ACE patch contest (very niiiiiiice) - voting

[Surphaze]

And, of course also thanks to the U-tHEam for organizing this and for the price.

Just to be clear, there's not really anything behind the scenes here - Zebra contests were started by Hakey, the first 'prize' was Bazille and then Urs volunteered licenses to his commercial stuff, things just kind of ended up where they are now. Which is pretty cool IMO - it's really about the synths being such a pleasure to work with

Ah... I kinda thought this was something like a company promotion. Haven't really read here in the u-he forums till now, just stumbled over the patch contest somehow and thought it was a nice occasion to download and try ACE demo. From now on I'll try to drop by from time to time to stay informed about Bazille progress. Amazing thing. Also I wouldn't like to miss the next patch contest
Anyway, I'll rephrase it then: Thanks for organizing to xh3rv and thanks for the price to Urs:-)

Best,


V

[Surphaze]

Thanks to everyones congratz!

Surphaze... you should try your luck once more (but definitely buy that lotto ticket!).

I'll consider it. If I get something done in time, I'll submit something.
I'm rather about to drop the Lotto idea... I prefer working for my luck

Praising of Headcopter Meditation Suite

Thanks guys! I had a lot of fun making that patch. It started off as a pretty typical saw/square bass patch, but then I started adding a few detuned modulators, and the whole thing came together at once.

Fallout was done in the complete opposite manner. I started the patch by making the weird creaking sound, and trying to experiment as much as possible with it. Once I added the plain ol' boring note on top of it, I realized that the patch was finished.

So those two came out of the same head. Should have known... Both very high on my list of "patches with a very intense feeling" and headcopter leads on my "patches that are incredibly fun to play" list. They also appear on my list "patches with most creative name-giving"
Amazing. Keep on going and tell me when you make patches for synths I own;-)

Best,


V

[bmrzycki]

Ah... I kinda thought this was something like a company promotion. Haven't really read here in the u-he forums till now, just stumbled over the patch contest somehow and thought it was a nice occasion to download and try ACE demo.

Just to be clear, Urs has been fully behind the patch contests from day 1. He's just a 1 man show so he doesn't have the bandwidth to run them himself.

[GeorgeZ]

Grats sun! Man I hope the next one is Bazille Love it... a bit harder to make expansive patches though, no FX yet

I'd love to hear more Bazille sounds but it might not be a good idea to have a patch contest just yet. The synth is in alpha state meaning there might be considerable changes from now until the final release. Sounds made in the contest might not sound right on the final version.

Oh ye, for sure. I mean it's stable as a rock, but not nearly finished (as far as I can tell, mainly the FX, everthing else seems to be behaving... I'd know, I've been playing with it almost every day since the first alpha, with the crappy patch chords, was released)

[hakey]

I'd love to hear more Bazille sounds but it might not be a good idea to have a patch contest just yet. [...] Sounds made in the contest might not sound right on the final version.

It's really not that big a deal though is it?

[Surphaze]

I'd love to hear more Bazille sounds but it might not be a good idea to have a patch contest just yet. [...] Sounds made in the contest might not sound right on the final version.

It's really not that big a deal though is it?

Not a big deal but well... imagining an ACE update being released tomorrow that would render all the great patches from this patch contest useless... that would really be a pity

Best,


V

[hakey]

It's really not that big a deal though is it?

Not a big deal but well... imagining an ACE update being released tomorrow that would render all the great patches from this patch contest useless... that would really be a pity

Still not that big a deal, IMO.

I've already made patches in Bazille (as, it seems, have Urs and Howard) and I haven't yet lost sleep over the prospect of them potentially being made redundant. The alternative, leaving Bazille in my plugin folder gathering dust, seems a bit of a waste of Urs' generous gift. Not to say, it's far from a given that alpha patches won't be compatible with Bazille 1.0.

[Surphaze]

were there any audio files of these? I'm interested in all of Urs' products but have no budget for them for the foreseeable future. But it would be cool to hear them...

