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

[IV!]

I'm ready to share my projects anytime, not even for the sake of inspection, if the other three people with Cakewalk here want it) Switching to a Reaper would be a problem for me, because I tried to do this a few months ago and a lot of my plugins did not work correctly (crashes, peaks of +80dB, silence and other fun). I have a pretty old PC and there are many reasons (and probably hours to find and fix them) for which this may be, and I have neither the time nor the energy to do it. Here we just recently talked about the fact that OSCers do not like restrictions, and one DAW is a very big restriction. Although I agree - the concept of free sharing of project files sounds great!

[empphryio]

Yeah I don't actually expect it but I think some would be better off.

[MadMcMan]

Has anyone read the rules recently?

https://sites.google.com/site/kvrosc/rules

There's only 2 sections on "original sound from the synth"

"Distortion: Please use distortion / tape saturation / bit crushing sparingly. Use your best judgement. Try to keep the original sound recognizable. Note that this does not apply if the distortion is built in to the synth."

which is expanded upon in the what not to do.

"Turning up the effect too much where it transforms the nature of the synth (Heavy overdrive / distortion, etc)"

and finally

"Any effect that transforms the sound to make them unrecognizable as being from the synth (Overdrive, heavy distortion, bit crushing, or related). Never go full 11 "

i dont understand how carving out the sound you want with eq / filtering can be considered related to Overdrive, heavy distortion or bit crushing.

If you want to vote on it and add it feel free but it removes most of the fun for me.

p.s. everyone using the same daw is silly. its meant to be a fun competition. not the 100 meters at the olympics.

[vert-hex]

i dont understand how carving out the sound you want with eq / filtering can be considered related to Overdrive, heavy distortion or bit crushing.

It begins anew. The Ouroboros devours its own tail.

[liqih]

p.s. everyone using the same daw is silly. its meant to be a fun competition. not the 100 meters at the olympics.

And they don't even use the same shoes, LOL.
Seriously once, years ago, I used to think that OSC should have had stricter rules to be more fair. Later I realized (or accommodated) that it's just like life : deliciously unfair.

[Negoba]

I voted.

May change some along the way. Still need to comment on some.

As a bunch of others have said, the contest part makes it fun and adds motivation but the point is the learning from others in the community. The rules are useful guardrails but the process of creating together is the most important part, at least to me.

The old wisdom goes that if you want to be a better musician, play with people better than you and pay attention. There are plenty of people better than me here and I'm trying to pay attention.

If someone gets to the point where it's not fun, they're not learning, or whatever, they're going to move on. It's the life cycle of these things. Sad to see old companions go but they usually do so for their own reasons. I'm certainly still a relative newbie here but I've been in enough online communities to see the patterns.

[empphryio]

Screenshot_20241007_125650_Discord.jpg

From the discord fyi

[empphryio]

Screenshot_20241007_125510_Discord.jpg

Also this to me is very interesting. This is the last ten years of the OSC with how many entries each person has made About 800 total participants. 400 only made one single entry. 100 only made 2.

I guess the OSC isn't for everyone. I hate to see people leave unhappy, in general. But also if this was hundreds of people it wouldn't work very well.


The first table was made by NeverbeeninaRiot. Second by Silverpants. (From the discord).

[Taron]

That is really fascinating! Thanks, empphryio! I don't even know how many I did, but who did 126? DoctorBob?

[silverpants]

That is really fascinating! Thanks, empphryio! I don't even know how many I did, but who did 126? DoctorBob?

Yes. Our very own Doctor Bob!

This is from my spreadsheet of the last 10 years though. Not the whole of OSC.

[Taron]

That's just amazing. to DoctorBob!
Well, thanks for putting this together, SP! Never even crossed my mind this could be possible to find so much of the OSC history. More are in order!

[seap]

Has anyone read the rules recently?

As a first timer I read the rules and my interpretation was also that the main challenge is that the sound source is a single freeware synth and you cannot use samples, commercial effects.

