Osc5 - Crystal - VOTE!

[K-Bee]

Great fun! Thanks for the one vote I got. It's my first but with a synth like crystal everything counts!

[slugfest99]

Now about the sampler, well, the matter is to use it just to reproduce the sample, so, probably it doesn't matter which you will use as long as you don't use it for things other than playing back the sample.

+1

Seems a simple and all inclusive way forward, also mirrors Tatties previous post on the same line (also very sensible).

As said Tattie, let it roll for a while to see what others think.

I guess you know where I stand anyway.

Look forward to it being SFXR anyway - I think it will be rather eye opening

Cheers,
Mouxbar

[MadPsyance]

http://www.kvraudio.com/get/1512.html

... but even then it is windows only, and has a ping-pong delay and an adsr.

Ahh, but you see, it not a ping-pong delay, it's a ping pong looper, you're into short-circuit territory with the can of worms that opens..easily transforming a sound by using looping a small section of the file.

Also, with most hosts, it's possible to sample any instrument(including the out put of the game synth or sampler playing back a sample of game synth)and make your own small section of the file and loop it, then reimport it back into the sampler, resulting in massive mangling.

The only way not to abuse the samples, is to state flat out "in the spirit of chip tunes"...which I must say is disappointing a little, cause I imagined a sample based OSC which involved massive resampling, keeping with the spirit of "getting everything from nothing/very little". If you wanted to do chip tunes, you might as well just use one of the many synths that are made for chip tunes...like Odo's Dr.Sid, or Unknown synth, or Syntendo, or Yarcor, or SE64...then you wouldn't have to worry about the sampling mess and putting restriction on how you use the samples and the degree they can be mangled. Just my 2 cents.

[tattiemannie]

No need to be disappointed MP, nothing has been set in stone yet.

I was neither speaking for or against the ping-pong looper, merely pointing out it was a feature.

My own view about whatever else we add to our tool kit, is that we maintain sfxr at the heart of the project .... as we would with any other OSC.
... but I'll go where the general discussion takes us.

We can argue in detail about manipulating the samples to the point that we have to accept that even EQing changes the waveform .... and we end up with little scope to experiment!
I also think we need to be careful we dont become so rigid with our rules that we make participation unattractive!

So I propose ..... the minimum features we should have with our sampler are tuning/pitch/repitch ( due to the un-musical pitch controls in sfxr ), volume, and some form of envelope control ( for reasons mentioned earlier )... or alternatively, a simple gate.

I dont think the fx issue is as important as how we play our samples back, so if we can draw up a spec for our sampler, we can either find it or build it!
..... and then, I think you will find that if we insert "sfxr and samplerX" in place of "crystal" or "oatmeal" in their respective rules texts, it will make more sense, and be followed through in the same way as we did in order to respect those synths' place at the heart of our compositions.

Good to keep stirring the issues around, I actually dont like the part of OSC organisation which involves setting the rules, so it's great to have such a wealth of input!!
I dont think its possible to please everyone 100%, but the more I know about what people want, the easier it becomes to at least avoid excluding/alienating people who might otherwise bring something unique to the track fest.

[Gamma-UT]

So I propose ..... the minimum features we should have with our sampler are tuning/pitch/repitch ( due to the un-musical pitch controls in sfxr ), volume, and some form of envelope control ( for reasons mentioned earlier )... or alternatively, a simple gate.

In the first OSC the rules were to pick any free synth and use a sampler or samples within a DAW pretty much only as though it were a tape player. I happened to pick OnePingOnly for a laugh (I've switched from chrised to my current user name, in case you're wondering), but most of the sounds were stitched together using Simpler in Live as the playback engine. You really, really do not want to trigger OnePing directly.

If you take the idea of using the sampler as though it were tape - speed up/slow down/repitch/reverse/gate - then you have the basis for taking some basic sound effect samples and making music out of them without worrying too much about what the actual sampler is. It makes for a pretty limited palette, but it's an option and gets around a lot of the Mac/PC availability problems.

[Gamma-UT]

Gamma-UT... wow! this track has its own agenda! Solid and interesting percussion sounds. A brooding quality to the track, and an unusual mix of sounds. Like how the dominant sound 'shapeshifts', denying categorisation, and playing a variety of roles in the composition.

Thanks for the comments. I haven't had a chance to listen to all the pieces properly yet - only given all of them a run through once except for some of the early submissions like Crystal Meth and Rats, so I haven't really given the others a fair bash.

[tattiemannie]

No probs Gamma-UT, take your time! ... I'm sure its gonna be as hard for you to decide as it's been for the rest of us!

.... and thanks for adding to the discussion re next comp .... seriously, great to have a good number of different people in the mix!

[tattiemannie]

Any more thoughts on our sampler(s)?

I am reminded that I used 'Reprat' at the beginning and end of my Crystal track ..... which is to all intents and purposes a looper. however, I dont believe I produced a sound which was too far removed from the Crystal sound being affected.

If however I had cut an audio sample of the looped part, and reintroduced it via a sample player, and played a tune with it, then that would definitely have been a misrepresentation of the featured synth.... but this is actually covered by the rules as they stand, so it would have been cheating

So what I'm saying I suppose, is either, that it would be slightly hypocritical of me to oppose the use of a looper in the sampler, or, that I think it's OK to use such a feature provided it does not produce sounds that are not easily recognisable as that which is produced by sfxr. ( again, this is covered by our existing rules. )

Anyway, just wanted to point out that, despite the sampler and fx discussion still rolling, we should not miss the fact that we have actually achieved something here! We have made a swift, and supported decision re. which is going to be our next featured 'synth', well in advance of the comp starting. Look back at previous comps if you want to be reminded about what normally happens!

[MadPsyance]

To to sum it up:
sfxr+basic sample player not decided on yet+in the spirit of chip tunes(no massive mangling)

right?

[MadPsyance]

I still think that some day in the future, we should have an OSC where we use short circuit or something similar, and just 1 sample (maybe like a kick drum), and we can mangle the hell out of it, resample it, get all of our instrument sounds from it. Some people still don't understand the infinite possibilities with using tiny loops inside a bigger file, along with amp and filter envelopes.

This approach I believe goes well with the "make everything from nothing" philosophy that makes OSCs so popular. It's a very DIY attitude.

[tattiemannie]

Just about MP, unless the weight of discussion shifts.

If we all have a common understanding of what 'no massive mangling' means, then the sampler we use is not an issue

[tattiemannie]

perhaps the key to concensus is to replace the word 'mangling' with 'enhancement' ...?

[MadPsyance]

perhaps the key to concensus is to replace the word 'mangling' with 'enhancement' ...?

To compare the before and after of "mangling" is like comparing apples and oranges.

The compare the before and after of "enhancement" is like comparing apples and skinned apples.



edit: okay, terrible analogy, but let's just say mangling totally transforms the sound into something completely different.

[tattiemannie]

To compare the before and after of "mangling" is like comparing apples and oranges.

The compare the before and after of "enhancement" is like comparing apples and skinned apples.

[tattiemannie]

... perhaps polished apples rather than skinned .... but then again, if you polish hard enough, the result is the same!