One Synth Challenge #72: Eclipsis by VSTZONE (Richard Semper Wins!)

[RichardSemper]

Congrats to the winners. I have to say I'm extremely disappointed with my own results. After the SM challenge is complete and voting is in this same time next month I'll decide whether it makes any sense for me to enter anymore of these.

try not to be too disappointed. I enjoyed your track this month, along with the majority of other tracks. In fact my first OSC entry only made no 42 of 75 (and its still one of my favourites) The fact is there is so much to gain from OSC whatever position you may reach.

[z.prime]

I'll pass on a prize, unless there's one to give me magic music making abilities. Is there? No... dangit!

Next to you fese.

[animehaus]

First of all, thanks to everyone for listening and voting, and congratulations to all contestants: once again, really great entries. And thanks to TrojakEW for this amazing synth, one of my favorites on OSC so far. And I always forget to thank BJP for his continuous hard work - sorry, bro!

But I want to send special congratulations to Richard Semper - mate, I'm so happy that you managed to get the top spot! It's been a long time since you debuted here, on OSC CM, and you've always created astonishing tracks on all contests. Not to mention that you've always been such a gentleman with everyone here on OSC. Really happy for you!

In fact my first OSC entry only made no 42 of 75 (and its still one of my favourites) The fact is there is so much to gain from OSC whatever position you may reach.

I do agree with you: "Joy of Flight" is definitely one of your best tracks, and the 42nd place at that contest doesn't make justice to its quality.

[Yeager]

Congrats Richard well deserved win

[idfpower]

Congratz to all entrants, especially the top 5, and of course, to my buddy, Animehaus (rock on, bro) All the best & have fun

[bjporter]

Congrats to the winners. I have to say I'm extremely disappointed with my own results. After the SM challenge is complete and voting is in this same time next month I'll decide whether it makes any sense for me to enter anymore of these.

try not to be too disappointed. I enjoyed your track this month, along with the majority of other tracks. In fact my first OSC entry only made no 42 of 75 (and its still one of my favourites) The fact is there is so much to gain from OSC whatever position you may reach.

My 2nd OSC entry got 14 of 15 back in the day, and had a few other lower ones, but no big deal at all. So you have to ask yourself, why are you doing OSC? Pure fun? Express creativity? Practice? Pure competition? Want a prize? etc etc. If you get a lower score it doesn't mean your stuff isn't good, just the voters have a different pallet. If you take a look at the last 15 OSC months and listen to the top 5 tracks, most of them have qualities which are different than the others. Mixing, nice bass, very nice layered/scultped percussion, good melodies, exciting changing up of sound, dynamics, etc, are all part of it. You could mix your style, which is mystical, and psychedelic to me, with the characteristics of these top 5 tracks. Maybe put a few in your DAW, and A/B them against yours?

[wagtunes]

Congrats to the winners. I have to say I'm extremely disappointed with my own results. After the SM challenge is complete and voting is in this same time next month I'll decide whether it makes any sense for me to enter anymore of these.

try not to be too disappointed. I enjoyed your track this month, along with the majority of other tracks. In fact my first OSC entry only made no 42 of 75 (and its still one of my favourites) The fact is there is so much to gain from OSC whatever position you may reach.

My 2nd OSC entry got 14 of 15 back in the day, and had a few other lower ones, but no big deal at all. So you have to ask yourself, why are you doing OSC? Pure fun? Express creativity? Practice? Pure competition? Want a prize? etc etc. If you get a lower score it doesn't mean your stuff isn't good, just the voters have a different pallet. If you take a look at the last 15 OSC months and listen to the top 5 tracks, most of them have qualities which are different than the others. Mixing, nice bass, very nice layered/scultped percussion, good melodies, exciting changing up of sound, dynamics, etc, are all part of it. You could mix your style, which is mystical, and psychedelic to me, with the characteristics of these top 5 tracks. Maybe put a few in your DAW, and A/B them against yours?

Yeah, I know. I just don't want to listen to the top tracks and copy the style. I still want to be me. Problem is, being me might not be "good enough" for the competition.

We'll see how this month goes.

[bjporter]

Yeah, I know. I just don't want to listen to the top tracks and copy the style. I still want to be me. Problem is, being me might not be "good enough" for the competition.

We'll see how this month goes.

I didn't mean copy their style at all. You should copy the characteristics that make a top 5 track, and apply it to your unique sound, which BTW, I think is fantastic. Look at the spectral analyzer, the volume, the eq, the placement of the sounds. How is the bass? How are the percussions? There are many things to learn from the top 5 tracks.

I'll never forget OSC50, when I was working on this cool 80's track, which i thought was going to be awesome, then Jasinski drops a MASSIVE bomb on us. His track is epic beyond belief, and forced me to scrap my track entirely. My track was too static, and thought I could add a bit more groove to it, and more variation like he did... it sorted worked out.

[wagtunes]

Yeah, I know. I just don't want to listen to the top tracks and copy the style. I still want to be me. Problem is, being me might not be "good enough" for the competition.

We'll see how this month goes.

I didn't mean copy their style at all. You should copy the characteristics that make a top 5 track, and apply it to your unique sound, which BTW, I think is fantastic. Look at the spectral analyzer, the volume, the eq, the placement of the sounds. How is the bass? How are the percussions? There are many things to learn from the top 5 tracks.

