A few days ago I uploaded a demo of an upcoming punk version of Samurai specifically for mixing feedback. I've read all of the reviews left on the demo and I've taken them into consideration. The demo is now unpublished, but the full song will be released some time this week. Thank you all for the feedback and take care!

I've been considering making Newgrounds my main platform for art, for a couple of reasons.

Most people here don't know that I am an artist, and that I used to have a Twitter account. For the sake of my own wellbeing I've left Twitter and I don't see myself coming back any time soon. The community there is toxic, the algorithm is impossible to get past, and artists are generally treated like shit over there by updates and large accounts alike. I've come to learn how Twitter is absolutely the worst place for an artist yet I don't get how it's still so popular, it's not like there are no alternatives available...

Anyway, I digress. DeviantArt also used to be my go-to for posting art, but you might be aware of the awful business decisions that DeviantArt's company made that rendered the entire site almost unusable. Most people there either moved to Twitter or Tumblr, or straight-up disappeared, so doing any business there isn't really an option either.

That leaves Newgrounds and YouTube as my only two options - Newgrounds, where I've been a member for almost 12 years and posted almost exclusively music. And YouTube, where I could probably show some of my art in video formats like speedpaints and find a way to talk about them in an interesting manner. Downside is my computer can barely handle video editing software and it takes a long time for me to finish a video anyway.

Would anybody here be interested if I started posting art to Newgrounds? It's mostly Sonic fan art but I've been branching out to original art lately with Hotel Arcadia stuff.

Hotel Arcadia is a punk band based in Sydney, and they were active from 1981 to 1983. Although they weren't around for very long, they're held as heroes that inspired people to revolt against the seemingly invincible interstellar Korghan empire that occupied their planet.

There is Gemma Pennington, who started off as a social outcast that became the powerful frontwoman of the band.

Tomoha "Tomo" Kazemoto, the Japanese immigrant on drums with the fastest fingers in the world.

Mako McMackley, the bassist and bartender who slowly got back into the groove after his last band broke up.

Zero, the childhood friend of Gemma behind some of the band's sickest guitar solos.

And CAB, an alien robot ally that becomes Gemma's personal amp cab.

I was reworking some of my songs from 2023 and 2022, mostly to address some of the criticisms with their audio, but also to line up with the nature of the band.

I just remixed "Far From Home" - now it has better percussion, louder vocals, and Gemma singing with an Australian accent. Feel free to check it out, enjoy, and take care!

You may need to clear cache (CTRL +F5) to listen to the updated version.

I posted this on my Instagram account earlier but felt it was appropriate to put it here.

It came to my attention that some users who were once close to me had found my music and talked about it.

These songs were written as part of exercises from therapy sessions to vent my feelings in a constructive way and help me improve myself both personally and artistically. In other words, I wrote them for me - not for attention, or for personal gain.

These songs were never directly shared to anyone besides my therapist. They are only online for my portfolio (I'm a composer for a video game project at my university), and writing/production feedback.

With that, I will ask everyone to please understand that purpose behind "Orange County" and the rest of my music.

As an artist I should be allowed to express myself through any means as long as it's harmless. There is nothing wrong with writing a song describing a personal topic and artists should be free to create them without being mocked for it. Criticism should be directed towards the art, not the artist.

With that said, I'm disappointed to have seen the comments of some users about Orange County and myself, considering they are artists themselves.

world

In 1981, what do you do when an interstellar alien empire invades your homeworld? Form a band and rock on before humanity's inevitable extinction.

The Hotel Arcadia concept album is coming soon ;)

NOAH! officially has a Spotify release! I'm super excited about this! I always wanted to be on Spotify, yet never had the money or the means to do so. I'd like to thank EmuBands for making this possible.

Please check it out!

https://open.spotify.com/track/0HxxIAphCjZr5oL1iVDn5Z?si=ec4fd79ab46b44de

I've gotten plenty of comments pointing out my mixing being off in certain songs. The vocals are a little too quiet, the low shelf is a bit too much, the kick drums are too bassy, etc. But when I was playing the music in FL Studio itself, it sounded fine to me. It wasn't until I started remixing NOAH! that I realized FL Studio ruins the mix of the song as it's being rendered.

I played back certain parts of the song in Audacity and noticed some sounds randomly peaking, like the vocals and the guitars. I compared it to the FL Studio project and it sounded different. The differences were so subtle that it took over 10 replays to realize that something sounded off. I don't know if it could be my rendering settings or whatnot, but this probably explains the mixing issues in some of my tracks.

What do you guys think?

I had to remove my demo of Chain in The Sky from public viewing since it got frontpaged.

I appreciate the person who made the decision, but I prefer not having my demos featured since they weren't finished yet.

I'm perfectly fine with finished, full-length songs, but I might upload demos from time to time just looking for feedback, not frontpaging. Verbal feedback is rare for me and Newgrounds appears to be the only site where I could probably get that.

It's the one thing that determines whether or not I finish a track or scrap it. It's self-destructive, but having my art ignored always made me feel like I shouldn't have posted it at all and save my energy for better things- but I digress.

I guess I'm just afraid that once the demo is frontpaged, the traction it gets would be lost by the time it's actually finished. I'd rather just wait.

Sorry for the confusion, I'll republish the song when it's finished.

I've been a user of SoundCloud for over 8 years, and now I want nothing to do with the site.

Like Newgrounds, SoundCloud is the site that allows you to upload your own music and share it with others-- but differences lie within its community. Unlike Newgrounds, there are no forums on SoundCloud, so there is absolutely no form of communication on the site if you're looking for advise to improve on your music skills. You might be lucky enough to get a response if you comment on a song.

I'm also not a fan of SoundCloud's premium membership. Sure, you need to help pay for the site somehow, but this limits the user's creativity by only having n minutes before they can't upload any more tracks. It especially hurts low-/no-budget creators like myself. Newgrounds has a premium membership itself, but at least it's not required if the user wants to have the best musical experience on the site. Everybody has an equal chance of getting their music out there, without the need to pay for more attention.

Speaking of attention, let's talk about celebrities and record labels on SoundCloud.

Imagine being on the same playing field as professional musicians, who already have the money, resources, and the people to make an instant hit. I'm sure everybody knows about Drake, Dillon Francis, Armin van Buuren, etc. They are on SoundCloud also, and they absolutely overshadow the tens of thousands of creators on the site who try to make it big and fail.

And SoundCloud.

Constantly.

Promotes them.

On Newgrounds, I have 65 followers. On SoundCloud, I have 146.

On Newgrounds, I already have two frontpaged songs, each with over two thousands views. On SoundCloud, I struggle to reach a hundred views on most of my tracks, yet the top songs are covers. On Newgrounds, my best songs are originals.

SoundCloud fails to help me as a creator, and that's why I'm done with it.