One-Synth-Challenge 47: U-he Bazille - Voting and results

[IrionDaRonin]

Irion, have you tried this http://xenossoundworks.com/Now_Hiring_S ... gners.html ?

I'm working with him right now making a single demotrack for a new Xenos soundset.

I never stop, always looking for companies demanding for demotracks for new soundsets.
But thanks for the detail. I really appreciate it.

Today i'm slighty better than yesterday to be honest, and i hope worse than tomorrow.
I have received a good new from a kind developer and he made me smile today.

Musicians and music world is a great place to stay and feel embraced when you can't count on your own family.

Have a nice day, dude. Thanks.

[SuperNoise]

Just keep hard working now Irion, 'good work creates miracles' we says in Poland. Good luck!

[Branis]

5pts: Pocvecem - QSpace
4pts: z.prime - Beauty of the Electron
3pts: Irion Da Ronin - B.E.C 3
2pts: Jasinski - Barricades
1pt : Yeager - Who Gives a Clap

[Stollmeister]

As many of you probably already have found out it is really hard to narrow down the selection to just five songs. There are so many great tracks to choose from. How to decide? I pondered this and read the rules and I pondered some more. Consciously or subconsciously I seem to order the tracks based on how likely I am to listen to them again after the contest is over, rather than based on originality or sound-design. That just seems to be the one thing it all boils down to. I've finally narrowed it down to these five tracks:

• 5p - Evo2slo-CloserToTheSun - I'm not thrilled about the first 22 seconds. Upon hearing the intro I thought I would not like this song. But then something happens... All hell breaks loose! I love that this track is so varied. I also love the slightly oriental vibe and the guitar-ish feel (I'm primarily a guitar player). The percussive rhythm section of the main riff is sheer genius! Surely parts of this track must have been written on guitar and later interpreted with Bazille? Minor disappointment: I thought the sound-design was original work. Oh well, still an impressive combination of sounds.
  
  4p - Bjulin-Infected - I love the dark brooding feel of this track. The sounds and the mix are top notch as well. Great variation so it never gets boring.
  
  3p - Pocvecem-Qspacekwk-infect-mix - It takes a while to get going but once it is off the ground great melodies and harmonies emerge. The mix is really great on this one as well. This very much feels like a song. It is a self-contained whole, rather than different parts placed together. This and "ParanoidEye" do the same thing for me. Which is better? I've shifted them around a couple of times but for now I rank this one slightly higher.
  
  2p - Skyzone-ParanoidEye - This is a nice soothing track. Nice sounds and melodies. It is nice in a sci-fi/space kind of way that I really appreciate.
  
  1p - NerdPatrol-DoubleTime - This is not really my kind of music. It is too up-beat and too dance-friendly for my taste. Despite this I just cannot resist the great energy and the excellent sound-design. I find myself unable to stop my foot from tapping along to the music.

I just have to tip my hat to the following tracks that at various times were ranked amongst my top 5. In the end the previously mentioned five tracks won out. Still, close followers were:

• Adagiocm-APerfectMoment - This is so nice in a Vangelis kind of way. This is more relaxing and soothing than any other track in the competition. The only objection I could come up with is perhaps that it is too similar to Vangelis.
  
  Thrax-DarkWater - Dark and ominous bass meets beautiful melody. I like it very much!
  
  IrionDaRonin-Bec3-TheLastChance - Excellent sound-design! Truly impressive! It is a bit slow in the start. If any critique is to be raised against this track it would be that the actual musical content is not as impressive as the sound-design, though still good.
  
  Jasinski-Barricades - I'm no fan of this kind of music unfortunately. To me it is too repetitive, though lots of stuff do happen in this song after the first half. I'm no fan of dance music. However I truly recognize the great craftsmanship in designing all the sounds and mixing this. I can tell that this is quality stuff, just not my cup of tea. The energy-levels shoot through the roof around the middle of the song. Great work! Perhaps on another day when my mood was different this could have made my top 5.
  
  Pedalsteeldrummer-MindMeld - This song is surely the most original of the whole bunch. The sound design and the writing is great as well. In the end though, I unfortunately find it a bit repetitive. After the initial listen, when it just struck me as brilliant, in its originality I find myself not listening to it often.

