One Synth Challenge #112: Synth1 by Ichiro Toda (Photonic Wins!)

[bjporter]

Welcome to the One Synth Challenge #112! It's a friendly music competition where you can win cool prizes but most importantly, meet amazing musicians, and learn a lot about mixing, sound design, and more!


Submissions will show up here once voting starts:
https://soundcloud.com/kvrosc/sets/one- ... 112-synth1


Want a chat room with other OSCers? Join our slack here



Enjoy this classic.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kuw-IreZfL4


Prizes:
(Would you like to be a sponsor / prize donor? Contact me via PM or go ahead and post your intended donation here! Get a cool mention on our donator wall of honor)


Special Note:
Soundemote and Ridan is offering a secondary prize (on top of the normal prize): If you would like your winning track on spotify, please specify so as well, or you will be contacted by rghvdberg.


Synthmorph: Any 1 soundset


KV331 Audio : Synthmaster One


Sonimus : Any one Plugin


Tritik : Echorus (effect plugin)


Soundemote : PrettyScope (beautiful analog oscilloscope), you may choose this as a secondary prize on top of your regular prize.


Audio Thing : Outer Space (vintage tape echo plugin)


NUSofting : 1 Copy of Modelonia v2 Synthesizer


JRR Shop : UVI: Digital Synsations (vintage 90's synth sample library and player)


Dmitry Sches : Tantra Multi-Effect + 3 Expansions


Dmitry Sches : Diversion


Touch The Universe Productions: LuSH-101 Cloud Layers soundset


The FXB Project by alvfaria : Any 3 commercial sound banks. See the main site here


Guda Audio : Euterpe XL


Wusik : 1 bundle of Wusik 8000, Wusik Station 8, and Wusik EVE v3


Abstract Cats Music : AbiTron Bank for Synthmaster


satYatunes : One of any commercial product


Xenos Soundworks : Choice of any 1 product


Ghostwave Audio : Any two soundsets of Choice


Twolegs Toneworks : Any one soundset


The Unfinished : Any two soundsets of Choice


Rob Lee Music or here : A soundset for either: Sylenth1, Predator, Largo, Blofeld, PPGV3 or Dune


Luftrum : One soundset free of choice.


Ridan: Any one soundset as a secondary prize, on top of the regular prize.
haunting soundscapes, atmospheric chords, layered pads, anamorphic guitars,
brass and woodwind-esque, rhythmic/melodic sequences, and macabre sound effects.


Kreativ Sound: RAW Bundle
(RAW Bass, RAW Drums, RAW TranSID, RAW Textures)


Aiyn Zahev Sounds: Any 2 Soundsets of choice from the website (Uplifting Trance Presets)


Studio 13.37: Pro audio studio on a USB stick


Pooya Payvar (Stonail) : 1 custom made Max for [Ableton] Live: controller, midi or audio effect


Mulperi : 1 Soundbank of Choice


Dream Audio Tools : 1 Indie Fingers bundle (Indie Fingers volumes One and Two)


Bjulin : Inspire soundset for Zebra²


LeapIntoTheVoid : Enchantment Of Absynth Trilogy


Bluff Munkey - 2 soundsets of choice


Solidtrax : 1 Soundset of choice


Any other offers of prizes will be greatly appreciated.


Questions? Comments? Concerns? You want some love? Just post here in this thread


Want to try out your skills in other contests / competitions /challenges?

• DiHalt Demoscene competitions
• Indaba - Has a mix of popular and indie artists with various contests like remixing and song writing. Some people from OSC have had success here.
• KVR Mix Challenge (see stickies) - Who can mix a song the best (Without adding extra recordings /musical additions)? Each person starts out with the same stems.
• Music Cafe (KVR, see stickies) - A thematic monthly competition. Use recording, real instruments, synths and samples.
• RemixComps - An aggregator for remix contests from a variety of artists and genres (mostly EDM) - indie and popular.
• Skio Music Contests - Lots of remixes you can join (Mostly EDM) - big prizes.
• Soundevotion (SDCOMPO) Competition - Even longer running than the OSC, the SDCOMPO is even more niche in that you must use a tracker, and set of specific effects. Great community.

[bh9090]

Where's Wags post about how he can't sit this one out??

[progtronic]

Wow!

Going back to where it all started.

Cool.

Edit:
Looks like OSC has used this synth a few times. Sort of a default synth of the month when nothing else is suggested?

[wagtunes]

Where's Wags post about how he can't sit this one out??

I'm done with these.

[jasinski]

Diggin' deep - going old school.

Me likey.

[574X]

An engineering marvel. So optimized... Nearly unmatched...

I always wish for a version of Synth1 that has a noise oscillator anywhere other than osc 2.

The extra-credit challenge is making it to the top without massive reverbs and 6 compressors on every instance.
Granted, it seems that's how most synthesized music is nowadays...

[EDGEK8D]

Did they ever fix the broken filter on 64-bit AU? If I remember correctly only the 4-pole LPF works. Irked me last time and I didn’t submit.

