KVR Audio

ontrackp · Post by **ontrackp** » Sat May 09, 2015 4:38 pm

z.prime wrote:That's true about FX vs. not in terms of being able to make better tracks. However, having some super-special DAW EQ or reverb or whatever really isn't much of an advantage, honestly. The free FX are pretty close to being on par with even the best commercial ones, just usually with a less polished interface.

I've talked with Brian every now and then about the possibility of doing a special month with no FX and a special month with all FX allowed, no holds barred. Maybe there would be a consensus doing one or both of these as a 1-time thing and see how it goes. My gut feeling is: limiting to just the synth and no FX will result in significantly fewer people joining and significantly worse tracks (of course this is highly dependent on the synth - e.g. maybe it has built-in eq or something to mitigate some of the inability to mix). The overall mix and master would be awful with everyone's tracks going over 0; allowing all FX would result in some amazing entries albeit with sounds "unrecognizable from the synth".

I agree with Z. Better plug ins are not going give someone a big advantage in OSC. If this were just a mixing competition that would be different, but we have to be sound designers, composers, arrangers, and audio engineers -- the plug ins are just a small part of that. There are so many DAW's out with different versions of the same basic effects that I think it makes no difference at all which one you use. At the end of the day if you compose a bad song but use great processing, it's still a bad song. And a great song is still going to be great even if you have to use a stock compressor, reverb and eq to massage your mix.

Not allowing any effects would make this contest a whole lot less interesting to me, as I enjoy focusing on mixing and production.

And for the record I would vote yes for the exception for sawsq. This is a friendly competition!

mehum · Post by **mehum** » Sat May 09, 2015 4:45 pm

wagtunes wrote: But fix all of what I just mentioned and put it on a track with poor quality FX and your track suffers considerably and you STILL won't win. You'll do better than with a poor song and mix and sound selection, but you still won't win. I will put money on that.

This is where I think you're wrong. It's all about knowing what to do with the tools, not what tools you have.
If you don't know how to apply compression you won't get a better result with a $1000 outboard than with what you have in Cubase.
Except for maybe reverb that's the case with any effect. (and the way most people seem to use reverb you could just add some white noise in the background anyway

)

If you listen to the tracks just posted here it's certainly not what effects they're using that make these tracks great. If we take the sound design out of the equation, since these sounds are available to anybody in the shared patches, it's the attention to detail and especially in the form of automation. It has absolutely nothing to do with what compressor or delay they've chosen to work with.

How much is that bet?

ontrackp · Post by **ontrackp** » Sat May 09, 2015 4:52 pm

wagtunes wrote:
But fix all of what I just mentioned and put it on a track with poor quality FX and your track suffers considerably and you STILL won't win. You'll do better than with a poor song and mix and sound selection, but you still won't win. I will put money on that.

What DAW has poor quality FX?

RichardSemper · Post by **RichardSemper** » Sat May 09, 2015 5:10 pm

Voted!

Rcl · Post by **Rcl** » Sat May 09, 2015 6:16 pm

mehum wrote:
wagtunes wrote: But fix all of what I just mentioned and put it on a track with poor quality FX and your track suffers considerably and you STILL won't win. You'll do better than with a poor song and mix and sound selection, but you still won't win. I will put money on that.

quote]

Except for maybe reverb that's the case with any effect. (and the way most people seem to use reverb you could just add some white noise in the background anyway )

Funny... heres where I really miss Valhalla Room. Ambience and Epic are ok. I just dont seem to be able to tweak them to well.

bjporter · Post by **bjporter** » Sat May 09, 2015 6:42 pm

Best words I've heard all week:

mehum wrote: It's all about knowing what to do with the tools, not what tools you have.

A perfect example was Irion Da Ronin, one of the most legendary Challengers here in our history. He won a bunch of times using old crappy headphones, trial version of Fruity Loops, and sometimes only had 8 hours to finish a track, because you couldn't save it.

Parduz · Post by **Parduz** » Sat May 09, 2015 8:20 pm

I wonder how it could be an OS-OD-C (One Synth, One DAW Contest) by using something like Steem to emulate an Atari running Cubase 1.0 free

bjporter · Post by **bjporter** » Sat May 09, 2015 8:29 pm

wagtunes wrote: Well, I say we go back to the "ye olden days." No FX, period. Only whatever the synth can produce. That absolutely puts everybody on the same level playing field.