These restrictions are plenty of challenge for me. I use samples and audio recordings heavily on my normal tracks and almost entirely commercial synths and drum machines.

Restrictions often foster creativity, so this is why I am here. I am not super into sound design. I have huge respect for these guys that can make any synth sound to their liking.
I prefer just noodling around with presets until my ears catch something and take me in some unexpected direction.

I understand and respect that for the guys for which competing in sound design and synth exploration is the fun part of the challenge they want more restrictions on that part.

Maybe there should be a challenge or two per year with strict rules, i.e. no external effects at all with emphasis on sound design?
It would be fun for me as well once in a while, but not every time.

My personal main thing is just to create something that I think sounds great to me and share it with a community for feedback, so I am leaning towards a relaxed interpretation of the rules (although I barely used anything but LFO, reverb and some EQ myself on my September track).

[Taron]

Finding the sweet-spot of a synth is really the most fascinating thing, because even the weirder ones can have some great qualities to them, even if it is what they make you do at the end. Can really go wild.
While it used to be the original fun challenge to use any synth to create astounding sounds, the OSC to me really became mostly a fantastic reason to make music, knowing that it won't go to waste, too, as a bonus. All that besides the unbelievably inspiring experience with everyone.

If you haven't done much sound design, this might inspire you, too, to get deeper into it, because it provides a mighty dimension to your creative process, the more you gain control over it.

Tough for me to say, because my very origins are with sound design, trying to make the most out of the least with C64 and Amiga. When I bought my first hardware "synth" it was the Korg M1, but that was PCM and the synth aspects were very reduced. Then came a few other keyboards through my little studio, especially the Ensoniq ESQ-1, which I completely fell in love with. Why on earth am I writing all this? Eh... ah, yes, sound design and why it's so exciting and inspiring for composing.
After I stumbled onto Reason in its beginning, it was a fantastic return to proper synth-exploration on the computer. That's where and when TSOM and I met in the early 2000s. Eventually I found my way to VSTis and never looked back. Shortly after I got introduced to the OSC, a perfect excuse for me to really get into it again.

I will always love it. I won't always participate for one reason or another, but my life feels really right whenever I do.

[FrogsInPants]

So now you can see why I would just want to chuck in the towel and lose the plot.

It was like any time I tried to help it just backfires .

That does sound frustrating. I'm sorry for contributing to that feeling. It certainly wasn't intended.

[seap]

If you haven't done much sound design, this might inspire you, too, to get deeper into it, because it provides a mighty dimension to your creative process, the more you gain control over it.

Tough for me to say, because my very origins are with sound design, trying to make the most out of the least with C64 and Amiga. When I bought my first hardware "synth" it was the Korg M1, but that was PCM and the synth aspects were very reduced.

I started making electronic music with a school friend on his Roland D-20. I was actually the one interesting in creating new patches back then. The D-series were interesting synths for sound design because they were hybrid attack-sample and synth decay synths. I still have a D-20 that I bought for more than 30 years ago. Amazingly everything still works and I even made a new track with it recently (much much better than my first tracks, I must have learned something over the years). Good quality, Roland. All my old floppy disks are unreadable though. Good thing I recorded everything on casette tapes.

About the same time I discovered trackers on my Amiga 500 and made a ton of "mods". I didn't have a sampler, so everything was made with ripped samples from games and demos. In a sense the MODs were pretty close to the challenge of OSC given the limitation of four 8-bit sample tracks and no post effects. Delay? Repeat the note at lower volume. Cut/res development? No-retrig a sweeping sample. Chords? Very fast arp or chord resampling. The strong limitations were quite fun. There were also MOD competitions at the demo parties, not unlike OSC.

Some years later the very first audio DAWs came out and I spent the next two decades almost entirely recording guitar rock songs. It was only a couple of years back I returned to my roots of electronic music. I am normally pretty content with standard presets on commercial synths and I do very much like to spice my tracks up with samples, so there is my biggest challenge in OSC.
But, who knows, maybe I will also return to sound design where I started.