One Synth Challenge #98: Any One Synth (Photonic Wins!)

[EnGee]

Engee. There's the mixing challenge and music café too on kvr.

Thanks for telling me, but the mixing challenge is about mixing right? I haven't checked Music Cafe. I thought it is just for posting your music. Anyway, I will check now. Thanks

[Saukar30]

No offense to anyone... but as this is this 98th challenge and this is about the 3rd time that there has been an "Any One Synth" type of challenge, I don't find the rules to be too difficult.

No need to split the contest between paid synths & free synths. No need for a mass explanation of which effects can be used or which synths you can use or why you cant use romplers or which wavetable synths you can & cant use. I think it's all self explanatory.

No phasers, flangers, or heavy manipulators to the sound of the synth. No romplers. If the wavetables are natural to the synth, then it's fair. If the synth comes with drum sounds than those are ok. If you bought presets for the synths, that's fine. You cant make wavetables specifically for the challenge. If you purchased a wavetable for your synth that includes every kind of sound imaginable, I think that is unfair, but since it's any one synth, I guess you could use it.

As it's been proven before, you can have great sounds & still not win. You cant have the best synth & still not win. It all comes to you song & how other users vote. If someone makes a kick ass song using Synth1 vs someone using Serum... it all depends on how people like it or how they vote... it doesn't matter as far as the frame of this contest which synth is better. If you feel the need to judge a song based on the amount of work someone put it, its your preference. If you vote basically on the song structure its your preference. All because more users vote one way vs another doesn't matter... its their preference.

I think sometimes with a community of creative people we get way too involved with what can be done & what cant be. Plus we have so many options & everyone here has so much talent. In he end.. it's your song that matters, not the equipment you use or how you made it. I think if we all keep that in mind, it'll be a lot better.

Yes... I know... people feel jilted when they don't when after spending a month or so working their butt off to win & they don't.. myself included sometimes. But its a contest. AND it's a contest that is very opinionated. However... the plus is you can hear what DOES win & how to better perfect your craft or... at the very least you get to learn one of your tools inside & out for a month. In life, there are no guarantees. In this contest, 95% of us will not win. Its a fact.

I think it would be better if we all focused our conversations on technique & structure & synth discussion vs the rules. This contest is pretty cool and whats cool is all of us who take the time to participate in it.

Good luck!!

[wagtunes]

No offense to anyone... but as this is this 98th challenge and this is about the 3rd time that there has been an "Any One Synth" type of challenge, I don't find the rules to be too difficult.

No need to split the contest between paid synths & free synths. No need for a mass explanation of which effects can be used or which synths you can use or why you cant use romplers or which wavetable synths you can & cant use. I think it's all self explanatory.

No phasers, flangers, or heavy manipulators to the sound of the synth. No romplers. If the wavetables are natural to the synth, then it's fair. If the synth comes with drum sounds than those are ok. If you bought presets for the synths, that's fine. You cant make wavetables specifically for the challenge. If you purchased a wavetable for your synth that includes every kind of sound imaginable, I think that is unfair, but since it's any one synth, I guess you could use it.

As it's been proven before, you can have great sounds & still not win. You cant have the best synth & still not win. It all comes to you song & how other users vote. If someone makes a kick ass song using Synth1 vs someone using Serum... it all depends on how people like it or how they vote... it doesn't matter as far as the frame of this contest which synth is better. If you feel the need to judge a song based on the amount of work someone put it, its your preference. If you vote basically on the song structure its your preference. All because more users vote one way vs another doesn't matter... its their preference.

I think sometimes with a community of creative people we get way too involved with what can be done & what cant be. Plus we have so many options & everyone here has so much talent. In he end.. it's your song that matters, not the equipment you use or how you made it. I think if we all keep that in mind, it'll be a lot better.

Yes... I know... people feel jilted when they don't when after spending a month or so working their butt off to win & they don't.. myself included sometimes. But its a contest. AND it's a contest that is very opinionated. However... the plus is you can hear what DOES win & how to better perfect your craft or... at the very least you get to learn one of your tools inside & out for a month. In life, there are no guarantees. In this contest, 95% of us will not win. Its a fact.

I think it would be better if we all focused our conversations on technique & structure & synth discussion vs the rules. This contest is pretty cool and whats cool is all of us who take the time to participate in it.

Good luck!!

How dare you come in here and make sense.

Who do you think you are anyway to give us logic and reason?

If I wasn't so stubborn, I'd have a good mind to admit you're right.

Now where did I put my OnePingOnly?