[evo2slo]

Surely parts of this track must have been written on guitar and later interpreted with Bazille?

Thanks for the nice comments and vote! My compositions for these contests are always guided and inspired by the sound of whatever synth is being used, but I do keep an acoustic guitar by my side (built myself from a Martin kit) that I often switch to from the keyboard to work out certain parts. The mellow riff in the track was indeed written on that guitar and translated to the keyboard.

Minor disappointment: I thought the sound-design was original work.

Did my best to make clear on my forum submission post and on the soundcloud page description that many of the sounds I used were started from presets. If anyone who has already voted for my track based the vote on thinking that I designed all of the sounds from scratch then I totally understand if you want to change your vote.

I actually think this contest might be improved by not allowing the use of any presets at all, but there might be fewer submissions as a result.

[solidtrax]

[..]

2. Solidtrax - Do Not Forget Your Bazille for Lunch
This is so funky! The main chord synths , the bass & the kick drum gets me! It's amazing how well you can get the drum sounds so crisp.
[..]

Thank so you much for your nice compliment!

2 pts: Solidtrax - Do Not Forget Your Bazille For Lunch

Cheers,
Ricler

Thanks for the points, we appreciate it!

About the tracks, we can't make up our minds about who is getting the points. We narrowed it down to 8 tracks that we believe all deserve points. How are we going to remove 3 tracks without feeling guilty?

We did some counting and today we went from 4th place to 6th place. It's funny to see how people all have totally different taste. Some people think our track is amazing (thanks guys!) and even more people don't even mention our tracks when they mention a lot of other tracks. I think it's nice to see the wide variety of taste people have on this board, and I think this is what makes the OSC so fun and exciting every month!

One other thing that can explain the wide variety in votes (20 tracks received votes already) is that people look at the tracks differently. I guess some people give votes mostly based on the sounds that are used in a track, other people look at the mix/master quality of a track, and I could come up with a few other things a vote can be based on.

Ok, let's hope we can come up with out top5 sooner than later, but it's even more difficult than last month.. it's crazy!

[Fritze]

Musicians and music world is a great place to stay and feel embraced when you can't count on your own family.

Have a nice day, dude. Thanks.

[IrionDaRonin]

Musicians and music world is a great place to stay and feel embraced when you can't count on your own family.

Have a nice day, dude. Thanks.

Hug back.

[Stollmeister]

Here are my presets created for Bazille. About half of them were used for my tracks and the remaining ones sound similar to those sounds. They tend towards the dark distorted. Hopefully someone will find something useful amongst them, though I'm sure no master at sound-design. My personal favourite is the one called "RingMod Bell". I use one instance of that preset as one of the two bass sounds in my track. Another instance of the preset is used for a semi-distorted sound sounding like a cross between electric piano and weird distorted tuned ethnic percussion. I like that it can take on many roles.

The presets:
http://parentes.nu/Stollmeister.rar

[Marando]

I can't decide on my top5. Some tracks are mixed/mastered very good, but they are in a genre that I'm not comfortable with, other tracks are very nice on the melody department, but I feel that the mix/master could be a lot better. And than we have the sounds. I have listened to some tracks with amazing sounds, but the song itself is not something I would put on my mp3 player. And, it's difficult to give someone points for the sound, because I don't know if the sounds are self made or simply presets from someone else.

Wow, this should be my first OSC I'm going to vote, but I didn't know it was going to be this difficult!

[Bjulin]

well, i allways use a 5 "star"-system...

i give the tracks, 1 to 5 stars... doesn't matter if i give some tracks the same starammount!
then, i only take the 5 tracks with my personal highest vote and begin to vote again. if there are too many 5 star-votes and less 1 star-vote, maybe you should be more critical. (to be more critical doesn't mean you do not honour the work of the others... you just have to be more critical in order to get your votes done!)

if you still have no clue how to decide, then there's alwas one thing that works -> your personal taste!
since personal taste is always involved, it's not a bad thing to do that! it's true, that osc's heart is the skill of the musician... but... what does the skill help, if the composition is ugly or simply doesn't touch me? nothing... so, don't forget that music still relies (and it really should be that way, or we would all sound like katy perry) on personal taste!

so, i hope you do understand what i mean... and i hope you can use some of my hints on "how to get my votes done"!

cheers, Bjulin

[Thrax]

After much consideration as there are many good tracks this month, I can announce my votes as follows:

5pts: Pocvecem - Qspacekwk-infect-mix
Good range of sounds from the synth. Superb arrangement and a professional sounding mix overall. Like the many different glitch sounds throughout this song.

