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As some people here may know I love the Song Challenges here at RT. It’s been my favorite part of the forum. Sadly I’ve noticed a clear trend. And that is for each year the engagement in these challenges has decreased A LOT. The overall pattern is the same whether there is a chance to win products or not. Less and less people are up for a music challenge.

Look at this old thread for example. No competition, no prizes, yet people were super engaged and created complete EPs. That’s EPs! Today most people aren’t even willing to create one song for a challenge.
viewtopic.php?f=59&t=7497676

Why is this? What happened?

I have my own (very pessimistic) theories on why of course, but I’d like to hear what you guys think.

There will be more for in the future for sure. I personally haven't had time or been approached recently by a dev to organize a competition. I think the last one I helped organize was for Algoritm. I believe Challism is working with a dev on an upcoming competition.

I think another thing is some users also get too caught up in simple rules, such as having a competition for a synth and asking that effects be stock (or everything other than the focus to be stock). I guess people just don't want to be challenged? Although that's an easy one to adhere to. The Algoritm competition had a great turnout.

Would love to do a big prize winter competition like we did about four years ago. That was the most entries and a crazy amount of prizes.

I feel bad that I haven't had the time (or motivation in recent years - let's face it) to enter many comps, but I really would like to try for the next one that comes up.

sorry for saying this but i have never participated in song challenges.
so it does not bother me.

but it was fun checking all those song.

I personally love the challenge of either time or equipment and find the challenges focus my mind and energy on the task at hand. I would love there to be more but agree engagement in them has not been great even when prizes are involved.

I always thought the lack of engagement was due to lack of time available for people and perhaps they just concentrate on their own projects or paid work.
I also wonder if some people are hesitant to post their work if they are new to music production (I know I had some concerns when posting on the music thread first time as the quality of a lot of posters stuff was obviously far better than I am capable). I could be miles off but these are my thoughts.

That thread about the one synth ep was before my time but the engagement looks great and would love to see that level of interaction return.

TBH, i do not have much time for a song. I need/want to have at least a few days in a row without being disturbed to work on a song. Currently i have only time for some gambling, tweaking, sketch some ideas, make patches...

And, since i am a mod, i cannot participate on song challenges here anymore Well, not a big issue, since i never had a contest

Loque wrote: ↑

08 Aug 2022

TBH, i do not have much time for a song. I need/want to have at least a few days in a row without being disturbed to work on a song. Currently i have only time for some gambling, tweaking, sketch some ideas, make patches...

And, since i am a mod, i cannot participate on song challenges here anymore Well, not a big issue, since i never had a contest

Sounds like we need a RT Moderator Song Off!

Sponsored by and judged by the RT community

deeplink wrote: ↑

08 Aug 2022

Loque wrote: ↑

08 Aug 2022

TBH, i do not have much time for a song. I need/want to have at least a few days in a row without being disturbed to work on a song. Currently i have only time for some gambling, tweaking, sketch some ideas, make patches...

And, since i am a mod, i cannot participate on song challenges here anymore Well, not a big issue, since i never had a contest

Sounds like we need a RT Moderator Song Off!

Sponsored by and judged by the RT community

Hum....i like this idea...And what do we win? A better spam filter? Which would give us more time to make music

Loque wrote: ↑

08 Aug 2022

deeplink wrote: ↑

08 Aug 2022

Sounds like we need a RT Moderator Song Off!

Sponsored by and judged by the RT community

Hum....i like this idea...And what do we win? A better spam filter? Which would give us more time to make music

I know nothing about spam filters but if the mods have a fun competition I would donate a can of spam as a comedy prize.

Popey wrote: ↑

08 Aug 2022

Loque wrote: ↑

08 Aug 2022

Hum....i like this idea...And what do we win? A better spam filter? Which would give us more time to make music

I know nothing about spam filters but if the mods have a fun competition I would donate a can of spam as a comedy prize.

What about Bacon? Or Pizza?

Loque wrote: ↑

08 Aug 2022

Popey wrote: ↑

08 Aug 2022

I know nothing about spam filters but if the mods have a fun competition I would donate a can of spam as a comedy prize.

What about Bacon? Or Pizza?

Possibly but do you mods have bacon or pizza filters in place

As a prize.... we promise to behave and not cause trouble for a week?

