Renoise has been good with competitions in the past, although I have rarely had the chance to enter many I do like the sense of community it has given the place at times. Not much seems to have happened recently though but I am considering stepping up if people feel it would be worthwhile/appreciated.
The idea:
I would provide quite a small sample pack using the random pack generator a member of this site kindly coded a long time ago (Thinking 10 random drum samples, 10 other random single hits and 5 random loops.)
These would be uploaded and linked at the start of the 24 hours (currently thinking 00:00 Weds of each week.)
24 hours to get your submissions finished and uploaded.
New thread with Poll by 12:00 Thursday, 3 days voting (midday sunday close. Maybe make it 4 days as Sunday often isn’t a good day for me…)
Winner gets to choose rules of next competition from guidelines below,
Rules (all are optional):
Tempo: (set tempo restrictions)
Time Signature: (Choose time signature, or for example anything but 4/4)
Genre: (If set please provide three links of what well illustrates this genre to you.)
Bonus sample: (Send me a link to a sample to be added to the next pack which Must be used.)
Any additional rules: (Upload format, plugins yes/no, max/min length, anything else you can think of.)
Think basic rules should be Renoise native only. MP3 uploads for easy download and reviewing to vote. Although I am considering the benefits of having xrns submissions, especially when it comes to sharing and learning from each others techniques…
Anything I have missed? What do you all think?
EDIT: Through conversation things have changed a little. Now thinking 48hours, most likely trying to span a “normal” night and a weekend night. Can’t change main title to represent this but have Poll Title. Second Question now likely obsolete…
i think it is a nice idea. first thing i thought was ‘only during weekends’, as i work all weekdays and my wife will not take kindly to me making music all night after coming home from work
you might consider doing it each weekend?
also, the fact that if you win you have to do all sorts of stuff, kinda scares me off - it makes sense (who else is gonna do it), but still scares me off, i think because of the pressure…
Considered weekends but too often myself (and probably a lot of other people) are off out enjoying themselves. Thought mid-week, when you may be bored, quiet and hopefully recovered, could work. Hangovers, little sleep, travelling around the planet visiting friends, whatever… are all things that happen more on weekend than week day.
You do not have to do anything if you win. If you don’t want to set any guidelines then next round is just fully open with the standard restraints (EG no tempo, sig etc contraints and Renoise Native DSP only, no synths/generators being the most likely for basis.) It is a way of targeting the next round to a particular style if you wish. The Wildcard rule means that the winner could say “I throw out all previous rules and this time everything has to be done with single cycle waveforms.” As another example. It can be as loose or as tight as you like.
I think it’s a great idea. I also would like to see more competitions on the forum because it’s a good way to get feedback on your work.
The only thing is that this is a pretty small community, and most compos only get a few entries. And if there were a lot of rules, you’d probably get even less. So I’d say you should keep the rules to a minimum. There should only be rules to make voting easier, like file formats etc.
Otherwise I think it would be awesome, and would totally join in on as many of them as I can.
Yeah I get what you’re saying. Thing is, week after week of having no barriers and you’re unlikely to try anything different. But I guess, with a weekly competition, your also likely to just sit out a week if a rule isn’t to your liking (EG Genre=Trance and you usually compose Breakcore.) The idea is more fine guidelines to hopefully push people into trying something they may now. And as mentioned every single rule is optional, the first ever round would be fully open, then it’s up to each winner how many and how tight restrictions to put on it each time.
@kazakore: yeah i understand your point about the weekend. this has to do with different styles of life. to accomodate for that, couldn’t you just stretch the time? so there is always a full week of time, incorporating both weekdays and weekend?
i get your point about setting the rules as well. clear, and agreed.
i also agree that you should have rules, especially because it challenges you to do something that is out of your league, which will make you creative. you can always choose to only enter breakcore compo’s…
I’d actually decided that myself and gave a mental note that if I do go forwards with it will try 00:00 Friday to 00:00 Sunday GMT. Actually that’s the two main weekend night… Another Poll… Give me a min
Yeah that was my basic thinking.
Right third poll added, multiple selections allowed. I’m leaning towards 4 or 7…
I agree, a full week would be a nice way to accommodate people with odd schedules. You could do just two days, but again you’re going to be excluding some people if you do. At my previous job, I worked 3 12 hour shifts/week and there was no way in hell I was going to even start renoise on those nights. I do understand the appeal of a 1 day only compo though.
Regarding the rules, I think they can cut both ways. Sometimes they can be annoying if they require you to use a workflow you don’t like, for example samples vs. plugins. Sometimes creativity doesn’t come into it. But it hardly matters…
I work 12 hours shift and have done so for the last 5 odd years so I know exactly what that’s like mate.
