One-Synth-Challenge: General discussion thread

[V'ger]

It's always been a competition, but concerning what should matter in it, this has not just been touched upon, it's a classic OSC topic that's been discussed and even voted on many times.

Bottom line seems to be that it's different things for different people. Some feel it's about sound design like you, others feel it's more than that.

But since the brief is to make a track it's still a given it can't be all about making top presets.

There will simply not be consensus on this, but judging from the times we've tried to quantify things by voting like in for example last poll (there have been others too) whether to introduce a voting system based on categories (points for sound design, composition, mix etc etc) it was voted way down.

My own personal view has always been the same that I want to be blown away by awesome tracks. "This was done with only one synth!"

And a lot of the winners have some pretty nifty sound design going on too, it's not entirely fair to say they don't imo.

[RichardSemper]

My own personal view has always been the same that I want to be blown away by awesome tracks. "This was done with only one synth!".

+1

[do_androids_dream]

Yeah I guess it comes down to what one thinks should be the focus - sound design or whether you have the talent to write a 'good' track (which is course subjective). Actually they're both subjective to some degree... If, for instance somebody came along and wrote an awesome track but only used presets that someone else had made I would contest whether that's really in the spirit of things... especially when some potentially quite expensive prizes are up for grabs sometimes. This is not a moan about not winning prizes btw! I think I only entered one of these competitions a long time ago. I see the same names coming up as prize winners quite often... Do they take the whole 'pot' or are the prizes distributed amongst 'also rans' as well?

[Chris-S]

Hi,
wow, is there a new title picture on https://sites.google.com/site/kvrosc/ ?

Really nice, it's our beloved Synth1.

[photonic]

Yeah I guess it comes down to what one thinks should be the focus - sound design or whether you have the talent to write a 'good' track (which is course subjective). Actually they're both subjective to some degree... If, for instance somebody came along and wrote an awesome track but only used presets that someone else had made I would contest whether that's really in the spirit of things... especially when some potentially quite expensive prizes are up for grabs sometimes. This is not a moan about not winning prizes btw! I think I only entered one of these competitions a long time ago. I see the same names coming up as prize winners quite often... Do they take the whole 'pot' or are the prizes distributed amongst 'also rans' as well?

When I first opened the about-site of OSC I could see that the challange is to make a track with just one synth. There is nowhere written about a preset contest. So for me it was clear what OSC is about. And this was exactly what I was looking for.

I made a little statistic: In 60 challanges we had 32 different winners.
2 persons won 5 times
4 persons won 4 times
no 3 times yet
9 persons won 2 times
17 persons won 1 time

And those are only the first places. In all other winner rankings from 2-5 we had a lot more different contenders. So for me the OSC a fair place.

[do_androids_dream]

When I first opened the about-site of OSC I could see that the challange is to make a track with just one synth. There is nowhere written about a preset contest. So for me it was clear what OSC is about. And this was exactly what I was looking for.

Yep you're dead right, I'm just thinking aloud without really any fully formed 'arguments' - more of an open to discussion thing. I guess I'm more on the sound design side of things.

Edit - I remember how awesome it was when i first heard Kaiyoti's 'Army Of Synth1' - fantastic sound design.

[Tony Ostinato]

for me i had some 'ol free time and i finally had a oberheim!

back in the day i wanted one, never got one. ive messed around on em in stores and stuff.

i pretended like i was in college and signed out the synth room for the day(s). i made all the patches and didnt look at any other patches/synths while doing that, to get that good nostalgia!

usually to get a synth sound ill just scroll thru presets until i find something close or at least something that covers the hardest aspects of what im goin after and then ill just tweak it into shape.

and i didnt realize how much i missed "cooking from scratch".

and i had great fun and posted my song but i didnt listen to anyone elses entries during all this until i was done and having listened now i would use multiple instances for each drum sound. im kinda happy with my kick drum for its jazzy kinda softness but the rest of my drums got owned by everyone!

thing is i wanted to post something for how nice the obxd plugin is and how much i appreciate it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[bjporter]

When I first opened the about-site of OSC I could see that the challange is to make a track with just one synth. There is nowhere written about a preset contest. So for me it was clear what OSC is about. And this was exactly what I was looking for.

