One-Synth-Challenge: General discussion thread

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Why is it that you all seem to have forgotten about:
Mix challenge - every month - any synth allowed - any fx allowed.
Songwriting competition - every month - any synth allowed - any fx allowed.
Music cafe contest - every month - any synth allowed - any fx allowed.
There's no shortage of competitions where you can mix your heart out, is there?
So...what are you afraid of ?!?

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What I could imagine though is a one synth challenge with one native synth of your DAW. They are all different, some have more than one, but you would have to choose only one. Further restriction as well only native effects...
Out of my head beside Ardour I don't know of a DAW without native synths. But I don't know many DAWs so there might be more...
At least it could give an idea of what the different DAWs deliver in terms of inspiration...

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Ardour has a-reasonable synth.
Fixed adsr.
No filter.
No pitch bend.
Only one waveform.
It's awesome.

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:hihi:

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Saffran wrote: Tue Dec 04, 2018 2:37 pm Why is it that you all seem to have forgotten about:
Mix challenge - every month - any synth allowed - any fx allowed.
Songwriting competition - every month - any synth allowed - any fx allowed.
Music cafe contest - every month - any synth allowed - any fx allowed.
There's no shortage of competitions where you can mix your heart out, is there?
So...what are you afraid of ?!?
:D

I highlighted the most relevant parts to give you an idea of what makes the OSC special. "Any fx allowed" is also quite a big deal. Similarly, you also forgot to mention sampling and resampling, resynthesis, absolutely all types of audio edits, outboard gear, acoustic sound sources, and so on.

People who like the OSC enjoy the specific constrained production challenge it poses. Different challenges... are different. Relax.

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Yeah. Otherwise making music would be far too easy.

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rghvdberg wrote: Tue Dec 04, 2018 6:32 pm Yeah. Otherwise making music would be far too easy.
:lol: :tu:

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Sonic Pi would be a fun OSC round - All other types of synth we had plenty of times. It's just iterations of the same. Going for AlgoRave would be something new.

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z.prime wrote: Tue Dec 04, 2018 4:02 am EQ is a bit tricky.
[...]
That said, I think if we stick to the spirit of not significantly altering things, we can take a few liberties to just get the best tracks possible, using basic mix tactics, etc.. I think you'll find few people would would want to outlaw EQ.
Yeah, I must admit that a no-EQ ruling would probably have put an end to my OSC adventures. I might have been able to accept a "subtractive-EQ-only" rule, because that's essentially how I work with EQ 80% of the time anyway.

In regards to Saffran's ideas, to my mind adjusting EQ is no more intrusive than adjusting volume. In a graph, EQ is the 'y' to the 'x' of gain staging - both crucial to create a listenable mix. Taking out the low and extreme high end of a closed hat based on flat old white noise doesn't remove the character of the instrument, not even of a filter-free synth. You're simply (as I always end up saying in these debates) putting the sound into context.

All that said, I have to admit it was a fun (self-imposed) challenge to create an eq- and effect-free track with the (no-filter) scrooo for OSC this summer. But I don't want to make a habit out of such constraints - that seems counterintuitive to me if you really want to learn to make the most out of these synths in a useful setting.
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Tj Shredder wrote: Tue Dec 04, 2018 3:41 pm What I could imagine though is a one synth challenge with one native synth of your DAW. They are all different, some have more than one, but you would have to choose only one. Further restriction as well only native effects...
Out of my head beside Ardour I don't know of a DAW without native synths. But I don't know many DAWs so there might be more...
At least it could give an idea of what the different DAWs deliver in terms of inspiration...
I do sort of like the idea of a DAW face-off, where you only use one native synth from your DAW, and also only native effects to that DAW. It would be interesting to see what difference it makes if any. Maybe FL users have the advantage synth wise, and Live users have the advantage effects wise? (shots fired)

One question I would have is which synths are classed as Native? Obviously the synths included with the basic package like 3xOSC are native to FL, but would Harmor be classed as native to FL?

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Ranoka wrote: Thu Dec 06, 2018 11:51 am I do sort of like the idea of a DAW face-off, where you only use one native synth from your DAW, and also only native effects to that DAW. It would be interesting to see what difference it makes if any. Maybe FL users have the advantage synth wise, and Live users have the advantage effects wise? (shots fired)

One question I would have is which synths are classed as Native? Obviously the synths included with the basic package like 3xOSC are native to FL, but would Harmor be classed as native to FL?
I'd say Harmor is not native due to it not being included in any version by default, but you at least have 3x, Sytrus and a whole slew of other native plugins within FL. Logic also has a couple really nice sounding native synths like Alchemy and ES2. I'd say that unless your DAW has no synths whatsoever, no one is at any real disadvantage at all.
It's very tasty, I swear!

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Also, I'm going to move the conversation about commercial Synths from the OSC 118 Noisemaker thread to here

I was jesting when I suggested with do a Serum only OSC, exactly because it does exclude people who don't have it. I definitely agree that the general spirit of OSC is not to exclude people! I said Serum because it seems to be the synth de jour whenever commercial synth uses comes up (it already was mentioned a bunch of times in the thread).

A similar, more inclusive round could be a special AnySynth where you're encourage to use Serum if you have it, or any other wavetable synth if you don't, or any other synth if you don't have any wavetable synths, or would rather use FM or something else :D

Which free wavetable synths are there? I remember there is a wavetable module in ModulAir.

Also, if we did a wavetable synth round, would we allow custom wavetables? Or only the in-build wavetables? It would be against the general spirit of OSC to load samples and play them linearly for drums etc, but it would be interesting to me to experiment with custom wavetables (I can always do that outside of OSC of course).

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zerofox97 wrote: Thu Dec 06, 2018 12:07 pm
Ranoka wrote: Thu Dec 06, 2018 11:51 am
I'd say Harmor is not native due to it not being included in any version by default, but you at least have 3x, Sytrus and a whole slew of other native plugins within FL. Logic also has a couple really nice sounding native synths like Alchemy and ES2. I'd say that unless your DAW has no synths whatsoever, no one is at any real disadvantage at all.
Harmor is in the All Plugin Bundle, but I guess technically by the name it is the Producer Edition with extras... So then whatever is included with the Producer Edition is what counts as native?
Sytrus would have to be the best option then if that's the case :D
And definitely one I could live with, because I could use Harmor for an anysynth, or outside of OSC.

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In the case of an any DAW contest. Reaper doesn't have a decent synth, probably a few other DAWs that don't, especially free ones. If you own a bigger bundle, then any synth in that bundle should be allowed -- it's effectively like owning a different DAW.

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z.prime wrote: Thu Dec 06, 2018 8:23 pm In the case of an any DAW contest. Reaper doesn't have a decent synth, probably a few other DAWs that don't, especially free ones. If you own a bigger bundle, then any synth in that bundle should be allowed -- it's effectively like owning a different DAW.
or a contest only with these daw http://www.singlecellsoftware.com/caustic cross-platform, free Windows and Mac version and ios & Android are really cheap or these onehttp://www.warmplace.ru Sunvox
12 years old PC running :Reaper;Reason;Dune;Zampler;Kontakr;Reaktor;and many others countless vst :D

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