Q: What is this? Why am I here?

A: This is Dwelling of Duels - a monthly (sometimes bi-monthly) competition for VG cover artists who play live instruments. It is part of Rock-Out!, a site pulling together links to all VG cover artists who use live instruments. The purpose of the site is to provide impetus for artists to make songs by hosting friendly competitions with other artists.

It is important to note that due to the nature of this competition, one of the foci is improvement. I fully support amateur artists to participate as it will give them a chance to improve at their chosen instrument, get feedback on songs, and hopefully have fun doing so. Not every song in the final voting is going to be an Ailsean, and many of them may go on to WIPs at VGMix. We're here to support new and established artists in the VG scene, not tear apart the n00bz for their lack of skillz0rz. roffle.

Q: Why just live instruments? Do you hate synths? Synths can sound just as good as instruments you know - you should stop being so biased!

A: I am not here to discuss programmed vs. played, nor do I have an wish to. If you enjoy programmed remixes with synth tracks, more power to you. SSH has proven that you can make remixes with samples that sound good. The point is that some of us enjoy real instruments being played. What it comes down to is personal preference - you have yours, let us have ours.

Q: What is this "theme" stuff?

A: For fun, the site goes on a trimonthly schedule in which the first month, artists are given a game series, or possibly a game company, the next month is a theme (such as "ninja games"), and the third month is a free month. This is done to give focus to the artists, give a challenge for them to do covers of known games that stand out, and for fun. If you feel constrained by the themes, participate in the free months.

Q: How does voting work?

A: Voting is conducted on The Shizz, on the Minibosses message board. This is done because DoD arose from the community there and remains closely tied to it. Also the somewhat closed community prevents ballot stuffing. The anonymity of the contest gives it a relatively unbiased population. Sure they may lean towards songs they like, but I've thought about this a lot and I consider it a pretty good position, relatively free of elitism, popularity or politics.

Voting itself is carried out along these lines - voters are members on the Minibosses boards with 50 posts and up (again, to prevent ballot stuffing as has been attempted in the past). There are a wide variety of people, with differening opinions. Artists participating in the contest are also given status as votes for the month they compete in. Votes are either sent by private message to whoever is running the contest (usually Paragon) on the Minibosses message board (preferred), or emailed to dodsongs at gmail dot com. All votes are due by 11 PM EST on the last day of the month the competition is in, unless noted otherwise on the current duel page.

The number of points you may vote with varies on the amount of the songs for each month. The points allocation is done in brackets of five. A month with 1-5 songs means voters get 5 points, 6-10 songs per month means the voters get 10 points, 11-15 songs = 15 points and so on and so forth. If you post reviews in the discussion threads of 3+ sentences for each song (and make a real effort at it), you get an additional point to vote with. The only limit in spending your points is that you may not give any song over 6 points. This is to discourage lazy voting - people who listen to one or two songs and drop all their points on one. This voting system allows the more professional artists to get their fair share of attention while allowing the more amateur artists to fight it out for the lower ranks. Also, artists may vote for themselves if they really believe they deserve it.

Q: If I want feedback for improving my song midmonth, may I submit it to VGMix for critiques?

A: No, not at the moment, as it kills the element of anonymity, which thus makes the competition more of a popularity contest. As I've said, the main idea for DoD was to provide impetus for artists, who may then submit their songs as WIPs on VGmix AFTER the month is over. I've found that if you keep recording new songs (as long as you do it with concentration on making them good), you can learn a lot and have time to experiment.

Q: I only need one more hour! Can I please get my song to you just a little late?

A: No, and here is why. You have an entire month to record. This should be more than enough time for most people, as I know many people who record good songs within the space of a few days or a week. Also, if we keep waiting for other artists, the competition never gets put up. There are always people who put off everything till the last moment and start asking questions like that. Don't be one of those people. I've killed my own entries for competitions when I would have put them in a few hours late, so don't expect me to make exceptions for you.


Q: I submitted a song already, but since then, I've worked on it. Can you use the newer version? or:
I want to do some more work on my song, but I might not be able to finish by the deadline. Can I submit the version I have now, and then submit the update if I finish it?

A: Yes. As long as you submit it before the deadline, I'll gladly accept whatever new or updated versions you've got.


Q: Why does the track have to be new or unreleased? I made a great song from XXXX video game a while back. Can't I send that to you?

A: No, because that ruins the anonymity. And we want you to make new songs.