Quite a bunch of talent exhibited here.
I don't envy the judges.
The Covert Operators: Junk Deluxe competition
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suburbanbather
- Posts: 1376
- Joined: Sat Jul 03, 2004 11:19 am
- Location: Waldorf MD
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uncredible haak
- Posts: 14
- Joined: Thu May 22, 2008 6:23 pm
What I found very hard to do was fit a composition inside the one-minute restriction. All my previous compositions are in the order of 3-10 minutes approximately.
Most of the submissions still sound like complete works, not a fragment of another piece.
The Reaktor group had a compilation call for 1 minute pieces last year and I struggled to get something done - but finally gave up.
What did you other folk think about this?
Most of the submissions still sound like complete works, not a fragment of another piece.
The Reaktor group had a compilation call for 1 minute pieces last year and I struggled to get something done - but finally gave up.
What did you other folk think about this?
I've just finished listening to the pieces a second time and I made notes. There
are no negative comments, I liked something in all the pieces. Most of these are
just the images that emerged from the sounds. I do have some general comments
that I'll put at the end. I won't comment on my three pieces.
My personal preference is towards pure electronic sounds with lots of spectral motion.
Early Morton Subotnick, some of Pink Floyd, Gary Numan's 'Dance' album, Larry Fast, etc.
I tend to go crazy, but I admire restraint.
Bmx13hdmc - March by Dawn, Sleep by Dusk, Slowly Falling. These three form a
related story. I get the feeling of a trek in the jungle and listening to the
sounds of the night. I like the 'Sleep by Dusk' the best.
Caleb Cobell - Party (Remix slow), Party (Remix), Party (Alt). Three variations
with good clear sounds that are quite punchy. I like the 'Alt' mix the best.
Clem Legalice - Track 1. Pleasant pad variations with bouncy background beats. It
gives a good sense of drive.
Colin Stark - Track 1. Nice sense of restraint with variations in the sounds.
Dj Groovy - Track 1. I like the vocoder and phasey stuff at the start. Lots of
sonic variety.
Ethan Holben - Track 1. Very nice sounds, good mastering technique, but this is
a bit long and stops abruptly.
GaryBoozy - Track 1. A contemplative, introspective piece. Good evolving sounds.
Jeff Ekblad - No Vox. Predominantly beat oriented with nice traces of vocoding.
With Vox. A slight cheat with the voice sample, but we forgive you. I like these
variations better.
Jim Hurley - a dangerous, demented man - no comment.
Julius Hochstrate - Track 1. Excellent mastering, good use of compression, great
variations in the sounds.
Kobalt - (kobaltxs plouf). Piano-like sounds forming a climactic build-up. I like
the (?) mod-wheel distortion effect.
Krzysztof Horn - Track 1. Sounds like the beginning of a great sound track.
Martyn Mackrory - Track 1. Very satisfying compositional structure with a great
variety of sounds. Dedbird the sequal. Very different, with a tight feel.
Paul Lewin - Tech-no- junk. I like how this keeps on evolving.
Paul Rose - Acceptable Junk Rock. Evolving styles and metric changes maintain
the interest throughout this fine piece.
Rob Crowdy - Kitchen Mix. Totally beat oriented with an infectious sense of
rhythm that pulled me in.
Shai Koneko - Pure sonic exploration and evolution - cerebral and interesting.
Koneko 2 - Caribbean dance festival
Koneko 3 - back to experimentation again - machine-like pulses moving to a climax
Koneko 4 - a strange mix somewhere between 2 and 3
Koneko 5 - metallic beat crystals with a hint of #4 thrown in.
These 5 pieces are fine examples of the type of music I like.
Sunburn Bather - Space Ops. Sounds like a giant space beast with asthma - a
study in white noise and delay effects.
Utenzil - Deeluxicious. Great title - the most creative drumset I've ever heard.
General Comments:
1) I think it is important to have a title.
2) Some of these piece feel like they are parts of a larger work. I think there
should be a beginning, middle, and satisfying end or something to show that
there is an overall structure.
A later Edit:
Another thing I can't help but notice is that just about everyone is
a participant in the mastering trend invoking loudness wars.
Personally, I don't use the compressor all that much; at least not
as a tool to compress total dynamic range. I use it more as a
limiter.
Is this a conscious decision to make better sound, imitation of the
current styles, or what? Enlighten me, I'm stuck in the 70's and
80's.
One of these is my piece, the other is someone else's:
Edited: added comment on Kobalt's piece.
are no negative comments, I liked something in all the pieces. Most of these are
just the images that emerged from the sounds. I do have some general comments
that I'll put at the end. I won't comment on my three pieces.
