* Submission and Song Policies ** MP3 and Video Tagging *
* Required Information For Song Submissions *
* Required Information For News Item Submissions *
* Our Contact Email *
Updated: 4/9/15 - MX
Submission and Song Policies
As of 4/9/15, song submissions are required to either be original songs done with SFC/SNES samples, covers of other songs done with SFC/SNES samples, or covers of existing SFC/SNES songs done in new formats. Remixes may be accepted upon evaluation that it does resemble highly the track it is supposed to be.
Original SFC/SNES Songs and Covers:
SFC/SNES Songs are NOT restricted to 8 channels only. You may use as many instruments/channels as you feel necessary for the composition (if the original SFC musicians weren't limited to just 8 channels, they wouldn't have stayed within 8 channels). Use of external effects is also allowed provided it doesn't substantially change the SNES quality of the sound. Example: Reverb and delay are ok. Distortion, overdrive and flangers we recommend against.
Also try to avoid making the song too short and just looping the same material over. They aren't outright banned yet, but this group is dedicated to showing off reasonably high quality compositions, and 94 second MIDI rips of the Final Fantasy VII fanfare song really aren't what we're looking for. If you need a guideline, start with 3 minutes in length, or choosing a song that doesn't repeat for at least 2 minutes.
Cover Songs of Existing SFC/SNES Tracks:
Because of how much more open this kind of thing is, I can't think of a lot of limitations that need to be imposed particularly for it (as of writing) than not making it short and pointless (see the above paragraph) and adhering to the other more general quality standards we'd like to uphold.
One note about covers in general. If you submit a cover, we urge you to be forthright in telling us if you used a MIDI file, the name of the MIDI file, where you got it and the original author of the file, or if you got it from a piano book or score or if you just knew it by ear. The reason for this is to cut down on drama and lazy compositions. We give credit where credit is due here at SFCaliber. Example: If you post a SFC/SNES version of "Time Scar" from Chrono Cross, use a MIDI from vgmusic.com for it, omit crediting the author of that MIDI, and the author of the MIDI finds out and contacts us asking us to remove it - guess what, it's going to get removed, no questions asked.
The bottom line is - we don't want trouble. We're not in this to pirate music, we're in it to have fun and make art for others to enjoy. If we get a complaint about copyright or any infringement similar to it, the most likely thing that will happen is we take it down ASAP. Few, if any, questions, no investigations, just remove it. This may sound unfair, but the truth is that it's pretty unlikely a song would get a call for removal unless there was a proper reason for it.
Sound Quality - Mixing, Mastering, Arrangement:
Finally, your track does not have to be perfectly mixed and/or mastered, but it DOES need to show some sort of effort went into making it sound nice. This is largely to our discretion and it's hard to be any more concrete about it than that. Please don't submit lazy SFC tracks or covers, take the time to compose, arrange and mix it properly.
Rejected submissions will not be notified and most likely not be responded to with reasons WHY it was rejected. This may change in the future, but right now SFCaliber is just two guys and mostly just John. We don't have a judging process and we don't have time to tell you exactly what was wrong. Sorry, that's just the limitations of the logistics there.
What I WILL give you is an excellent example of the benchmark we're shooting for (minus the chanting melody). Use this and other tracks we've released officially (not just shared on our blog) as your standards to go by.
As of 4/9/15, song submissions are required to either be original songs done with SFC/SNES samples, covers of other songs done with SFC/SNES samples, or covers of existing SFC/SNES songs done in new formats. Remixes may be accepted upon evaluation that it does resemble highly the track it is supposed to be.
Original SFC/SNES Songs and Covers:
SFC/SNES Songs are NOT restricted to 8 channels only. You may use as many instruments/channels as you feel necessary for the composition (if the original SFC musicians weren't limited to just 8 channels, they wouldn't have stayed within 8 channels). Use of external effects is also allowed provided it doesn't substantially change the SNES quality of the sound. Example: Reverb and delay are ok. Distortion, overdrive and flangers we recommend against.
