One Synth Challenge #93: OBXD by DiscoDSP & 2DaT (mmGhost Wins!)

[pylon]

So I gave a full 5 to your entry this month z.prime, I love it. I gave a full five to "more = less" too,
my favourites among other five tracks. But I got 3 from you and 2 from Pylon,
is it because my entry was weak in sound design, composition, mixing and mastering, and all that?

Hi,
Firstly, I'm no regular player here - this is only my 3rd OSC and first for over 12 months so with judging/scoring I'm still "finding my feet" as it were. I see I was on average perhaps a little mean with scoring - I only gave two 5s, although more 4s than anything else I think.

My scoring probably was more biased towards how much I simply liked a track, although production (in which I include mixing), originality, arrangement were factors too. Sound design much less. Not that I don't appreciate those who create from scratch their own patches but I've no issues with people using "out of the box" presets, but I won't get into that issue here.

Why did I score you 2?
Well, I found your track a little odd. It seemed you were trying to emulate a blues slide guitar track and it just didn't work for me. If I want blues slide guitar, I'll listen to it done on a guitar.
It also seemed predominantly like a "jam", mostly around a single chord and rather ploddy beat, with improvised improvisation/noodling on top - not much melody (something I like). At nearly 5 minutes, I found it too long with not enough variation to sustain my interest.
Listen again to that constant cymbal - there's no dynamic variation, it's the same velocity hit every time.

No doubt others get your track and enjoy the feel and groove of this genre. I can appreciate that, but it just wasn't my thang.
But hey, it's not all bad, I did score it more than SoundGoddess's!

[liqih]

liqhi, several people have commented on almost Identical aspect of your song that could be improved. Listen to the top tracks and compare elements of their composition like sound design, mix, song structure, melodic variation etc, to your own track. Learn something and just leave the drama out of it yes? I'm sorry some people didn't like your song and you feel they scored you unfairly. It will happen though. That's the nature of every contest that is judged by a human. It's also a part of sharing your music publicly. If you don't want people to voice their opinions about your music, be that in a comment or a score, then I suggest you not release your music publicly.

What drama? I don't feel at all it was scored unfairly, you missread my words, or most possibly I'm not able to express myself
in english. Why when one try to reason about some "values" it must mean that he's complaining?, <sigh>

[Mechanought]

liqhi, several people have commented on almost Identical aspect of your song that could be improved. Listen to the top tracks and compare elements of their composition like sound design, mix, song structure, melodic variation etc, to your own track. Learn something and just leave the drama out of it yes? I'm sorry some people didn't like your song and you feel they scored you unfairly. It will happen though. That's the nature of every contest that is judged by a human. It's also a part of sharing your music publicly. If you don't want people to voice their opinions about your music, be that in a comment or a score, then I suggest you not release your music publicly.

What drama? I don't feel at all it was scored unfairly, you missread my words, or most possibly I'm not able to express myself
in english. Why when one try to reason about some "values" it must mean that he's complaing?, <sigh>

ACK! I'm so sorry i confused you and SoundGoddess. Though I guess parts of it was for you. I just read straight through and I guess her post melted into yours or something.

The scoring stuff about your track was meant for SoundGoddess. My bad!

[liqih]

But I got 3 from you and 2 from Pylon, is it because my entry was weak in sound design, composition, mixing and mastering, and all that?

So, I actually teetered a bit on yours, if you would like to know. And I'm keeping this in the public because I believe it's something other people might benefit from. I'm not trying to knock you in any way, but I do want to explain EXACTLY why I gave you the score I did. I spend a fair amount of time judging people on various aspects. I've said before: composition/creativity, sound design/selection, and mix/mastering.

I've said this before to many people, but I'm not sure if I've never said this in public, so I'm saying it now: making a non-electronic track in the OSC is riddled with problems. The reason is simple: you MUST make realistic sounds to make it it believable. If you made a Bach Concerto using saw waves for everything, including percussion, would it sound good? Of course not. So find the sounds you can make, and then make a song (my record is broken and on repeat for this aspect of OSC).

As for your track, you got a great snare and some close other sounds, but not close enough to make it sound realistic. This doesn't have anything to do with OSC, though, really, it just has to do with humans and their perception of music. For a few parts, I was ready to believe it was an old Americana rock band, but only for a few seconds throughout. Keep that up the whole time? 5 points for sound design and creativity. But it was only a few moments... so after that, there was just monotony throughout. So the composition dragged down the creativity, and since the sounds were not stellar, the whole composition suffered. Make realistic guitars, drums, bass for a rock trio, and some semblance of melody that is appealing, I'd probably give a 5 for this type of track even though I really don't like it musically (this, I understand is a personal preference, and I try to keep that aspect out of my voting).

