One-Synth-Challenge 56: Mono/Fury - Chat & Gossip

[V'ger]

What do you use to render?

[Kalee]

32-bit Reaper 4.54 on 64-bit Win7 with lame_enc.dll

[V'ger]

Do you use the latest Lame? http://www.rarewares.org/mp3-lame-bundle.php

Can you also tell what settings you use for both mp3 and wav? (screenshots are best)

And what happens if you render just one channel for example?

[fese]

OK, this is the first time I voted for the OSC. Lot of tracks to listen to, very impressive sound design, but I must admit that I skipped most of them after 30 to 60 seconds or when I got bored. Maybe it's just me not getting electronic music, but I am missing real songs here, not background tracks for games or whatever. Ironically, the one song I would credit for real songwriting is "NES Fury"...
Still, I'd be happy If I could get half out of a synth as you guys can, so maybe I am just jealous

[Carl_saved]

OK, this is the first time I voted for the OSC. Lot of tracks to listen to, very impressive sound design, but I must admit that I skipped most of them after 30 to 60 seconds or when I got bored. Maybe it's just me not getting electronic music, but I am missing real songs here, not background tracks for games or whatever.

I agree with the songwriting part. But I have a request to you, fese: please don't vote when you didn't participate in the month's contest and don't need to vote (because you have not participated in the month's contest)
OR please listen to the whole tracks! I think listening only to the beginnings is not fair.

[fese]

I agree with the songwriting part. But I have a request to you, fese: please don't vote when you didn't participate in the month's contest and don't need to vote (because you have not participated in the month's contest)

Well, I read in the voting post that "voting is open for anyone", so I thought "hey, the more votes, the more statistically sound the result is". And I tried to be fair in my voting, by my own totally subjective criteria, of course (melody, harmonies, groove, then sound design).

OR please listen to the whole tracks! I think listening only to the beginnings is not fair.

Fair enough.

[bftucker]

...I must admit that I skipped most of them after 30 to 60 seconds or when I got bored.

But I have a request to you, fese: please don't vote...
OR please listen to the whole tracks! I think listening only to the beginnings is not fair.

I respectfully disagree. A part of song writing is attracting and capturing the listener's attention in the first minute of any song, either by your skill as a composer, producer, or sound designer. Fese, a certain kind of listener, has a criteria where this is "most important" and votes accordingly.

I must confess there are one or two (or maybe three) tracks in recent OSCs which even I couldn't listen to for more than 30 seconds. But, then again, I haven't voted in recent OSCs

[V'ger]

What to vote for will always vary between people, that's something that's become clear over the years here.

Skipping in tracks is something that I've also learned a lot of people do, but although far from ideal, with 65 tracks for example it's the only way for some to get time.

A trick is to listen to the songs (and even score) as they come in as you get more time that way, but not everyone will get to do that either.

[Carl_saved]

What to vote for will always vary between people, that's something that's become clear over the years here.

Skipping in tracks is something that I've also learned a lot of people do, but although far from ideal, with 65 tracks for example it's the only way for some to get time.

A trick is to listen to the songs (and even score) as they come in as you get more time that way, but not everyone will get to do that either.

I totally agree with that. But my point is, that not everyone NEEDS to vote. I do not object, that people vote on the basis their own point of view (because I do myself ). I worry about those people, who would be given more points, just because their songs had a long intro. So still my request is: people who want to vote additionally to those, who have participated (and thus are "forced" to vote, even if they have no time to listen to all tracks), listened carefully to the tracks and improve the statistic. IMHO - obviously!

Greetings,
Carl

[QuadrupleA]

What to vote for will always vary between people, that's something that's become clear over the years here.

Skipping in tracks is something that I've also learned a lot of people do, but although far from ideal, with 65 tracks for example it's the only way for some to get time.

I do get frustrated sometimes listening to tracks without enough musical contrast - you hear the opening 2-bar loop and you already know the whole song. If it's basically the same 2 bars copied and pasted for 3 mins I sometimes feel justified in skipping ahead

I'm actually curious about the ideas around song length in the OSC - there seems to be an unwritten rule of "3 minutes or longer" but to be honest I'd rather listen to 1:30 min of music that stays interesting and doesn't wear out its welcome than 5:00 min of really repetitive stuff without much musical contrast. More shorter tracks would be nice from a listener perspective.

I worry about that in my own stuff - e.g. on "NES Fury", the ending "verse" and "chorus" are almost identical to the first - I'm on the fence of whether I should have chopped those off.

[V'ger]

there seems to be an unwritten rule of "3 minutes or longer"

This seems to be the case, and tracks shorter than that will be scored down and commented on because of the length but I for one agree with your arguments why it shouldn't necessarily be so.

But there's still a certain justice, look at Painpotato's track from OSC 25: Superwave P8 for example: Less than 2 minutes but still did quite well. Another is Mac of BIOnighT 10 minute track winning in OSC 22: NR2010.

At the end of the day it seems that despite all the different views and voting techniques the cream usually rises to the top so the system is not broke, but agree could use some tweaking. There will be a rules vote before the end of year so any suggestions for change or other ideas welcome.

[QuadrupleA]

At the end of the day it seems that despite all the different views and voting techniques the cream usually rises to the top so the system is not broke

Yeah, I like the way it is now - leaving it up to individual tastes - that seems the most honest.

[loft_electronics]

I thought about this one too, and my tune did get criticised for being "a bit short". I pointed out that it was the same length as Rock Around The Clock... and that did alright. Length depends on genre - if you're doing a trance track you'll need the seven minutes, but if you're doing a densely populated exquisite miniature then two minutes will probably be enough for most tastes.

[psmacmur]

@e@ars: sorry for the late reply. Presonus couldn't repro my S1+Mono/fury bug, even with the track (I attached it to the bug). Since my synth of choice for the CM OSC works flawlessly in S1, I'm going to let it slide.

@loft: same experience here; manually reloading Presonus Presets or tweaking knobs to restore parameters, and realtime rendering via Audacity's WASAPI input. I've used worse hacks (external audio cable sort of thing).

@Kalee, that actually sounds very similar to what I experienced in S1, although I also lost (for example) arp and modulation settings. Makes me suspect that Mono/fury isn't the best-behaved VST.

[bjporter]

What to vote for will always vary between people, that's something that's become clear over the years here.

Skipping in tracks is something that I've also learned a lot of people do, but although far from ideal, with 65 tracks for example it's the only way for some to get time.

I do get frustrated sometimes listening to tracks without enough musical contrast - you hear the opening 2-bar loop and you already know the whole song. If it's basically the same 2 bars copied and pasted for 3 mins I sometimes feel justified in skipping ahead

I'm actually curious about the ideas around song length in the OSC - there seems to be an unwritten rule of "3 minutes or longer" but to be honest I'd rather listen to 1:30 min of music that stays interesting and doesn't wear out its welcome than 5:00 min of really repetitive stuff without much musical contrast. More shorter tracks would be nice from a listener perspective.

I worry about that in my own stuff - e.g. on "NES Fury", the ending "verse" and "chorus" are almost identical to the first - I'm on the fence of whether I should have chopped those off.

I felt this way about my track. Honestly though OSC for me is about sound design 1st, and the music 2nd. Its a great chance to experiment with new ideas. BUT when I have the extra hours I really REALLY try to make it sound more interesting. So Pancake was not as interesting as i'd like.