One Synth Challenge #187: ExtraBold by Nakst (Jasinski Wins!)

[empphryio]

OK. As you like.

[MilksterX]

Thanks OSC'ers I've learnt a lot over the past few years and have so much to be grateful for with the amount of amazing music I've heard from you all, but it's time to bow out and say farewell I just cant handle the petty drama of people arguing over the far end of a fart.

I came here to learn from you all on how to mix and master better and I've learnt so much, we've had some great times and it's been a lot of fun with so many wonderful freeware softsynths and effects.

Be kind and respectful to each other and to all the devs or they will stop wanting to create.

Thank you BJ & Rich for so much hard work to make this competition work like clockwork every month for so many years.

And thanks to you all for the time spent listening and voting. With my line of work I'm finding it harder and harder to vote each month often leaving it to the last minute to rush it and regret it afterwards so apologies if you felt I voted unfairly!

also don't shout at people who voted on day one. Not everyone has ADHD.

I've said my rather harsh piece on discord servers and have made my bed so make sure you all treat each other with respect and keep helping newcomers and nurturing the community. Apologies for giving bad advice in the eyes of so many.

Keep pushing those sonic boundaries and staying creative.

My last pieces of bad advice...
limitations breed creativity! So get creative and think outside the space in which the box may or may not exist.

There's always more than one way to skin a cat or high pass a hi hat using the synths lowpass filter.

phase cancel anything you don't want... or everything,e everything sometimes sounds better.

Use tonnes of very subtle pseudo diy chorus / image wideners when mixing - People will think you're cheating but you're not and only you will know it!!

Balance your kick and bass at 0 dbfs then turn your kick bass up way more using pultec eq trick.

Make your mix frowny face because all those mastering plugins are going to make it smiley face.

Cut the subs off synths to make room for the synth subs

Use highpass filters on inbuilt compressor sidechain circuits.

Don't roll off everything sometimes that hi hat doesn't even need eq'ing. Not everyone had EQs or sidechain compressors in the 90s anyway and if they did it was probably really sh1t sounding.

Gate verb aaalllll the snares.

Tell Elex off whenever you hear a dry snare.

Get your fx working in 3D using filter notches and psycho acoustics.

Experiment crazily with these synths, tweak those parameters endlessly like you have 10 hands per synth - it will always sound cooler than someone who doesn't tweak any parameters.

Work endlessly for the right sounds duplicate everything so you've got 10 variations of a sound.

Don't give up, keep going back and starting all over again when it doesn't work out.

Sketch often. Every day.

Save often !! OMG yes save often is my number one piece of advice the days I've lost...

Peace

[ELEX]

Thanks OSC'ers I've learnt a lot over the past few years and have so much to be grateful for with the amount of amazing music I've heard from you all, but it's time to bow out and say farewell I just cant handle the petty drama of people arguing over the far end of a fart.
...

Ah...really sorry to see you go, man ! A well meant Ta! then for many great tracks ...

Tell Elex off whenever you hear a dry snare.

... and a distinct sense of humour !

Wishing you all the best !

[Spring Goose]

I have voted. Some commenting, more commenting to follow before voting finishes!

[Spring Goose]

...in 28 entries I have never seen 4 people on day 2 announce they were finished. Most of us need multiple listens with sleeps inbetween. Listen once, sleep. Listen again, sleep. Listen at least a third.

Of course you can do as you like.

This feels to me as if I am being judged for the way I reviewed last month's 37 submissions. During the month of September, I listened to the early entries from time to time and also commented on SoundCloud where I felt the need to comment. Furthermore, I can assure you that I always listen very intently and can form a good opinion of what I think of it after one listen. That is part of my profession. I find it very important to judge conscientiously and where I want to comment, to do so carefully. Sometimes critically and often with great enthusiasm. And also often a combination of the two. And for some entries I don't write a comment, which doesn't mean that those pieces get a low assessment from me or that they didn't move me. Then I just have nothing to add. The last thing I want to say is that the coming month is a very busy one for me and the day before yesterday I was sick. So that was a perfect time to spend half a day listening to everything properly. Something I would struggle to do in a week or so.

I think it can depend on the individual's previous listening experience. The majority of the songs i can identify what the song is and qualities of the song within one listen. In most cases my votes don't change with repeated listening, but of course there can be exceptions.

