There was heavy discussion about today’s music being stuck to scales based on the the traditionally tuned 12 notes, while it’s the 21st century and we should be able to move on to greater lands of microtonality! So, here is your chance, are you ready for the future of 56 note scales? Or what about 128 note ones? Why not totally free ones?
Renoise also borrows the traditional means of making music, but there are many ways to break free of them. Try to find yours!
In a nutshell the track has to break free from the traditional 12 note based composition. How you do it, doesn’t matter. What matters, is the fact that it sounds free from the 12 note jail.
The rules:
The music must use microtonal scales, or any other musical means so it wouldn’t sound traditional 12 note scale.
The track must be done in Renoise.
You may use any means to produce the sound including samples, VST, LADSPA, AU whatever.
The song may be made on any operating system and does not have to be openable on others.
You must provide 256kbps - 320kbps MP3 or OGG rendering of the song.
No size/length limits, but please stay reasonable.
The sticking to the first rule is mostly decided by the voters.
Deadline: December the 12th, two thousand and eight, twenty first century. Votepack will be released soon after the deadline has ended. Voting will be based on methodology revealed after tracking has ended. All contestants must vote or they are disqualified.
Submission: Post links to your MP3 and XRNS files to me as a private message, with a description how this track was made and anything else you want to say.
Winner: Will be played in the next episode of Remixta, renoise podcast.
Sounds very interesting! I know as much about tonal scales and ladders and all that jazz as I know about diesel engines (nada), but I reckon it’ll be worth the homework. I’ll give the experiment a shot!
Well the idea of the compo is not to use known microtonal scales or techniques, which you may do if you want to, but to break away from the standard 12 notes. I’d say: trust your ears, and experiment.
will the xrns be released? cause I think I can learn a lot from it.
I even dont know what a 12 note composition is. Maybe I know but the term isnt familiar.
12 note scale is A, A#, B, C, C#, D, D#, etc… ‘Western’ music uses 12 notes for musical notation.
Arabic music for example has more notes than 12 in its notation.
well, I’m sure others can explain better and in more detail and correct where necessary
In all technicality, music can be composed of notes at any arbitrary frequency. Since the physical causes of music are vibrations of mechanical systems, they are often measured in hertz (Hz), with 1 Hz = 1 complete vibration per second. For historical and other reasons, especially in Western music, only twelve notes of fixed frequencies are used. These fixed frequencies are mathematically related to each other, and are defined around the central note, A4. The current “standard pitch” or modern “concert pitch” for this note is 440 Hz, although this varies in actual practice (see History of pitch standards)."
So lets say A4 is 440hz as in the example above. We all know what C sounds like, D, G, etc. No matter the octave.
So picture making music with a note frequency between A and B. I am assuming that detuning would accomplish this task.
It’s fairly challenging task because what you will end up producing is so out of the ordinary it will be difficult to wrap your brain and ears around what you are hearing.
Hey, the deadline falls tomorrow. And I have no entries. Do you want me to postpone the deadline or is nobody interested in taking part of the competition?
Sorry, would like to have submitted something, but don’t have anything finished at the moment. I’m working on an EP which definitely fits in with this, since one of the hallmarks of the overall sound is the use of microtones and atonal textures.
I still like the idea and I’ve been fooling around a bit with the pitchshifted notes.
I got some weird flanger effect when putting 3 oscs at the same time with different pitchshifts
I might still give it a go.
I don’t really have time, but I made [something cute](http://johann-lau.de/a,sh,,f,lalaLala Heartcore.mp3,p,1897,pt,lala__Lala) a while ago (the point is there’s hearts in the spectral analysis)… I dunno if that qualifies, but if it does that’d be my entry
