One-Synth-Challenge: General discussion thread

[z.prime]

IMO submitting a track and not finding the time to vote is disrespectful to the other competitors (except for special cases like being in hospital or having an accident - God forbid - or something like that). It comes with the job: you want to enter OSC, you'd better find the time to vote. We all have our lives, with problems, jobs, families and all, but nobody is forcing your hand to join OSC - if you do, do it right. After all, how do you expect your song to get votes when you don't bother to vote for the others? Think about that for a minute...

+1

Exactly. I get it - things come up. That's okay. It is a smallish time commitment to make a track and vote. But if you can't be bothered with the latter, then don't expect a prize.

[idfpower]

Plus how you going to qualify the special cases, do we need to get a sick note from the doctor or hospital?

The competition is based on mutual trust. So we generally trust ppl to willingly stay within the OSC rules. If something does happen, we can accept a plausible explanation as to why that person was not able to vote, but IMO the track should be disqualified regardless.

[e@rs]

Voted.

Said yes to the commercial plugins as I don't belive that using a paid product automatically makes you a better musician. Also yes for the 1-5 points voting and for mandatory voting or disqualification.

[V'ger]

I didn't find the old system fair cause of total points mismatch. Is it going to be taken care of in some way? If yes, then I am okay with it or else "stacking" system is fine with me. Some mechanism was suggested by some people in the other thread, please do consider those.

We thought the total points mismatch problem would be fixed with the stacking system, but realized the possibility for tactical voting might be even greater than before as in the last vote you could differentiate one track to the other by a whopping 67 points and that's huge.. With the 1-5 points system that flaw is greatly reduced.

There were some suggestions for a fix like you say but it seems it has no cure other than everybody gets a fixed number of points to hand out but even that doesn't prevent tactical voting as you can just give all to a track you don't think will do well and vice versa.

In fact there is probably no fix to prevent tactical voting. The total points mismatch is actually not the worst as the points remain relative across the field. (one gives less to all, one gives more = relative positions held)

I would reiterate to not consider the amount of time "stacking" system took in OSC60 while voting. OSC60 should be considered as one off event whereas number of entries were too many. It was epic and those only come once in a while. Look at OSC61 and we have only 9 so far, how many do we expect in next 9 days.. 10-15.. 20 max. So 29 tracks for stacking is not bad IMO.

I agree stacking for 30 or less entries and 1-5 for over might be a solution and something that probably should have been in the poll, but forgot. Maybe next round.

[V'ger]

ok, let me get this straight. If someone comes in top 5 but didn't vote then he/she doesn't get prize at all? if yes, then I will have to revote to change my stand on disqualification.
In this case why don't we move on to the next contestant in the list? For example, if #2 didn't vote then #6 should get the prize. From top #1, #3, #4, #5 and #6 contestants will be rewarded, assuming total # of entries are > 20.

But what would be the reason to pass it down if one forfeits his prize?

Can someone explain what is the meaning "disqualification" then?

You go last on the list and shamed for all to see.. Not exactly a huge deal, but not nice with a big fat DQ next to the name on the playlist.

[chilledpanda]

ok, let me get this straight. If someone comes in top 5 but didn't vote then he/she doesn't get prize at all? if yes, then I will have to revote to change my stand on disqualification.
In this case why don't we move on to the next contestant in the list? For example, if #2 didn't vote then #6 should get the prize. From top #1, #3, #4, #5 and #6 contestants will be rewarded, assuming total # of entries are > 20.

But what would be the reason to pass it down if one forfeits his prize?

Can someone explain what is the meaning "disqualification" then?

You go last on the list and shamed for all to see.. Not exactly a huge deal, but not nice with a big fat DQ next to the name on the playlist.

IMO with disqualification all that will happen someone will spend a few minutes going through and ticking 1 or 5 or whatever rather than be disqualified, unless it has a default value where in they can just click submit. This is all the same ballpark as tactical voting, is hard to stop. If a default is set maybe it should be the highest and not the lowest.