Popey wrote: ↑

08 Aug 2022

Loque wrote: ↑

08 Aug 2022

What about Bacon? Or Pizza?

Possibly but do you mods have bacon or pizza filters in place

No, and no Bacon or Pizza Filter needed

Too much to do and too little time. Would be nice if each day or night would have a few extra hours.

I love the song challenges! it gives me a different sense of purpose for making songs or tracks - especially when there are prizes involved. I also like the tracks and competitions here because it's not about becoming the next world famous pop star, dj or artist. I mean I do enjoy thinking that I am a world famous artist though while I make tracks for the competition >< (. .)

joeyluck wrote: ↑

08 Aug 2022

I think another thing is some users also get too caught up in simple rules, such as having a competition for a synth and asking that effects be stock (or everything other than the focus to be stock).

Admitteldy I've been one of those that have occasionally been caught up in the rules of some challenges. But I'm totally fine with having some rules/challenges that are not for me. I just think that these challenges here at RT make this forum come alive.

deeplink wrote: ↑

08 Aug 2022

Sounds like we need a RT Moderator Song Off!

Sponsored by and judged by the RT community

That would be cool.
Prize: The community promises not to create any sort of "the Reason sound" threads for a whole year.

TritoneAddiction wrote: ↑

08 Aug 2022

deeplink wrote: ↑

08 Aug 2022

Sounds like we need a RT Moderator Song Off!

Sponsored by and judged by the RT community

That would be cool.
Prize: The community promises not to create any sort of "the Reason sound" threads for a whole year.

Or "this is the end of Reason" threads.

Loque wrote: ↑

08 Aug 2022

TritoneAddiction wrote: ↑

08 Aug 2022

That would be cool.
Prize: The community promises not to create any sort of "the Reason sound" threads for a whole year.

Or "this is the end of Reason" threads.

No that's impossible. Then we wouldn't have anything to talk about. What are we supposed to do then? Make music? I mean come on.

deeplink wrote: ↑

08 Aug 2022

Loque wrote: ↑

08 Aug 2022

TBH, i do not have much time for a song. I need/want to have at least a few days in a row without being disturbed to work on a song. Currently i have only time for some gambling, tweaking, sketch some ideas, make patches...

And, since i am a mod, i cannot participate on song challenges here anymore Well, not a big issue, since i never had a contest

Sounds like we need a RT Moderator Song Off!

Sponsored by and judged by the RT community

Less competitors means less competition lol.

It would be fun to do some community stuff here again.

QVprod wrote: ↑

09 Aug 2022

deeplink wrote: ↑

08 Aug 2022

Sounds like we need a RT Moderator Song Off!

Sponsored by and judged by the RT community

Less competitors means less competition lol.

It would be fun to do some community stuff here again.

I would be interested in Community stuff, you mean making a song together?

miyaru wrote: ↑

11 Aug 2022

QVprod wrote: ↑

09 Aug 2022

Less competitors means less competition lol.

It would be fun to do some community stuff here again.

I would be interested in Community stuff, you mean making a song together?

We’ve done competitions and community refills in the past. Not songs, but there may be a way to work that out in some kind of way.

Is there a way to save Reason songs in a backwards competable way. Say I have Reason 11 suite and can I save it in a way Reason 10 and 9 users can load these files too?

Or should I provide MIDI and Audiotracks and tracksheets to provide info on instruments and FX's?

I've noticed the drop in song challenges, too, which is unfortunate. Even with restrictions they were fun to participate in and hear how diverse the entries were. Hoping to see these pick up again.

I've only partcipated in two of them, the Spectra one and the Word of the Month (january). Too bad I have very little time these days for hobbies. My ongoing tracks are halted and I long for the day I will have some time to work on them with clear mind.

I think these challenges are cool and they DO boost creativity, but as I already said in the Spectra Song Challenge thread on these forums, I think to add some more drive would be useful to have a jury that evaluates the tracks and then produces a final ranking.

I know that rankings can make someone sad (my song is better than yours), but I also believe that without competition or at least an evaluation of your effort there is little desire to parteciapre and engage.

Again regarding the Spectra example I mentioned earlier, since Synthetech (developer of Spectra RE) was present in the thread, his involvement in evaluating ( even just commenting) the tracks would have made the challenge more rewarding.

Rewards are not always pecuniary in nature, sometimes a pat on the back or good advice on how to improve is enough!