My personal preference is towards pure electronic sounds with lots of spectral motion.
Early Morton Subotnick, some of Pink Floyd, Gary Numan's 'Dance' album, Larry Fast, etc.
I tend to go crazy, but I admire restraint.
Bmx13hdmc - March by Dawn, Sleep by Dusk, Slowly Falling. These three form a
related story. I get the feeling of a trek in the jungle and listening to the
sounds of the night. I like the 'Sleep by Dusk' the best.
Caleb Cobell - Party (Remix slow), Party (Remix), Party (Alt). Three variations
with good clear sounds that are quite punchy. I like the 'Alt' mix the best.
Clem Legalice - Track 1. Pleasant pad variations with bouncy background beats. It
gives a good sense of drive.
Colin Stark - Track 1. Nice sense of restraint with variations in the sounds.
Dj Groovy - Track 1. I like the vocoder and phasey stuff at the start. Lots of
sonic variety.
Ethan Holben - Track 1. Very nice sounds, good mastering technique, but this is
a bit long and stops abruptly.
GaryBoozy - Track 1. A contemplative, introspective piece. Good evolving sounds.
Jeff Ekblad - No Vox. Predominantly beat oriented with nice traces of vocoding.
With Vox. A slight cheat with the voice sample, but we forgive you. I like these
variations better.
Jim Hurley - a dangerous, demented man - no comment.
Julius Hochstrate - Track 1. Excellent mastering, good use of compression, great
variations in the sounds.
Kobalt - (kobaltxs plouf). Piano-like sounds forming a climactic build-up. I like
the (?) mod-wheel distortion effect.
Krzysztof Horn - Track 1. Sounds like the beginning of a great sound track.
Martyn Mackrory - Track 1. Very satisfying compositional structure with a great
variety of sounds. Dedbird the sequal. Very different, with a tight feel.
Paul Lewin - Tech-no- junk. I like how this keeps on evolving.
Paul Rose - Acceptable Junk Rock. Evolving styles and metric changes maintain
the interest throughout this fine piece.
Rob Crowdy - Kitchen Mix. Totally beat oriented with an infectious sense of
rhythm that pulled me in.
Shai Koneko - Pure sonic exploration and evolution - cerebral and interesting.
Koneko 2 - Caribbean dance festival
Koneko 3 - back to experimentation again - machine-like pulses moving to a climax
Koneko 4 - a strange mix somewhere between 2 and 3
Koneko 5 - metallic beat crystals with a hint of #4 thrown in.
These 5 pieces are fine examples of the type of music I like.
Sunburn Bather - Space Ops. Sounds like a giant space beast with asthma - a
study in white noise and delay effects.
Utenzil - Deeluxicious. Great title - the most creative drumset I've ever heard.
General Comments:
1) I think it is important to have a title.
2) Some of these piece feel like they are parts of a larger work. I think there
should be a beginning, middle, and satisfying end or something to show that
there is an overall structure.
A later Edit:
Another thing I can't help but notice is that just about everyone is
a participant in the mastering trend invoking loudness wars.
Personally, I don't use the compressor all that much; at least not
as a tool to compress total dynamic range. I use it more as a
limiter.
Is this a conscious decision to make better sound, imitation of the
current styles, or what? Enlighten me, I'm stuck in the 70's and
80's.
One of these is my piece, the other is someone else's:
Edited: added comment on Kobalt's piece.
Last edited by arachnaut on Sun Jun 01, 2008 3:16 pm, edited 3 times in total.
+1 here too, on both counts.suburbanbather wrote:+1arachnaut wrote:Quite a bunch of talent exhibited here.
I don't envy the judges.
Except, Kobalt's track will not playI'm sure its just as good as all of the others, but I still want to hear it.
@ arachnaut. A good, fair commentary on all of the entries there. About the mastering (loudness war) thing, I didn't really compress too much and had to do without using my usual George Yohng's W1 Limiter to catch peaks, so I strapped a saturator over the mater bus preceeded by a compressor to try to give it a bit of bounce. Bad practise for sure but as we had to deliver a finished piece to be compared to other's work I'd guess that nobody wanted to appear quieter than the others.
What a great little contest though, it's amazing how much more creative you can be when you limit your choices and set yourself boundries. Just having a track length limit was interesting in itself, all of a sudden tempo was a real issue etc.
I don't envy the Covert Ops having to choose between these, maybe they should just share out a handfull of patches to everybody and set another contest that's even more restricting. Who can make the funniest small noise with Operator (for instance) nothing over 3 seconds as the restriction.
