CVGM.net - Chiptune, Retro & Video Game Music

This post is the official site FAQ regarding our upload policies and procedures. It will be updated periodically with new information as it's needed, so please check it on a regular basis for new information.

The FAQ will link to several other forum topics, each with specific information in them.

Some other important reading that is related:
What Is Acceptable / Not Acceptable For Upload To The Site
Emulated Recordings vs. Authentic Recordings - Do's and Don't of Both!!
Song Corrections / Changes - Use this to report problems, do not re-upload existing tracks.

Acceptable File Formats
CVGM now accepts MP3 files, along with original module formats such as MOD, XM, IT, S3M etc. and typically any module format playable by the BASS replayer system. When uploading songs to us, when at all possible please use the original module format, if it isn't available or isn't then supported, then an MP3 version will need to be used instead.

The streamer will automatically convert these module formats into the correct MP3 stream when sending the song to the listeners of the site, without you having to do anything special. The streamer will also normalize the track, so you don't have to perform that step anymore \o/

Some older MOD formats are not supported, if the site tells you after uploading that the format is invalid then use one of the other methods of recording instead.

Creating an MP3 File
There are many tools out there on the net for creating MP3 files. The most common one is LAME, and most tools that use it are free. On Windows, Audacity is a good editor for analyzing files, chopping bits off, and re-encoding. They also link to a LAME addon that will give full mp3 control.

Naming your MP3 Files
Naming your MP3 files is an important step in the process. It helps you categorize your files, and it helps the server by properly ordering and sorting the tracks.

We reccomend an MP3 file in the following name format (or very similar):
Author - Game - Title - Platform.mp3

Examples:
Wally Beben - Tetris - Title - SID.mp3
Wally Beben - Tetris Title - SID.mp3
Wally_Beben-Tetris_Title_SID.mp3
David Whittaker - Treasure Island Dizzy Title - AY.mp3

At a glance, you know the author, game name and platform without having to research it. In the event there is a problem later, locating this file based on a broken song name is much easier than identifying something like Track03.mp3

When encoding your MP3 files, we strongly reccomend that you add ID3 tags for at least the Author and Song name, the system doesn't need anything else. Most pre-made mp3 files (such as Stone Oakvalley tracks) will already contain this information.

Fading, Silence, Stereo Seperation etc.
All uploaded tracks shouldn't just end abruptly, unless the track is supposed to end that way. For example, most game tracks are designed to loop during play. They don't have an official ending to the tune, so a fade will need to be added to the end of the track. You can eother choose to do this to fade the last few seconds to the beginning of the new loop, or you can let the song loop for a few seconds and fade that part. The choice is up to you as to which you prefer.

With regards to silence, At the beginning of the track there should be no more than 1 second of silence (None is OK), and at the end, there also should be no more than 1 second. Longer silence than this, and some listeners panic that their stream has died!

Stereo Seperation in your audio tracks is more a problem with formats that produced songs that sounded good on a mono device, such as a TV, and sound horrible on headphones. Usually, bass goes to one side, while the rythym is placed on the other side of the headset. Many tools feature a stereo blending mode where it will partially merge the two channels to try and fix this. If you are unable to do this with your recording software directly, use Audacity to merge the two channels into a single mono MP3 file and upload it that way. When it is replayed, the same sound will come out of both sides (and only be half the file size when uploading). If you choose to upload the original format (such as a MOD) the replayer will automatically handle the stereo seperation.

General Pointers To Remember:
* Check to see if the song is currently in the database first. Use the Search option to find it by name or by author. All duplicates will be checked and rejected. If you are correcting a song, please post in the thread that is linked at the top of this page with the information, do no re-upload the track a second time.
* If you wouldn't listen to the song and like it, chances other people might feel that way so don't upload it. We really don't want the database filled with lame music.
* Make sure your MP3 is encoded correctly, and sounds OK. You can do this in your MP3 player software. It prevents any issues later.
* Name your file appropriately as described in this FAQ.
* Research the artists of your songs, and look for any download link information you may need in addition to any other appropriate fields such as pouet, HOL etc.
* After uploading your song, remember to add tags to it with the correct information about the song. See Is there anything I can do to help out with this site?.

Before You Upload The Song
CVGM strives to have a complete database of song information. We prefer this completeness of information, as opposed to every song available with no information about them. If you are uploading game music, you are Required to research as much information as possible prior to upload. You should at least know the game publisher (located in the labels section). If the label doesn't exist, then add it first.

We provide almost every link that you will need, to make this a very simple process. There are many fields of information that you should/could add to your upload, and are very easy to locate beforehand. We make some of these fields a requirement to keep the work load down on our wonderful moderators. They already work silly hours maintaining the data that we already have!

Depending on the type of music that you are uploading, will determine the different fields that you could enter in the upload form. The main common difference between the tracks uploaded are if they are game or demo music tracks. Obviously, of the track is demo then there would be Pouet information available for it (if it's present in their system) and with a game, there would not be. Depending on the song platform, there may be data elsewhere for it.

The following is a list of the different databases (with links) that CVGM currently supports. Read the entries for each one and determine if you need to look for information regarding your upload:

Pouet - Used to store information on the demoscene. Almost every demo ever made is on this site. CVGM uses the pouet ID number (the which= part of the address) on the upload form and will give a link to the production/artist.