My issue with voting isn't tactical bit, it's the humongous disparities with the lowest voter and the highest, I'd rather have it so the vote point tally has a min total to be achieved or within a range

[chilledpanda]

Thanks! Unfortunately it's the not the presets but the layering and use of compression, and eq that creates that sound really. Also the Kjaerhaus Clasic reverb gives a great 80's sound.

Hiya bj! Sounds nice!

But it's interesting to note that there's somewhat of a contradiction in OSC rules with regards to processing; the rules state:

- Any effect that transform the sounds to make them unrecognizable as being from the synth is not allowed.

And then they go on to say that DAW, freeware and a synth's own built-in FX are allowed. But as you just demonstrated, even simple EQ and compression can drastically alter the sound of a synth. And in many cases if you turn off the built-in FX of a synth, the sound you hear becomes a shadow of what it was with the effects. So IMHO, the rules regarding the usage of effects in the OSC need some scrutiny.

It's interesting to note that my entry in the last OSC was originally an Obxd demo from which I pulled out ALL the commercial effects I was using to cater to the rules (with some regret!). Then I actually chose to use the least I needed: outside of a single stereo reverb for the entire mix, a delay on the solo, and a freeware comp on the 2-bus there's no other effects and the only EQ was to roll off some of the bass on some patches because they muddied the mix. I wanted to see how well I could do with minimal processing and IMO, it ended up sounding pretty good with the OOTB sounds.

I'm looking forward to listening to all the entries in the Obxd OSC.

Thought I'd drags the above in from here http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 5#p5686970

As it is an interesting point especially when it comes to more complex sounds like snares, what constitute unrecognisable from the synth??

[Breeze]

Oh no! I am thrown into controversy once again!

One thing to keep in mind: last month's OSC was exceptional in that it compared instruments. AFAICT, the OSC usually only compares the SAME instruments, so my observations would be far more relevant in a comparative contest than in one where everyone is using the same synth. But it does open the question of how effects should be used nonetheless.

[bjporter]

Good points. We've had discussions about effects quite a few times. It would be best to organize that information in one place. As I always understood since I joined OSC in 2010 was that we could use EQ, compressor, and limiter quite freely. As for the obxd audio clip I made - the only thing I don't like is the bitcrusher - it seems a bit much - but kept it on for the demo because it sounded cool in the context of the 80's and mullets in general.

**Note: The snare version tutorial is here: http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 6#p5688036 **

Here's the exact process for the kick:
5 layers are used for the kick - all routed into a final bus:
#1) "OSC Kick Layer 1.fxb" - I used only 1 insert: (played at d1)
Thrillseeker VBA - add some grime and loosen the sound - not sure how to explain


#2) "OSC Kick Layer 2.fxb" - no inserts (played at c3)
#3) "OSC Kick Layer 3.fxb" - no inserts (played at g3)
#4) "OSC Kick Layer 4.fxb" - no inserts (played at g#6)
#5) "OSC Kick Layer 5.fxb" - 1 insert (played at d4)
A little stereo widening:



#6) Route all those instances into this bus:

Note that there is a channel EQ after this - i'll show later


Now to explain the the effects here:
EQ - Liven up the best parts - the Low, and the snap of the high


Limiting - I want to pull up softer frequencies to give the overall sound more bang

Basically take some of the highs out


The Channel EQ: Lift some lows; Really bring out the crack in the mids; Riase a lot of air at the upper end (sounds like I'm describing farts):


#7) Route #6 to the Master Bus. Inserts: 36% Reverb + some bitcrushing (SPAN and Exoscope are meters only)


This reverb makes a very realistic sounding bouncy room


This bitcrush - which is the only thing I was probably going to change - is there to make the overall mix sound more digital.


Download all the patches here:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/220 ... 20obxd.zip

[psmacmur]

Voted.

No to synth vote; I like it as a challenge assignment.

