Nectarine

Let's discuss the difference between conversions and covers, and whether we want conversions to be on the stream.

A "conversion" is a note-for-note translation of another artist's song to a new platform. For example, a Metallica song that is rendered to MOD format note-for-note with guitar samples and drum samples, intended to sound as much like the original as possible.

A "cover" is an artist's new version of another artist's song. For example, Necros has a cover of "Paranoid Android" by Radiohead. He did not translate it note for note, but used his own ideas for samples, and he sampled the original vocal in a few spots. Covers can sound fairly similar to the original, or very different. We have many covers of Popcorn on this site for example. As another example, Machinae Supremacy does covers of C64 game tunes.

Generally speaking, I think any tune used in a demo should be active on Necta, meaning, it can be played on the stream. But there are some exceptions. Variform 2 is a troll track consisting of white noise. It was in a demo and a compo, but trust me, you don't want it on the stream. If you want to hear it, go watch the demo on youtube. Satisfaction Megademo - Part 8 (The Call Of Ktulu, Digital) by Rst7 (Dmitry Oparin) l was rejected recently for being a conversion of a Metallica song, but on the other hand, it is technically a demotune. So which one takes priority? Being a lame conversion, or being a demotune?

Thoughts on these matters?

The line between cover and conversion gets a bit fuzzy in "this" context (format limitations). An aside: If an "edit" is a particular type of "remix" which changes few to one aspects of the original recording for a particular use (radio edit, censored version, de-emphesis, EQ, etc), then a conversion could be considered a subtype of edit. None of these terms are exclusive, but some may override another:

• conversion (mod conversions: exploiting looping parts to reduce file size, music sharing predating mp3, see below)
  
• cover (performed alike)
  
• edit (lightly modified)
  
• mashup (more than one piece combined, often little editing)
  
• remake (usually by the original artist, and often quite different)
  
• remix (often used as a catchall and encroaches on other terms, highly variable, but usually means some original material is reused, but much is changed either minimally or drastically)
  

So I would say Necros' Paranoid Android (b2 mix) is a cover (first) and a remix (second) since it does use material from the original.


Also, Yaka's Wo ist Pippi is very much a conversion (first) and also a remix (likely due to the limitations of the conversion process). It's also better than the original, but no excuses, sorry for uploading it; that's totally my fault. lol


So what about conversions (of commercial music) where target format and fidelity are not clearly PCM approximations, but entirely new sounds out of necessity like from a PSG or chiptune? That's where the fuzziness starts (for me). It's not really the same kind of conversion and can more easily be categorized as a cover. I would be more inclined to allow a PSG conversion of a commercial tune than a mod conversion even if both were from their own demo. However, I'm not entirely sure how I would hard-line it either way. Regardless, this is good food for thought because it's one aspect which I did not factor into my own little "musicjuice" algorithm for allowing tunes. A submission having been a commercial conversion now scores lower than an original, so good things.

Bumping this thread as it has become more topical again.

Should we have note-for-note MOD conversions of commercial music on the stream, or not? I think there are good reasons not to, but the staff would really appreciate input from as many people as possible here.