get it. As these people grew up, the scores reflected it. They don't try to kill each other anymore, nor do they aim to get ill gained infamy (of course there are still new people coming in, and they still try their best to destroy everybody but themselves, but numbers are against them now).

As the large demographic or "generation" of NG'ers grew up and started to take their craft to a serious level, they grew tired of childish games and learned to recognize intellect and talent when they saw it, whether they liked it or not. Everybody learns that in real life you don't get a "0" button when you want to remove somebody as your competition.

So what was the point of this really long rant? I firmly believe the AP is still in it's infancy. It's still getting bigger and better, and though we are neglected often we are still becoming a better place. True the generic crap surfaces now, but in time I believe this trend will change as it has in the FP.

By leaving NG because of these reasons you openly admit they have won. These bastards who spend their time to remove you from their face because they fear your talent have beaten you.

Of course at the end of the day the choice is yours. Musicians enter different sites for different reasons. I won't try to defend the fact a lot of reviews here are worthless, and I do understand your desire to take your craft to a higher level.

In any case I apologize for my rant, whatever you choose Karco, you've always had my support, and will continue to have it for as long as you'd want it.

First thing, the MAC wasn't the only reason I left, and that alone wouldn't make me leave - I don't know the Madness feel at all, it only bothers me that such badly produced and generic tracks (I even doubt JohnnyFrizz bought Nexus, which he used in his submission - almost always it's used illegally) are worth that kind of money.

And I'm not only leaving because of 0-voters, and generic music taking awards from much more well-deserving tracks. An important point I sadly forgot to mention but did bring up in the response to the first comment is that this majority of listeners praise tracks like Guitar vs. Piano, or Fredgy - Reality (which, don't forget, was the guy's THIRD track) in the same way they praise much more original music by recognized artists - i.e., Pulstate or Immune (as examples from the Trance genre).

The exposure Newgrounds offers to me is worthless because of this, as are 90% of the reviews I get - and even some of the more critical reviews I don't take seriously simply because the reviewers reviewed high for tracks which I know to be generic or badly produced.

It's an interesting point that you say the Audio Portal is growing up. I suppose we'll have to wait to see if it's the case or not, but if it is, I'd be glad to return in a few years when more people are taking things seriously and good music comes up a lot more consistently than it did. :)

Thing is, we can't just wait - in the same way a neglected child won't likely have as good a life as a child given care from his/her parents, the staff, mods, and users do need to carefully consider, and then take, some kind of action. Be it the mod tools, or adding some kind of aspect that attracts voters, whatever - sitting down and idling the time away will do comparatively little versus actively working towards something better.

And maybe the 0-voters HAVE won, or are at least winning. They're certainly having an effect: several weeks ago around half (I believe) of the tracks on the Top 30 were removed tracks or tracks with thousands of votes, simply because almost everything that could have gone down in score, went down. It's almost impossible for some artists to win Weekly Best (5 or 30) simply because the average of their genre is so low that their tracks get voted below average within the day if they're high enough to get anywhere. There was the scripted scoredropping thread a few months ago and, most importantly, valuable exposure that could go to tracks people could have gotten signed to a label with is instead going to people who still don't know how to mix properly. Isn't something wrong here? :\

I don't want to support a flawed system, nor a website with an audience that praises virtually everything, so like I said in a previous comment, you could say I'm doing what RageVI did before the redesign - while I'll stay active, I won't submit until the system (or the audience in my case) improves significantly.

Thanks for the thoughts and the support MaestroRage, I was wondering what you'd think. :)

I almost want the 0 voters to win, so this site can see it's lowest and have no other choice to up from there. You learn the most when you lose something, and I think it could be a good thing in the future for Newgrounds.

Like I said before, every "good" artist should stop submitting and go on strike :P

Don't forget, there's always MaestroRage's idea about the AP's demographic growing up, but yes - even now there are actions that could be taken. :)

Man Karco can't leave. His song Temple was the first track I listened to on here that made me decide to start submitting. Don't go bro....Feel free to expand to other sites but don't leave NG.

I made you decide to start submitting?! :O

Don't worry Reasoner, my music will still be publicly available through blog posts, I just won't literally submit to the Audio Portal. :)

Wall of text post's :O

D:?!

GAH! I accidentally misclicked and deleted your comment before I could read it. :(

ZOMG PLX DONT LEAVLULZ

better now? :@

You're just saying that because I said everyone's agreeing. So no. :P

Evil Karco, deleter of text! :O

ACCIDENTAL deleter of text. :(

Cargo!

KARCO >:(

Well i have to disagree, just because newgrounds..
Ah fuck it, i agree :'(

Of course you do. XD

Whats happening with PortTrance?

Blizzard said he was busy with other projects last time I asked about it. Hopefully he'll start another meeting chat when he's finally started making progress?

:_(

:(?

dude this is shitty. you're one of the main reasons i wander around this damn site. i hate the way all the systems work too and all but shit, what about those of us who actually like your work? i understand how its awful to see crap get to the top but hey its like when you eat fatty foods. its floats up. its all good and just rises when it comes out. and that's what the top is sometimes. other times i hear great things from either you, xkore, immune, oscillist, rage, firebolt, haina, SBB, and countless other original artists. its really sad to see all of the talent here starting to leave based on how 13 year old morons waste a vote on something that "should sound cool" but is basicly another copy. if you could do one thing for me it is this. tell me the site you go to so that i can listen to your great works there as well. oh, and don't forget about the single release dates. i'm looking to buy it.

Don't worry too much, my music will still be publicly available and, unless I get lucky, free for download from sites I'll post links to here - you won't miss them, I promise. :)

As for the Single, I haven't forgotten... ;)

No!

Sorry. :( Music will still be publicly available though, if that's what you're worried about.

Karco, are you going to make ONE AWESOME KICKASS song before you leave? Like go with a bang? :P

I MIGHT submit the Instrumental #4 and/or Air Release remixes, as they're remixes of NG tracks, but I might not even submit those, we'll see. Same deal for the preview set, but it's not the kind of thing you have in mind there. ;)

Collabs will still be submitted to the AP as they come, Holiday included. :P

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