What is Pony Remix Spotlight?

Pony Remix Spotlight is a spiritual successor blog to Brony Music Spotlight, intended on featuring high-quality remixes and covers of songs from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. It's also the precursor to Pony.fm's Hall of Fame, a planned artist/music spotlighting system.

Currently, the brony music scene lacks an adequate way to highlight the very best music this community makes without regard to who makes it, what style it's in, etc. It also lacks a way for brony musicians to get guaranteed feedback on their music; the most popular sites usually don't give rejection notices, and genuine feedback from experienced musicians is absent from any major site focused on brony music. Pony.fm will change that, boasting a well-rounded judges panel of experienced and capable music judges that will work to highlight the most exceptional tracks on the site.

Additionally, a niche I've been seeing go more and more unfilled is the show song remixing side of the fandom's music scene, which is, in my honest opinion, one of the greatest ways to pay homage to the show itself. Additionally, there's currently no place where a fan of the show's music can go and be greeted with only high-quality remixes and covers of the show's music. This blog aims to take care of that as well.

In short, this is a place where any musician, regardless of popularity or musical style, can get the respect they deserve if the quality of their remixes or covers warrants it, and feedback on how to make their music better if it's not quite there yet, as well as a place where fans of Daniel Ingram's compositions can go to find the absolute best remixes of the show's music.

Why only show remixes/covers?

Two reasons.

1. As an OverClocked ReMixer, I understand that arranging another's piece of music is an art form in itself, and a way to feature that art form specifically as it relates to compositions created for the show is absent from the Internet. So I decided to create it.

2. A problem that frequently comes up within the fandom's music scene (and during Brony Music Spotlight's uptime) is often whether or not a piece of music is considered "pony". Far too often, musicians will create pieces of original music, completely uninspired by the show, and then label them as "pony music", sticking a piece of pony art or screencap on them or giving them a pony name in hopes that they might get exposure from popular brony music outlets. By keeping submissions solely to remixes of the show's songs, any doubts of whether or not a piece of music submitted is "pony music" is erased.

Why not remixes of other brony music?

As cool as those remixes are, original, non-MLP:FiM music, including remixes of original music, falls outside the scope of what I'm trying to accomplish in this blog. This blog is intended to focus solely on remixes of songs that are from the show. I feel that there's no other type of music within the fandom that pays tribute to the show as much as directly remixing music from it.

Sounds great! How do I submit my music?

See the Submission Standards and Instructions for info on how to submit your music to Pony Remix Spotlight.

What's Pony.fm?

Pony.fm is an in-development brony music hosting site. The site offers unlimited bandwidth to brony musicians to host their music for free. Notable features of the site include automatic transcoding and tagging of downloads of your music in various formats, detailed stats regarding your songs, off-site sharing through embeds and customized badges, a social experience similar to deviantArt, as well as the music featuring system that this blog will eventually lead into.

In short, Pony.fm is the place for brony musicians and brony music fans, second-to-none in content hosting and delivery of brony music. For more information, visit Pony.fm.

Why MLP Forums? Why not Tumblr, or any of the other popular blogging sites?

Two reasons. The first and foremost being that this forum is the largest brony forum community on the Internet right now. The second, but pretty much just as importantly, this site has inter-connectivity with Pony.fm, where the artist/track spotlight feature will be employed in full. This blog will be replaced by that artist/track spotlight system on Pony.fm when it launches, so it only makes sense for this blog to be here on MLP Forums.

Didn't you leave MLP Forums before? Something about a moderator decision?

Yes, I did. But I came back mainly because this forum is being run by one of the only renowned people in the entire fandom I can be sure is a decent person. I'm still keeping the reason for my previous departure confidential, solely out of respect for Feld0, as it still remains (and likely will always remain) an unfixed issue. But I intend to stay here on MLP Forums as long as Feld0 keeps being rad dude overall.

Hey, hold on a second! What makes you think you're in a position to judge everyone's music and decide what's good and what's not?

Experience. Specifically, experience beyond what most brony musicians have. I was "raised" by a community that has been doing quality fandom music best since 1999: OverClocked ReMix. If you're not familiar with them, visit the site, but if you don't wanna sift through all of that (though if you like video game music, you really should), I'll give you the rundown: Their quality control system is top-notch, second-to-none on the Internet, and they only accept the best pieces of music remixers have to offer. About 90% of music submitted to that site gets rejected, just to give you an idea of how stringent their standards are.