Yes to commercial fx because i have some I'd like to explore more, but I totally get the egalitarian argument. TBH DAW FX plus freeware is more than enough to achieve anything I can currently imagine. So I'm only 51% on this one.

Yes to mandatory voting as I think forcing everyone to vote on every track is a big part of why the OSC culture is better than those remix contests. However, I also get that its unfortunate to punish someone if they lack internet for 2 weeks due to a move or sth, especially a regular OSCer who's been submitting, voting, and posting helpful comments on everyone's tracks for 5 years. Harsh, but I think such an OSCer would agree its a worthy sacrifice to protect our culture.

No to only participants can vote. IMHO, the opinion of OSC cognoscenti is valuable regardless of whether they got a track in this month or not. I wouldn't want it to become a popularity contest though, so keeping it limited to KVR regulars seems wise.

Voted for the 5 pts because the stacking got so much hate, but TBH I'd've liked to have seen stacking tried on an unpopular OSC before committing.

[psmacmur]

One more thing, regarding the 5 point voting system tactical voting concern. How would you handle the case of one track being -18dbfs and another was at 0dbfs and you needed both in a mix? Personally, I'd normalize the 1st one (and maybe compress it). So maybe we can scale scores such that everyone ends up giving out the same total # of points. Person X's 2 might end up meaning as much as person Y's 5, but that's person X's problem for not utilizing the full dynamic range they were granted!

[bjporter]

One more thing, regarding the 5 point voting system tactical voting concern. How would you handle the case of one track being -18dbfs and another was at 0dbfs and you needed both in a mix? Personally, I'd normalize the 1st one (and maybe compress it). So maybe we can scale scores such that everyone ends up giving out the same total # of points. Person X's 2 might end up meaning as much as person Y's 5, but that's person X's problem for not utilizing the full dynamic range they were granted!

Thanks for bringing this up - in the future - if we have a submission area - we could utilize DR on our side, and actually mark all tracks in the voting screen to that DR. We could even have a experimental and OPTIONAL feature to normalize the volume based on the DR. Perhaps dreaming, but the code is out there to do this - just need some sweat and tears to put it together.

[psmacmur]

oh, that's totally not what i meant at all; i should have been more clear. i meant to consider volume normalization or loudness equalization as a metaphor or parallel for the 5pt vote scoring problem. a very similar numerical problem in a different domain. i don't mean we should process ppl's tracks at all. rather, scale their vote scores.

e.g. normalize to 3 pts per track. say we have 10 tracks, then normalize to 30 pts. if i give out all 1 and 2, for a total of 12, we solve x/12 = 1/30 so x = 30/12 = 2.5 so each f my pts is scaled by 2.5. say you give out all 4 and 5, for a total of 52, tĥen x/52 = 1/30 so x = 30/52 = 0.57692307692307692307692307692308 so your pts are each scaled by ~0.58.

the effect is the vote scoring equivalent of normalization; i was just thought that'd be intuitive to ppl here but didn't draw the parallel clearly.

[ontrackp]

Hey psmacmur -- I understood the metaphor and thought it was kind of cool. Seeing the math makes my head hurt though!

[V'ger]

How much effects to use has been a constant topic as long as I can remember here and seems never to have a clear consensus.

As it can't really be quantified, it can't be put to a vote either, and as it stands it's only limited by the 'beyond recognition' rule like pointed out.

I think it has to come down to the individual tastes when voting on a track and let the points reflect your views on the matter.

Personally I like a lot of effects as I would want to hear as nice tracks as possible and don't see why we can't do what any other producer can do (minues modulation effects), but if I was voting would definitely want to score up a track if it sounds amazing and no effects or only for example a limiter had been used and the rest synth, but that rarely sounds good unless the synth has a lot effects included.

About the points 'normalization' idea I think it's great, but would need to be tested first. If it works and is possible to implement without issues or too much hassle it could be put to a vote, but people might not like it if it's too difficult to understand - my head also hurts after seeing the math hehe..