[] Peter:H []

Thanks OSC'ers I've learnt a lot over the past few years and have so much to be grateful for with the amount of amazing music I've heard from you all, but it's time to bow out and say farewell I just cant handle the petty drama of people arguing over the far end of a fart.

I came here to learn from you all on how to mix and master better and I've learnt so much, we've had some great times and it's been a lot of fun with so many wonderful freeware softsynths and effects.

Be kind and respectful to each other and to all the devs or they will stop wanting to create.

Thank you BJ & Rich for so much hard work to make this competition work like clockwork every month for so many years.

And thanks to you all for the time spent listening and voting. With my line of work I'm finding it harder and harder to vote each month often leaving it to the last minute to rush it and regret it afterwards so apologies if you felt I voted unfairly!

also don't shout at people who voted on day one. Not everyone has ADHD.

I've said my rather harsh piece on discord servers and have made my bed so make sure you all treat each other with respect and keep helping newcomers and nurturing the community. Apologies for giving bad advice in the eyes of so many.

Balance your kick and bass at 0 dbfs then turn your kick bass up way more using pultec eq trick.

Make your mix frowny face because all those mastering plugins are going to make it smiley face.

Cut the subs off synths to make room for the synth subs

Use highpass filters on inbuilt compressor sidechain circuits.
[...]
Peace

Most of the things you wrote I like. But between the lines ... there's something between the lines, isn't it? What happend? Has something happend? Me big heap puzzled...

[The Sound Of Merlin]

Thanks OSC'ers I've learnt a lot over the past few years and have so much to be grateful for with the amount of amazing music I've heard from you all, but it's time to bow out and say farewell I just cant handle the petty drama of people arguing over the far end of a fart.

I came here to learn from you all on how to mix and master better and I've learnt so much, we've had some great times and it's been a lot of fun with so many wonderful freeware softsynths and effects.

Be kind and respectful to each other and to all the devs or they will stop wanting to create.

Thank you BJ & Rich for so much hard work to make this competition work like clockwork every month for so many years.

And thanks to you all for the time spent listening and voting. With my line of work I'm finding it harder and harder to vote each month often leaving it to the last minute to rush it and regret it afterwards so apologies if you felt I voted unfairly!

also don't shout at people who voted on day one. Not everyone has ADHD.

I've said my rather harsh piece on discord servers and have made my bed so make sure you all treat each other with respect and keep helping newcomers and nurturing the community. Apologies for giving bad advice in the eyes of so many.

Keep pushing those sonic boundaries and staying creative.

My last pieces of bad advice...
limitations breed creativity! So get creative and think outside the space in which the box may or may not exist.

There's always more than one way to skin a cat or high pass a hi hat using the synths lowpass filter.

phase cancel anything you don't want... or everything,e everything sometimes sounds better.

Use tonnes of very subtle pseudo diy chorus / image wideners when mixing - People will think you're cheating but you're not and only you will know it!!

Balance your kick and bass at 0 dbfs then turn your kick bass up way more using pultec eq trick.

Make your mix frowny face because all those mastering plugins are going to make it smiley face.

Cut the subs off synths to make room for the synth subs

Use highpass filters on inbuilt compressor sidechain circuits.

Don't roll off everything sometimes that hi hat doesn't even need eq'ing. Not everyone had EQs or sidechain compressors in the 90s anyway and if they did it was probably really sh1t sounding.

Gate verb aaalllll the snares.

Tell Elex off whenever you hear a dry snare.

Get your fx working in 3D using filter notches and psycho acoustics.

Experiment crazily with these synths, tweak those parameters endlessly like you have 10 hands per synth - it will always sound cooler than someone who doesn't tweak any parameters.

Work endlessly for the right sounds duplicate everything so you've got 10 variations of a sound.

Don't give up, keep going back and starting all over again when it doesn't work out.

Sketch often. Every day.

Save often !! OMG yes save often is my number one piece of advice the days I've lost...

Peace

Hate to see you go. I especially liked your submissions with deep house influences. But I liked every track by you very much. Always great work! Have a great life!

[FrogsInPants]

Most of the things you wrote I like. But between the lines ... there's something between the lines, isn't it? What happend? Has something happend? Me big heap puzzled...

