So a lot has happened in the past few weeks. We've got new singles. A collab with @SkankyMojo that makes me wonder will I ever find adequate genres. Take My Cymbals sample pack is officially live and FREE along with all my other sample packs on Beatstars, and we're officially up and running with a monthly mag of music producer freebies. I take that as a big success!

Also we hit the front page. Woot!

Other cool little projects

Up next I plan to drop some hip-hop beats, licensing to be available on Beatstars, a TON of MegaMan and Castlevania remix commissions for F-Gents (thank you @MATRVG for always sending me something inspiring!), and keep the expansions coming for Take My Cymbals and other packs.

Meantime I've been working on an upcoming Legend of Korra fandub, which is proving to be pretty awesome. I wish I had a sneak peek but it's supposed to be a surprise!

In the next month or so I'll also be doing my first livestream event ever with Amar Monroe on the Review Room's Hip-Hop & R&B competition. There will be over $150 dollars in cash prizes, maybe even some gear, free mixing and mastering, and a nice playlist of the winners when all is said and done. It's going to go down on X, so if you're interested, get at me! (@OGAdrean)

Also, I'm trying to do the most I possibly can for independent music. If you're a hip-hop or rock artist struggling to be heard, I can help!

Whether it's mixing, mastering, gear and samples, track reviews, or music theory, I've been around the block, and I'm always open to talk shop. I do professional critique, playlisting, and am happy to help with promo!

You can check out what requesting a review looks like here, or shoot me a comment on NG or X to get on a playlist! I'll drop my two big playlists here and a couple screenshots of my reviews.

Indie Hip-Hop Only:

For independent hip-hop with vocals. I'm thinking of seeding it with a few larger artists for the algorithm, but not so many that it loses its mind!

Independent Rock & Rock Adjacent:

I will never charge you for playlisting. Anyone who does is a shithead and a scammer.

No bots, so your songs are safe from stream auditing or Spotify takedowns.

Playlists are genre-specific, so you can grow along with others in your niche!

And unlike others, I will actually listen to your tracks! If I really like it, I'll share it to my Twitter, where I have a pretty nice following. If you're looking to network with other artists, shoot me your X handle! We'll find you some friends!

I also write pretty banging track reviews you can post on your socials or your website. I've been in the game for about 15 years now, and professionally for almost a decade, so I like to think I'm pretty good at it. Especially useful if you need that extra edge on your mix, want to know what you're doing right, or what's missing.

I do these free and paid, the only difference between the two being paid requests get priority, and you can request a specific length, promo and extras. That's it!

Also got some things you should know if you're on social media (NG included)

For one, the bots are INSANE. The impersonation accounts are out of this world. Just take a look at this.

This was on Twitter. Or X, or whatever you call it. Somebody tipped me off that these bots are actually STEALING our handles. So do yourself a favor and search yourself up on socials, and report whatever you find. Yes, it will be annoying, but for peace of mind? Worth it.

Also, some new deets about how X algorithm works, and why you should block the bots.

Apparently, your tweets only go to a certain subset of your followers at a given time, and despite how good an inflated follower number looks, more bots seeing your tweets means less people interacting with you -- because bots don't comment unless you mention nudes or shrooms, and bots obviously aren't really useful for anything except attracting other bots.

So, when you see that Chelsea Smith with a butt shot in her photo and a porn link in her bio, 4000 following and 20 follows, you know what to do!

There's another reason you should block bots, besides the fact that they're dead weight. More impressions on your tweets with LESS interactions actually hurts your algorithm. This is the same reason you should avoid real spam accounts like so-called marketers and promo extraordinaires. They do follow for follow and spam, which decreases your metrics and makes you look worse on the platform.

If you're looking to grow your platforms organically, the best thing you can do is meaningfully comment on others -- not just people's tweets, but COMMENTS on those tweets. Try it. Just write 1 to 2 engagement tweets per day, or even per week, and do 150 of these little likes and comments in your niche. Say something valuable, and people will give you their attention!

This also applies to growing on Newgrounds!

I see a lot of creators here caught below 100 followers, with no solid plan to grow their audience. Did you know the single best thing you can do to start getting followers, reviews, and commissions is to go out, review, comment, and post in the forums? NG isn't driven by algorithms. It's engagement based. That means here, like no other platform, you have the opportunity to shine in your field.

What does that look like as an artist, animator, or audio producer?

For artists, the best thing you can do is post in the Art forum, of course, but also, consider where you can get outside your field to animators and musicians who might need a background or album artist respectively. Talk freely about your art. Leave links in your forum sig, and design a nice forum sig that attracts eyes to your art.

Animators, you never know when you might need an artist or music producer for your work. You should be actively looking for people who might need the type of exposure you have to offer, like I just mentioned, artists and musicians on Newgrounds are almost always thrilled to have their work featured anywhere. It gives them an extra boost and speeds your process to work with others on site. I almost guarantee anyone you work with will become a fan, or that their fans will become your fans.

You should be posting your WIPs to the forums, dropping track reviews, and indicating the type of people you want to work with, posting ads when you need it! This goes for everybody. Offer some services, ask for some services. Usually people are enthusiastic to link up!

And finally for musicians and music producers, the best thing you can do is collab. I've seen it myself, nothing is better for a music career than linking up with other artists, representing each other, and bringing a beautiful project to the table. Get on each other's profiles. Your partners' fans will almost certainly become your fans.

And the higher quality your work, the better chances you have of hitting the Newgrounds frontpage! That's at least 3000 views right there. The frontpage is curated by moderators and staff -- and you can't ask to get one, but that means you don't have to be a big popular so and so, hit an algorithm, and suddenly get popular. If you pop up in the feed at the right time, you can and will get noticed by staff. So work on that release quality, and submit often! Once a month is the sweetspot for me personally.

Also, make friends. Send PMs, drop comments on people's newsposts, hit those forums at least once a day. The more your name is showing up in feeds and communities on site with something valuable to say, the faster you will make fans and friends.

NG is a site unlike any other in that I've found more meaningful relationships, commissions, and genuinely helpful people willing to help bump me up the ladder and vice versa. You owe it to yourself to put in the work!

Anyway, that's all I got for now. Ciao!

If you wanna check out my last articles, that monthly music production freebie mag is up, next edition due Mar 15 adjacent! We'll be covering freebies from the creators here on Newgrounds, so stay tuned!

Previous articles: Februarylist 2024, Januarylist 2024, Decemberlist 2023, Septemberlist 2023, Novemberlist 2021, and finally Octoberlist 2021!