4pts: Bjulin - Infected
Down tempo moody mix with some serious deep bass going on. Plenty of variation throughout this track to keep me interested to the end.

3pts: Irion Da Ronin - The Last Chance
Sweeping atmospheric track that takes you on a journey. Sounds very polished from beginning to end.

2pts: Skyzone - ParanoidEye
Reminds me of Kraftwerk and early new wave songs from the 80s. I like the composition and the many different sweeping filter sounds used.

1pt: e@rs - Move Fast
Hardcore industrial sounding track with a great pounding beat. Some interesting sounds from the synth used in the main.

Other honourable mentions:
Solidtrax - Do not forget your bazille for lunch
AdagioCM - A Perfect Moment
Jasinski - Barricades
Teezfalien - Truffles
evo2slo - Closer to the Sun
Pedalsteeldrummer - Mind Meld
Jum Alfredson - Blochur
Yeager - Who Gives A Clap?
Z.prime - BeautyOfTheElectron

I must admit that I found this synth a bit hard to get the sounds I wanted so congratulations to all who managed to produce a track this month

[V0RT3X]

5 - Irion Da Ronin B.E.C 3

4 - Solidtrax - Do not forget your bazille for lunch

3- AdagioCM - A perfect Moment

2- Pocvecem - Qspace

1 -Z-prime - Beauty of the electron

[IbiM]

Here are my votes. I didn't really follow a clear voting procedure, my personal taste being the main criterium.
Composition, sounds and mix/mastering were the criteria I took into account once I made the first selection of the entries I like most.


5 p. Z. Prime - Beauty of the electron

Love the intro, immediately gets you ready to start dancing! You'd expect he song to burst out into a dance track very soon, but you have to wait a little longer until it reveals itself.
A lot of variation in the sounds, sometimes too many sounds create a mix a little too busy for my taste.
But Of all the songs in this OSC, the melody of this one nested itself in my brain most of all the songs in this OSC!


4 p. Bjulin - Infected

A very intrigueing intro! Very strong composition, doesn't get boring at any time. IMO not all the sounds used fit the track 100%


3 p.Pedalsteeldrummer - Mind meld

My personal favorite in this composition when it comes to feel and originality. Really love some of the sounds used, esp. the clarinet-like sound and the bass.
For the lenght of the track, the composition could have used some more variation. Especially the drum parts need more variation (a drum break here and there, a drum solo part) to suit the jazzy style. But I very much appreciate you bringing a totally different style into the OSC!
Hope you will keep on surprising us in the next OSC's!!


2.Solidtrax - Do not forget your bazille for lunch

This is the kind of techno I like (probably it's not even techno but I'm not strong at defining electronic music genres...)! Nice use of SFX sounds that keep on spicing up the track. Only I really don't like the lead sound that is introduced at 2:10 it really doesn't fit with the rest IMO.



1. Irion da Ronin - BEC The last chance

Fabulous sound design and mix! Composition is nice but no tune that really stays.


Almost made it into my selection:

Pocvecem (nice spacous mix), Blochur (like the atmosphere and feel of the track).

Anyway, it was an honor to be competing with you all!!!!


Greetings,

Dirk

[b3groover]

5 pts - Irion Da Ronin - B.E.C. 3
4 pts - Loris D Solic - All Kidz Want Synthesizers
3 pts - Solidtrax - Do Not Forget Your Bazille For Lunch
2 pts - Stollmeister - Nasty Brutish And Short
1 pt - evo2slo - Closer To The Sun


Lots of good music this month. I'm honored by the kind mentions of my humble submission.