One-Synth-Challenge #65: TAL BassLine (Results are in!)

[bjporter]

Strange. The test version I uploaded was reposted by a "Pay for Likes and Plays" and unashamedly so account (I guess a free promotion on their part to hook me up), now this spam in the OSC, all while I was reading about the shady pay-for-like/play/subscribers/followers and what not industry of grand fakeness.

Quite repulsing already.

Yeah, internally, the soundcloud ecosystem is full of crap.

[bjporter]

OSCers .... we push synths to new levels and 'think different'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmwXdGm89Tk

[Moldavsky]

Hey ya, brothers in arms. Long time no see / no hear. Thanks to Brian aka bjporter, I've always been keeping my eyes on what was going on in OSC. Glad to be back with a simple track, trying a new style of 8-bit chiptune like those weird soundtracks from old-school scrolling shooters. The track is far from being perfect, so any advice on how to improve on 8-bit sounding will be very much apreciated.
The Link:
https://soundcloud.com/moldavsky/moldav ... -bit-realm

Technical details:
30 instances of free Tal BassLine (there are so many mostly for detuning)
DAW: Samplitude Music Studio 2013
independence free and Wusik VN were used as VSTi hosts within DAW

DAW factory plugins: magix eq, tape simulator, am-track SE, essential compressor, limiter, independence's limiter.
Third Party free plugins: jb ferox jb omniverb jb timemachine
SPC Gater
Alchemy - CamelCrusher
Solcito Musica - Vintager Toy
Blockfish
Tal-Bitcrusher
ClipShifter

midi plugins:
Arto Vaarala - Kirnu
Step Machin

At this moment I don't have a reliable inet acces, thus I can check the forum sporadicly, but I'll do my best to fix any problems with the submission if there is any. Thank you, guys. Happy OSC!

[psmacmur]

My OSC 65 Entry: Space Kerjigger.
https://soundcloud.com/peter-macmurchy/ ... -kerjigger
I knew that the 101 was a seminal synth for House music, but hadn't really clued in that it was the go-to synth for Goa, one of my all-time fave subgenres, until this thread. Once I heard that, I knew where to get my inspiration for this OSC! I don't claim this track to be worthy of the genre, but more of an homage thereto.

At first, I loved TAL Bassline and wished I'd tried it years ago. I could listen to it for hours, it's so perfect... and TAL Bassline 101 even moreso, I suppose. Alas, my project ultimately turned into a house of cards, with crashes and stuck notes all over the place. The panic button is useless when you're not looking at the synth GUI and have 20 tracks... anyway... hopefully a Spacey sort of house of cards.

DAW: Studio One 2.6.3 x86
19x TAL Bassline
1x TAL-Bassline-101
5x BlueARP
5x RobotArms

7x Presonus Pro EQ
7x Presonus Compressor
1x Presonus Tricomp
1x Presonus Room Reverb
1x Presonus Ampire, with stomps Wah Wah (Cry), Tube Driver, Delay, Reverb

5x TAL-Tube
2x Tal-Dub 2
3x Tal-Dub 3
2x TAL-Reverb-2
1x TAL-Reverb-3
2x TDR VOS SlickEQ
9x Voxengo Stereo Touch
1x VOS DensityMkIII
1x VOS SlickHDR

Edit: forgot the Master Bus:
Presonus Spectrum analyser, maybe the phase meter too
Presonus Limiter
Limiter No 6

DR6

[ImNotDedYet]

Was going through my project, making sure the tubes and saturator plugins I had didn't affect the sound too much, and indeed they don't. In fact, I concluded I could actually remove three of them because it was so minimal. But I also did the classic, get away from the song for a couple of days and find something I didn't like - which was basically too many things too forward in the mix. So I resolved those as well as removing a few plugins. I updated my original post (http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 5#p5818679) to reflect these things and the file/sound on soundcloud have been updated with the latest version as well.

Looking forward to hearing these entries, and for those I've already heard, giving them a more thorough listen. Some creative cats in these contests! Glad I finally got to play along with a 64-bit VST.

[bjporter]

Was going through my project, making sure the tubes and saturator plugins I had didn't affect the sound too much, and indeed they don't. In fact, I concluded I could actually remove three of them because it was so minimal. But I also did the classic, get away from the song for a couple of days and find something I didn't like - which was basically too many things too forward in the mix. So I resolved those as well as removing a few plugins. I updated my original post (http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 5#p5818679) to reflect these things and the file/sound on soundcloud have been updated with the latest version as well.

Looking forward to hearing these entries, and for those I've already heard, giving them a more thorough listen. Some creative cats in these contests! Glad I finally got to play along with a 64-bit VST.

Welcome to OSC

And good luck!

[ImNotDedYet]

Was going through my project, making sure the tubes and saturator plugins I had didn't affect the sound too much, and indeed they don't. In fact, I concluded I could actually remove three of them because it was so minimal. But I also did the classic, get away from the song for a couple of days and find something I didn't like - which was basically too many things too forward in the mix. So I resolved those as well as removing a few plugins. I updated my original post (http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 5#p5818679) to reflect these things and the file/sound on soundcloud have been updated with the latest version as well.

Looking forward to hearing these entries, and for those I've already heard, giving them a more thorough listen. Some creative cats in these contests! Glad I finally got to play along with a 64-bit VST.

Welcome to OSC

And good luck!