Idea is to try and have a fairly fast turn around. Have had One Hour Competitions happening on here before, sure people can manage with 24 or 48…
Again complexity of rules depends on person voted best last time. I like the idea you may fancy pitting yourself against others doing something completely different to your norm and this is a way to do that. Hopefully it wouldn’t put to many others off with such a small user group though. And with a weekly turnover people know a new one will be soon if they miss one due to constraints of one type or another.
I’m fairly set on having the Rules as outlines above. Still a little flexible on times. Maybe a week producing, then week voting, organising next one. But quick competitions are good as they’re not serious, it’s about finding a few moments and trying to chuck together something with the material, weekly contests get a little more serious and if people put too much effort in may feel it’s taking even more away from their “serious” tracking time…
No plugins - XRNS mandatory - MP3 render should be provided - Minimum 1 minute
Possible additional constraints:
Keep your song < 256kbAND no chiptunes or demostyle - Any genre except d&b, dubstep, breakbeat, breakcore - Must have a prominent native synthesis feature - Native synthesis-only! Only one sample is allowed, and it’s got to be “blank” (1-sample loop) - You must use a feature new to v2.6 and briefly state what it was and why it was useful. - If you don’t own 2.6 then get the demo and get cracking!
???
Well seems Friday and Saturday tracking is winning!
Biggest problem with this is I am almost never going to be able to get all the tracks up with a Poll for voting until at least the Sunday latish, if not the Monday.
Possible solutions: Have open posting. Then anybody who wishes can collate the tunes with original links in thread and start one with Poll (even though me adding Poll to original thread and adding links would be tidier.) Means you know whose track is whose though…
Or we consider the week tracking, week voting idea and do mid-week to mid-week.
I would be totally interested in doing this, but I could care less what time and when. Howbout a rotating schedule. We got 7 days in a week. First compo is due Monday of the first week, second is due Tuesday of the next week, 3rd wed etc. Beinng that everybody has different schedules, it would give everybody a chance to work something up on a random day. So long as a schedule of some sort is posted.
Yeah I did vaguely consider a roughly 10 day, weekend one week, mid-week the next. Rolling, changing a day each time also a possibility I guess. Does make it a little harder to keep track of and remember though…
May make sense doing ~10 days. Would give a little headroom for the fact I’m often away from the PC over weekends so may not get all uploaded for voting (assuming we stay closed) until a couple of days later than would be ideal…
Sorry for the delay in updating but I did decide on format a couple of days ago.
Rules are going to be as mentioned from start, with all optional and set by previous winner.
Times may seem a little confusing…
Tracking is going to be 48 hours, not 24 originally suggested.
There will be two competitions every three weeks (one starting every 10.5 days.)
First one will start this Friday 12pm (Noon) UK time (currently GMT+1 due to DST. All times in UK local.)
Submissions to be be in by 12pm (noon) Sunday. Submisisons to be via PM and email to myself as I feel it would be nice to keep it anonymous.
I will get all tracks uploaded asap (on weekend tracking turns may take slightly longer depending on what I’m doing.)
Voting will be open until 48 hours before next competition, 12am (midnight) Saturday night/Sunday morning. Voting done by Poll on forum. (Winner please PM me their Rules as soon as they see they have won but I will contact asap too.)
Next round starts 12am (midnight) Tuesday morning/Monday night.
Poll up asap, voting closes 12pm (noon) Wednesday following week.
…
As this sounded so confusing to myself while writing it I’ve done this dodgy mockup in Paint.
Tracking = Tracking time for competitons
Voting = Voting period
Grace Period = Time between where I get rules from winner and set up new sample pack etc.
No, I’m using GMT timeZONE, but due to Daylight Saving Time the time here is currently +1. Technically it is only GMT during the winter months in the UK. (Guess this is one argument for using UTC term instead, plus GMT makes no sense as the Mean time would be half way between winter and summer time…)
ah yes, but if i’m not mistaken, daylight savings time happens again soon, and the clock will turn an hour back… so that will mean that you will be GMT again, and i will be GMT+1…
and that means that in the current situation you are GMT+1 and i am GMT+2 ?
That is correct. They don’t happen on the same date in all countries mind. Only an hour at max to worry about and I’m sure if you put “london clock” into Google it will quickly come up with a result with the correct time
Currently had this problem with somebody saying they were doing maintenance at X o’clock PST, where in fact they did it at PST+1 due to DST, plus they state in their FAQ that all server and local times are in GMT so why they eff the gave warning with times in PST I really don’t know…
Is it rude to spam this is starting in the General forum?
Sample pack created, some interesting bits in there (sorry it’s one sample short as it did select a null file and I didn’t rerun to replace it.) Not going to say too much until it starts though…
