One Synth Challenge #170: Octasine by Joakim Frostegård (exponent1 Wins!)

[574X]

Gasp! My identity is revealed!


Edit: It has certainly crossed my mind that songs could be attributed to the name of the artists, rather than forum nicknames, or at least included for clarity.

Lots to say, but I'm awaiting the responses of the others.

In the meantime-

Congrats all!

The most important thing is that we came together and shared our creative, musical energy!

[davi-dj]

Wow thanks for give me that 2º position, what an unexpected surprise!

And congratulations to Exponent1 for his 1º position and to the rest of the winners.
Also thanks to KVR Team, Richard and BJ for this competition that makes me able to finish the tracks and to all participants for making this community of independent musicians each in their own style.
Greetings to Joakim Frosteagärd for his fantastic Octasine that has allowed us to explore again the strange and surprising FM synthesis, in this case with extra waveforms like in a old Yamaha TX81Z.

As a prize I would like to get the SYNTHMASTER bundle and as a secondary pize: JRR sounds sso stock band roland d-50 sample set.

I'm going to start for the next round.

[ZioMau]

Congrats to the winners and to all the partecipants for making music with this hard to tame tool. I wasn't so brave this month...

[] Peter:H []

Congratulations to all top five ... thanks everybody for your votes and the nice feedback on soundcloud. It's highly appreciated! At the same time I have to say sorry - again - that I don't comment on every track. It's hard for me to come up with a usefull comment on each and every track ... and soundcloud comments is anyways not the perfect place to give feedback on mix, soud design, mastering, staging, etc. etc. Please feel free to ask for feedback via kvraudio pm if you like. Please keep in mind, I'm a hobbyist, I'm an IT nerd, and I can be ... ehm ... direct at times.

As a price I would like to choose nakst Integrate! From using Apricote in OSC#171 I immediately became a fan of their synths. Cool sound, cools GUI, cool user experience ...

And as always - thanks to the team behind kvraudio and the OSC in particular.

[574X]

This was extremely fun! It's extremely rare that I do well here, so I'm glad to share several contributing factors as to why I believe this happened, or the project file, if requested.

TLDR: Make smooth dnb with nature sounds.

In lieu of that analysis, my unrequested recommendation for the entrants (and note-to-self) can be separated into two groups:

• If you're making unique contributions, but don't have the production quality you'd like, try to find a couple of proven mix references that you enjoy the feel of, and adhere to that sound signature as much as is relevant to your production.
  
  Study and practice:
  
  A) Gradually leading the listener's focus with the relative volumes of each instrument. Fading emotions and textures in and out, in the foreground and background, adds interest, drama, and depth.
  
  B) Creating instrument separation in the frequency spectrum with eq, for maximum clarity.
  
  Critically: use revealing, industry standard monitoring headphones or speakers. For example, I used k240 headphones almost entirely, for this entry. Check how your production sounds on multiple systems, even thin-sounding laptop speakers or car stereos. (I didn't make time for any of this last month, so my entry was at the bottom of the list.) Remember to disable audio enhancements in windows sound options.
• However, if you have the production quality at a confident level, try to be as diverse, eclectic, and unique as possible so that your creative contribution has replay value and ideally influences the future, rather than being too derivative.

Anyway, that's just my 2 cents. I could be completely incorrect, when it comes to your creative expression.

For my prize I'd greatly appreciate Dmitry Sches Diversion and JRR Modern Sounds For XFER Serum, if that's available.
Thank you, kindly!

I truly want to participate in this month's competition, and I'll do what I can to make time for it!

Cheers to The Great: One Synth Challenge!!

[] Peter:H []

[...]
Critically: use revealing, industry standard monitoring headphones or speakers. For example, I used k240 headphones almost entirely, for this entry.

This ...
And if I may contribute/add two things ... know the frequency response of your headphones. I recently did some research and found that my Beyerdynamics DT 880 Pro have some pecularities here and there in the frequency response. And second - headphones have a very clear separation between left and right - none of left is going to right ear and vice versa. When mixing on headphones you might be betrayed about the stereo image your track might be able to get you on speakers. There's even some plugins that can compensate both factors ... i.e. have a EQ that handles your headphones frequency response and add "ambience" so that the headphones experience comes closer to a speaker experience. I've tried Steinbergs immersion for instance ... it's a very different sound compared to no "compensation" ...

[hennessey]

Great job to all! I view finishing and submitting a track a win. So many creatives don't finish. Each time you finish a track you learn more, what to do, and in my case, what not to do .

I'll bypass the prize but want to thank BJ and Richard as others have. That spreadsheet looks like a nightmare and they deal with it every month! Thank you gentlemen.

[574X]

know the frequency response of your headphones. I recently did some research and found that my Beyerdynamics DT 880 Pro have some pecularities here and there in the frequency response. And second - headphones have a very clear separation between left and right

Prior to k240, DT 880 gave me the best results. I prefer dt880s specially for drum design. Most of UC was likely crafted on DT 880s, and by now I've resoldered the brittle cable several times. I'm still trying to remember to get a female jack. Plus, both earcups have long since fallen out out of the rails.

I try to keep my posts brief and easily digestible, but here we go!

Yes, the unique frequency response of a speaker is one of the reasons why it's important to check the mix on multiple systems, and also refresh fatiguing ears. I searched for the most neutral, flattest response monitoring, and found "flat response" to be significantly less effective than headphones that emphasize the most important areas in a mix, where clarity is most required.

We do benefit from speakers' slight embellishment in certain areas so that our human ears can hear those frequencies slightly better and feel more inspired. I was quite shocked at how scooped the "neutral" dt880s, were, whereas the more netural m40x I found too bass light and the tiny 8k spike becomes much more significant. This is where a slight post-master eq can certainly come in handy, as long as it's also applied to the mix references. In contrast, the m30x is what my previous entry was made on, and it was so pleasing to listen to that it completely masked several problems in the frequency spectrum and the dynamic range.

It took an enormous amount of experience for me to even begin wielding the stereo image remotely properly, even though I made an effort to ensure mono compatibility early on, by occasionally pressing the mono button on Reaper's master channel, on Ableton's utility, or using any stereo image tool.

Open headphones like the k240, dt880 and many Sennehesiers have some stereo bleed from the opposite side, which mitigates this issue to some degree. Plus there's cross-talk. However, the stereo image on those open headphones is still extremely wide and immersive. A pair of speakers is often in front of us and doesn't have nearly the stereo separation headphones do, and as we move farther away, the more mono it becomes. Many club systems are in mono, and many people haven't yet gotten used to the new capability of smartphones to play in stereo due to a compensated dual speaker system, if they hold it in landscape mode. Therefore, they're hearing a lot of music in mono.

The art of mastering includes balancing knowing your audience and modern listening devices. This could mean that most people are listening on headphones, which is quite possibly the case here in the OSC. Poll, anyone?! That means for this competition you can have a wider mix than if you were doing a version mastered for live applications.

The more accountability I've had with others, regarding production quality, deadlines, and their aesthetics, the more liberally I render several versions of mixes and masters with slightly different optimizations for each application. Lately, I've been delving into Dolby Atmos... which is actually quite interesting and can be handled with my preferred broad stroke approach.

Yes, kudos again to Richard Semper and BJ Porter for their excellence! One day soon, I'll take their advice...

[bermudagold]

always look forward to a Hennessey entry...whoah!...didn't disappoint