Lemon 64 - Database packed full of C64 games. Just about every C64 game released is here. All you need to put into CVGM is the ID number of the game (such as 2021), which you will see when you hover the mouse over the search results for your game.

Hall of Light - A huge Amiga database packed full of games and tools for the Amiga. Mush more comprehensive than Lemon Amiga, as HOL also features shareware games and lots of artist/developer information. All we require is the number at the end of the entry URL.

World of Spectrum - The biggest Spectrum database on the planet! Lots of useful information here for everything ever written on the speccy. All we need is the ID number, which often has leading 0's, so remember to copy them all!

ZXDemo - Another useful Spectrum demoscene database, which features lot of speccy demos and parties. It also is a good source to get links directly to music files. All we need is the ID number from the production. You can also get links to tracks from here.

Project 2612 - Large collection of Sega Genesis/Megadrive music files. If uploading tracks from the Genesis/Megadrive, you can use the ID number here to link the listener back to download the entire game soundtrack. Useful site for looking up song authors too.

HVSC Link - This is a complete link to a SID file, for use with a C64 replayer such as SidPlay. Can be directly from the HVSC page, from a local copy of the file, or from a CVGM provided repository (such as the one at http://www.andykellett.com/music ).

MobyGames - MobyGames is an online database of games for a multitude of platforms. When adding this info, we only need the last two portions of the link. The URL system is nice with MobyGames in that it uses the gaming platform, and the name of the game. If we were adding a link to the Sega Genesis version of sonic the Hedgehog 2 for example, we would only add this portion of the MobyGames URL to the box: genesis/sonic-the-hedgehog-2

YouTube Clips - YouTube often hosts gameplay clips of various games and demos, if you find a related video, add its ID number here, such as v638h64. Often its the part of the URL after the first = and before any additional & characters.

If you think that there is any additional databases that we should be supporting, please let us know and we will review then with our team.

If you forget to add some information, or have a correction for the site admins, it can be posted in the forums under Song Corrections / Changes for a moderator to add. Be sure to give accurate and complete info, and use the song tag to specify the ID number of the song in question.

Songs Containing Download Links
As of right now, there is no way to add a download link to the song on the upload page due to the way the download links system works; For now, add the download link information to the info box, in the form of a description and a link:

Download from Remix.Kwed.Org - http://remix.kwed.org/blah/blah.mp3

An administrator will then move this link data into the appropriate field.

If you find download links for existing songs later, you can add them by posting in Song Corrections / Changes with the SongID number and the data. Remember, you can use the [song] and [queue] tags in the forums! See BBCodes For Forum & Oneliner to learn how to use them efficiently.

Upload Checklist
* Make sure you verify the authors of the track, and the track meets our other requirements for upload as per this FAQ.
* Obtain the needed data from the databases listed above.
* Make sure your song is converted correctly to a CBR format, or that you have an original format.
* Check your fading/empty noise is OK.
* Have the database information you need ready for uploading (either written down, or in browser tabs for copy/pasting).

Uploading The Song To The database
To upload the song to the database, you must first browse to the page for the artist. In the case where more than one artist has created the song, you can pick any of the artists for this part. On the artist page, is a link to 'Upload new song by this artist'. Click the link and you will be taken to a page with a few forms in it. If you cannot find the artist, go to the main artist pages Here and click 'Suggest A New Artist'. The same goes for any missing labels or groups, and fill out as much info as possible and wait for a moderator to OK it. If you are waiting too long, or just want to get going, ask a moderator in the OneLiner to approve it for you. DO NOT UPLOAD TO A DIFFERENT ARTIST TO AVOID WAITING.

Creating Albums/Compilations
For uploading of many songs together from the same area, such as a game soundtrack or music disk, we reccomend a compilation be created. At present, only moderators can do this, so post the info to Song Corrections / Changes to get a moderator to make one. I will add a FAQ about requesting compilation data later, there is a lot of information that can be placed into a compilation page!

Additional Questions/Comments?
Feel free to ask additional questions in this post at the end.

About "stereo seperation"... what sound editing tools have stereo mix as an feature?
I used Audacity for the "Stone Age" recordings to blend the stereo channels to sound more like those mixed at http://www.paula8364.com

But it would be nice to have some sort of automated stereo mix function

Only tool I know for sure that does it is MODPlug, besides the audacity method above.

When searching for info about Atari ST/E and Falcon composers i recommend "Fading Twilight" http://fading-twilight.atari.org/
First search for the composers name and choose the FT he/she is in, then click on "Tunez" and select the composers name and there you will find an text file with some usable info

As i saw some ST tunes recently got uploaded as STE tunes... to be really sure what is a STE tune then download the SNDH archive http://sndh.atari.org/ the STE tunes are in the "DMA" folder all others are regular YM tunes.

Audacity Rocks

Is FLAC supported?

Yes.

FLAC is supported, though sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Stefan typically uploads in FLAC, maybe he knows if certain encodings/settings work better than others.

I find keeping FLACs at audio CD quality (44.1KHz, 16-bit) will make them work.

The problem i had with uplaoding FLAC seems to be related to the tagging of the FLACS? They work after tagging them with winamp though and not Audacity?