Generally not. However, the competitions that have lots of participants do not really require as much effort to judge (e.g. a marathon), whereas competitions that require more effort to judge, do not have as many contestants (e.g. ice skating, gymnastics). Competitions with a considerable number of participants and judges often do have more prizes to award (e.g. lots of ribbons are given out at science fair competitions). The OSC CM Edition had close to 80 unique contestants.bjporter wrote:[1] More prizes ... [Do challenges normally give out beyond 3rd place? I think having top 5 is already quite generous, no?]
I'm not sure. I could be wrong, but apart from using the exact same title for a song, I doubt if most folks know all of the past OSC entries intimately enough to suspect a re-submission. For example, if Kraftraum's latest "Rotation" was actually a re-working of a previous "Rotation", I doubt most of us would even realize it without going back and listening to all of them. [Side note: Kraftraum's "Rotation" series is a great compilation that is worth listening to from start to finish. ] This rule would encourage folks to make use of existing material yet still not enter a song that has already been submitted before. (e.g. Have we yet heard the last of Mike Oldfield's rehashings/re-recordings of his classic "Tubular Bells"?)bjporter wrote:[2] I think we should continue to disallow cover tunes, but we should only disallow original songs that have been included in a vote for a previous KVR OSC....[Has anyone re-done a song in a previous OSC?]
I suppose it might seem like a coup d'état to some; others might appreciate the greater challenge which would actually focus more on the synth itself; afterall, it is the word "synth" that appears prominently in the challenge's name. I think most folks would agree that such a scenario would level the playing field for everyone. It might be similar to a cooking challenge between chefs to create a dish using the same ingredients and cooking facilities/equipment.bjporter wrote:[3] One way to level the playing field is to take a more purist approach to the OSC by prohibiting the use of all external effects ...[This rule would be like a coup de tat, it'll receive very strong opposition I think. OSC is already quite difficult, and with this restriction it will limit the quality of the songs? I am one of the people who do a fair amount of processing, and that's why I like the OSC - it's a bit of everything - like a triathlon. With just the synth, I may not even like the entries coming out either.]
Interesting... I had not been aware previously of the Soundevotion Competition. After looking at the rules for the latest "round", many of those rules do sound very similar to what I was thinking of, as well as some of the rules that we already have for the OSC. I would say the major difference between the OSC and the SDCOMPO is the sound source: the OSC restricts to a single third-party synth, while the SDCOMPO restricts to a tracker's synth and certain allowed types of samples.bjporter wrote:One compromise to this rule would be to allow the use of a few effects for mixing and mastering: a reverb, a multi-band EQ, and a compressor/limiter should do it....[Like SDCOMPO sortof right? I guess this is one of the things that sets OSC apart from SDCOMPO besides the tracker rule.]
===
By the way, I personally liked the color scheme of the previous forum -- the previous light-on-dark approach provided better contrast for my eyes, and it was less blinding in low-light environments. It would be neat if we could set our own color theme in the MyKVR preferences, but I suppose then that the use of colors in forum postings could wreak havoc with a user's individual color theme settings.