[RichardSemper]

[Saukar30]

How dare you come in here and make sense.

Who do you think you are anyway to give us logic and reason?

If I wasn't so stubborn, I'd have a good mind to admit you're right.

Now where did I put my OnePingOnly?

Im a parent.. I have to explain logic & reason a lot... unfortunately its to more grown ups than the kids in my life... but the kids are good practice.

All the best to ya, Wags!

[rghvdberg]

Omg .. LOL
Wags for president!

[bjporter]

I disagree. OSC as it is now is almost closed or not that open circle. I always see the same names.

This is actually incorrect based on the stats. The OSC has always had a small amount of people in and out. Some of them stay around, a lot of them move to other pastures (commercial work, their own projects). Over time new people come in.

[bjporter]

I think it would be better if we all focused our conversations on technique & structure & synth discussion vs the rules. This contest is pretty cool and whats cool is all of us who take the time to participate in it.

Good luck!!

Well said

[ontrackp]

From Saukar30

In the end.. it's your song that matters, not the equipment you use or how you made it. I think if we all keep that in mind, it'll be a lot better.

Yes. Great point.

[wagtunes]

You know, the more I think about this the more I want to do this one, but I have absolutely no clue what synth to choose. I want something that comes with good drum patches because I am terrible at creating them.

What's a good "legal" synth that has great drums? I have just about everything.

Give me some suggestions. I'm all ears.

[ontrackp]

You know, the more I think about this the more I want to do this one, but I have absolutely no clue what synth to choose. I want something that comes with good drum patches because I am terrible at creating them.

What's a good "legal" synth that has great drums? I have just about everything.

Give me some suggestions. I'm all ears.

Zebra 2

[wagtunes]

You know, the more I think about this the more I want to do this one, but I have absolutely no clue what synth to choose. I want something that comes with good drum patches because I am terrible at creating them.

What's a good "legal" synth that has great drums? I have just about everything.

Give me some suggestions. I'm all ears.

Zebra 2

Then Zebra 2 it is. I got like 350 patches of my own that I designed for it. Be a chance to show off. LOL.

And my mixes are definitely getting better thanks to the help from a whole lot of people.

Here's a cover I did of New Song by Howard Jones just recently.

https://soundcloud.com/steven-wagenheim/new-song-remix

[RichardSemper]

What's a good "legal" synth that has great drums? I have just about everything.

I seem to recall making some good percussions with TAL Noizemaker.
Charlatan too, though I had to use three layers for kicks and snares.
My best ever kick/snare combo was with Eclipsis, each was a single patch with hardly any external processing. But thats 32 bit only I think.
On the commercial side I have to say MUX is pretty hard to beat, and I was tempted to go with that one myself.

However, for this comp I shall have to take my latest shiny new purchase for a spin. Only got it last week and its awesome

[caonoize]

I'm trying to get going with Alsa Modular Synth. But so far not much luck. Either I'm doing it wrong or some software is clearly broken. Because Linux btw...

AMS is a bit of a ball buster. It really needs a bunch of TLC, but the last time I suggested that upstream, I got a lot of excuses, and it took ages for them to incorporate a few obvious bug fixes, and that's a pity as AMS can make some really nice sounds, but I just don't see that the maintainers really want to ride herd on an active project. It's high time for a fork, though I've not the time to do it myself right now.

[Brisbane]

Haven't been on here in a while, but I had to say something about this splitting up synth challenges thing. First, I would like to say that we are making lame excuses by wanting to separate paid vs. free synths. Z Prime, Jasinski, and many other people have proven that it isn't what you use but how you use it that matters. I haven't done a synth challenge in a while, but I have been trying to enter some remix contests instead. And let me say, these contests have absolutely no restrictions at all, not a one. The only one is the fact that you have to use at least one of the stems provided to enter. And guess what, a lot of the entries are very sub par. Isn't that crazy?? No, it's not. It's because good music isn't about what you use to make it, it's about how you use what you have to create it. For example, most music before the pure electronic/synth age was made with the same crap. A drumset, guitar, bass, vocals, piano, etc., and you still had tracks that were amazing and some that were junk. So, there is no excuse for someone to not be able to create a masterpiece from something whether it be a high quality instrument or low quality. Rather, it's about high quality vs. low quality musicianship and effort. Simple as that. And on the discussion of whether a synth has this that or the other sample, wavetable, or preset and what not and whether you can use it, I honestly would say who cares? Use it. It's not that certain element that's going to win the contest for you, it's how you use it that will.