I'll never forget OSC50, when I was working on this cool 80's track, which i thought was going to be awesome, then Jasinski drops a MASSIVE bomb on us. His track is epic beyond belief, and forced me to scrap my track entirely. My track was too static, and thought I could add a bit more groove to it, and more variation like he did... it sorted worked out.

Yeah, I should probably download a few of the top tracks and listen to them in stereo to see how they're mixed. That'll probably make a big difference right there.

And then I'll have something to work with for April's synth, whatever it turns out to be.

In the meantime, I have so much "real work" to do I'm not really going to lose to much sleep over this.

Especially not when I'm up at 6 in the morning. LOL.

[z.prime]

I still want to be me. Problem is, being me might not be "good enough" for the competition

Of course it is! But, consider, like Brian said, there are lots of factors that come into play. A strong track has strong sounds on all fronts - this is a single synth competition, you know. Sounds, composition/creativity, production all play into it together. Coming up noticeably short in any of those areas will probably put you at a disadvantage. And yes, definitely download some of the top tracks and compare mixes. Doing an A/B comparison with yours will help get your levels/overall EQ in line with what might translate best to a large audience (and A/B'ing with a pro track you like the mix of would potentially do even better). Also remember, variation can be key in electronic music, too... not to say your track this month did or didn't have enough, just that adding that extra automation to parts helps make it come alive more a lot of the time.

[bjporter]

In the meantime, I have so much "real work" to do I'm not really going to lose to much sleep over this.

Especially not when I'm up at 6 in the morning. LOL.

Good luck

I'm still learning...

[wagtunes]

I still want to be me. Problem is, being me might not be "good enough" for the competition

Of course it is! But, consider, like Brian said, there are lots of factors that come into play. A strong track has strong sounds on all fronts - this is a single synth competition, you know. Sounds, composition/creativity, production all play into it together. Coming up noticeably short in any of those areas will probably put you at a disadvantage. And yes, definitely download some of the top tracks and compare mixes. Doing an A/B comparison with yours will help get your levels/overall EQ in line with what might translate best to a large audience (and A/B'ing with a pro track you like the mix of would potentially do even better). Also remember, variation can be key in electronic music, too... not to say your track this month did or didn't have enough, just that adding that extra automation to parts helps make it come alive more a lot of the time.

I guess the thing that bugged me is that I'm usually a pretty good evaluator of music. The two months I judged these things my +/- for voting was around 1 so I'm right around the norm and my picks are usually close with maybe only 1 or 2 big exceptions.

After hearing all the tracks and objectively evaluating my own (something I've gotten pretty good at doing) I expected to finish around 13th to 15th out of 27. Finishing close to the bottom had me a bit puzzled. I really think that had more to do with the composition than the mix but I guess there's no way to know for certain.

Believe me, I never expect to finish anywhere near the top 5. I don't have that kind of talent. But I'd like to think I'm pretty average. Of course if most people who enter these are all above average, well, that would explain my poor performance. Average against a room full of professionals would leave me dead last. So everything is relative.

I personally rated my track a 3 (even though I had to give myself a 1) and that's what I pretty much got from most people. It was all the 1s that really surprised me. That had to be more composition and/or style of music than the mix.

But whatever. Like I said, I'm not gonna lose any sleep over this. I'll just try to do better in April.

[bjporter]

I still want to be me. Problem is, being me might not be "good enough" for the competition

Of course it is! But, consider, like Brian said, there are lots of factors that come into play. A strong track has strong sounds on all fronts - this is a single synth competition, you know. Sounds, composition/creativity, production all play into it together. Coming up noticeably short in any of those areas will probably put you at a disadvantage. And yes, definitely download some of the top tracks and compare mixes. Doing an A/B comparison with yours will help get your levels/overall EQ in line with what might translate best to a large audience (and A/B'ing with a pro track you like the mix of would potentially do even better). Also remember, variation can be key in electronic music, too... not to say your track this month did or didn't have enough, just that adding that extra automation to parts helps make it come alive more a lot of the time.

+100

[wagtunes]

Well, I just listened to this month's entry and it's much better than last month's so I should do better. If not then it's definitely the compositional style not being in line with what the general membership here is into, which wouldn't surprise me since I grew up in the 60s and 70s and that's the music I like. Today's EDM just isn't in my soul.

In the end, we all have to be who we are or we're nobody.

[Touch The Universe]

Okay, just got out of class and all is good. Animehaus was kind enough to clarify what happens in the event of a tie. For those who don't know, to break the tie, it goes by who has the number of highest votes of 5, or 4,3,2, whichever breaks the tie. I think last time me and bjporter tied and we both received the same number of 5's, 4's, 3's, 2's and 1's, which is pretty remarkable if you think about it, hence the coin toss.

On a side note, I did notice something about my rankings for this osc compared to the previous hive osc. I put in a good 40-60 hours of work in that one, a lot time just focusing on the mixing aspects to give it sheen etc, or in the rhythm and variation aspects of the drums and bass, and came out around the tenth place. Whereas, this osc I put in just a few hours of melody composition and a nominal amount of time mixing and rythm composition and nearly came in the top 5. I'm not sure if its because I'm better at composition or at least quicker or that it just takes more time for me getting a good mix and variation to the parts. The 40-60 hours is kinda skewed since I used alot of it programming the sounds from scratch, and put into probably a 3rd of the time creating melodies i didn't have time to put it , but still its something to consider for now. Cheers