One-Synth-Challenge: General discussion thread

[idfpower]

I know it sucks to have covers but you should stay because - at least for me - this is a great learning experience and winning of course is not what I strive to do - more or less making a great track in a small amount of time from scratch empty project and init patches.

If that would be the case, there would be no point for me in joining OSC anymore. What interests me the most is what ppl are capable of creating with the same tool as I use. I get excited when I listen to completely different songs created with the same synth. Sometimes I do pay attention to new presets - if there's something that really pops out, but all in all it's the composition aspect I'm really into and I like the fact that I don't know how the song evolves until the end - I like that element of surprise. This is valid for all my music work: I get my kicks from the whole creative process, from the first idea/theme to finishing a song.

Cover songs are boring and they work only in one situation: when playing live, to spice things up and fire up the atmosphere in between your own songs. Cover songs are (IMO) the plague of modern music: everyone's digging up old songs and start playing them like their own (and in most cases it actually works 'cause ppl don't bother to listen beyond what commercial channels are "feeding" them), remixes, mashups, etc. Most "artists" don't even bother to make their own songs anymore, they hire someone and voila, here's the next hit. No wonder ppl don't care about composition anymore (talking in general, not about your earlier post, bj) - the very thing that made the classic composers famous & everlasting We live in strange times

I don't know, man, maybe the way I see things is due to my different music background (I'm a bass player, I play rock - metal in particular); in that field composition is everything. Now when I come in here and I see all these debates about making your own sounds and using effects and mixing and mastering and this and that and I'm like: are we still talking about music, right? All that was invented so that ppl would be able to create beautiful music. And a good song is a good song regardless if it was recorded in crappy conditions. On the other hand, a crappy song, even with stellar production, is still a crappy song. But I disgress too much I hope you gey my point

Anyway, guys, at the end of the day, remember this: the audience doesn't give a - you know what - on all this All that matters to them is if the song makes them dance and feel good or maybe get them in a certain state, etc. All the technicalities are crazy talk for "geeks" like us Coming to think of it, it's kind of funny how we fire up about such insignificant things

[abovethoughts]

Nvmd

[V'ger]

Some covers are just brilliant and standout works in their own right in my opinion. Take for example this:



..turned into this, a rock hall of famer:



Many other examples out there, but I think our main points have been made. Let's see what the vote will bring.

[V'ger]

But to all: Don't forget to vote, just a few days more to go now:
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 4#p5609584

[ThePresent]

(Re)Voted for rules.
Change suggestion:
Use any composition of your own, brandnew or 30 years old.
Allow a fixed amount of points, obliged to rank from one to ten.

[bjporter]

(Re)Voted for rules.
Change suggestion:
Use any composition of your own, brandnew or 30 years old.
Allow a fixed amount of points, obliged to rank from one to ten.

I think any of your tunes are allowed as long as they weren't published somewhere, right?

[ThePresent]

Even if it was not specifically composed for OSC, which didn't run 20 years ago?

[V'ger]

General Rules Vote (January 2014)

Let's see if anything needs fixing or adding so please enter your votes HERE before 20th January (KVR time):

If you want a rule changed, write the new alternative here.
(please formulate the new rule if you can)

If you have suggestions or ideas for any other topics that should be voted on, write them here too.

A follow up poll will then run from 21st to the end of the month if necessary and new rules counted from the next OSC onward.

Voting over

Rules Vote Results

As you can see, majority wants things as they are and without any additions for the moment. Cheers all.

[olikana]

If I consider that a song is bad I will give it a low mark. But you can bet that "a brilliantly made version of a classical piece" will only get 1 point from me regardless. No problem if others have a different opinion though. And don't worry, if cover songs do get accepted, I will not try to enforce my point of view in any way, I will simply walk away from OSC

Yeah I don't really consider composition that much, but it's definitely part of it. I know it sucks to have covers but you should stay because - at least for me - this is a great learning experience and winning of course is not what I strive to do - more or less making a great track in a small amount of time from scratch empty project and init patches.

if covers are now allowed I might join in cos generally the only original compositions I might come up have to go towards my music projects .
besides in 2014 any song is a cover (just some don't know they are making a cover)
I don't believe under 8 bars is possible to make a truly orginal composition. it's all been done. maybe I'm wrong but haven't heard any new melody in a long time.



btw while I'm here may I suggest OBXD for one of the next OSCs!! love it!
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 1&t=387568

[crimsonwarlock]

if covers are now allowed I might join in cos generally the only original compositions I might come up have to go towards my music projects .