I put together a little piece using only patches from this contest and drums.
Tried to avoid external modulation to keep the patches as they are, only used on busses 1x Uhbik-A and 1x Uhbik-D with simple settings and an extra Uhbik-D on Pianog with a bit more extreme setting. Apart from that only dynamics and EQs. Not that it's properly mixed or something.

Well, overall sound is actually pretty crappy because this is done with the demo version of ACE and the demo noise bursts on 13 instances all over the song kinda drown the whole thing. Plus apart from the fact that it is hardly possible to do even basic mixing (at least for me) when there's intermittent noise from 13 channels, it's quite a PITA to try under these conditions. Therefore I gave it up and just added a lot of compressors with low threshold. That's also why I decided to NOT add breaks, fills, drum variations. My head is full of noise right now

So keep in mind that ACE actually doesn't need to be noisy at all if you don't want it to be, as long as you have the full version;-)

I hope it can still bring out some of the qualities of the patches.

If you wanna listen to it:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/303123/drum%27n ... 010%29.mp3


Patches used:

- analog crystalline bells
- electric quay
- fallout
- flashback
- headcopter meditation suite (2x)
- heavenly beings pad
- honeysuckle
- morning on venus
- pianog
- really bad reception
- twee electric
- universal jungle


Sorry I couldn't get in all patches. There's just so many pad and bass like sounds a song can take and even with using just half of the patches, this one got pretty overcrowded

Best,


V

[GeorgeZ]

Wow, that was actually surprisingly nice! (Sorry, I'm a huge pessimist, so always expect the worst...).

Really well done, good mix and everything!

[j3l1yt0t5]

Nice track Surfaze !

I get a lot of mileage out of demos by resampling and working with the audio. But it is kind of punk rock to render with the noise bursts

[thelizard]

Badass. The noise bursts actually added a lot to it in parts. Really creative use of all the patches.

[xh3rv]

Based on stuff in this thread, I think it might be nice to just include the following tips in future contests

* Enjoy ACE!

* Check the volume and CPU usage - if your patch is around where the factory library is at, you'll be fine. Problems here can be more obvious than the good qualities of a patch.

* Any amount of info in the patch details can really clue people in to how to get the most from a patch. Patches with very little or no info tend to be overlooked.

* Not -every- patch needs to be sensitive to velocity, modwheel/pitchwheel, or other MIDI CCs, but having some of these is a good way to make a patch more interesting. It's possible to impress voters with good mapping, or the opposite with no mapping.

* There aren't really any guidelines for voting - all votes are appreciated, and however one decides which patches stand out is the right way. A little feedback explaining votes is very welcome as well, just keep it real .

* I will do my best to answer -any- questions posted here, pm'd, emailed, or telepathically implanted. Feel free!

* Any patch submitted will become public on the u-he patch library, with no restrictions on usage, forever.

--

I'll post the final version of whatever we want to do tomorrow morning - unless I'm convinced it's a blunder of an idea it'll be ACE on mono/legato/duophonic. It is a technical limitation in one sense, but I really think it can be an inspiring limitation creatively.

Past that some pretty simple themes like 'bass' or 'lead' etc. could be good. Always open to suggestions!

(The biggest issue I'd have with a Bazille contest, which I think should be done and would be interesting, is CPU usage - it might make sense to have this limitation there as well? It's the only way I can really use it in a track, I'm using 2007 technology, which I guess according to Moore's law is only, what, 25% better than the stone age relative to now! )

Also, nice track surphaze!

[Esgalachoir]

Badass. The noise bursts actually added a lot to it in parts. Really creative use of all the patches.

They did! Awesome track!

[Esgalachoir]

So keep in mind that ACE actually doesn't need to be noisy at all if you don't want it to be, as long as you have the full version;-)

With the artful way you let the noise flow with your track, I almost want to use the demo version again!

[hakey]

I think it might be nice to just include the following tips in future contests

*Avoid audio clipping!!!

A patch that clips badly is a bad patch! Where higher perceived volume has been gained at the cost of clipping it makes auditioning less pleasant and, as some seem to think Louder=Better, comparisons with other patches less fair.