One-Synth-Challenge: General discussion thread

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PHP + javascript would be a far more reliable choice.

Someone with experience using JS and html form widgets would know whether it's possible to use forms for this. If not (doesn't look possible to me, I've never seen such a thing) it may be necessary to write/draw your own list widget in JS.

This seems to work: http://marceljuenemann.github.io/angula ... o/#/simple

You'd be building a simple playlist containing track names and allowing them to be sorted. Play/stop/pause/prev/next and other buttons might be useful.

Reading the list and implementing the GUI is the easy part. Handling streaming might be a little more tricky.

Looking more into what "google app script" could possibly mean, I suppose you're referring to an array of frameworks and libraries. My style is to roll my own from scratch. This eliminates overhead and provides me with full god-like control of everything. In the "web" world it seems including every script on the planet is common practice. If this is the best way to do it someone else will have to.

Webjunk: Not my field. Retch.

Numbers aren't scary. They're your friends.
Free plug-ins for Windows, MacOS and Linux. Xhip Synthesizer v8.0 and Xhip Effects Bundle v6.7.
The coder's credo: We believe our work is neither clever nor difficult; it is done because we thought it would be easy.
Work less; get more done.

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Reading back my post seemed a little harsh. Wasn't meant that way.

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The Google solution would be the quick and dirty solution,.just to test the alternative voting.

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Voting system should be changed so that you have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 points to distribute among your favorite top 5 tracks or to make a 10 point system where you'll score your best 10 tracks and that's it.
Or, to use existing 5 points slots and to drag 10 tracks you think they are the best and to value them from 1-5.

Scoring everyone is a waste of everyone's time.
There's literally no point of scoring bad tracks. You should just come to score what matters and not having a lobotomy to score everyone right and objectively. What's the f**king point of that? There's no any.

When a guy who can't sing comes to a singing contest you score him with:"You can't sing, f**k off".
That's his score. Zero.
You don't score him with:"Try harder, learn this or that, one day you'll learn how to sing, here's 2 or 3 for you. But you know what, that other guy who also can't sing sang worse than you, I gave him 2, I'll give you 3, but you can't win anyways, thanks a bunch for wasting my time".

Second thing, when you pick 5 or 10 tracks for which you think are the best by having 1-5 points or 1-10 points to spread among them that's like having a 100 point system where you can fine tune your scoring.
You picked your favorites and then you have 1-5 or 1-10 points to fine tune your voting.

That's the WHOLE POINT, other 90 % of tracks which couldn't win were dragging down the voting system because you are forced to score them all and distribute points on what doesn't even matter because it can't win anyways.

It's ridiculous, it's not making any sense. Focus should be on what matters, on what's good, on what has value and not scoring 90% of tracks that can't win and experiencing lobotomy to value them, to compare them and to objectively score them.

Even if we take already existing 5 points slots and make it that you should pick 10 best tracks and place them into a 5 points slots: 2 x 5s, 2 x 4s, 2 x 3s, 2 x 2's, 2 x 1's we would still have much better scoring system than from being forced to score every single track.

This also means that people like Wags will keep ending up without points whatsoever all the time, but since he's all about scoring the best tracks better and even wants to pay BJ to change the voting system, I'm sure that he won't mind ending up with zero points all the time. After all, he spent 2 years carrying about the contest and not carrying only about himself, that's why I believe into every word he said.

The whole idea that everyone should be scored is simply stupid.
When you eliminate everything that can't win and focus on what can win and you have 5 or 10 points to distribute on what's actually good you have basically a 100 point system where you can fine tune your voting to a tiniest details. I'm expecting from Wags to 100% agrees with this.

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Omg, I agree with you! :o

Edit - maybe I don't agree :ud:

I guess people would still like to know where they ended up. I wonder how many tracks will end up with no points at all in this case. :?

Anyway, scoring 'bad' tracks is the easy part.
Don't like the word bad btw..

Also lets not forget that the osc is way bigger (to me anyway) than scoring / voting tracks.

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brainzistor wrote: Scoring everyone is a waste of everyone's time.
There's literally no point of scoring bad tracks. You should just come to score what matters and not having a lobotomy to score everyone right and objectively. What's the f**king point of that? There's no any.
Am I right that the OSC used to not score everyone's tracks in earlier times? Is there anyone with long enough memory to confirm that and maybe say a little about how it worked and why it was changed?

Personally I think feedback is really important for the participants - like myself - who are never (yet :D ) among the winners. Comments are optional (and appreciated when they come) - so without the feedback of the score I imagine it could easily get pretty discouraging. Little milestones like 'not being in the bottom 10' or 'hitting the half way point' would not be visible.

