One Synth Challenge #202: Oxid by Full Bucket Music (TobiasMiller wins!)

[4_the masses]

Never taken part in OSC, but love listening to some top class creatives on here. I am nowhere near as good as the ones who enter, good luck all when the poll starts. Respect.

[NeuKatalYst]

Never taken part in OSC, but love listening to some top class creatives on here. I am nowhere near as good as the ones who enter, good luck all when the poll starts. Respect.

Thankfully, especially in the Discord, most of us aren't shy about helping others out! Because even if you don't place high, at least you made a song that you could release as-is, or even keep working on beyond the bounds of the OSC.

We're a community, but by existing as a contest, we motivate each other to do one thing: make good music~

[spridgeon]

https://soundcloud.com/user-20530220/sp ... al_sharing

Finally, after numerous false starts for more than a year, I've got something to submit!
It's nothing much, but at least it's seasonal

Cubase 14
Oxid X 21
Revelation X 4
Reverence X 4
Frequency X 5
Compressor X 2

[z.prime]

Never taken part in OSC, but love listening to some top class creatives on here. I am nowhere near as good as the ones who enter, good luck all when the poll starts. Respect.

Definitely what @NeuKatalYst said! Many of this use the challenge as a way to improve (though, I must say after a number of years for me it seems I, myself, am regressing ). Using the month deadline as a forcing factor to complete something has been very valuable -- I was one of those people stuck in 8-bar loop land for quite a long time, forcing myself to learn how to arrange, and mix, and master, and of course sound design, and to call something "done" even though you know you could tweak it for eternity is an important aspect of music. And I don't think there's a better producing community anywhere, willing to share knowledge and provide feedback!

I will let you know up front the dark side of One Synth Challenge: you spend so much time designing sounds with new synths all the time, and being limited in the effects you can use most of the time being limited to using free effects, you yearn for the paid ones you have sitting gather dust and complain to the admins and sign petitions to allow them. Sometimes they cave.

[aarongrooves]

Am I crazy, or is Oxid's preset system a little messy
A few specific issues:
- any changes to presets are immediately auto-saved and baked in, and I can't reset the preset. The only solution I've found is to delete the instance of Oxid and open another.
- "Reload Configuration" does nothing.
- Undo doesn't undo switching through different presets.

I spent over 2 hours trying to get a smooth workflow for making changes and saving presets, and it's become a huge pain. If anyone has any tips, I'd be grateful! I might just stick with only presets and see what I can come up with. The presets are actually pretty amazing!

I'm using Reaper 7.52 on Windows 11. Having same behavior with VST3 and CLAP formats.

[Niteeko]

[quote="4_the masses" post_id=9173013 time=1766084828 user_id=771288]
Never taken part in OSC, but love listening to some top class creatives on here. I am nowhere near as good as the ones who enter, good luck all when the poll starts. Respect.
[/quote]
Yes, I can appreciate that also. Have followed this challenge for quite some time. There are many fine composers/sound designers amongst the participants creating incredible pieces of music for these challenges. Can be quite intimating. However, I got to start somewhere ... So (taking a depth breath), I've decided to enter this challenge for the first time. This is my submission..
https://soundcloud.com/niteeko/niteeko- ... the-bucket

Space Theme
Details
DAW - Ableton 12.3.2
9 instances of Oxid
Reverb - Ableton stock reverb
Limiter - Thomas Mundt Loudmax
Midi Arpeggiator - Ableton stock

[SIL3NC3_SWX]

SiL3NC3_SWX - Erratic Coilings
https://soundcloud.com/soulwerx/sil3nc3 ... ngs-osc202

Even though it was difficult this month with Oxid and drums,
I didn't let that stop me from working on some beats.
Enjoy my trip-hop style OSC track this month.

@all:
Happy holidays and all the best for 2026!

-------------------------------------

DAW: Bitwig 6 Beta 11
16 instances of Oxid

FX:
- Bitwig: Dynamics, Convolution, EQ+, Filter+, Delay-2, Compressor+, Reverb, Amp, FX Grid
- FuzzPlus3
- OTT
- Ignite Emissary
- Valhalla Supermassive
- Wider

Mastering:
- Free Clip 2
- LoudMax
- TDR Kotelnikov
- Peak Limiter (Bitwig)

Analysis:
- MAnalyzer
- YouLean Loudness Meter2


Keep on Looping...

[maxym.srpl]

Am I crazy, or is Oxid's preset system a little messy
A few specific issues:
- any changes to presets are immediately auto-saved and baked in, and I can't reset the preset. The only solution I've found is to delete the instance of Oxid and open another.
- "Reload Configuration" does nothing.
- Undo doesn't undo switching through different presets.

I spent over 2 hours trying to get a smooth workflow for making changes and saving presets, and it's become a huge pain. If anyone has any tips, I'd be grateful! I might just stick with only presets and see what I can come up with. The presets are actually pretty amazing!

I'm using Reaper 7.52 on Windows 11. Having same behavior with VST3 and CLAP formats.

