One Synth Challenge #70: Ragnarök by Full Bucket and CrimsonWarlock (Photonic Wins!)

[doctorbob]

Just my observations, of course - from way back when.

dB

Spot on. I forget a lot about these technological innovations ... Midi was a fantastically important step!

The problem with MIDI is/was the 16 channel limit per "interface". (A bit like only 16 colours on a display - I had to create all the banners for the Uni website only using 16 colours! Was a pain for dithered text!)

There were a number of suggestions on how to improve it, but it's basically the same as it was from inception. I guess the limitation was imposed by speed of hardware and perhaps a little lack of foresight.

I remember working for a company way way back (teaching OS/2 database technologies!) - and one guy was talking about credit card size "hard drives" etc ... about 30 years ago, who would have guessed where we are now! The company was set up by 3 people, an Intel, and IBM and a Microsoft person - perhaps they had some sort of "internal" knowledge. The strange bit for me was that when I was teaching the IBM employees about the database system - one guy said, "well, I coded that part, but have never seen the whole thing in operation". Same for most of the people on the courses - awesome people. Mind you "OS/2 Extended Edition 1.1" never quite made it and doesn't quite roll off the tongue as "Windows" - had some nice features though - running on the latest and greatest fastest hardware - big 386 boxes!

Oops, 'twas MIDI I was talking about - remember writing the entry for the Penguin Dictionary of Computing, along with other "multimedia" items, like CDROM, Soundcard etc ... ohhh, a long long time ago.

Cheers,

dB

PS Enjoy the layering in my track though - please!

[Rcl]

Well here she is ....my first OSC. Inspired totally by the release of Ragnarok. Not being a big sound designer I took the opportunity to use Ragnarok to learn a lil more about making sounds in a VA. I liked the GUI and it seemed simple enough to learn on. WOW!!!!! what fun. Thanks .....so much FBM and CrimsonWarlock for sharing this fine synth and to KVR for giving us a playground.

https://soundcloud.com/robert-lee-50/sm-boogie-osc

Recorded and mixed in Reaper from an off grid location using only solar power.

18 Ragnarok
2 Readelay
2 Reacomp
2 Readelay
2 Old school reverb
1 VOS slick eq
1 JS Stillwell bad bus mojo aa
1 W1 limiter

No mastering was done. The one eq and limiter were on the master bus at mix.

Please forgive any bad etiquette as I am quite new to this process.

[doctorbob]

Welcome Robert to the OSC.

Do ask questions because there are people here who can give very good advice. Also, remember to add your track to the Ragnarok OSC group. One more thing, you can make changes and upload new versions up to the deadline - as a relative newbie here I have done this a number of times based on the comments left on my track by the good people here in the OSC.

Most of all, enjoy making and sharing music. The 1 month deadline helps to focus your thoughts.

dB

[Rcl]

Welcome Robert to the OSC.

Do ask questions because there are people here who can give very good advice. Also, remember to add your track to the Ragnarok OSC group. One more thing, you can make changes and upload new versions up to the deadline - as a relative newbie here I have done this a number of times based on the comments left on my track by the good people here in the OSC.

Most of all, enjoy making and sharing music. The 1 month deadline helps to focus your thoughts.

dB

Thanks Dr. Bob

First question. I uploaded to the group Soundcloud page but havent seen it show up. Would I be correct to assume it takes sometime for the mods to post?

Also, I would welcome any suggestions concerning the overall EQ of the mix. I only have access to 25 year old sony headphones that I am sure arent giving me a real picture. I try to use a spectrum analyser to help but I am very realistic about my limitations

[sfiks]

Here is my entry
https://soundcloud.com/slava-fiks/and-the-winner-is

All sounds are from Ragnarök VSTi synth.
There are 10 instances of the synth in Reaper.
Plugins: ReaComp, ReaVerb, and ReaEq.

Thank you for listening,
Slava

[sfiks]

Well here she is ....my first OSC.

I think you should change the name of your entry starting with your nick
to follow the contest rules:
"File name format: Artist - Track Title where artist name is the same as KVR nick".

Something like this
Rcl - SM Boogie

Good luck

[Rcl]

Well here she is ....my first OSC.

I think you should change the name of your entry starting with your nick
to follow the contest rules:
"File name format: Artist - Track Title where artist name is the same as KVR nick".

