Nectarine Demoscene Radio
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Currently, there are 13 Active FAQ's:Q. What are the basic upload rules?
Q. Where can I change my flag?
Q. How can I upload a new song?
Q. How can I add a new artist?
Q. Allowed song encoding: Anything*
Q. Did you know, that..?
Q. What happened to the old Nectarine? Where is my old account?
Q. What are the requests' rules?
Q. I want to download that tune!
Q. I wanna chat!
Q. Where can I find a current list of all smilies?
Q. I heard that there are some flags which are not mentioned in ISO 3166...
Q. Where can I find a list of all BBCode commands, along with examples?
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Q. What are the basic upload rules?
Here are some things to keep in mind when you decide to upload a track:
- We don't need each and every tune of an author, no, not even from Skaven. 
Don't upload whole collections if they vary in quality, just keep the best tracks.
- You can directly upload most popular module formats (mod, mtm, s3m, xm, it, etc...). If your module is rejected, upload it as ogg or mp3 file. See also: Allowed song encoding: Anything*
- When encoding to a lossy codec, use at least 192kbps or higher. See also: Allowed song encoding: Anything*
- Looped tunes have to be faded out after the loop point. Short tunes (shorter than a minute or two) can be looped twice before fading out.
- Check if the tune already exists in our database. Try to use as few keywords as possible when searching, so that you don't miss possible alternative spellings or incomplete song titles.
- Don't upload a tune again if it just needs re-encoding. Get in touch with the moderators to resolve this issue.
- Fill out as many fields as possible. Try to find out the song platform, release year, if it was used in a demo, etc... All this normally doesn't take longer than a few minutes and helps us keeping up the database integrity!
- Decrease the stereo separation of hardpanned tunes (f.e. Amiga MODs)
- Normalize your tracks (when rendering modules in XMPlay, choose "WAV Writer - Normalize" as output device)
- Cut off silence at the beginning and the end of the tracks. If your source file is MP3, use something like mp3DirectCut to prevent re-encoding (and thus quality loss). When rendering modules in XMPlay, enable the "trim ending silence" option.
- Always use the latest version of the player / plugin you're encoding from (f.e. always use the latest version of ASAP to encode POKEY tunes or the latest version of XMPlay to render IT modules) and your encoder (f.e. LAME).
- Also have a look here for some more information: 
Upload & other fancy stuff
- And last but not least: Do not upload commercial tracks! We need the permission of the original author and if we get it, we only accept commercial tracks by renowned scene musicians that are still somewhat related to the scene (f.e. Purple Motion's Musicdisk). However, just because a person is an (ex-)scener, that does not automatically mean that we want to have all their music from commercial side projects on nectarine.
All this together can be done in less than 5 minutes and helps us improving the quality of this radio station!
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Saga_Musix (Last Updated: 1 week, 1 day) [Top]Q. Where can I change my flag?
You can change you flag by going into the menu called 'Edit My profile' located at the top right of the webpage.
The flags code is a 2 characters code, that is corresponding to this table: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-1_alpha-2#Officially_assigned_code_elements
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LittleWhite (Last Updated: 6 months, 3 weeks) [Top]Q. How can I upload a new song?
First of all, when you want to upload a new song, you need to check if it already exists in the Nectarine database.
Be careful when you want to add a song coming from a demo: sometimes a music file from the demo doesn't have the same name that the demo has. In example, music used in "LifeForce" demo by ASD is called "Memento Mori". Search both for the demo name and for the actual name of the music file.
Once you are completely sure that the song is not yet on Nectarine, you need to find the artist (who created the music) in the Nectarine database (using the search tool).
Then, on the artist page, click the "Upload a new song for the artist" link.
Fill in the form, attach the music file (explore the FAQ further to find uploading rules) and wait for a moderator to check your song.
Once your upload is checked, you will receive a PM telling that the song is activated (yay, you can request it now!!) or rejected (that might happen: if you wonder what is the reason, ask the moderator why it is rejected).
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LittleWhite (Last Updated: 5 months, 2 weeks) [Top]Q. How can I add a new artist?
Just as before adding a new song, please check that the artist you want to add doesn't exist in the Nectarine database. Sometimes the same artist is using different nicknames: try searching for all of them you know.