This has made me really wonder about all of these DAW comparison threads that we see from time to time, I'd like to see the same set of samples thrown at another contest where you're only allowed to use Sonar/Logic/Cubase/ProTools, I'd hazard a guess that it'd be a bit harder to be quite so creative with these original samples.
Live really is in a league of it's own, it's testimony to this software that this sort of contest is even possible.
Live really is in a league of it's own, it's testimony to this software that this sort of contest is even possible.
I can hear Kobalt's music, now, too. I went back and edited my appraisal with a short note on his excellent contribution.
I'd like to hear comments from other contest entrants. I feel these are more valuable that from those who didn't enter as they didn't work over the samples or face the constraints.
This is the first time I entered a competition, but I have contributed to free compilations. The competition adds a different dimension not there in free stuff - the ego becomes a dominatrix.
I'd like to hear comments from other contest entrants. I feel these are more valuable that from those who didn't enter as they didn't work over the samples or face the constraints.
This is the first time I entered a competition, but I have contributed to free compilations. The competition adds a different dimension not there in free stuff - the ego becomes a dominatrix.
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contakt321
- Posts: 1523
- Joined: Thu Feb 21, 2008 3:39 pm
- Location: NYC
Wow, I just listened through all the entries - it's really amazing what people came up with. I can't believe how many good tracks there are in here.
I love Arachnaut's rundown of tracks (PS: thanks for your comments), here are my top 3:
Martyn Mackrory - Dedbird the Sequel: This one is exceptionally well done and sounds like a snippet from a record that would be played at Studio B, part of an Electro-House set. I think this really delivers on a sound design and songwriting level. A+. How did you create your lead synth?
Julius Hochstrate - Track 1: I too thought this one was great, it started out somewhat minimal and really developed in a great way. Programming and arrangement on this is top notch. I too wonder how you created the synth pad-ish sound in this, it sounds incredibly full.
Krysztof Horn - Track 1: The way this started I expected it to go in a very shoe-gazey direction so I was shocked in a good way that it went uptempo. I love the melody, it creates tension in really nice way.
I really was blown away by all the entries but can't comment on them all now. Really amazing output considering the source sounds. I guess I am really curious how everyone created their melodic sounds. Please share if you care to.
I used one of the resonators and tweaked it for mine, then layered some really heavy effects. Then I triplicated the melody and nudged one back a 1/16 and the other back a 1/8. I used different effects in these too and lowered them in the mix and panned them somewhat hard left and right.
For the bass sound in my mix I sampled the melody and then chopped out one note in simpler, added a little LFO, filtered it and pitched it down and octave.
This is my first contest I have ever entered and I have learned a ton (I just started w/ Live about 3 months ago). It's the first time I have really ever resampled or used simpler. This gave me a great excuse to learn about how much I can mangle sounds and I am grateful for the opportunity to have participated.
Thanks Covops! Thanks to all the other entrants, some truly inspiring stuff.
I love Arachnaut's rundown of tracks (PS: thanks for your comments), here are my top 3:
Martyn Mackrory - Dedbird the Sequel: This one is exceptionally well done and sounds like a snippet from a record that would be played at Studio B, part of an Electro-House set. I think this really delivers on a sound design and songwriting level. A+. How did you create your lead synth?
Julius Hochstrate - Track 1: I too thought this one was great, it started out somewhat minimal and really developed in a great way. Programming and arrangement on this is top notch. I too wonder how you created the synth pad-ish sound in this, it sounds incredibly full.
Krysztof Horn - Track 1: The way this started I expected it to go in a very shoe-gazey direction so I was shocked in a good way that it went uptempo. I love the melody, it creates tension in really nice way.
I really was blown away by all the entries but can't comment on them all now. Really amazing output considering the source sounds. I guess I am really curious how everyone created their melodic sounds. Please share if you care to.
I used one of the resonators and tweaked it for mine, then layered some really heavy effects. Then I triplicated the melody and nudged one back a 1/16 and the other back a 1/8. I used different effects in these too and lowered them in the mix and panned them somewhat hard left and right.
For the bass sound in my mix I sampled the melody and then chopped out one note in simpler, added a little LFO, filtered it and pitched it down and octave.
This is my first contest I have ever entered and I have learned a ton (I just started w/ Live about 3 months ago). It's the first time I have really ever resampled or used simpler. This gave me a great excuse to learn about how much I can mangle sounds and I am grateful for the opportunity to have participated.
Thanks Covops! Thanks to all the other entrants, some truly inspiring stuff.