Right now, we have nothing even close to that.

Wagtunes, I went over this in a PM to you, but you keep bringing up how unfair this contest is. We've gone through an evolution of several years, and things have worked out very well (and the 'ye olden days' was simply part of the evolution. Based on demand, V'ger, who took over from Tattiemannie, had votes to implement the new rules. These were majority votes, and not imposed against everyone's will).

The people who get in the top 10 absolutely deserve it, and it has little to do with the tools, and everything with the skill and dedication.

The OSC is like a triathlon - and if you don't master part of the skills needed, you won't get as far. It is as simple as that. Composition, sound designing, mixing, layering are essential skills. Mastering is not essential at all. The mix is orders of magnitude greater than mastering. 256kb/s or 128kb/s, it doesn't matter. Dithering, or no dithering? Doesn't matter. To some it does, but not the majority.

I laid out in the PM the areas that you yourself said you should work on. Now how about we get working in those areas?

bjporter · Post by **bjporter** » Sat May 09, 2015 9:41 pm

Should we allow commercial plugins?

Discussion and pros and cons listed here: http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 6#p6128736

actioncat · Post by **actioncat** » Sat May 09, 2015 9:58 pm

Hey guys, I meant to join in this OSC but my room flooded (3 times!) and I had too much going on all month, but I'll be in on this month's.... but anyway, just checked in here to see how everything's going, and I keep noticing all this debate about FX, and specifically stuff about unfairness like this from wagtunes:

"This system clearly gives an advantage to those who have been doing this longer because they already know what's allowed and what's not and how far you can push things. Relative newcomers like myself are going to be more careful, or more reckless, depending on their nature, and either have their track tossed out because they "didn't know" what was allowed or have their track score poorly because they were too afraid to do anything outside of the minimum, like myself.

How many "newbies" are going to nail that fine line right on the head?

So ultimately, you are now being rewarded for how many of these OSCs you've managed to slug your way through."

I really felt I needed to chime in here, osc 72 (Eclipsis) was my first ever. I had no problem at all understanding the rules, (though I did read them over like 4 times during the creation of my track to make sure I didn't do something stupid and obviously not allowed) I tried to keep effects to a minimum because I personally wanted to, but used what I needed to make my track sound nice without fear, because that's how you make a song. Oh and on submission, found I mixed my track way quieter than everyone else. But I got 11th, out of a pretty small showing I think, but still, more than happy with the results, and I feel you're wrong about the current system. Just had to share my experience and opinions as one of the disadvantaged newcomers.

key88 · Post by **key88** » Sun May 10, 2015 1:15 am

Voted

key88 · Post by **key88** » Sun May 10, 2015 1:35 am

I'm not to sure what is unfair about this contest. I know my stuff is a bit on the outside of commercial and not that I'm in the same league as T. S. Monk, neither was he. I just view this as an opportunity to force the issue of doing some composing and getting it done on deadline. It is definitely not about effects, yes some reverb for depth, compression to avoid clipping, and non modulating delays for space, though the same effect could be created by doubling the midi part and pushing it back a few or more ticks.

People even listen to my stuff and make snarky and sometimes nice comments about it, it's free and fun, what more can I ask for.

You could try the kvr music cafe contest, where there is a strict time limit, and a theme to adhere to

Believe me life is to short to fret over this kind of stuff.

Best

RuediRena · Post by **RuediRena** » Sun May 10, 2015 8:12 am

key88 wrote:People even listen to my stuff and make snarky and sometimes nice comments about it, it's free and fun, what more can I ask for.

You could try the kvr music cafe contest, where there is a strict time limit, and a theme to adhere to

Believe me life is to short to fret over this kind of stuff.

Amen.

bh9090 · Post by **bh9090** » Sun May 10, 2015 9:51 am

Voted.

Hats off to Keith303, H-Man, Jasinski, and Z. Your tracks are great and your consistency is impressive.

Some really good stuff (lots or 4s). Some decent, and some, well, I just got confused. Probably just me..

animehaus · Post by **animehaus** » Sun May 10, 2015 3:13 pm

Voted

One Synth Challenge #74: DEXED (Jasinski Wins!)