One Synth Challenge #165: BBC Symphony Orchestra Discover by Spitfire Audio (Schiing Wins!)

[MilksterX]

The problem I think with this round was because of the chosen synth, this might be what caused a slight rift of the group: those making orchestral compositional pieces and those experimenting or something in between.

Neither is wrong or right. Music and art is entirely subjective as is the listening of everyone's tracks and of the voting process.

Everyone is free to vote as they choose without having to explain themselves along with make music as they choose.

I have no issues with Terje or what's gone on and through my own unconscious bias it would make me a hypocrite even if I did.

We all secretly strive for honest critique, praise is of no use to us as artists. The OSC forum is not a good place for either imo and If someone feels the need to explain themselves here then maybe they need to re evaluate why. Yes I'm aware this includes myself!!

Can we please all just get along and forget about this now and have a Happy holiday?

Hope to see you all waving at Manuel in the next OSC thread!

[Taron]

Oh, life- especially as an artist- is a constant reevaluation. We should want to learn and that covers all areas including interaction as we should hope to want to learn from each other.
See, if I may get a little metaphysical on us for a second, I've come to the realization that the great process in which our universe pops up does not operate based on true or false, but only on true. What makes something manifest is when it can reliably become true and therefore attains the state of a stable loop. Imagine in a dark room or at night you quickly spin a flashlight so that you can see a circle! When you see it, you'd say: There's a circle or an "O". The "O" has manifested for as long as you can maintain spinning that flashlight. Once you stop, it's gone... that's all. It's not false, it just stopped being true.
That means, when you think you've made a mistake, you will be able to stop it and then pursue a different choice. Once you find the right nature of choices that you know you can maintain, well... then you'll be on your true path. But if you were to hide your mistake by never exposing it, you may begin to manifest a path that leads you to where you didn't want to go. It will be true, but it won't be true to your original desire.
SOOOOoooooo make mistakes! Risk it! Expose what you believe to be true to you at the time and you will then be able to reevaluate. You're giving yourself a chance and you'll also allow others to evaluate such potential choices. The clearer we become, the more we experience, the stronger our paths will get until we someday actually begin to manifest something that can last. In no time we'll be able to take out our flashlights and paint an "O S C" into the night!

[schiing]

All good points! I enjoy our conversations and interactions. Even though our egos, my own included, sometimes get a bit bruised, even though we sometimes misunderstand each other, sometimes disagree. We grow and learn, hopefully. And sometimes I get tired of hearing my own voice – I guess I'm pretty much there at this point.

[jasinski]

Congrats, you glorious Greens. I agree with Schiing's essay. Well said. Thanks for taking the time to express your thoughts. I also Taron's track was next level. GG

[jasinski]

We all secretly strive for honest critique, praise is of no use to us as artists. The OSC forum is not a good place for either imo and If someone feels the need to explain themselves here then maybe they need to re evaluate why. Yes I'm aware this includes myself!!

Speak for yourself! I'm strive for that sweet sweet millions of moneys. What? That's not the ultimate prize in this contest?

All these years... wasted.

I guess I'll settle for a reason to make some music every month.

[IV!]

Oh... to be honest, I don't like where this has all gone. I still believe that OSC is primarily about the freedom of musical expression always and for everyone. That in this challenge the electronic synthesizer does not oblige NOT to make orchestral music with it, and the symphonic library does not oblige NOT to make electronic music with it. That the SPIRIT of this challenge (among other things) is to use instruments in the most inappropriate way, trying to make them make sounds for which they "were not designed". If I stopped believing in this, I would leave OSC on the same day!

A very good analogy was given earlier by ] Peter:H [:

This is like Mr. Commodore C64 still commenting every demo scene entry these days with "This is illegal use of Commodore C64. We never intended it to be used like that. Please use Basic Interpreter".

And the way Wave Manuel developer tells ] Peter:H [ that he doesn't understand how he made drum sounds with his synthesizer - this is the very essence of the spirit of OSC! We are demosceners of every synthesizer of the month, the whole history of OSC just says that.

So, in this my opinion is at odds with the opinion of Schiing and Mr. Arkadin... and this is also absolutely in the spirit of OSC! Everything is fine, everyone votes as they see fit. I just saw here an example that maybe we shouldn't publish our voting systems for everyone to see. We are all people, we are all different. We know that everyone votes differently, but we don't want to know how much. Justifying a low score in a personal comment is much more useful both for the recipient (more accurate advice) and for the voter (allows you to notice and prevent categorization based on labels in time). I will carefully assume that many of us sometimes sin with this, I am no exception - the modern media space is trying with terrible force to replace critical thinking with label thinking.

I probably wouldn't participate in the discussion, since I didn't even participate this month... But I perceive Liqih's decision to leave One Synth Challenge as a personal disaster and a catastrophe for the community. I know him not only as one of the most creative and diverse composers in OSC, but also as a person who gives honest and useful comments, which is no less important.

