One Synth Challenge #68: Synth1 by Ichiro Toda

[bjporter]

So bummed I didn't have time to finish my track this month. I started something but had to many other projects going on. I'll try to vote though!

Was here in spirit

[bjporter]

Big thx for getting the Zip up there so quickly Bj

Excellent! I'm glad to hear people are psyched about the high quality zip.

Just a warning: Some tracks didn't have a download enabled, and I uploaded the regular version into the zip file. Maybe in the future I should just upload only the High Quality, but I wanted to make sure the zip had all the songs.

The problem is Soundcloud - they disable download by default, so we're getting more of this happening lately.

[Chris-S]

@krepsound

love the sound which pops up at 0:20. Is it a preset?

[spider-j]

Okay, I think I'm done with voting. It was really hard. So many good entries. In the end I voted 3 for the majority, just to be able to have room in 4/5 to differ between 'very good' and 'even better'.
So my personal top tracks from my 4 and 5 rating are (unsorted):
ballacr75 - high voltage
rokces - Game
z.prime - Pray for Change
Pulse Width Modulation - Looking Out Looking In
Carl_saved - God In The Desert
Jared Juntunen - Holiday
bzur - 9planets
Hans Meyzer - Dance in the Bureau

There were a couple of tunes that only slightly missed entering my toplist by not having some kind of peak or turning point.
Some of those who come to my mind are:
DzAH NeoClass2: Awesome composition work, but I was missing some remarkable change during the track.
BlitBit - At The Fireworks: Really misses some kind of strong lead part.
Saukar30-The Intergalactic Funking Of Lt. Veronica Killagroove: Awesome groove. Would easily be in my top-list if that sax/wind section style instruments had a more versatile solo/lead part somewhere in the arrangement.
The list goes on ...

Anyway: a lot of high quality music here. Even under those few I ranked 1 or 2 were probably some that aren't actually bad. Probably I just didn't get 'into' them because I don't actually understand the style of music.
My biggest concern in that matter was
Psmacmur - Crossing The Brooklyn Bridge: I can hear there's a lot of work involved and some parts of the instrumentation sound really awesome, but that rythm just drives me crazy, gives me the feeling it's 'off' all the time. So I'm really sorry if I maybe underrated your work. If there's some kind of brilliancy behind this rythmic concept I'm probably too stupid to get it. As I really like experimental or even chaotic stuff to a certain degree I really listened to this track over and over again to find its beauty. But it stayed just plain chaotic to me. I'm sorry.

Looking forward to OSC#69.
Cheers,
spider.

[excessional]

Okay, I think I'm done with voting. It was really hard. So many good entries. In the end I voted 3 for the majority, just to be able to have room in 4/5 to differ between 'very good' and 'even better'.
So my personal top tracks from my 4 and 5 rating are (unsorted):
ballacr75 - high voltage
rokces - Game
z.prime - Pray for Change
Pulse Width Modulation - Looking Out Looking In
Carl_saved - God In The Desert
Jared Juntunen - Holiday
bzur - 9planets
Hans Meyzer - Dance in the Bureau

That's what so interesting about people's taste in music - only one of those (Dance in the Bureau) is in my top 16.

And yet if were were asked I suppose we'd all claim we're looking for the same things - strong sound design/patch selection, strong melodies/hooks, songs that develop through their course (perhaps building to some sort of climax), good production/mix etc.

I perhaps focus more on the melody/development side as I'm pretty weak on stuff like sound design and production myself - for example I was massively impressed by the scope of and work put into '9planets' but just didn't actually like any of the melodies - I thought Dr Bob's Space Bubbles was similar in scope but had stronger melodies and cleaner production so I preferred that one...but it just comes down to personal taste I guess..

[z.prime]

... but it just comes down to personal taste I guess..

And that's how a lot of people end up voting, I'm pretty sure. It can't be helped - there are things you don't like or understand, so they just don't appeal; naturally we don't think "this is great". And it's perfectly allowable - there aren't regulations on voting for categories or technical aspects.

Personally, I believe there are 3 aspects that make a good track: sound design / selection (this IS the one-synth-challenge, after all), composition / creativity, production / mix. Any one of these can be great, but doesn't really lead to a great track. Take: using a trombone patch for a lovely 80's bassline or having a high-pitched lead sound so loud it drowns out the rest of the track; appealing? Not really... But I think it takes all of these together to make a great track.

