One Synth Challenge #165: BBC Symphony Orchestra Discover by Spitfire Audio (Schiing Wins!)

[nyxeles]

Voted.
Lots of excellent works as usual!

[puma17]

voted. great stuff

[doctorbob]

Voted. Still have some commenting to do!

dB

[zarf]

Voted. Great stuff! Many thanks to the people who have taken the time to comment on my track (and on so many others). My apologies I am super busy with work and cannot make time to do a commenting round this time.

[Frank Geppert]

I finally finished voting.
Last month was just crazy. I felt I was really getting ahead of myself, but then I heard such perfect pieces here that I'm sitting in front of my computer again in humility. All respect!

[bh9090]

Voted. These were hard to score.

[schiing]

Voted! Agreed, hard to vote. I'll share some thoughts – I just have to organize a bit first.

[liqih]

Voted. I think this month has shown me, more than ever before, the
different ways in which each of us chooses to enjoy music making.

[davi-dj]

I have voted this interesting a different round
The library has a good and realistic samples that makes all songs have a good sound (i have to search music created with the paid version to find out if i can percieve the difference from this one) this is different from anothers months that we can evaluate the sounds created.
I have to say that I've never think that i would be able to make an orquestal composition and less that I would listen so much classical-style because really I'm not a big fan of classical compositions, and that is a problem because i can't judge the quality of some compositions (maybe when i get older i start to listen the classical authors instead the loud electronic music )
but finnally I have selected the songs whose melodies or harmonies i enjoyed and the songs that have tryed to creat different styles using these orquestal sounds.
Good luck to all

[TheNeverScene]

Voted! But I might do some last minute shuffling. This was a tough month to spread things out without feeling like a grinch. Since everyone started with the same soundset, I initially voted based on how a piece made me feel but that seemed too biased. So, I resorted to reading comments (btw, sorry I did not comment much....I'm lame) and curved my votes SLIGHTLY on how it made others feel. Maybe not the best approach, but I was stumped!

Great round!

[emikaela]

voted

[RichardSemper]

I have voted.

[marks-a-whybikky]

Voted. This time without comment ...
Thanks to all for the remarks on my track! I wish everyone a nice and peaceful christmas and a prosperous new year.

[schiing]

Essay time. My voting was unusual this round (read: few on the top, and a lot of low scores), and I didn't leave any comments on Soundcloud. I realize orchestral scoring is a sidestep for most of us, but it was hard for me to look past certain basic aspects of orchestration when I judged the entries, and it's perhaps not entirely fair – I don't know.

I made these notes for my own use, so my comments might seem a bit more pointed than they would normally be. But I thought there were some interesting aspects to this challenge, and I decided to share them in a slightly edited form - in case anyone is curious about my thought process.

I should also note that I'm a sneaky coward for posting this literally minutes (honestly, cutting it that close is a coincidence! ) after the voting has ended, because I badly want to beat Taron's fantastic piece. I think/hope I might have a shot along with a few others – and I didn't want to risk anyone getting pissed off at me, punishing my score! (How's that for honesty?? I'm competitive!!) At least you can all have a good laugh at my presumptuousness when I end up somewhere outside the top 10! (I might never return again )

I feel badly – you're all wonderful people, you obviously put a lot of work into this round, and you gave it your best shot. I don't like to hand out 1s and 2s, and I might ultimately, you know, be wrong, so apologies in advance. Anyway, here we go:

• Difficult round to score, had to use the full scale for the first time
• On the positive side, many lower-scoring compositions would've been eminently listenable with real ensembles or better programming. So I think people did better in the songwriting department than in the tweaking department this round
• Interesting ideas, but often poor presentation, lack of expression/intent
• Many fatally overlong pieces
• Many composers unable/unwilling to use orchestral dynamics
• Major sameness on many tracks - block chords, little movement/variation between instrument sections, little variation in instrumentation density, little use of doublings, etc. – use the textures! They've been tried and tested for hundreds of years, and there's a reason they're still around
• Hardly any phrasing - a lot of flatly presented themes and motifs
• Too little focus on variation in dynamics and tempo - unnatural and boring as a result. Orchestral music lives and breathes, back and forth, slow and fast, loud and soft
• But that's not always the case - and many fell for the temptation to go for minimalism + some for expressionist ideas. Now, it's incredibly hard to create interesting minimalist and expressionist music using an orchestra with no round robins, no exotic playing techniques, and a small dynamic range – and the attempts quickly become tedious, sadly
• There's a lot of unintentional mid-90s MIDI sound, and while I think it might be impossible to avoid this completely, many don't seem to fully grasp the importance of programming and automation in virtual orchestral music – you can't play an orchestra like a piano
• You can of course experiment and use an orchestra like a synth with lfo-like automation and stuff, but it doesn't yield too good results here. But Taron did program his slurs fantastically.
• This round raises interesting questions about external processing for me – it reveals that some will go a lot further with effects than I would consider within the scope of OSC
• Finally, the "experimental" tracks with heavy processing and sound manipulation don't seem to manage to take advantage of the production choice – it sounds artificial and simply don't bring out the best in the instrument – and even make its limitations more obvious than need be. There has to be a reason for experimentation beyond novelty, I think. Thus, very low scores there, to separate from everyone I felt tried to take advantage of the instrument's strengths
• All the other comments in this thread clearly indicate that most of you felt very differently about the quality of this round, so I'm definitely the odd man out. And while I've spent many hours trying to learn some things about orchestral music over the years, I would never go so far as to proclaim myself as an expert or authority in any sense. So take what you will from my words, and don't let them discourage you – a solid majority think you did a fine job!

Oh, and did I mention that Taron's piece rocks?

[Frank Geppert]

Essay time. My voting was unusual this round...

Even though I feel your scoring a bit too harsh I also fully understand your point of view, when I try to put on your shoes. I mean, you made a really good song, with a lot of different sections and a really huge dynamic range but within 3 minutes length. The instruments sound very realistic. I guess you did a lot of work with expression automation and you probably have more experience than some of us.
So I understand why you find more problems than others might find.

In the end your post is helpful. This round offered so much to us to grow and you are part of it.
Thanks.