Also try to avoid making the song too short and just looping the same material over. They aren't outright banned yet, but this group is dedicated to showing off reasonably high quality compositions, and 94 second MIDI rips of the Final Fantasy VII fanfare song really aren't what we're looking for. If you need a guideline, start with 3 minutes in length, or choosing a song that doesn't repeat for at least 2 minutes.
Cover Songs of Existing SFC/SNES Tracks:
Because of how much more open this kind of thing is, I can't think of a lot of limitations that need to be imposed particularly for it (as of writing) than not making it short and pointless (see the above paragraph) and adhering to the other more general quality standards we'd like to uphold.
One note about covers in general. If you submit a cover, we urge you to be forthright in telling us if you used a MIDI file, the name of the MIDI file, where you got it and the original author of the file, or if you got it from a piano book or score or if you just knew it by ear. The reason for this is to cut down on drama and lazy compositions. We give credit where credit is due here at SFCaliber. Example: If you post a SFC/SNES version of "Time Scar" from Chrono Cross, use a MIDI from vgmusic.com for it, omit crediting the author of that MIDI, and the author of the MIDI finds out and contacts us asking us to remove it - guess what, it's going to get removed, no questions asked.
The bottom line is - we don't want trouble. We're not in this to pirate music, we're in it to have fun and make art for others to enjoy. If we get a complaint about copyright or any infringement similar to it, the most likely thing that will happen is we take it down ASAP. Few, if any, questions, no investigations, just remove it. This may sound unfair, but the truth is that it's pretty unlikely a song would get a call for removal unless there was a proper reason for it.
Sound Quality - Mixing, Mastering, Arrangement:
Finally, your track does not have to be perfectly mixed and/or mastered, but it DOES need to show some sort of effort went into making it sound nice. This is largely to our discretion and it's hard to be any more concrete about it than that. Please don't submit lazy SFC tracks or covers, take the time to compose, arrange and mix it properly.
Rejected submissions will not be notified and most likely not be responded to with reasons WHY it was rejected. This may change in the future, but right now SFCaliber is just two guys and mostly just John. We don't have a judging process and we don't have time to tell you exactly what was wrong. Sorry, that's just the limitations of the logistics there.
What I WILL give you is an excellent example of the benchmark we're shooting for (minus the chanting melody). Use this and other tracks we've released officially (not just shared on our blog) as your standards to go by.
MP3 and Video Tagging
Got that? Awesome. When you've got a good quality submission ready, send a link to it as a 256kBs MP3 and upload a video of it to your Youtube channel (we may ditch the Youtube requirement in the future) so that we can add it to the SFCaliber Youtube group. Your MP3 will be uploaded to a paid (and legit) Tindeck account for free downloads.
MP3 Title example:
Gatlinburg Fall Colors (Secret of Evermore SFCaliber) - Meteo Xavier
Video title example:
Secret of Evermore - Gatlinburg Fall Colors by Meteo Xavier [SFCaliber]
Got that? Awesome. When you've got a good quality submission ready, send a link to it as a 256kBs MP3 and upload a video of it to your Youtube channel (we may ditch the Youtube requirement in the future) so that we can add it to the SFCaliber Youtube group. Your MP3 will be uploaded to a paid (and legit) Tindeck account for free downloads.
MP3 Title example:
Gatlinburg Fall Colors (Secret of Evermore SFCaliber) - Meteo Xavier
Video title example:
Secret of Evermore - Gatlinburg Fall Colors by Meteo Xavier [SFCaliber]
Required Information For Song Submissions
As of writing, our very simple contact form only gives us so many options and I may just replace it with one of our email addresses, but for now, here is the information we require.
* Your name.
* Your artist name.
* Name of game(s).
* Name of your song.
* Name of SFC/SNES song you're covering/rearranging.
* Name of SFC/SNES samples used (if any).
* A clean website hosting service where we can download the MP3.
* Your comments on this song.
* If this song is a cover, did you use a MIDI file, sheet music score, or did you transcribe it by ear?
* If you used a MIDI file or sheet music score, who is listed as the author and where can we find it?