[zerofox97]

A synth that requires no introduction. It rivals many other synths in terms of quality and fits well anywhere. I might join in this month, but I have no idea of what to do. My mind's been really blank recently, lots of false starts in my projects folder as of late.

[royosho]

The extra-credit challenge is making it to the top without massive reverbs and 6 compressors on every instance.

I'm new to one synth challenge. Are you saying the contest has no rules against using external effects?

[Edit] nm, I read the rules. Wish people couldn't use external effects, honestly. Then it'd really be about making music with one synth, having to work with its strengths AND weaknesses, and the sound produced would be 100% the synth, not synth + fx. People would appreciate a synth's capabilities on it own, rather than utilizing crutches to make it sound better. Just my opinion, I'm sure some people will disagree, but I'm not gonna argue, just think it'd be cooler.

[EDGEK8D]

The extra-credit challenge is making it to the top without massive reverbs and 6 compressors on every instance.

I'm new to one synth challenge. Are you saying the contest has no rules against using external effects?

There are definitely rules, see the OSC home page. You can use any and all stock DAW effects, or plugins that are a free download to everyone. No chorus/esmemble/flanger/phaser modulation.....or any FX which completely mangle the sound making it unrecognizable.

Every sound must be made with Synth1 including drums and FX.

Its fun, and it WILL improve your sysnthesis skills. Good luck.

[progtronic]

...I read the rules. Wish people couldn't use external effects, honestly. Then it'd really be about making music with one synth, having to work with its strengths AND weaknesses, and the sound produced would be 100% the synth, not synth + fx...

The rules are pretty clear to not overuse any external FX.. so it works out, for the most part.

Any weak qualities of a synth should be dealt with, tweaked and fixed, at the raw patch design level.. else additional FX may augment any issues.

Garbage in > garbage out (with echo!!!echo!!!echo!!!)...

Also.. not being able to use additional filters, would make the creation of percussion almost impossible in the case of most synths. Fathom was probably one of the very few synths that had just about everything on board you might need to tweak and fix stuff before it left the VST.

[royosho]

not being able to use additional filters, would make the creation of percussion almost impossible in the case of most synths.

Good point, not all synths have noise oscillators necessarily. I guess, now I understand why distortion isn't prohibited.

Fair enough, I'm interested to see what people create. I think there's even some prominent artist who only uses synth1 to create entire albums.

[schiing]

I'm new to one synth challenge. Are you saying the contest has no rules against using external effects?

[Edit] nm, I read the rules. Wish people couldn't use external effects, honestly. Then it'd really be about making music with one synth, having to work with its strengths AND weaknesses, and the sound produced would be 100% the synth, not synth + fx. People would appreciate a synth's capabilities on it own, rather than utilizing crutches to make it sound better. Just my opinion, I'm sure some people will disagree, but I'm not gonna argue, just think it'd be cooler.

Welcome to the OSC! I started out in January, and I keep coming back - it's been a great way to get more into the programming side of my music making. And the re-appearance of Synth 1 is a wonderful surprise! Best of luck this month.

The next bit may come off somewhat like a rant against your stance. It really isn't. I respect your view and you make some good and valid points. I just started to philosophize on the issue, and I probably ended up sounding a little more passionate than I actually am - I blame it on shortcomings in my English skills

I get where you're coming from, and for my first challenge I tried to avoid effects altogether (I didn't quite make it in the end).

But I think it's a good thing that you can utilize free/DAW effects. A wide range of styles would often be excluded if no effects were to be allowed (ambient, soundtrack, soaring trance comes to mind). And who's to say what's the true character of a synth? Is the true character of the Berliner Philharmoniker to be found in a dry recording made in an acoustically dead room, presented with no processing? Hardly - context and environment matters.

I mean, the way I see it, the mixing and production process highlights the possibilities of the synth - this is how you present your musical ideas and ultimately, if done right, it's what makes your track musically sound.

You need reverb to create depth, you need compression to work in a lot of the current styles, you need eq to balance your mix properly - it's how the different parts of your music communicate, how you bring your listeners into a multidimensional world where they can make sense of what they're hearing.

Without any of that, you're merely lining up your sounds in a row with blindfolds, no tracks talking together, and the OSC becomes a technical exercise for "academic" purposes. And that's simply not fair to the synth. In my humble opinion, of course.

[Guenon]

[royosho]

You need reverb to create depth, you need compression to work in a lot of the current styles, you need eq to balance your mix properly - it's how the different parts of your music communicate, how you bring your listeners into a multidimensional world where they can make sense of what they're hearing.

Without any of that, you're merely lining up your sounds in a row with blindfolds, no tracks talking together, and the OSC becomes a technical exercise for "academic" purposes. And that's simply not fair to the synth. In my humble opinion, of course.

I wouldn't disagree with most of what you said, other than the quoted section above, especially where you said "you need" etc etc. One of my favorite styles of synth music is 16 bit SEGA music created with only one FM synth and no reverb, eq, compression. The people who made it didn't "need" any fx to produce some of the most intelligent, beautiful music passages with lots of intertwining "talking" phrases and tracks. However, I see your point, and agree with most of it.