Besides, we are such a small community that communicates quite closely. We are almost like a small village with its own young and old, its own "locals" and "visitors", even its own doctor and preacher! This is a very fragile and precious phenomenon for the Internet world in general! And for many, this place was the beginning or reboot of their musical activity, which is simply priceless! And the best feature of this society is self-regulation - the way we solve all problems together and do not need a sheriff.

I hope... that the SilverPants message will become a petition that will show Liqih with likes how dear he is to us! Yes, I understand, it's completely childish, but what achievements in the "Science of Friendship. Volume 1 - The ability to forgive and reconciled" can at least one adult boast compared to children?

[ChristopherWD]

Congratulations to Schiing, Taron, TheNeverScene and Envlpx. Also congratulations and a big thank you to everyone who entered for being involved in such a unique month. Thank you to the organizers of this too! I had a lot of fun creating my submission, and I was impressed at the variety of entries and how some pushed this orchestra rompler in unique ways - some even had a new-age vibe to them. I learned from everyone which is more than I could ask.

That creativity and expression from the participants in this community is what led me to these challenges in the first place. It's what got me back into music making again! It's wonderful hearing how people can push these romplers/synths in their own unique way, and I'll always encourage that. Especially the moments when I listen to a piece and think to myself "how did they do that sound?".

[Mike777]

Congrats to the winners, very deserving entries!

Seems to me people vote for what they like the best, it's that simple. Make something great, and it's appreciated. Some of the entries could be movie scores!

I would be for a monthly contest with free samples, to run in the sample forum, not here. Which would be using mostly acoustic instrument sounds, not synths. There are lots of free samples and players.

[BrainBeatMusic]

I guess I was the lowest scorer, but hey no-one liked my track anyway I'm still going ahead and creating a Pro version for comparison, plus it's already down to 4:45 duration, so I've learned something.

There were a few factors in my scoring. I've never been a fan of 'participation' trophies. I think zero is not needed, in this case everyone that tries deserves at least one point as there is rarely music so terrible that it deserves nothing, even I'm not that mean.

It's all good welcome to the competition. I do disagree with your scoring system but as long as you are consistent then your score is what you feel to be right. Generally, this competition is about making a track fully out of one older or still in development VST so at least for me the sounds created or used is about half my score and the musicality is the other half. This will almost always mean a minimum score of 3 unless it is just painful to hear which is rare. Some of us will also give scores, especially for their creativity in going in an unexpected direction. That said some may take things too far and deserve to either have their score penalised or be made ineligible but these are rare too.

There are actually plenty of dance tracks that have either been made for a part or full orchestra (especially just strings) or an orchestrated remix (see Synthony etc) so scoring them down because they were not traditional orchestra music I feel was a bit unfair. I certainly don't love a lot of the genre used in tracks submitted in previous competitions but will still happily give them 4's and 5's if they are good examples of what genre their track is in.

[BrainBeatMusic]

I would be for a monthly contest with free samples, to run in the sample forum, not here. Which would be using mostly acoustic instrument sounds, not synths. There are lots of free samples and players.

You mane like Andrew Huang does in his 4 produces 1 sample series? Interestingly if you see his 4 producers' challenge they sort of did what we do but with any Arutia physical synth.

I wouldn't mind trying out doing something like this for a change.

[Mr Arkadin]

There are actually plenty of dance tracks that have either been made for a part or full orchestra (especially just strings) or an orchestrated remix (see Synthony etc) so scoring them down because they were not traditional orchestra music I feel was a bit unfair. I certainly don't love a lot of the genre used in tracks submitted in previous competitions but will still happily give them 4's and 5's if they are good examples of what genre their track is in.

Thanks for the considered response. Now that I'm getting a feel for the competition (as I say it was my first, plus I never followed the thread before) I think I would score some pieces differently. I've had a bit more time to listen and for instance would score liqih's higher than I did (I was initially put off by the effects). Hope he's not gone.

Just to clarify though, I didn't score dance tracks down because they weren't traditional orchestra, it was because I don't think that the traditional orchestral sounds worked in a dance context. It's certainly worth trying though, and I would probably mark those tracks at least a 2 in hindsight. To try and make those sounds work they have to be twisted beyond recognition, which is fine, but then you're just left with the feeling that really the competitor would rather have used a synth, making the orchestral aspect of the plug-in pointless.

I think orchestral sounds can definitely work in dance tracks, but none of them really worked for me here. I'm certain that synth versions by these same people would be amazing.

In that instance you have a dichotomy: on the one hand you are super-creative and have twisted sounds in amazing ways, on the other you have twisted them to fit your style and are not stretching yourself musically as you've made those sounds behave exactly as if you'd used your favourite synth (assuming dance is your main thing).

Separately, in terms of the scoreboard: I assumed that you had to use the full range of scores, 1 to 5, but it seems I could just leave my own piece in the 1 area and start scoring from where I want? In that case my lowest would probably increase all my table by one, so 1s become 2 etc., although that would mean the top score now becomes 6!