Required Information For News Item Submissions
If you've got something relevant to SFCaliber you'd like us to share with readers for additional exposure, it is highly likely we're interested in posting it for you! Because we do this without asking any payment, there's no guarantees we can reasonably make, but it is our aim to have SFCaliber be a decent gateway to new developments in the Super Famicom/Super NES world and the only way to do that is have quality content - and a lot of it!
Relevant News Items:
* Anything new related to Super Famicom music.
* New hardware or software (emulation) for Super Famicom gaming.
* New software for making Super Famicom music.
* New ROM hacks of Super Famicom games.
* New homebrew releases of Super Famicom games.
* New stores in the US that sell Super Famicom development, homebrew, etc.
Required Information For News Items:
* Your name.
* Your email address.
* Official website, preferably with it's own announcement.
* The information you'd like stipulated on it (which we will put in quotes).
* One good quality image of the product or a link to a video of it.
This is so we have good quality and reliable information to be able to share with those who come to our blogsite here. Ideally, we'd love to have a proper press release from you to stick on here, but at this time, there's no need to be that strict on it.
We hope to have our turnaround to posting quality news items be within the week. Again, we're just two guys who run SFCaliber on our free time, so things tend to come up same with anyone else.
You can direct news item submissions to the same email address as music submissions below.
Our Contact Email
Alright then, all set? Got your music up to code and your news item info ready? Then submit away at the email address listed below.
Meteo.XavierNOSPAM@gmail.com
Just copy and paste that into your email submission, remove the NOSPAM to help us prevent more spambot shit from coming in. In time, if we can find a working one, we'll try to replace the email address for a contact form with the required items listed out.
Thank you for supporting SFCaliber!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Links not working? Do you need us to remove a track? Send us a message on our contact page and we'll get to it as time allows.
As of writing, our very simple contact form only gives us so many options and I may just replace it with one of our email addresses, but for now, here is the information we require.
* Your name.
* Your artist name.
* Name of game(s).
* Name of your song.
* Name of SFC/SNES song you're covering/rearranging.
* Name of SFC/SNES samples used (if any).
* A clean website hosting service where we can download the MP3.
* Your comments on this song.
* If this song is a cover, did you use a MIDI file, sheet music score, or did you transcribe it by ear?
* If you used a MIDI file or sheet music score, who is listed as the author and where can we find it?
Required Information For News Item Submissions
If you've got something relevant to SFCaliber you'd like us to share with readers for additional exposure, it is highly likely we're interested in posting it for you! Because we do this without asking any payment, there's no guarantees we can reasonably make, but it is our aim to have SFCaliber be a decent gateway to new developments in the Super Famicom/Super NES world and the only way to do that is have quality content - and a lot of it!
Relevant News Items:
* Anything new related to Super Famicom music.
* New hardware or software (emulation) for Super Famicom gaming.
* New software for making Super Famicom music.
* New ROM hacks of Super Famicom games.
* New homebrew releases of Super Famicom games.
* New stores in the US that sell Super Famicom development, homebrew, etc.
Required Information For News Items:
* Your name.
* Your email address.
* Official website, preferably with it's own announcement.
* The information you'd like stipulated on it (which we will put in quotes).
* One good quality image of the product or a link to a video of it.
This is so we have good quality and reliable information to be able to share with those who come to our blogsite here. Ideally, we'd love to have a proper press release from you to stick on here, but at this time, there's no need to be that strict on it.
We hope to have our turnaround to posting quality news items be within the week. Again, we're just two guys who run SFCaliber on our free time, so things tend to come up same with anyone else.
You can direct news item submissions to the same email address as music submissions below.
Our Contact Email
Alright then, all set? Got your music up to code and your news item info ready? Then submit away at the email address listed below.
Meteo.XavierNOSPAM@gmail.com
Just copy and paste that into your email submission, remove the NOSPAM to help us prevent more spambot shit from coming in. In time, if we can find a working one, we'll try to replace the email address for a contact form with the required items listed out.
Thank you for supporting SFCaliber!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Links not working? Do you need us to remove a track? Send us a message on our contact page and we'll get to it as time allows.
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