So, you want to keep this public, fine for me. Thanks for the explanation. I see your point of view and of course I agree only partially
otherwise I wouldn't have posted that track. Exactly because it's a one synth challenge I knew that would have been very hard to make realistic electroacoustic instruments . You said good snare, comments on SC I read said good guitar and good fiddle,
not realistic enough? Of course, I spend my available week with one single synth, and that's all I could do. I dared to entry with that:
hey guys I got so far....
But the monotony is intentional since I like that flat naive underhyped style. And the sloppy funky beat.
# You say that Carl_saved track was not great sounding but a great composition,
So by comparison my not over realistic sounds wouldn't have hold back your votes if you liked my "monotony" better.
That's what I mean by subjectivity rules. And again I'm not complaining about the votes.

But really, I made a space movie soundtrack this time instead of a song and I expected nothing. The sound design probably kept me in the top 5 or something.... In a prior OSC, I made what I think was an incredibly good symphonic soundset for the synth (it was Tunefish 4) and I finished pretty low.

That's why I say that music has little to do with the people who make it.

[liqih]

liqhi, several people have commented on almost Identical aspect of your song that could be improved. Listen to the top tracks and compare elements of their composition like sound design, mix, song structure, melodic variation etc, to your own track. Learn something and just leave the drama out of it yes? I'm sorry some people didn't like your song and you feel they scored you unfairly. It will happen though. That's the nature of every contest that is judged by a human. It's also a part of sharing your music publicly. If you don't want people to voice their opinions about your music, be that in a comment or a score, then I suggest you not release your music publicly.

What drama? I don't feel at all it was scored unfairly, you missread my words, or most possibly I'm not able to express myself
in english. Why when one try to reason about some "values" it must mean that he's complaining?, <sigh>

ACK! I'm so sorry i confused you and SoundGoddess. Though I guess parts of it was for you. I just read straight through and I guess her post melted into yours or something.

The scoring stuff about your track was meant for SoundGoddess. My bad!

No worries, thanks for the reply. <grin>

[liqih]

So I gave a full 5 to your entry this month z.prime, I love it. I gave a full five to "more = less" too,
my favourites among other five tracks. But I got 3 from you and 2 from Pylon,
is it because my entry was weak in sound design, composition, mixing and mastering, and all that?

My scoring probably was more biased towards how much I simply liked a track,

That's fine in my book.

Why did I score you 2?
Well, I found your track a little odd. It seemed you were trying to emulate a blues slide guitar track and it just didn't work for me. If I want blues slide guitar, I'll listen to it done on a guitar.

So do I, only for the challege I did that.

It also seemed predominantly like a "jam", mostly around a single chord and rather ploddy beat, with improvised improvisation/noodling on top - not much melody (something I like). At nearly 5 minutes, I found it too long with not enough variation to sustain my interest.
Listen again to that constant cymbal - there's no dynamic variation, it's the same velocity hit every time.

As I replied above to z.prime, I had my reasons to do like that. I truly accept that many will not like the same I do.

Well, as I said, I really love your Electro Tango entry. <grin>

[liqih]

Congrats to the winners!

[z.prime]

But the monotony is intentional since I like that flat naive underhyped style. And the sloppy funky beat.
# You say that Carl_saved track was not great sounding but a great composition,
So by comparison my not over realistic sounds wouldn't have hold back your votes if you liked my "monotony" better.
That's what I mean by subjectivity rules. And again I'm not complaining about the votes.

So just because you decided to bring another contestant into this...
Look, a few of your past entries blew me away if I'm remembering properly. But this one didn't. It's because the music was boring and the sounds weren't great. Simple as that. Lots of people make boring music with GREAT sounds, which would put them ahead of that. OR boring sounds with GREAT music. And, to be honest, you have a lot of people in this competition putting soundcloud comments just to be nice and hope you vote for them back (I have never done that, although I do try to find nice things in people's pieces to comment on). Not all of them by any means, but some. It's sucks. Maybe they heard stuff I didn't. This is a contest in 2016, though, so yup, there are some. So yes. EXACTLY as I said, your composition was NOT great, but Carl_Saved's submission musically was amazing to me. Full chords, movement around the spectrum... That gave him good marks. (And if you would like to go look at past submissions and voting, I have no particular love for Carl_Saved, nor him for me, but in this one particular case, sounds were good enough and music was excellent.) I can't even make a composition like Carl has, but I respect what he did. But don't ever say: "I'm making monotony for the sake of music" that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard... ESPECIALLY with boring sounds. That will not be liked, respected, nor voted highly in this competition. I could make 3 minutes of repeated C. would you like that? would ya?