I’m using the Reaper too with CLAP version of the plugin like you do. I cannot confirm the issue you reporting. I can play with default presets, then just switch back & forth (plugin built-in simple presets manager) to reset to the factory.

[doctorbob]

@aarongrooves, are you saving your presets to a protected area (read only) by any chance? I save my oxid presets in the folder with my track project and midi etc ... no problem there.

dB

[doctorbob]

Ok, done polishing! Here's my track for this round. I have kept the external processing to a minimum. Just EQ on each track to keep the frequency space clean. A touch of OTT on some percussive elements. Oril River on an instrument buss and on a percussion buss. No layering of instruments or percussion either. Hope you enjoy another sonic journey from me.

Many thanks to TSOM for guiding me through some EQ issues. Some useful pointers from a great musician/producer.

Daw: Reaper

Track details: 26 * Oxid, 26 * ReaEQ, 4 * OTT, 7 * LFX-1310 (autopan), 2 * Twin Delay, 2 Oril River
Master: TDR VOS SlickEQ, Voxengo MSED, TDR Nova, Limiter No6
Meter: SPAN, YouLean Loudness Meter
Stats: LUFS-I: -13.8, DR: 8

https://soundcloud.com/doctorbob/beware ... s-and-bats

[z.prime]

In all honesty, this one was challenging to use with such a limited palette, rather than make the same sounds with little inspiration, it's time to stick a fork in it. I found a few really nice sounds out of the thing, but not many. Told most of everyone the noise trick already (if not, it's 40 notes x 8 detuned instances) and kick/snare body trick (resonant filter).

Hope it's not too awful for your ears this time!

https://soundcloud.com/z_prime/oxidized

Bitwig 5.3.13
Oxid x ~60
Bitwig FX: Tool, Delay+, Compressor+, Convolution, Filter+ (saturation), EQ+, Peak Limiter
Other FX: Limiter 6, TDR Nova, SOL (very little), Raum, Dragonfly Hall, OTT, kHs Limiter, kHs Clipper,

[Nd6829]

+++++SUBMISSION+++++
https://soundcloud.com/nd-6829/oxid-orchestra-osc-202
Hello！ I only learned about OSC this month. Everyone is incredibly creative !
I love making music. I enjoy listening to various people's creative works and learning more.
My work might not be very easy on your ears (it’s not even a good piece to me), but I look forward to being part of this community !!
I’m going to learn a lot from all of you.
Oh, that's right ! Happy holidays, everyone !!
P.S. Since I don't have much money, I only use free plugins, but I would appreciate any advice on your mixing techniques, how you measure DR (Dynamic Range), and so on.
Also, I’d like to enter various free competitions to grow—which ones do you usually participate in? Sorry for all the questions !
Title : Nd-Oxid Orchestra
DAW : GarageBand
Effects : Built-in Automation by GarageBand
Instruments : Oxid by Full Bucket Music only
Full Bucket Oxid : 22 instances
DR : Loudness Penalty says it’s dynamic with +1.5 dB on Apple Music
Thank you !

[z.prime]

... I would appreciate any advice on your mixing techniques, how you measure DR (Dynamic Range), and so on.

Youlean Loudness Meter is the typical free tool used to measure dynamic range.

As far as mixing/mastering goes, TDR Nova is great and although a little complicated for beginners, vladg Limiter no6 is still the best free limiter. Those two plugs are almost always on my master channel. Mixing is a lot more about balance between tracks rather than any specific plugins. A famous producer said something to the effect that he could create a better mix than someone else just using the volume fader. And that's largely true: think about what you want the focus to be, it should probably be the loudest. Automate levels. Use EQ to separate frequency overlaps between parts and use high pass filter to remove the low noise in tracks -- any frequencies that aren't part of the main sound are just serving to muddy the mix up. By far one of the most informative things I've read about mixing is this thread on using gain staging (despite being on dubstepforum, it's not exclusive to dubstep).

[aarongrooves]

I’m using the Reaper too with CLAP version of the plugin like you do. I cannot confirm the issue you reporting. I can play with default presets, then just switch back & forth (plugin built-in simple presets manager) to reset to the factory.

That's wild, I've never been able to just "play" in Oxid without every parameter adjustment being automatically baked in to the preset. This is the only VST I've ever experienced this with. But thanks for letting me know that it's working as expected for you! Maybe there's still hope...

[aarongrooves]

@aarongrooves, are you saving your presets to a protected area (read only) by any chance? I save my oxid presets in the folder with my track project and midi etc ... no problem there.

dB

Thanks, I just checked and made sure that nothing's saved to a protected area, and reaper has full access to all the locations set for Oxid's settings. I'm still getting the same behavior.

But my problem is really the opposite. All presets are automatically saved no matter what I do, and I can't stop presets from permanently remaining in whatever state they were last in. Even a master volume change or name change is instantaneously and permanently baked into that instance of Oxid. The only way to recover presets is to delete the instance of Oxid and start another.