GANG Newsletter: December 2011

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Dear GANG Community,

As we celebrate the close of 2011, we can share in a wonderful milestone together: GANG’s 10th year of service to our industry! This is no small matter, as many organizations have have struggled to survive and cope – some fading away or losing essential momentum or direction under the weight of the global economic reality that surrounds us. GANG has reached this landmark goal not by luck or accident, but by dedication, perseverance, and a commitment by our membership and industry partners. Everyone who has joined the Guild has been touched in some way – through networking and getting that first gig, expanding and evolving mid stream into higher levels of career growth, or enjoying peer recognition and acclaim as a seasoned veteran. GANG has mattered in our lives for a decade now, and will continue to matter well into the future.

10 Years of Networking

I’ve seen many friends and colleagues grow with GANG over the years, and have enjoyed watching the transformation of members into industry leaders and policy makers. Many of the top creatives and executives working in interactive audio got their first start from a successful Demo Derby, or made their first key contact at a GANG meeting during E3, or was able to find an important employee through the forums and message boards online. The “N” in GANG has always been invaluable to all of our members – and now at our ten year mark, has made a concise difference in the lives of practicing professionals. You would be surprised how many people can say they got their start from GANG – quite a few after ten years!

10 Years of Recognition

The GANG Awards are beloved around the world because of the innovative way GANG recognizes excellence in interactive audio. No other award means so much to so many professionals because peers and colleagues decide and vote, not fans, gamers, press, or pundits. This is a framework post_date by the founders of the Guild for all of our membership to be able to recognize each other – which makes a GANG Award much more meaningful and fulfilling. There are quite a few established award shows and ceremonies, but perhaps none as personal and special as the GANG Awards – and for ten years, we’ve provided much deserved recognition to the best and brightest in our industry.

10 Years of Policy and Service

At the very core of GANG is a commitment to action; a drive to change things for the better and fix things that are broken. The Officers and the Board have worked across the entirety of our industry to create better business practices, benchmarks, and lasting partnerships with publishers, developers, and educational institutions. The commitment to ongoing events, dialog, and policy has shaped what GANG is today – the leading organization in the world for interactive audio best practices. Our Guild and it’s related pro branches GVAC and the IESD have shaped the way all of us think about creativity and business…and at ten years we can be proud of the history we’ve post_date.

10 Year Down, 10 more to go

GANG matters, so lets keep going! Stay involved, stay connected, speak up, and help us create an even better Guild. Lets enjoy this wonderful milestone together, and let it point to even bigger and better goals for the next decade. Help us imagine what the next decade will look like for GANG, and we’ll be there to make it happen with as much energy and resources as we can muster. Do you have a personal story of how GANG changed your life or want to share a memory? Please email [email protected], and we’ll be sure to share your stories in our next newsletter.

Congratulations on our 10th year, and much love to you and your families from all of us!

Paul Lipson

President

[Read the entire letter here as well]

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IMPORTANT!!!

If you plan on going to GDC this year (and we hope that you do) and you are planning to submit an entry for either the SOUND DESIGN DEMO DERBY or the COMPOSERS DEMO DERBY, here is some IMPORTANT information for you.

This year we will be accepting your submissions ONLINE in FEBRUARY.

Yes, we will no longer be accepting your discs, thumb drives, dvds, cassetes or VHS tapes at the door of the Derby. If you’ve been to the derby, you know how long it takes for us to wrangle all of the media together, maybe try to find the correct file to play, skip to the correct song, etc. Included in the session time is all the time it takes for the person submitting to introduce themselves, talk about the project etc before we even play the material.

Our goal is to serve as many of you as possible, and we would also like to be able to LET YOU KNOW in ADVANCE that your demo will get a listen. Wouldn’t it be nice to chill out when you wake up the morning of the derby, knowing you won’t have to stress about getting your demo in on time?!

So we will be sending more news soon, but essentially we will start accepting demos one day in February, and do a lotteryafter the deadline to see how many get in.

The other advantage is that we will have the demos in advance, we will put them in a powerpoint slide deck, and we can include YOUR CONTACT info on each slide with your music/sound design, so that everyone in the room knows how to get in contact with you.

The slide will also provide some back story for your project so that you don’t have to spend time explaining the project to the panel.

We’ve done this once in the Fall Summit demo derby, and at GameSoundCon and so far it’s working pretty well. There wil also be a checks/balances system set up, where we will post a list of all of the demos that we received so in case there was a technical error in submitting a file, we can catch that error and include any missing files before we run the lottery.

We think this is a fair approach to the derby concept and we are trying to include as many folks as possible since these are such popular panels.

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Because you are a member of G.A.N.G. you can now receive any of these amazing and generous discounts!

SoundCloud Offers a NewDiscount to GANG Members

CAMEL Audio 25% off GANG Discount

IK Multimedia 25% off software GANG Discount

Flying Hand Percussion GANG Discount

SoundRangers 20% GANG Discount

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