Some people try to be subjective about the voting (I hope to include myself in this), basically: What type of track was the person trying to make? How close did they get from the sound design and composition categories? Is the mix okay? Spot on gets a 5. But it's hard to get spot on sound design with these free synths for a lot of genres, so... I try to use this criteria to grade the rest into 2/3/4 (or, even 1). Because, it is hard. Our tastes vary so widely, and people who make really great tracks that just don't appeal to ME still deserve to win if they're the best...

[ImNotDedYet]

I try to vote like z.prime. There are a lot of musical styles that don't necessarily move me, (or even melody lines) but I concentrate on the sound design, composition and mix when listening and try to incorporate all three aspects into a final score. I'm not a fan of dubstep, but I recognize the sound design in z.prime's song, the composition is very good and progresses nicely, and his mix has always been one of the best in the OSC's I've judged. So, he scored quite high in my scoring.

[excessional]

Some people try to be subjective about the voting (I hope to include myself in this), basically: What type of track was the person trying to make? How close did they get from the sound design and composition categories? Is the mix okay? Spot on gets a 5. But it's hard to get spot on sound design with these free synths for a lot of genres, so... I try to use this criteria to grade the rest into 2/3/4 (or, even 1). Because, it is hard. Our tastes vary so widely, and people who make really great tracks that just don't appeal to ME still deserve to win if they're the best...

I think that's 'objective'?

It's hard to judge for 'sound design' on a Synth1 challenge as there are 10,000 patches available - so I've no idea whether a sound is the composer's own design or someone else's.
In a way I'm not sure it matters so much these days - with so many well-designed presets available in modern synths (the stock Z3Ta+2 has over 2000 to start with, never mind the multitude you can pick up for free or additional paid for ones) the ability to select the right patch for the job can be as much/more valuable than the ability to design from scratch. In fact the one of the big benefits of learning sound design is that it can be faster than 'patch surfing' to find what you want when you have so many patches.

In the end I suppose you have three options - finding and tweaking a preset, grabbing and slicing a .wav or designing from scratch - I guess as a beginner I'm trying to get better at all three.

What matters to professionals is probably speed of workflow and quality/uniqueness of outcome

What I can try to judge on is how good the patch sounds in the mix, but really there is still a huge slice of subjectivity involved. Music is just like that...so very personal...

By contrast I interviewed 30 applicants for a job alongside my firm's head of HR last year. We both had identical top tens at the end of the interviews, in more or less the same order.

That would simply never happen ranking music tracks as so much of what we find pleasurable in a music track or even in a particular sound differs from person to person...

[ricler]

Voted!

My most favorite songs for the moment are:
NedK - Last 2nd Observation
Poofox - My Girlfriend's A Robot (And It's Alright)
BlitBlit - At The Fireworks

http://soundcloud.com/richard-clermont/ ... in-details

Cheers,

[spider-j]

I perhaps focus more on the melody/development side as I'm pretty weak on stuff like sound design and production myself

The funny thing is I think the same about me and still we seem to come to different conclusions
In the end we're all human so voting is never really 'objective'. I guess we all try as much as we can, but 'as much as we can' is already subjective to the core

[bjporter]

I perhaps focus more on the melody/development side as I'm pretty weak on stuff like sound design and production myself

The funny thing is I think the same about me and still we seem to come to different conclusions
In the end we're all human so voting is never really 'objective'. I guess we all try as much as we can, but 'as much as we can' is already subjective to the core

Yup exactly

The only problem is we've had cases where people game the system. Fortunately that is very rare.

[z.prime]

I think that's 'objective'?

Whoops; epic Freudian slip.

But yes, you'll notice I mentioned sound design AND selection. You're right, there are tons of patches and probably the workflow is faster once you get comfortable designing sounds with a synth, but certainly there's nothing wrong with using presets or tweaking them to fit your taste. It's still a matter of picking the right ones for the genre - sometimes that is as difficult as trying to design them from scratch, and certainly has the possibility to be more time consuming. I can't imagine going through all those Synth1 patches!!

Anyway, I'm not saying anyone's track is better or worse for any of these reasons; and you're absolutely entitled to give top marks to whatever tracks you like for whatever reasons. Was simply suggesting an approach to voting that I believe to be most fair for all participants when in the face of such a wide range of stylistic preferences.

[krepssound]

@krepsound

love the sound which pops up at 0:20. Is it a preset?

You mean the single sound echoing?
Not a preset but i can save it as preset.

[krepssound]

Voted.

My favorites were:
pedalsteeldrummer,
Saukar30,
z.prime,
Orboscope,
Loris DS

[Chris-S]

@krepsound
love the sound which pops up at 0:20. Is it a preset?

You mean the single sound echoing?
Not a preset but i can save it as preset.

Received. Thanks a lot.