From the voting results I get that covers are still NOT allowed.

Basically, everything stays the same

[V'ger]

Rules vote additional

I know it's a bit iffy to have follow up polls on matters already settled in the main rules vote, but since it now seems technically possible to change how the voting is done on tracks during competition, it still seems acceptable since this was not regarded as a possibility before. It can still be voted down and things return as they were so nothing forced.

Thanks to Bjporter's programming skills, it is now possible to go outside the boundaries of what we've been able to do with Google docs question form and there's now the option to rate the tracks in order by stacking them.

Do you want this?

The advantage is that we avoid the varying and skewed points system of today where some give out for example 50 points to all entrants, while others might give 100 or more which is not totally ideal I think we all agree.

Other advantages:

- You don't have to vote in one day, you can open up the vote form and continue your progress

- More equality - stacking votes means you can't vote 1 for each track, so you really have to decide which track is good

- Easier navigation, and eventually ability to comment on a track in the voting screen

- Drag and move tracks around easily, without having to choose 1-5 stars

- Easy to use on a mobile device

A disadvantage is that it might be slightly more hard to vote in that you now have to separate every single track from each other where before you might give them same score if that was difficult etc. More?

So:

Vote by clicking in this form HERE before 1st February KVR time.

[animehaus]

Just voted.

The possibility of rating tracks using a stacking system, depending on the poll results, is really exciting.

[psmacmur]

I voted, but would have appreciated a "Maybe" option.

The advantage of such a system is indeed normalization; I think it will at least make my own votes more meaningful. Giving all the great tracks 5 is nice but also doesn't help the competition results as much as ranking them would.

Ranking tracks will be hard because it often boils down to very good apples vs very good oranges and maybe today I'm in the mood for an apple.

Also it depends a bit how awesome bjporter's UX is.

And finally, if this works well, I'd like to see it implemented for politics, too, if you don't mind, bjporter.

If it *doesn't* work out, I imagine there'd be an option to revert in next year's annual OSC poll? In which case I think it's totally worth a shot.

[bjporter]

I voted, but would have appreciated a "Maybe" option.

The advantage of such a system is indeed normalization; I think it will at least make my own votes more meaningful. Giving all the great tracks 5 is nice but also doesn't help the competition results as much as ranking them would.

Ranking tracks will be hard because it often boils down to very good apples vs very good oranges and maybe today I'm in the mood for an apple.

Also it depends a bit how awesome bjporter's UX is.

And finally, if this works well, I'd like to see it implemented for politics, too, if you don't mind, bjporter.

If it *doesn't* work out, I imagine there'd be an option to revert in next year's annual OSC poll? In which case I think it's totally worth a shot.

Everything we do of course is changeable, so if something sucks, it will be dealt with of course, and reverted or changed.

[adagiocm]

besides in 2014 any song is a cover (just some don't know they are making a cover)
I don't believe under 8 bars is possible to make a truly orginal composition. it's all been done. maybe I'm wrong but haven't heard any new melody in a long time.

Hi Olikana,

I don't think you realize how vast the composition space is!

For the sake of simplicity, let's say that we want to calculate the total number of possible monophonic melodies in the diatonic scale only, limited to a 2 octave range. Also for the sake of simplicity, let's assume that we only allow 1/8th notes and 1/8th rests. So, for every 1/8th step, we have 15 possibilities. (7 notes per octave, 2 octaves, plus one rest.) Since we have 64 such steps within 8 bars (another simplifying assumption here: 4/4 time signature only), the total number of possibilities is

15^64 = 1.86 x 10^75.

Obviously this is huge! And if we relax some of the assumptions above (allow occasional notes outside the diatonic scale, allow different length notes, different time signatures etc) this number becomes much bigger. By comparison, the total number of atoms in the universe is estimated to be around 10^78.

So, we can all rest assured that we can keep coming up with new melodies. We won't run out