One-Synth-Challenge 35: Diva - Voting and Results

[V'ger]

Time to vote for your top 5 tracks. All tracks are here.

RULES:
- Give 5 points to the track you think is best, 4 for second, then 3, 2 and 1.
- Voting is open to anyone.
- Last day for voting is 15th January (KVR time).
- If you have entered in the competition, you must vote to be eligible for prizes.
- No voting for yourself.
- Voters must have had 20 prior forum posts before start of the voting period, or participated in this month's contest.
- In the case of equal scores after voting, entries will be separated by how many 5 pts they got, then 4 pts and so on.
Votes can be changed before deadline, but must be made as a new post and clearly show it's a change of vote in order that it gets noticed.

HOW TO VOTE:
You should allocate your votes, in a single post, in this thread ... something like this ....
Artist zxy - Track zxy: 5
Artist xqy - Track xqy: 4
Artist zyx - Track zyx: 3
Artist zqx - Track zqx: 2
Artist qzx - Track qzx: 1

NOTE:
Reviews, however brief, are always welcome. Even if you can only find the time to add a short comment, then please do! ...it keeps the thread alive and encourages others to listen/vote.

[Viktor [TUC]]

I'll be the first then:

Chacka - After the War: 5
Orville - Resonant Sea: 4
PocVecem - The Eternal Flow: 3
Bumtu - Rumpus: 2
Bjulin - Scottish Snowfalls: 1

Honorable mention: Solidtrax's Lady from Jupiter, Doc John's Eleventh Dimension, Stonail's Mimosa Tree, evo2slow's Onassis, JoeCat's Diva rides alone, Mawa's Dance of the Goblin, Irion's Beyond Sight and Gorgorggrgrrrg's Krampusnacht.
These 13 track were all good to great, but I had to pick my faves.

[satYatunes]

The fantastic five

Irion Da Ronin - Beyond the sight: 5
Stonail - Mimosa Tree: 4
Aiyn - Beautiful Winter: 3
Flumba - Distant Galaxy: 2
PocVecem - Panta Rhei-The Eternal FLow: 1

Wow so many entries and so many new faces (at least for me).

Irion, I salute you buddy. You never disappoint me, even though the genre/style is same there is always something new/extra in your tunes. Excellent melody and beat.

Stonail, this is an amazing track. I love the the flute melody and gated pad. A very relaxing and soothing track. I think I heard your track for the first time and believe me, you have got a new fan.

Aiyn, first of all your id/name caught my attention. Track is full of energy and very uplifting. Love it.

Flumba, again interesting id/name. Excellent beginning with arp and strong beat/bass. This is one of those songs where you cannot sit still as soon as it starts playing.

PocVecem.. I have always loved your tracks for something or other. Love this one too.

Rest of the tracks were good, some came close but couldn't beat these fantastic five. Good luck everyone and happy new year.

[dave dove]

my votes:

Bumtu - Rumpus - 5 points

cool soul feel...

Key88 - BeepBeep - 4 points

sunday mornings...

Solidtrax - Lady From Jupiter - 3 points

top drums...

Gorgorgathgorgorgor - Krampusnacht mix 2 - 2 points

summer afternoons...

Stonail - Mimosa Tree - 1 points

good space...




best of luck to all...

dave

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

what are we voting on ??

what we like ??
best composition ??
best production ??
best tech demo ??


my first time, so curious on what basis people vote

[IrionDaRonin]

Irion, I salute you buddy. You never disappoint me, even though the genre/style is same there is always something new/extra in your tunes. Excellent melody and beat.

Rest of the tracks were good, some came close but couldn't beat these fantastic five. Good luck everyone and happy new year.

Hi, Satya, some time no see you. I hope all goes fine there. Thanks for the votes and the nice comment, i'm glad you liked the track. To be honest i wasn't expecting too many votes, there are nice quality tracks this month (once again )
I hope you find some time for compose a Kairatune track this month. Happy New Year to you too

what are we voting on ??

what we like ??
best composition ??
best production ??
best tech demo ??

my first time, so curious on what basis people vote

Well, in my case i'm always voting for these three factors: Feeling, Quality and Skill.

·Feeling means:

• Liking. It touched my heart? Did i close my eyes and didn't need anything more? It made me rage or jumping (in the good way)? It made me daydream? Did i enjoy some parts or the whole song? Is it an evokative track? Actually this is the most important factor to me.

·Quality means:

• Mastering. How it sounds? It sounds crap? It sounds better? Is it very well equalized? Too much Reverb? Some peaks? Were my speakers distorting or exploding? Thin waveform? (No compression)

·Skill means:

• Interest. Did i get bored of it? It made me pay attention to the whole song? Did the composer a great composition? Did the composer a great track with a low equip? (This means more hard work for composer, but lately most people are not writting their specs) Did the composer an interesting track for listening? Did the composer drop some new ideas? Is it fresh? Did the composer use sounds from a synth that you were not expecting? For example a realistic piano sound from a virtual analog synth.

So yes, more or less all what you said, lol. Anyway, if you are a newcomer, i suggest to you to just open your heart and choose only these who you loved. It's easy and clever. Es lo más fácil y sincero, paisano

Have a good day

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

So yes, more or less all what you said, lol. Anyway, if you are a newcomer, i suggest to you to just open your heart and choose only these who you loved. It's easy and clever. Es lo más fácil y sincero, paisano

Have a good day

ok, gotcha...muy bien y gracias

[solidtrax]

We had a rough time finishing our top 5. We based our descision with the following in mind:
- Sounds
- Arrangement
- Mixing/Mastering

Here goes:

Bzur - Divagation: 5
It's like you're telling a story with this song, well done! Some very interesting sounds and the balance of the track is just great!
Even the title is appealing!

