One Synth Challenge #121: Any One Synth (Rellik Wins!)

[TrojakEW]

I have the naive ideology of thinking that who is free from commercial restrains would produce more interesting and beautiful music.

There is nothing wrong with your way of thinking. We all have different taste for different things. Numbers are just numbers, score just show preference of selected people but not opinion of all people on the world. Everything is normal and everyone here does great job.

What I agree is that people tend to give only kind of positive feedback. Like they are worry that it will affect voting. So we usually see something like: Nice, Great, good work and so on with some exceptions.

Congrats to all not just winners but I must say that Relik's track have some great sound design with proper use of those sounds so it was only one track that I forget about everything else like mix and stuff. It just make me concentrate my mind to this great sounds.

[Harry_HH]

I understand the tendency staying on the small talk level - giving here any comment outside the conformist genre/”expert” mainstream, seem immediately wake up bunch of people, who are itching to prove, that your opinion is absolutely wrong.

[TrojakEW]

If somebody prove that your opinion is wrong then you should be happy. This way you learn new things and gain new experience or you will do same mistakes over and over.

[Harry_HH]

If only the world was perfect, linear equation...

”Prove” was quotes in previous.
Somebody just said in this thread, that most of the things in music are subjective. This means, that anything can be”proved” either correct or wrong, good or bad.

Therefore the concept ”genre conformism” is essential.

[TrojakEW]

But you can't move forward without telling your opinion. You need to discuss this or there will be no progress at all. Moving forward doesn't mean always moving forward. We all do many mistakes during this process but it is better then staying all the time on same place.

[Leonard Bowman]

Interesting developments here...

1) feel free to be critical in comments, especially to me. I want to learn, and it's hard to grow when everyone tells you everything is fine.

2) be open to experimentation. Some very interesting music gets dismissed as weird, uncomfortable, out of tune, beatless, unsteady, etc. but sometimes that's the point. If you start by assuming that everything was done on purpose to achieve some greater goal, you'll find a lot more depth in the music you listen to. Don't dismiss that as a technical failiure or accident until you know it is.

3) stay friendly, or at least respectful. that's what makes OSC fun (for me at least).

[zarf]

I welcome critical feedback.
And to be fair, I feel I often receive it in the track comments, so thanks for that folks, it's helpful.

Regarding commenting - I don't think there is any harm in being encouraging, and I also agree that some insight into what people don't like is super helpful. Especially when the scores are low - I always think it is great to understand more about where people are coming from and why they don't rate a track highly.

Also,as a non-expert, sometimes I'm not confident enough in my perception to give criticism! Or when it is just my taste I tend not to say so much (does it help you if I say 'I don't really like this style of music?' - I tend to think it is better if I focus on the sounds and production, not just my preferences. This makes it easier to be less biased against 'weird' or experimental stuff, too

[ilmai]

Welp, looks like I need to actually finish a track next time

[mmGhost]

Welp, looks like I need to actually finish a track next time

very much look forward to it!

[bsp804]

Congratulations to all of you for participating !

(and especially to the winners, of course)

I'm really happy for Rellik, that track was my favourite since it combines technical mastery with awesome playing chops / musicality.
https://soundcloud.com/rellyk/rellik-out-here-again

[Scrubbing Monkeys]

congrats to all the winners. It could have gone either way for 1st or 2nd for me. Both tracks were amazing. There wasn’t much gap between any position which means it was quite competitive and the field was strong. I truly enjoyed participating and hope to do it again soon.

[eraze the borders]

Congrats to the top 5!

As for critical comments and constructive feedback, I'm always open for it so that I can improve.

Thanks for being such a respectful community OSC

[CS_TBL]

It's actually a bit weird to give any comments on anything. Here's why;

Musically (the notes, so to say) there's no accounting for taste, you can stand on your head all you want, but there's not much you can do about it.

In terms of sound design, it matters which synth is chosen. The top-3 has two FM8-entries, and from my own experience: FM8 is indeed a very complete synth, you can do about everything with it. Others may have picked a smaller/simpler synth that is less flexible and less complete, so who am I to point out sound design issues like 'yer params are wrong, mmkay'? A broad synth like FM8 could make things easier, and give an entry the edge because of that. At the same time, many people are still alienated by it because it's still FM. So, does FM8 have the edge here or not?

Also, what's the value of someone making a tune with simple sounds? E.g. a standaard sawtooth bass (osc->filter->envelope(F,A)->chorus). I would say there's little sound design merit in that, but what if it does work in context of a song? How to rate those merits then? What are we rating anyway? Sound-design or song-writing skills? See, a good song can mask average/bad sound design.

So, tough to comment others. I will say, however, that Rellik was my only 5-star rating. Good composition, very interesting drum sounds. I can certainly see the merits in both of these aspects.

[TrojakEW]

In terms of sound design, it matters which synth is chosen.

Yes but only a little. More important is the person who using it. No matter the synth or synthesis used. You can give me fastest car on the world but I still loose the race even to the walking person. Why? Because I do not know ho to drive.

Also, what's the value of someone making a tune with simple sounds? E.g. a standaard sawtooth bass (osc->filter->envelope(F,A)->chorus). I would say there's little sound design merit in that, but what if it does work in context of a song? How to rate those merits then? What are we rating anyway? Sound-design or song-writing skills? See, a good song can mask average/bad sound design.

Choosing correct sound for composition is important part. It doesn't mean that sound have to be complex or unique. Creating track using only basic shapes like sine, saw, square is challenging. It is not that you mask or hide average sound design but it is about proper use of those sounds no matter the complexity of the preset you made or use.

So yes your opinion important. At leat you used your opinion for voting. Or do you use random number generator to distribute points? So you can always share this (your) opinion.

[schiing]

Thanks for enjoying my piece - and I'd definitely say that the right track won! Go, commerce!

(Seriously, though, liqih: I share your view that some tracks don't get all the love they deserve on OSC, and yours are among them. But I'm not convinced that you're serving your own arguments very well by jumping so quickly to conclusions about other people's motivations for voting and making music.)

I'll pass on my prize.