Would it not make it more about winning and less about learning and sharing? (I'm not sure myself - just putting the question out there :) )

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zarf wrote:... Am I right that the OSC used to not score everyone's tracks in earlier times? Is there anyone with long enough memory to confirm that and maybe say a little about how it worked and why it was changed? ...
Yes, you are right. When I joined OSC in December 2011 with OSC#35 (oh wow, what a long time!) we had a system to only vote for your personal top 5, giving 5 to 1 points. And we were asked to write some words why we choose them. We had this system till OSC#52 in May 2013. Than we changed to the system to give everyone 1-5 points like we have now.
For the OSC#60 (Any-Synth btw) we had to sort ALL 68 entries to give 1-68 points. That was a nightmare. It is impossible to make this correct and fair. And it takes way too much time. We only had this system once. But I will never get 2980 points again :D

I think we changed the system, because so many entries got no points. And that means no feedback where you are for those in the lower ranks. And we had to give the points with posts in the forum. So everyone could see who gets how many points from whom. Some saw a risk with this to make tactical votings or to get influenced by other voters.

Personally, I can live with the 5 point system we have now, I have no problems to choose the points for each track. And I think the discussion would not stop, if we change to any other system. You will never get a 100% agreement from all participants. All systems do have their pro and cons.
soundcloud.com/photonic-1

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@photonic
Thanks for the super-helpful history lesson :) It helps to get a longer perspective sometimes. I imagine it can get more than a little frustrating for the 'old timers' to see the same old conversations returning over and over the years!

If I had a vote, it would be this: try a 10pt system only if there is sufficient widespread interest // keep scoring everybody (not just winners) // relax and make music :)

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brainzistor wrote:Voting system should be changed so that you have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 points to distribute among your favorite top 5 tracks or to make a 10 point system where you'll score your best 10 tracks and that's it.
...
Thank you, brainzistor - This could have been my *Troll* words! But be aware that you have to meet the requirements of the most reliable of control instruments the "generosity index"!
Image
What you can also think of, is to compare any pair out of the n submissions and for any pair (a,b) say "a is better than b" or vise versa. If you do this over all "n over 2" combinations then you'll end up with a total ordering, but also this is a hell lot of work when n grows...it's just growing quadratic. So keeping in mind that voting is totaly subjective, OSC should be fun and not - quote - "a waste of time", I would go for your suggestion and have 10,9,8,...,1 points to distribute.

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wagtunes wrote: you COULD (COULD, COULD COULD)
:lol: How empowering!
aciddose wrote: This is the only solution possible
:phew: Well, that's a releif! Ok, pack it up, guys.
aciddose wrote:if you aren't really interested in seeing any improvement what place have you to complain?
Oh, I know :hyper: KVR OSC!
Oh, it was rhetorical, not literal...

When considering a system where you simply place the tracks in the order that you think they deserve, it's only your attitude that will make it as easy as you like. That attitude shift might also translate to other aspects of life.

Dare I say it, s-s-S-Synthesizers!! :D
*crickets chirp*

Oh the mda synth pack has skins now, that's nice. Rebranding as "Dead Duck Software" sounds like a recipe for success.

Don't get me started on effects rules, though that's a much more useful discussion than the voting because it actually has significant real-world, habit-forming ramifications. Almost all relevant terms used to put limitations in place at OSC are ineffective to use as blanket terms because they apply to everything.
There is a surprising abundance of simultaneous excessive leniency and excessive restrictiveness so it's much easier to just laugh and do something useful with life.
- like make something.

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I did explain already that in a ranked-ballot system you can only focus on the top ten and leave the remaining tracks in random order.

The result is exactly the same as using a scoring system with ten points, plus some noise.

Since you didn't care about the "bad" tracks anyway you shouldn't care about noise.

In other words a ranked-ballot system is better because it can do everything any other system can do (with the right rules for it) but has many options and is far more flexible for everyone: most importantly the voter! The voter can vote for exactly what they want to, exactly how they want to without any system influencing them, limiting their free choices or forcing them to vote in a certain way.

For those interested in such stuff:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow's_i ... ty_theorem
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibbard%E ... te_theorem

Otherwise though yes I agree completely: the method of voting is not very important until you end up accidentally electing something you didn't want. In OSC the only real issue is "fairness" for those who wanted to win and didn't due to the voting system. (I have refused to vote due to the unreasonable system making my influence unsatisfactorily predictable. I don't know what I'm really voting with 1-5.)