Nimrod7 - Unconditional Feeling: 4
When listening to the song we almost forgot that this is a DIVA-only track!
The drum sounds are great and the song is very laidback. The chords are nice and it keeps on grooving!

Doc Jon - Eleventh Dimension: 3
This is a real track and contains beautiful sounds. It reminds us of the old classic synthesizer greatest cd's. Well done!

Aiyn - Beautiful Winter: 2
The sounds are very clear, crisp and well chosen/patched.
Very nice build-up and a very strong drop/break.
We believe, the mix lacks some puch and definition.

PocVecem - Panta Rhei - The Etnernal Flow: 1
A beautiful build-up phase, but a little to long in our opinion. But, very "ear-comforting-sounds". The track sounds like you used some real analog synthesizers.

Honourable mention's:
Dave Dove - Auld Lang Syne.
We like this track and for sure its genre. But it lacks an element of surprise and the mix could be a little better.

Chaka - Diving with a Diva.
This song begins very strong and maybe the best intro of all and showed us a lot of potential. But after this great intro it becomes something completely different. The end is as strong as the beginning.

Bjulin - Scottish Snowfals
Great use of sounds and the title reflects in the music.

Bumtu - Rumpus
Bassline is punchy and the groove is awesome, but the track lacks some highs and it's to repetitive for us.

Mawa - Dance of the Goblin
This track is a real piece of music that is telling a story, but keep it one genre.

[Aiynzahev]

·Skill means:
Did the composer a great track with a low equip? (This means more hard work for composer, but lately most people are not writting their specs)

That is a good point. I've updated my soundcloud file now to reflect the specs and equipment used for those who factor that in. It does make a difference if you can work fast and easily or if you have constant stuttering and things grinding to a halt. That side of it was a real challenge for me as it made what would normally take 10 minutes stretch to an hour, really limiting the ideas I could lay down in time.

[JoeCat]

It does make a difference if you can work fast and easily or if you have constant stuttering and things grinding to a halt. That side of it was a real challenge for me as it made what would normally take 10 minutes stretch to an hour, really limiting the ideas I could lay down in time.

Even with a good computer it can be challenge to factor that all that CPU crunching nto your workflow. I found a few things helpful right off the bat - for example, tweaking sounds in "great" mode but then working with them in draft/fast when tracking (to state the obvious!)

One helpful thing I realized (thankfully, early on) that is easy to do in Live / Session View was to eliminate the repeated scenes, keeping the arrangement to a minimum - this made freezing tracks much quicker (in a traditional DAW arrangement view, I suspect the trick would be to keep the track length short by eliminating repeats until the final arrangement).

[JoeCat]

Just listened to a few of the files downloaded as mp3s. Just curious - do they sound worse to anyone than the previous OSCs?

To my ears, they sound distinctly muddier (more so than normal for an mp3). Specifically, it sounds like the low-mids are really compressed. Soundcloud causes a loss in dynamics but there's still some punch and buzz; the files downloaded in the zip sound double-compressed.

Maybe it was like that in the past OSCs and I just didn't notice, but I'm going to mix brighter next time (I usually use darker, less up-front sounds as it is).

Or maybe it's been like that in the past and I haven't noticed?

[IrionDaRonin]

@Aiyn
Believe me, when i came into OSC contests i had a crappy equip and low single CPU. And although i managed more or less the CPU peaks, the stuttering crap, etc, it was a complete pain in the ass.
Now i got a better equip, i can be more focused on the track, instead of "shit, again that laggy buffer running a marathon!"
That's why i usually vote for the hard work too, because my experience.

@JoeCat
Well, we all know that SoundCloud changes some transients, etc. So the better thing is just to download all files, these are the real work from contestants.

And believe me, this conversation appears in OSC almost every month, lol.
We got a long discussion about in what format, samplerate, bit-rate to upload the tracks. But the answer were a bit different from one to others.
I always render the track into: MP3 128 kbps, stereo, 48 KHz and Constant Bit Rate (512 point sync).
Others uses other formats, and still, SoundCloud player do what it wants with its balls, lol.

Don't mind the player, just download the original works.

Have a good day

[Aiynzahev]

I believe downloading the original work is only possible on premium accounts. Is that right?

[JoeCat]

And believe me, this conversation appears in OSC almost every month, lol.

Truedat This time it just seems to me that mp3s in the zip file sound even worse than the Soundcloud player files.

[IrionDaRonin]

And believe me, this conversation appears in OSC almost every month, lol.

Truedat This time it just seems to me that mp3s in the zip file sound even worse than the Soundcloud player files.

Ah, you meant in the Zip file? Hmm, well, some days ago i uploaded all tracks at 320 kbps at Constant Bit- Rate into Archive org. And i suppose V'ger took all them into the Zip file. Maybe i did something wrong, let me check. Thanks for the touch

EDIT: Strange thing, i downloaded Stonail track from SoundCloud and extracted it from the Zip file too, they sound exactly the same in Wavosaur.
Then i listened both in SoundCloud player and WinAmp. And they sound exactly the same too, with that low pass filtered (for call it somehow)

So in one hand we have the SC player and WinAmp which sounds low filtered or muddy (let's call it normal), and in the another hand we have both versions sounding sharp in Wavosaur. So thanks to God i did nothing bad, lol.

However, my own track sounds the same in Wavosaur, sound the same when downloaded from SC, from the Zip file, SC player and WinAmp. Interesting...

I rendered my track in draft mode with the first version of Diva, because the other qualities sounded very different ones from others, could be a matter of how were rendering people the track?