KVR Audio

z.prime · Post by **z.prime** » Sat Aug 20, 2016 9:48 pm

Heheheh https://soundcloud.com/z_prime/helmet-kohl-loves-you

I'm sure Jasinski's singing tracks were better than this... but it's a start...

rghvdberg · Post by **rghvdberg** » Sat Aug 20, 2016 10:40 pm

Oh man, I was so looking forward to your track Jasinski.

I am so sorry this happened. :'(

jasinski · Post by **jasinski** » Sat Aug 20, 2016 11:02 pm

Ok, i recovered a previous version. Calmed down now. Still half a days work down the drain. I'll see what I can do.

rghvdberg · Post by **rghvdberg** » Sat Aug 20, 2016 11:14 pm

jasinski wrote:Ok, i recovered a previous version. Calmed down now. Still half a days work down the drain. I'll see what I can do.

Woo-hoo!

bh9090 · Post by **bh9090** » Sat Aug 20, 2016 11:33 pm

jasinski wrote:Ok, i recovered a previous version. Calmed down now. Still half a days work down the drain. I'll see what I can do.

Bummer. A little weird though. I'm on Live on Mac too. It wasn't perfect by any stretch but workable. I learned early to stay away from the step sequencer. It set everything to no volume as you described. Do you have a lot of instances with the step sequencer? Anyway, good luck.

z.prime · Post by **z.prime** » Sun Aug 21, 2016 4:30 am

jasinski wrote:Ok, i recovered a previous version. Calmed down now. Still half a days work down the drain. I'll see what I can do.

Hooray!!!!!!!

Guenon · Post by **Guenon** » Sun Aug 21, 2016 10:52 am

jasinski wrote:Ok, i recovered a previous version. Calmed down now. Still half a days work down the drain. I'll see what I can do.

Great to hear it wasn't ruined. Half a day sucks too, but pales in comparison to having as much tweakage nuked in one go as it first seemed

sfiks · Post by **sfiks** » Sun Aug 21, 2016 4:25 pm

How many of you listen to the contest entries with headphones during voting?
I do. Neighbors ... you know

z.prime · Post by **z.prime** » Sun Aug 21, 2016 4:26 pm

sfiks wrote:How many of you listen to the contest entries with headphones during voting?
I do. Neighbors ... you know

Ditto. It makes mixing for the target audience a bit of a crapshoot

Frostline · Post by **Frostline** » Mon Aug 22, 2016 1:19 am

sfiks wrote:How many of you listen to the contest entries with headphones during voting?
I do. Neighbors ... you know

As my first foray into any of this your question does perk my interest as to what the standard is for voting on this issue as well as a couple of others.

Having listened to this months tracks several times already in my living room I then tried with headphones after reading your post.

The impact was quite detrimental to several of the tracks. A couple of tracks did not sound as narrow wearing headphones as they did in open air(which was an improvement), but it also highlighted some sound characteristics in the tracks that were probably best left unheard.
It did help me hear that my track is still too low compared to a couple of the others. At a volume where the loudest section of my track was "just right" some of the other tracks were painfully loud.

Unless living in a tent one should be able to listen to the tracks at volume level where one can feel the music without disturbing the neighbors. It does not need to be loud enough to shake pictures on the walls to give a piece of music a good listen. Feeling a deep bass in your guts or feeling the chair tingle during swell/sweep is a critical part of the listening experience. At least to me.

Now also listening via headphones after listening on a decent stereo would be useful for catching missed details, so incorporating them in can be good. But solely depending on them, and then judging another's effort based just on headphones(unless your only other options are cruddy laptop or phone speakers) is not a good way to do it. To me you should judge using the best audio setup you have at your disposal. But, again I am completely new at this so I reckon I could be thinking totally wrong on this and am curious as to how others go about it.

So after that wall of text I will ask something else since I don't know where to ask it properly.

What are we supposed to base our votes on?
Is there a page with the criteria we are supposed to use for voting?
I tried Google but ending up seeing the criteria has perhaps changed over time but not precisely what it has changed to currently.

For example, there are to me 3 top tracks in this contest so far. All the entrants so far have something that appeals to me, but these 3 just shine.
Track A uses a narrow range of stylistically similar sounds, but put them together in an amazing way for an incredible overall sonic experience.
Track B uses a much wider variety of some really amazing sounds(so much better at showing the capabilities of what Helm can produce) and the song has one section that is pure bliss to listen to. But it is also a good bit of just throwing different sounds on the same general pattern.
Track C probably has the best variety of potentially useful and well used sounds. It sounds the most balanced and well produced. But overall, despite some really nifty sections I'm finding it musically forgettable.

So which track would I vote higher? Track A which while simple had a profound impact on me, Track C which I found the most technically proficient or Track B that I keep listening to for the bliss bit in the middle?

z.prime · Post by **z.prime** » Mon Aug 22, 2016 2:13 am

@Frostline: those are some good questions. Ultimately, you should vote based on what you think the best track is, but probably keeping in mind that it is a challenge to create something entirely with one synth. If you're unsure, I'd recommend basing your decisions on these 3 factors: creativity/composition, sound design/selection, mix/appeal. So, if you were to pick a winner out of a couple and one exhibited high marks on all fronts, it might be voted higher than one that is an amazing composition but the sounds are not great. Make sense? But really, it comes down to what you think deserves the most points. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that after the end of the month, there will probably be many more submissions that are equally amazeballs.

Guenon · Post by **Guenon** » Mon Aug 22, 2016 12:36 pm

My musings on this: I primarily base my opinions on headphone listening (and that's the most common "proper" way music is being listened to these days, in the general public, it seems: http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2015/12 ... -speakers/ ) ... BUT still, I will also listen to every entry on an actual speaker system, of course.

On the content side of things, I'm nerdy enough to base my votes on synth hackery trickery, and it's a great bonus if the music is cool, too. If the music is really cool (no matter the genre), it might even override that primary bias. But for me, getting some surprising wizardry out of a synth, in the sense of "how did that ever come out of this thing?", the sense of wonder of it all, is the main attraction of a challenge like this. I mean a concept that has been followed through so that it sounds like it was a true battle to squeeze it out of that one synth, haha.

So, for example, there have been some mentions of vocal lines done in Helm in this thread, and all the music aside, I would be positively floored if someone actually turned in a surprisingly convincing spoken word track with minimal musical elements

...

sfiks · Post by **sfiks** » Mon Aug 22, 2016 3:20 pm

(murmuring to myself in public)

That guy with "Feeling a deep bass in your guts" has no idea what my apartment is.
I can hear when my neighbor sneezes.
I even watch TV with headphones.

doctorbob · Post by **doctorbob** » Wed Aug 24, 2016 10:47 pm

Hi all

Just started on my track this month. Going to need 30 or so instances of Helm, but I find I run out of cpu (patch dependent!). So, I am going to split out the project and render down small subsets to wav files and then mix. Each stem is a full length track! Hope this is OK.

dB

z.prime · Post by **z.prime** » Wed Aug 24, 2016 10:52 pm

doctorbob wrote:Hi all

Just started on my track this month. Going to need 30 or so instances of Helm, but I find I run out of cpu (patch dependent!). So, I am going to split out the project and render down small subsets to wav files and then mix. Each stem is a full length track! Hope this is OK.

dB

One Synth Challenge #90: Helm by Matt Tytel (Jasinski Wins!)