Over on Discord, Milkster gave some perfectly fine sound design advice on using a high-pass filter to strip a triangle wave down to its upper harmonics for a metallic percussion sound. I asked if I was missing a high pass filter capability in the synth (this was under the Six-Traq discussion) and questioned whether using an external filter for this is permissible within the rules. There was a longish discussion which showed we have a diversity of opinion on the matter. When Milkster returned, he said he didn't appreciate being accused of cheating, and expressed a low opinion of the conversation and of the rules generally.

I hope this is a fair summary. Was it just this? Was this just the last straw? I don't know. It seemed abrupt to me. But hopefully this gives some kind of context.

Is it "petty drama of people arguing over the far end of a fart?" Perhaps some people find discussion of the rules to be petty, but surely it is better to understand how others are interpreting them than not, particularly when some of us have such different intuitions. I don't think there has to be any drama over it, but evidently it is hard to avoid. I certainly didn't intend to accuse anyone of cheating. I was trying to clarify how we might understand the rules differently. Are those not different things? Perhaps I could have been more clear. I apologize if that is the case.

In any case, Milkster, I too am sorry to see you go.

[silverpants]

I joined the discord conversation on rules half way through and put my two pence in - purely on how I interpret the rules. I didn't even know that Milkster was even in the conversation above me in the thread.
So anything I said was absolutely not personal.
The rules say "use your best judgment" - and that is bound to produce a wide array of opinions on what the best judgement is. I thought that's all that was happening. I didn't see any accusations of cheating.

I'd be very sorry to see you go Milkster - on what seems like a minor technical discussion getting out of hand. Your productions are an inspiration to me, and you're a very helpful member of the OSC community.
I hope you reconsider. Sorry if anything I said upset you. Do come back eh?

[phankiejankie303]

Thanks OSC'ers I've learnt a lot over the past few years and have so much to be grateful for with the amount of amazing music I've heard from you all, but it's time to bow out and say farewell I just cant handle the petty drama of people arguing over the far end of a fart...

Man this a sad day... I loved your stuff always excellently produced electronic music no matter the synth.

I hope at some point you clear your mind and your schedule a bit and reconsider.

The advices got me cracking up at times. It was a good read from a fine fellow.

Till we meet again Milks.

I wish you the best.

PS: People with lots of free time... Huge problem at times

[Taron]

Definitely took a few hours. It's hard labor at times!

You feeling ok?

I'm fine, thank you!
No, really, it is real labor, if you do what I do, which is to truly listen, trying to comment with care, if I have anything to say and hoping to share some useful observations.
And occasionally a light tease, too.

We've had monstrous participations in some of the past rounds, especially at a time when I was still on projects. It made me develop a kind of hyper-focus, I suppose. Back then it always took days.

Nowadays I've improved my life immensely and can manage my time freely. I comment while I'm listening, occasionally go back to a place that worried me or I found curious for some reason, but that's why I often end up with a pretty clear picture of where a track sits in the line-up before it finished playing. And by the time it has, it goes to its slot.
Occasionally things shift during the process, too.

Anyway, everyone has their own pacing and there own offerings of time, of course. Important- or courteous- is to give it real care.

[Taron]

Discord drama? Awwww, I'm so glad I don't go there!
...man. We've had some brief discussions on filters in the past and any EQ is in reality a filter. Using it creatively should be fine. I love using TDR-Nova on the master and almost always use the HP for the super sub clipping, which of course doesn't affect the sound, really. But every now and then I use one, too. Especially for hihats and cymbals. It's such nonsense to beat each other up over these things.

Honestly, I'm a little annoyed, because of some of the high-horse bulls#$t regarding distortion or the likes, because it used to be such fun to freely toss in Boogex and have a brilliant sounding guitar come out of a synth. But by now it seems like a scary thing to do as the self-appointed OSC-police threatens with a raid, HAHAHA...

Be sensible!
- Is everything coming from a synth?
- Has only stuff been used that anyone could use?

Thing is, the moment peeps use hardcore transient shapers and 10-layered sounds, where the synth essentially might've just given a sine wave and the rest is mixing, pfff... sigh... if that floats their boat, so be it.