[Taron]

Congrats to the winners, very deserving entries!

Seems to me people vote for what they like the best, it's that simple. Make something great, and it's appreciated. Some of the entries could be movie scores!

I would be for a monthly contest with free samples, to run in the sample forum, not here. Which would be using mostly acoustic instrument sounds, not synths. There are lots of free samples and players.

For that you should go to Metapop! They constantly have these exact kind of challenges.

Once upon a time we all here at the OSC tried to vote based on what qualities we recognized in each others productions rather than taste. We understood that each one of us has their own musical preferences, but the goal was to create quality tracks in respect to
• 40% sound design (how strong was the musician able to command the synth)
• 30% composition (how well was the musician able to make use of the instrument for their ideas)
• 20% production (how solid was the result/presentation)
• 10% taste

This would allow us to vote in the interest of the musician as opposed to our own. Because we're here to inspire, motivate and enable each other. It's not a competition where we fight for a prize. We show off with what we can do best and strive to push each other to ever greater heights.

Should you want to join again, just try to keep that in mind, please!

[Yadrichik_Chaya]

@Yadrichik Chaya - hello friend! I love your tracks, it's always something special, and now I'm sad to see this intriguing empty message( Please share this track in the Discord so that I can also join to listening to your art!

Hello!
It is just a pop-funk guitar loop for 30 seconds, you're not missing anything

I remember hesitating when first joining OSC, the whole dislike/like-thing, voting and being competitive is alien to me and not really wholesome to begin with, for anyone.

The whole internet is like a giant thumbs up/thumbs down playground + lacking (searching/waiting).
You either engage in what you like or what you dislike.
And the lacking part is that you are either searching for some thing (”how to export a sample library”) or waiting for a certain thing (”new plugin dropping soon!”)

There is no way in hell I'd ever enter OSC with what I've put my soul into.
I'm very content with just improvising some silly long tracks with many different ideas/themes/layers + bad mixing.

Stuff where one ”puts in one soul” is naturally, atleast in my case, kept for actual real songs where there aren't any restrictions or a competition etc.

OSC for me is like cooking food in the kitchen. While experimenting one maybe makes various gourmet dishes that one keeps for oneself but from all this cooking there are also the leftovers that one can feed the dogs with….Bahahaha!

My entire Soundcloud page is just a big dumpster filled with half-finished improvs, sloppy demos and OSC Entries!

[Mike777]

I think most artists agree with what Yadrichik_Chay says about putting your "soul" into your work- we don't think of that process as a contest. But if you happen to join a contest, well, then it's a contest.

American Bandstand tv show (1952 -1989) had a Top 10. In 1970 a Top 40 was started. The songs that hit the 'top of the charts' are rarely songs I care about. Nor do most people care. I consider these marketing schemes. The same with American Music Awards and any award shows. The 'best' songs rarely win. However, the People's Choice awards is different as 'winners' are decided by the general public and fans that vote online.

Even so, when the public votes, it's still not really about the 'best' song. It's really a popularity contest. I've seen too many times of amazing artists that rarely get any Grammy award or recognition what so ever. And other artists that win again and again. Contests mean very little.

That said, just because you put your heart and soul into a work doesn't guarantee it will be a great piece. All artists at some point realize this. It's just the nature of making art.

The good thing about contests is that it can stretch your abilities, and take you out of your comfort zone. The act of having your work 'judged' by others gives you valuable feedback, and even if harsh, should be taken as a step of growth.

[Taron]

I think most artists agree with what Yadrichik_Chay says about putting your "soul" into your work- we don't think of that process as a contest. But if you happen to join a contest, well, then it's a contest.

American Bandstand tv show (1952 -1989) had a Top 10. In 1970 a Top 40 was started. The songs that hit the 'top of the charts' are rarely songs I care about. Nor do most people care. I consider these marketing schemes. The same with American Music Awards and any award shows. The 'best' songs rarely win. However, the People's Choice awards is different as 'winners' are decided by the general public and fans that vote online.

Even so, when the public votes, it's still not really about the 'best' song. It's really a popularity contest. I've seen too many times of amazing artists that rarely get any Grammy award or recognition what so ever. And other artists that win again and again. Contests mean very little.

That said, just because you put your heart and soul into a work doesn't guarantee it will be a great piece. All artists at some point realize this. It's just the nature of making art.

The good thing about contests is that it can stretch your abilities, and take you out of your comfort zone. The act of having your work 'judged' by others gives you valuable feedback, and even if harsh, should be taken as a step of growth.

...I'm sorry, I have to laugh, but you think you gave me valuable feedback, honestly?
I can truly allow myself to claim that I really try to give valuable feedback, not just by my rating, but in words, if I can. While I sometimes can't even stand the style of certain tracks, I can still be amazed by what was accomplished and happily have it up in the 5er slot. We are here for each other and not against each other. If popularity is an effect of showing care in ones work and being mindful of each other, than that's a natural side effect. Strive for the care not for the effect of it!