Something like this
Rcl - SM Boogie

Good luck

Well that seems logical. Maybe I should re read the rules. I missed that one. Thanks for the tip.

By the way I haven't heard your track yet but the title is stellar.

Good Luck, as well, Cheers

[z.prime]

... Recorded and mixed in Reaper from an off grid location using only solar power ...

THAT is just awesome. I am envious. Very envious... If I had the $$ to do that, I would in a heartbeat. And geothermal heating/cooling. And a giant metal dome to protect against EMP. So I can always make electronic music, no matter what happens to the rest of the world.

[bjporter]

... Recorded and mixed in Reaper from an off grid location using only solar power ...

THAT is just awesome. I am envious. Very envious... If I had the $$ to do that, I would in a heartbeat. And geothermal heating/cooling. And a giant metal dome to protect against EMP. So I can always make electronic music, no matter what happens to the rest of the world.

A pioneer. A first in OSC history likely

[sfiks]

By the way I haven't heard your track yet but the title is stellar.

Trying to express an atmosphere of Award Ceremonies by the title and hopefully by the music.

[FriendlyStranger]

I've never participated in the OSC's before but I thought I'd take the plunge . I am wondering about something though, which applies to most synths featured here. The rules state:

for convenience or CPU saving,
synth bouncing/sampling are allowed but only where the EXACT same result could have been achieved using
the original synth.

Ok, so for the drum parts, could I bounce each drum hit to audio then throw them all in a sampler? It obviously makes drum programming easier when everything is mapped to a single instrument instead of having to create separate instances for kick, snare, hats, etc. and then writing in the parts separately. But is that within the spirit of the rules?

Also, since Ragnarok is not velocity sensitive, would bouncing it to audio then adjusting the velocity/volume of the samples be considered cheating?

[Touch The Universe]

No, for how ever many bars your drums are running, you have to stream the entire thing. That's if I'm understanding it correctly. For velocity sensitivity, you'd have to manually automate them before you stream.

[z.prime]

... so for the drum parts, could I bounce each drum hit to audio then throw them all in a sampler?

Not really. Due to the variance of synths in the contest, this is not allowed. Basically, some synths are inconsistent and you could then sample the best version of a drum sound and use that, which would not be the same thing as just using the synth. You could sample a phrase to save CPU (e.g. 8 bars or an entire track), but that doesn't really help to achieve your goal. Not sure what DAW you're using, but with Reaper or Bitwig, you could set up a few channels with MIDI filters and route a master channel to them such that each note triggers a different channel's VST... basically the same result. Although I would absolutely say that achieving a good result programming drums for a track is harder with them all lumped together on the same MIDI track. But to each his own...

Also, since Ragnarok is not velocity sensitive, would bouncing it to audio then adjusting the velocity/volume of the samples be considered cheating?

And this is similar... basically if you could get the same result by just using the synth, then it's within the spirit of the rules. Again, single hits are essentially not allowed, though... But you could just as easily automate the volume...

[FriendlyStranger]

... so for the drum parts, could I bounce each drum hit to audio then throw them all in a sampler?

Not really. Due to the variance of synths in the contest, this is not allowed. Basically, some synths are inconsistent and you could then sample the best version of a drum sound and use that, which would not be the same thing as just using the synth. You could sample a phrase to save CPU (e.g. 8 bars or an entire track), but that doesn't really help to achieve your goal. Not sure what DAW you're using, but with Reaper or Bitwig, you could set up a few channels with MIDI filters and route a master channel to them such that each note triggers a different channel's VST... basically the same result. Although I would absolutely say that achieving a good result programming drums for a track is harder with them all lumped together on the same MIDI track. But to each his own...

Just as I suspected then

Also, since Ragnarok is not velocity sensitive, would bouncing it to audio then adjusting the velocity/volume of the samples be considered cheating?

And this is similar... basically if you could get the same result by just using the synth, then it's within the spirit of the rules. Again, single hits are essentially not allowed, though... But you could just as easily automate the volume...

Yep, I'll just automate the volume. Thanks for the responses.

[Rcl]

... Recorded and mixed in Reaper from an off grid location using only solar power ...

THAT is just awesome. I am envious. Very envious... If I had the $$ to do that, I would in a heartbeat. And geothermal heating/cooling. And a giant metal dome to protect against EMP. So I can always make electronic music, no matter what happens to the rest of the world.

Its funny that you mention $$$$$...it is amazing how expensive living on nothing can be.