[liqih]

But the monotony is intentional since I like that flat naive underhyped style. And the sloppy funky beat.
# You say that Carl_saved track was not great sounding but a great composition,
So by comparison my not over realistic sounds wouldn't have hold back your votes if you liked my "monotony" better.
That's what I mean by subjectivity rules. And again I'm not complaining about the votes.

So just because you decided to bring another contestant into this...
Look, a few of your past entries blew me away if I'm remembering properly. But this one didn't. It's because the music was boring and the sounds weren't great. Simple as that. Lots of people make boring music with GREAT sounds, which would put them ahead of that. OR boring sounds with GREAT music. And, to be honest, you have a lot of people in this competition putting soundcloud comments just to be nice and hope you vote for them back (I have never done that, although I do try to find nice things in people's pieces to comment on). Not all of them by any means, but some. It's sucks. Maybe they heard stuff I didn't. This is a contest in 2016, though, so yup, there are some. So yes. EXACTLY as I said, your composition was NOT great, but Carl_Saved's submission musically was amazing to me. Full chords, movement around the spectrum... That gave him good marks. (And if you would like to go look at past submissions and voting, I have no particular love for Carl_Saved, nor him for me, but in this one particular case, sounds were good enough and music was excellent.) I can't even make a composition like Carl has, but I respect what he did. But don't ever say: "I'm making monotony for the sake of music" that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard... ESPECIALLY with boring sounds. That will not be liked, respected, nor voted highly in this competition. I could make 3 minutes of repeated C. would you like that? would ya?

Since you ask I answer, yes I could like it. Depends on so many factors I can't count them all.
Then if you think that "I'm making monotony for the sake of music" is ridiculous, you possibly never liked minimalism,
dark drone and the like, fine with that. One more evidence of subjective taste.
You may find it very odd that I mix fake americana with minimal house. Possibly no one will never like that,
but if I do I'm honest with myself to try that, and fail. So yes I failed. Now to the next, <grin>

Ciao

[rghvdberg]

Congratulations to the winners!

[z.prime]

... 3 minutes of [monotony] repeated C. would you like that? would ya?

Since you ask I answer, yes I could like it. Depends on so many factors I can't count them all.
Then if you think that "I'm making monotony for the sake of music" is ridiculous, you possibly never liked minimalism,

That's the thing. Did you read the preconditions? No, I didn't think so. So you really couldn't. NOT without variation. So maybe it's best you stop trying to argue a failing point?

[z.prime]

Maybe you like to argue. I LOVE to argue. But maybe, once you get off your high horse you realize that there are people who want you to be successful. Maybe. And if you don't? I'm sorry for that.

[liqih]

... 3 minutes of [monotony] repeated C. would you like that? would ya?

Since you ask I answer, yes I could like it. Depends on so many factors I can't count them all.
Then if you think that "I'm making monotony for the sake of music" is ridiculous, you possibly never liked minimalism,

That's the thing. Did you read the preconditions? No, I didn't think so. So you really couldn't. NOT without variation. So maybe it's best you stop trying to argue a failing point?

Maybe I missed the preconditions, but I don't think so.
Listen, what I mean is that monotony doesn't necessarily means boring.
People like to sit on a river side and listen to the noise of water,
if the context is right that's relaxing music for them.
Depends on the meaning you put in what you listen to.
You can even invent the variations in your own mind.
When I listen to an old clock each tick-tack sounds different to me,
maybe I'm crazy, I don't try to argue a failing point, just to explain my thoughts.

[liqih]

Maybe you like to argue. I LOVE to argue. But maybe, once you get off your high horse you realize that there are people who want you to be successful. Maybe. And if you don't? I'm sorry for that.

Come on, why put it personally? Of course I love to argue, like you. <wink>

And yes I realize that help, don't worry. Thanks for that, indeed. No irony.

[doctorbob]

Congrats to all the winners.

Just a little saddened that my track didn't show a little higher - but then, it was up against a whole load of other great tracks. probably too sad and slow for this time of year and the OSC in general perhaps!

Anyways, my usual halfway house ... some like my style (hehe), some don't. Musically I thought it was quite good (but then, I would say that). I guess it just didn't have that last bit of ooomph (whatever that would have to be on that type of track?)

Still happy it's chosen to be a demo track for the synth - my own little "prize" and pride.

Cheers all,

Have a happy Xmas and New Year and/or holiday depending on how you celebrate this time of year.

dB