I've been posted to OverClocked ReMix several times and counting, even direct-posted (meaning my track(s) have been of a quality to bypass the Judges Panel entirely). I've also directed an album for that site. This all sums up as the following: I have the experience and know-how to produce good music, better than most independent self-taught musicians, and have the ability to critique others' music in an objective and knowledgeable way in order to create a consistent quality standard and promote musician growth. It's that knowledge that has allowed me to identify the shortcomings in how brony music is currently being handled on other major sites.

Wait, I know about OC ReMix! I may have even been rejected before! If you're judging based on OC ReMix's standards, how is anyone supposed to get featured on Pony Remix Spotlight?

The standards for getting featured on Pony Remix Spotlight will be a bit lower than what's required to get your music onto OC ReMix. I recognize that the brony music scene as a whole is still young and inexperienced, and I especially recognize that the failings of all major brony sites to spotlight quality instead of popularity or specific aesthetics have resulted in a stifling of creative output and growth among the fandom, notably among musicians. These same sites refusing to provide specific reasons for sidelining or rejection also hinders musicians' ability to improve their music, in addition to a lack of transparency that can also hinder creative output. Simply put, aspiring brony musicians are being untrained -- impaired, even -- and kept in the dark. This has created a music scene that in no way matches up to a robust community willing to help others reach new musical heights, OC ReMix being a notable -- if not the most notable -- example.

So for those reasons, I won't be judging music to such a high standard that OC ReMix's panel does, even if I could. This may change in the future, as the fandom as a whole gets better at making music, much like it did with OverClocked ReMix and the video game music arrangement community as a whole.

OverClocked ReMix has a judges panel. Do you have a judges panel?

It's planned on being one of the core features of the blog. A capable judges panel is essential for creating quality standard. Additionally, the judges panel of this blog will provide a pool of capable candidates for the judges panel of Pony.fm's Hall of Fame, at Feld0's discretion per candidate.

What if I made a remix that qualifies for Pony Remix Spotlight that was previously featured on Brony Music Spotlight?

Then it's eligible to be reposted to this blog! Keep in mind, though, requesting a repost will count as a submission, meaning you will have to wait the delay period before submitting again. I'm doing this by request only, rather than snatching all of the qualifying posts from BMS right from the get-go, because there may be some people who do not wish their tracks to be reposted to this blog. But hey, if you wanna be on PRS, it's a free pass!

If you'd like your track to be reposted, simply send me a PM. No need to adhere to the Submission Standards and Instructions.

What exactly will happen to this blog when Pony.fm's artist/music spotlighting feature is launched?

The blog will cease to be updated. There will be no need for it to continue; Pony.fm will be the place to go for not only the best remixes and covers of songs from the show, but the best brony music of all types.

Pff. I don't need you or this blog. I've been featured on Equestria Daily/Everfree Network/*insert brony site here*!

To each his own, but keep in mind, being featured on those sites doesn't mean you're good, nor does being rejected from those sites mean you're bad. To date, all of the major sites that feature brony music are notorious for doing a terrible job of creating a consistent standard and remaining unbiased in their selections. Regardless of how you feel about other sites, the fact still remains that there's not a single site, blog, or community that does what PRS aims to do: Review and showcase MLP:FiM remixes and covers in a purely objective manner, and provide critique from experienced musicians.

What if I want to get feedback on a track, but don't feel it's good enough to get spotlighted?

I recommend posting it in the Fan Music section of Octavia's Hall. I'd also suggest you note in your thread title that you're looking for feedback, as there may be PRS judges panel hopefuls looking to create examples of their work for me to look at when considering them for recruitment.

Feel free to even PM me as well after you've posted it. Keep in mind that informal requests for my feedback may be delayed; actual submissions to PRS will always take priority.

Remixes and covers only, huh? Sounds suspicious, considering your brony music is almost exclusively covers. Are you going to be featuring your own music on the blog?

I seriously doubt it. I feel like right now that would be far too self-serving. The only way I would honestly be okay with my music being on this blog when I finally get a judges panel together, at which point my music would have to be submitted, judged, and if passed, posted like any other track. Until then, no, you won't find my tracks here.

Besides, I have hundreds of fans already, and I've seen too many awesome musicians in the low double-digits. Let's see if we can focus on getting those guys some exposure first.

I have a question that wasn't answered here!

Feel free to comment on this blog entry or PM me with your question.