I just love the OSC and when ever I get the chance- and the synth doesn't drive me up a pine- I'm ecstatic to join in with all my heart. I'd go as far as saying that easily 75% of my mixing understanding I've learned right here and literally 99.9% of my synth music for the last (however many its been) years I've made for the OSC.

Milkster, you're blowing my mind regularly, and my mind is..eh... hard..to.. bl..this is going sideways quickly. Well, shit, don't let some silly disputes chase you off. Your tracks would be dearly missed. And your name, too! (too damn cool)
...but follow your level of joy, always!

[FrogsInPants]

I love using TDR-Nova on the master and almost always use the HP for the super sub clipping, which of course doesn't affect the sound, really. But every now and then I use one, too. Especially for hihats and cymbals. It's such nonsense to beat each other up over these things.

Honestly, I'm a little annoyed, because of some of the high-horse bulls#$t regarding distortion or the likes, because it used to be such fun to freely toss in Boogex and have a brilliant sounding guitar come out of a synth. But by now it seems like a scary thing to do as the self-appointed OSC-police threatens with a raid, HAHAHA...

I don't think that's what's happening here at all. This is a simple matter of asking about and discussing what the limits are when it comes to filtering sounds. Nobody even questioned uses such as filtering out the super subs. Just whether it is within the rules to filter out the majority of the sound produced by the synth in order to retain just the highest harmonics.

If you have the synth producing a "boop-boop-boop" sound, and you apply effects to it to change this to a "tsh-tsh-tsh" sound, it seems intuitively obvious to me that this renders it unrecognizable as the output of the synth, regardless of what kind of effects were involved. I wasn't the only one to hold this opinion, either. It was news to me that some folks do not share this view, thinking instead that it is merely removing a part of the sound they don't want, equivalent to any more gentle filtering or EQ. Forgive me for expressing my surprise and disagreement.

Nobody's getting beat up, or raided, or whatever other metaphor of oppression you might like to apply. I don't think I've been unreasonable or accusatory. I didn't insist that anyone change their ways, and I didn't see anyone else doing so either. I am strict in how I apply the rules to myself, and permissive in what I accept from others. But when there is such a difference of opinion, I want to know about it, and of course I'm likely to want to express my opinion about it. Is that nonsense or some kind of "high-horse bulls#$t"? It just seems like ordinary discourse to me.

[IV!]

Discord drama? Awwww, I'm so glad I don't go there!
...man. We've had some brief discussions on filters in the past and any EQ is in reality a filter. Using it creatively should be fine. I love using TDR-Nova on the master and almost always use the HP for the super sub clipping, which of course doesn't affect the sound, really. But every now and then I use one, too. Especially for hihats and cymbals. It's such nonsense to beat each other up over these things.

Honestly, I'm a little annoyed, because of some of the high-horse bulls#$t regarding distortion or the likes, because it used to be such fun to freely toss in Boogex and have a brilliant sounding guitar come out of a synth. But by now it seems like a scary thing to do as the self-appointed OSC-police threatens with a raid, HAHAHA...

Taron, please... I respect your opinion, but now you're talking without knowing the context. I would be glad to know who this tyrant is, who sets strict rules and sends his police officers to punish dissenters, but alas, these rules were formed before I came here six years ago, so I'm probably already too late.. All this time I thought the OSC community was democratically self-regulating and believed in productive discussions, but now I'm afraid of them. Is it forbidden for OSCer to know what he can be disqualified for? A lot of opinions sounded literally like: "Do it any way you want, just have fun!", but this clearly does not mean that I can take distortion or chorus full 11.

Speaking only for myself, as a participant in that discussion, I just wanted to find out my own boundaries of what is allowed in the OSC, but some considered this an encroachment on their boundaries, which were located elsewhere.

And I, like everyone else, would like Milkster not to leave. It's just that now I'm discouraged by this reaction to people discussing the rules.

[Taron]

You're all absolutely right, I don't know the context, other than seeing a beautiful musician pummelled into an exit strategy, when discussing really clever ideas that should inspire others.

I just hate when great people drop off.

However: NEVER BE DISCOURAGED to do what you love doing, even if it's just for the joy of it!

It's all good, trust me! BJ is awesome, Richard is awesome, they know what it's all about and massive care goes into this thing for over a decade now, right? Crazy.