Yep you're dead right, I'm just thinking aloud without really any fully formed 'arguments' - more of an open to discussion thing. I guess I'm more on the sound design side of things.

Edit - I remember how awesome it was when i first heard Kaiyoti's 'Army Of Synth1' - fantastic sound design.

I've seen a few of the winner's projects, and they are quite massive in sound design. Also, my winning OSC Aalto track had a lead with 30+ instances - I put a lot of heart and soul into that.

Do you mean more originality - breaking outside the box?

[Pulse Width Modulation]

One thing I really like about the new voting system is that, although it does rank everyone, the actual tallies of the votes are not shown. It's a contest, based more on rankings, rather than turning into a blatant "popularity contest" If our winner is shown to have something like 250 votes and our bottom ten are shown to have the absolute minimum, I think that can really turn people off. Especially if you mark someone as disqualified, that defeats the spirit of the contest. I think just seeing the rankings is enough to spur on some competition. The only thing I missed from the old voting system is the short reviews people would write for their top tracks, but I think there's plenty of room for that in the forum and Soundcloud. Also, there may be a lot of people who only have time to submit a track, without voting, and that's still a great thing and very welcome way to participate. But do consider that the voting system is, I feel, a lot easier and more fun to do! I know it can take an investment of time to do it, but if you participate in the voting process and take some time to offer feedback on tracks, it really does make the OSC experience much richer for everyone, including yourself.

[V'ger]

Well said and happy to hear that the secret voting system introduced not too long ago is appreciated. It also seems from the scores there are no runaway leaders anymore as when the voting was open (votes given in forum posts) which shows the 'bandwagon effect' is much reduced when no one knows what the others are voting before it's all over.

[chilledpanda]

So interestingly 20% of the entries or 8 had DQ's

One thing though I thought points weren't supposed to be displayed to really punish the non voters? Although glad they were.

You get DQ written next to the name instead of points and moved to the bottom of the list.

It's meant to hurt...

So essentially 1st place and another top 5 was DQ'd.

Though the worst DQ was the person who went through the voting process and didn't realise they had to click the submit button, now that's gotta hurt.

[satYatunes]

^^ I don't recall any submit button. Once you put all tracks in 1-5pts box, it shows "All tracks scored" at the top, until then it shows number of tracks left to be scored. People need to pay more attention to the details.
Brian has nailed it as far as voting system is concerned. It hurts me to see people still making mistakes but it's their own fault.

[RichardSemper]

Regarding the rules for non-voters.
I favour a return to the "no vote=no prize" system, as this seemed to work well.
I would also like to see "not voted" alongside the points on the results table.

If we must skew the voting to punish non-voters how about taking a positive route, i.e. give points for voting, say 10 or 15 (or even better would be variable depending on number of entries e.g. if 39 entries then 39 points given for voting) This way anyone not voting would be missing out on those points. Of course voters who have not entered would not need these points.

just my suggestions for consideration

[ThePresent]

Some people got the 1-5 idea wrong.
Some forgot to vote.
People make mistakes, forget, big deal, we're human.
But then again, the rules aren't rocket science. The voting site is a breeze to work with.
One unfortunate DQ should be enough to remember the vote thing, right?
Some may think it's punishment, others may think it's a firm reminder for future OSC's.
But let the majority decide of course AND let's all contribute to a happy atmosphere in this community.
My opinion : participating in this contest also means listening to the other tracks AND voting.

[idfpower]

I hate to say "I told you so"...

This OSC proved the not voting "phenomenon" may occur more frequent than initially thought and that it can in fact change the outcome of the competition. So don't come and tell me there's no big deal the next time I point out a possible issue, mkay?

All this could have been avoided if ppl would have just voted. It's that simple. Keep that in mind for future OSC editions