i think many kvr regulars have expressed interest in doing some scene compos but it never seems to materialize. there are the regular compos, but with time spans like x weeks or x months, this takes a lot of the fun out of it, and greatly in my opinion reduces the community/collaborative aspects.i'm not proposing that we use trackers or module files!
the idea here is to hold a OHC style compo and recreate some of the limitations of a tracker artificially while using free vst instruments and our vst hosts.
the important equasion here is:
LIMITATIONS = INSPIRATION
i'm not sure if anyone has heard of the classic tracker-scene OHC (one hour compo) often held nearby #trax or other channels.
the rules are simple.
i'll try to be brief in my explanations;
what is a tracker?
what is an ohc?a music creation software designed as a set of monophonic samplers and a sequencer specific to this sampler and it's capabilities. each sampler is called a "channel". most trackers are limited to the most basic sample playback with only adjustment of frequency and amplitude available for each channel. these adjustments are made as part of the notation.
tracker project files contained all the source material needed to replay the music contained inside. samples, notation, and for modern trackers with more advanced samplers, sampler patch data. these files are known as "tracker modules", usually just referred to as "modules".
basic ruleshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Hour_Compo
maybe i should fill out this wikipedia article...
the concept of the one-hour-compo originated to my knowledge either on irc, in #trax channels, or at cracker/demo scene events. the concept was no doubt inspired by intro compos held at scene events. please do correct me if i'm wrong and you have it offical in some {"teh ultimate history of all traxoring and teh scene in teh werld evhr"} or something.
irc? - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Relay_Chat
due to the real-time nature of irc, and the limitations of tracker software, the set of rules used in these compos became viable.
voting rulesfor a tracker OHC, generally a samplepack is created and held by the compo host. a start time is agreed upon and a number of participants generally not less than 5 are located.
the rules are that only original material is to be produced, meaning no reuse of notation in a stored format. it is allowed to reproduce unoriginal notation as long as you do it manually and from memory, although in my opinion this is generally not to the spirit of the ohc, even if it is technically allowed.
in order to partially ensure this, the pack of samples specifically designed to be used in the compo are not released until the start-time. you must use only this specific set of samples and you must not modify them, unless it is specifically agreed upon to allow it.
as for kvr.. well.. with the regulars i'm not sure it would be a huge problem, but this is why i'm posting about "ideas" rather than actually trying to do a compo. this will require some discussion.the full notation of the track must be sent back to the compo host before the end of the hour to officially qualify. the nature of tracker software and tracker modules made this possible.
in order to qualify to be ranked in the compo, you must vote on all other participant's productions. voting is accomplished by arrangement of every production into a list from best (first) to worst (last).
in open OHCs and other forms of compos, generally the votes are received and rankings are calculated by the host, maintaining participant's voting anonymity.
in friendly, smaller OHCs, generally votes are cast directly into the irc channel. in most of my experience the participants are all for either getting told or doing the telling, and the compo/ohc experience gives everyone an opportunity to expand their abilities.
all of this requires discussion. there is the issue of the much greater capability of modern music software. trackers had the limitation of samples, and that allowed for the use of ohc sample packs. then we have the lack of any unified format or formats for project files. we do have midi though.
my ideas are that we can create artificial limitations to allow us to do this form of compo here on kvr.
sample packs
modulesrather than sample packs, in vst-world we have patch/program files for our plugins. it seems we're limited to only free plugins, and limited to using no effects. is this such a bad thing though? No, not in my opinion.
i believe these sorts of limitations are very inspiring, and before you start jumping around crying about your precious effects or expensive commercial vsts, consider this and consider giving it a chance. maybe you will be inspired. you can always go back after the compo and use your fancy studio to produce the track in a "full" version of course. the playing field must be made perfectly level for the participants though. although we can not make up for differences in cpu power, we can use free software. nobody will stop you from using your commercial host, just with some limitation as you'll see in the next section..
accurate replaywe do not have a unified notational format for plugin based music, but we do have the .mid format. i think i can hear some crying about the fact this means you can not use all those notational effects specific to your host if you can not export them to mid. you can not even use your host if it doesnt export mid.. well, there have to be limitations for this.
otherwise we might as well just throw out all the rules and go with just throwing mp3s at each other, which is a possible alternative. we should try this limited method first though, i think it will be far more entertaining. music after all is all about just expression, entertainment, fun. if we do any compos here the objective should be entertainment, improvement of our skills and greater community participation/interaction.
i wish we could all use a free software host, but this isnt very practical as it'll reduce the number of people interested in participating.
file distributionalthough we can not share our project files and have them replay perfectly for everyone, we can produce mp3s and oggs of our productions. the mid files will serve the purposes of sharing our notation, and proof we followed the rules by showing our production's reproducibility.
now, i'm getting very tired of typing. i hope i've covered almost everything and i hope there will be enough interest in this to justify this. i'd like to see thoughts on this and a show of who will be interested in participating. we should focus on the more serious issues and leave discussion regarding "what plugins to use?" and that sort of thing for when we arrange a real compo.to manage file distribution, i can supply space to upload files specifically for the purpose of compos, other arangements might be made if that will not be good enough.
huge mp3s?
time zones?it might make sense to limit the maximum qualifiable song length to 2 minutes or something similar in order to keep a check on file size for the mp3s, this will still allow for any length with the .mid versions.
but, i think we should ...we might also change the length of the event to 24 hours or similar in order to account for the differences in time for everyone.
but anybody can cheat!in the future, after we create a working system, refinements can be made and some rules/limits can perhaps be removed.
i'll be very interested to see thoughts on this and it'll be great if there is a large body of interest which develops from this posting.[/b]before anyone jumps to point this out, i'm very aware this whole thing is based mostly upon "the honour system". we would only be doing this for fun, if someone decided to find a way to cheat and ruin it, they would for the most part only be ruining it for themselves by defeating the whole purpose which once again is to improve our abilities while interacting with the community.
oh and the infamous beek compos 