Thx brutha!

[doctorbob]

But I also did the classic, get away from the song for a couple of days and find something I didn't like

Oh yes, welcome to OSC - I'm new here too, just done the last few! And introducing some different takes on the synths in the process.

And yeah, thanks! Just re-visited my track and made some changes ... mainly more layering up, with different EQ, verb and pans. Fuller sound, but not lost the manicness of the washboard and banjo players!

Hope those that have listened already can listen again and let me know what they think. [If the opinion is that I have mushed it all up (possible), then I can revert it ...]

Cheers,

Rob

New version linked here:

https://soundcloud.com/doctorbob/bluegrass

[Pulse Width Modulation]

so any advice on how to improve on 8-bit sounding will be very much apreciated.

We may need to check with the rules on this one, but you could always take the master channel level of your DAW so far down that the audio meter won't register much of a level at all. Even though you might be recording at 16 or 24 bit on your DAW, if you do this, you'll be using a much lower effective bit rate on your master level, probably much closer to 8-bit. You might be surprised how far down you have to take the level in order to down-grade even 16 bit to 8-bit! Remember that every time you halve the amplitude of your signal, you lose only 1 bit, so to get to 8 bits, it's quite a huge reduction in level.

Then after you create your final stereo WAV file, you'll see a waveform that looks pretty tiny and thin, but simply normalize it back to your optimum level, and you're set. Of course you'll hear noise and dirt, but that's the sound of 8-bit!

Also, you could downgrade your sample rate to 22 or 30 kHz. This will match the Lo-Fi quality of those 80's and 90's sound cards! If you like the approach, but don't like the result, experiment with backing off a little on the effect.

Hey, everyone, what's the rules on this? Because I've thought about this myself sometimes.

[bjporter]

Oh man that's a good one!

As for rule, it would fall into the "Any effect that transform the sounds to make them unrecognizable as being from the synth is not allowed."

Since this technique is an effect, use it until it becomes obvious that it doesn't sound like the synth... so just use your judgement! And if you're not sure upload some samples I guess we can offer ideas.

so any advice on how to improve on 8-bit sounding will be very much apreciated.

We may need to check with the rules on this one, but you could always take the master channel level of your DAW so far down that the audio meter won't register much of a level at all. Even though you might be recording at 16 or 24 bit on your DAW, if you do this, you'll be using a much lower effective bit rate on your master level, probably much closer to 8-bit. You might be surprised how far down you have to take the level in order to down-grade even 16 bit to 8-bit! Remember that every time you halve the amplitude of your signal, you lose only 1 bit, so to get to 8 bits, it's quite a huge reduction in level.

Then after you create your final stereo WAV file, you'll see a waveform that looks pretty tiny and thin, but simply normalize it back to your optimum level, and you're set. Of course you'll hear noise and dirt, but that's the sound of 8-bit!

Also, you could downgrade your sample rate to 22 or 30 kHz. This will match the Lo-Fi quality of those 80's and 90's sound cards! If you like the approach, but don't like the result, experiment with backing off a little on the effect.

Hey, everyone, what's the rules on this? Because I've thought about this myself sometimes.

[chilledpanda]

so any advice on how to improve on 8-bit sounding will be very much apreciated.

We may need to check with the rules on this one, but you could always take the master channel level of your DAW so far down that the audio meter won't register much of a level at all. Even though you might be recording at 16 or 24 bit on your DAW, if you do this, you'll be using a much lower effective bit rate on your master level, probably much closer to 8-bit. You might be surprised how far down you have to take the level in order to down-grade even 16 bit to 8-bit! Remember that every time you halve the amplitude of your signal, you lose only 1 bit, so to get to 8 bits, it's quite a huge reduction in level.

Then after you create your final stereo WAV file, you'll see a waveform that looks pretty tiny and thin, but simply normalize it back to your optimum level, and you're set. Of course you'll hear noise and dirt, but that's the sound of 8-bit!

Also, you could downgrade your sample rate to 22 or 30 kHz. This will match the Lo-Fi quality of those 80's and 90's sound cards! If you like the approach, but don't like the result, experiment with backing off a little on the effect.

Hey, everyone, what's the rules on this? Because I've thought about this myself sometimes.

Reaper allows you to render out 8 bit wav files's as the final output which is effectively what you want, as playing back the 8 bit wav file is technically playing the music at a lower quality format opposed to an effect. There are no rules on specifying what the output format you need to submit with.

Note: though not sure how that sits with the rule Brian posted.

[bjporter]

effect. There are no rules on specifying what the output format you need to submit with.

Hey see my above post. This would be an effect. So basically use judgement

[z.prime]

... render out 8 bit wav files's ... is technically playing the music at a lower quality format opposed to an effect. There are no rules on specifying what the output format you need to submit with.

I agree. Nothing specifies a specific sample rate or bitness, nor really should it. I guess we could summarily allow bitcrushers now, too.

[chilledpanda]

effect. There are no rules on specifying what the output format you need to submit with.

Hey see my above post. This would be an effect. So basically use judgement

Hmm so is rendering at @24bit 192khz cheating? lol

[bjporter]

effect. There are no rules on specifying what the output format you need to submit with.

Hey see my above post. This would be an effect. So basically use judgement

Hmm so is rendering at @24bit 192khz cheating? lol

Well you've now let the cat out of the bag, thanks... everyone knows the secret