This discussion as far as I'm aware was brought about due to two objections: 1) The high probability of ties due to many identical votes. 2) Not enough options. The only systems that solve both are ranked-ballot systems.

The most fair system in a case where the result doesn't matter is a lottery.
Free plug-ins for Windows, MacOS and Linux. Xhip Synthesizer v8.0 and Xhip Effects Bundle v6.7.
The coder's credo: We believe our work is neither clever nor difficult; it is done because we thought it would be easy.
Work less; get more done.

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] Peter:H [ wrote:Sorry to start another stream of discussion: Listening to I feel that the real spirit of OSC would be not only a restriction to One Synth but also a restriction in FX usage.
What do you think about it? Would it be an Option to have a future round where...
a.) ...there's a limited set of FX given (predetermined by one of the admins) and ...
b.) ...you can only use n FX instances overall, which means you have to decide for instance to use more reverbs or more EQs...
What do you think?

Regards
] Peter:H [
The trade-off is I think that without any effects or with very limited use of effects it places far more importance upon the quality of the individual effects and their usage. For example you might limit "only one reverb" but this could be applied using sends. The focus is supposed to be on the synthesizer, right?

It also would very likely decrease the total quality of many tracks. Tracks made without effects can tend to sound very boring. Especially EQ and reverb effects can radically improve the quality of a track without changing the timbre of the sounds themselves much at all. Without them it might make an otherwise great composition sound very boring and uncomfortable to listen to.

I think the purpose of the existing limits on effects is to avoid allowing the timbre of the synthesizer to be changed too much. For example with a heavy distortion followed by a thick phaser and auto-wah envelope follower applied to a synth it might sound nothing like the actual synth sound used: in other words it might be impossible even for someone very familiar with the sound/preset to identify that sound if such effects are used.
Free plug-ins for Windows, MacOS and Linux. Xhip Synthesizer v8.0 and Xhip Effects Bundle v6.7.
The coder's credo: We believe our work is neither clever nor difficult; it is done because we thought it would be easy.
Work less; get more done.

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1st of June! Looking forward to the next challenge and I am very curious what synth and special rules are up for #100 (I know the "real" #100 was #98 but it feels special anyway)!

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I dream for another 'Any one synth' :):):)It's nice to have choice :)

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aciddose wrote:
] Peter:H [ wrote:Sorry to start another stream of discussion: Listening to I feel that the real spirit of OSC would be not only a restriction to One Synth but also a restriction in FX usage.
What do you think about it? Would it be an Option to have a future round where...
a.) ...there's a limited set of FX given (predetermined by one of the admins) and ...
b.) ...you can only use n FX instances overall, which means you have to decide for instance to use more reverbs or more EQs...
What do you think?

Regards
] Peter:H [
The trade-off is I think that without any effects or with very limited use of effects it places far more importance upon the quality of the individual effects and their usage. For example you might limit "only one reverb" but this could be applied using sends. The focus is supposed to be on the synthesizer, right?

It also would very likely decrease the total quality of many tracks. Tracks made without effects can tend to sound very boring. Especially EQ and reverb effects can radically improve the quality of a track without changing the timbre of the sounds themselves much at all. Without them it might make an otherwise great composition sound very boring and uncomfortable to listen to.

I think the purpose of the existing limits on effects is to avoid allowing the timbre of the synthesizer to be changed too much. For example with a heavy distortion followed by a thick phaser and auto-wah envelope follower applied to a synth it might sound nothing like the actual synth sound used: in other words it might be impossible even for someone very familiar with the sound/preset to identify that sound if such effects are used.
About Quality of FX: That's why I said the set of possible FX is also given by Admins of the contest. This way all would start from the same grounds...I know, this would give people an advantage that are best freinds already with some of the preset FX...no system is perfect

About Boring: After all it is called OneSynthChallenge...could be that the synth itself is boring?

About Timbre Change: The rules are very vague there. It says don't use an FX in a way that the resulting sound is no longer recognizable as coming from the synth. But I myself use distortion, I saw some tracks using TAL DUB and other "extended" Delays and Limiters which work as Saturators and Compressors which can be used to do Soft Clipping...It's hard for me to say this is correct and this is wrong...

A further self restriction would act like it is in the demo scene with different categories like "4K", "64k"...You know Demo group "Farbrausch": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffPPmrLbTyw BTW: Some Demo Groups have developed their own Synths as well as all of their visuals and music is generated on the fly...

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