Once you are completely sure that the artist doesn't exist in the Nectarine database, go to the artist list ("Artists") and scroll to the bottom of the page: there you will see a link to suggest an artist.
Fill in the form, and wait for a moderator to accept or reject your suggestion.
Remember that the artist must be connected to the Demoscene (wrote music for a demo, took part in a demoscene music competiton, wrote music for an old demoscene-related game, etc).
Mind also that if you intend to upload some game music or contents of an audio CD created by an artist, you must ask his/her permission. Joy is sour when it's not fair.
If you are too lazy to go on the artist list, the link is the following:Suggest new artist
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LittleWhite (Last Updated: 1 month, 2 weeks) [Top]Q. Allowed song encoding: Anything*
*= unless rejected
The streamer can handle pretty much all popular audio formats. Re-encoding lossy audio formats will not improve sound quality, in fact, it will create even more compression artifacts. So don't do it. Preferred bitrates are from 192 kbps to 320 kbps.
EXPERIMENTAL support for popular module formats (.mod, .s3m .xm, .it, etc...):
If you want to upload a module, you can check if it plays correctly with XMPlay. If it does, just upload the module as is. Module looping is detected, and will be handled by the streamer.
If you convert it to a lossy format, use Ogg Vorbis, AAC or MP3, minimum bitrate is 192 Kbps.
If you have problems with the format or looping detection send a PM to maep or post in the forum.
Added by
Danger (Last Updated: 1 week, 3 days) [Top]Q. Did you know, that..?
- You can see user's role
If you move your mouse over user link such as this Danger, you can see if it's "user", "staff" or "admin".
(Note: It doesn't work on user links in "The team" section. Those are special links.)
- You can connect user's profile with artist's
Just contact any moderator to do it for you!:)
Added by
Danger (Last Updated: 6 months, 3 weeks) [Top]Q. What happened to the old Nectarine? Where is my old account?
In the past, Nectarine was coded and maintained by Chris "Yes" Le Sage, the platform was resurrected several times after hard disk failures. In mid-2008, a script kiddie decided to hack the last incarnation of Yes' work, Nectarine v6, abusing a security hole in one of its components. That way, the whole server was wiped out. Sadly, Yes' backup HDD also died a few days before this, so all backups were lost. Luckily, most of the data from the HDD could be restored by professionals, however this only includes the song database. Hence, your old accounts, statistics, etc. do not exist anymore. Additionally, after this incident, Yes decided not to work on Nectarine anymore, so a completely new and fresh team is bringing you the best of demoscene music now!
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Saga_Musix (Last Updated: 6 months, 3 weeks) [Top]Q. What are the requests' rules?
You can request 3 songs by session. That means: you can add only 3 songs to the queue at the same time. Once your requests are played, you can request other songs.
When a song is requested, it will be locked for about a week. During the lock time a song can't be requested or played by random even if you bribe arab (not tested).
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LittleWhite (Last Updated: 1 week, 3 days) [Top]Q. I want to download that tune!
Many tracks are missing download links. There's a little guide on finding good download links for many tracks: A lesson on download links
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Saga_Musix (Last Updated: 1 month, 3 weeks) [Top]Q. I wanna chat!
We also hang out on IRC! 
Check #nectarine on irc.esper.net.
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Saga_Musix (Last Updated: 1 month) [Top]Q. Where can I find a current list of all smilies?
The list of smilies can be found in the profile page of 
Koekenbakker (at the bottom)
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LittleWhite (Last Updated: 5 months, 2 weeks) [Top]Q. I heard that there are some flags which are not mentioned in ISO 3166...
Yes, there are some. 
Some country codes are available for countries which do not appear in the list mentioned above or for those who want to look cool:
hh fam (uses the colors of famfamfam site)
wales
england
scotland
catalonia
Mind that for these codes you need to use the name which is placed by the flag, not any abbreviation (example: if you need Catalonian flag, type "catalonia" in the Country code input field).
(from Koekenbakker's profile)
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MyO (Last Updated: 6 months) [Top]Q. Where can I find a list of all BBCode commands, along with examples?
You will find the list of tags in this thread: New BBCodes & Stuff!
Added by
LittleWhite (Last Updated: 6 months, 3 weeks) [Top][Back To Top]