AGS - Music Competition 9. July - 19. July

Le Woltaire · Mon 09/07/2007 10:42:54

An expedition of archaeologists has found these strange marks on a titanium plaque in a devastated part of the Antarctica on 1. April 2007.

After a short analysis, they discovered that the plaque is more than a million years old and definitely of extraterrestrial origin.

The plaque was immediately passed to NASA scientists.
Two months of continuous research brought no further results.
But most of the scientists agree that this must be some kind of music notation...

Maybe an alien race tried to contact us over a million years ago.
The NASA now has decided to make a public competition to get the information of this music piece.
Musicians of the whole planet are asked to bring a solution for this problem.

Maybe the future of our planet will depend on this.
Please translate this sketch into music.

Nikolas · Mon 09/07/2007 10:48:03

HAHA!

Brilliant! I might enter this one, time fobidding...

Gregjazz · Mon 09/07/2007 18:59:31

I love it. Reminds me a bit of Cartridge Music. (John Cage)

djres · Tue 10/07/2007 01:29:09

Ok, so I wasn't able to finish my 80s track on time, and a "duet" isn't exactly my style, but this is definitely my kind of thing. Way to get creative on contest prompt, Le Woltaire!

Hammerite · Tue 10/07/2007 13:01:13

It's probably better with headphones, since it depends mainly on left and right channels.
But here is the link:
http://www.mediafire.com/?aacth0ofktm

khnum · Tue 10/07/2007 16:06:06

ok, here's my track, even if maybe it's a little short... (which isn't that strange, since i did it in less then half an hour

)
Hope you like it :

http://www.mediafire.com/?8jhlb22ivj0

EDIT: ok, i changed the file, but it isn't a great change, so i don't think it will be a problem

Hammerite · Tue 10/07/2007 17:41:28

I know what you mean!

khnum · Tue 10/07/2007 19:15:16

ehm, can i post an updated version? i only switched beetween two instruments, without changing any note...

Ghormak · Tue 10/07/2007 19:19:26

ANTROPY

It's in .sid format, and I'd rather not convert it to anything else, because the whole point of the tune is that the three channels go out of sync with each other and loop forever, creating new music, which means that the whole tune repeats itself only after hours (or days? I haven't calculated) of listening. If you are sid-player impaired, I recommend this: http://www.gsldata.se/c64/spw/

djres · Wed 11/07/2007 05:41:21

Ok, here's mine. It's called "The Turing Test." Ten points to anybody who gets *that* reference.

http://www.mediafire.com/?ayhzmmnm4oq

djres · Wed 11/07/2007 05:42:08

By the way, how are we supposed to listen to .sid if we have a mac?

BOYD1981 · Wed 11/07/2007 06:59:41

Quote from: djres on Wed 11/07/2007 05:42:08
By the way, how are we supposed to listen to .sid if we have a mac?

http://www.sidmusic.org/sidplay/mac/

first result on google for "sid player for mac"

djres · Thu 12/07/2007 02:10:04

Quote from: BOYD1981

first result on google for "sid player for mac"

I'm only slightly ashamed I didn't think to do that.

Thanks!

Akatosh · Fri 13/07/2007 12:57:01

"Invalid Quickkey. This error has been forwarded to MediaFire's development team." for three of the downloads :'(

maaark · Fri 13/07/2007 17:32:38

Here's my entry. I tried to mix the "earthly" approach with some alien influences.

http://www.mediafire.com/?7nzl1txjdm0

Hammerite · Fri 13/07/2007 21:13:57

i'll repost mine tomorrow.

Jelfish · Sat 14/07/2007 06:18:38

Hi all

I finally got something in! I was hoping to submit my first piece like 2 weeks ago, but stuff came up

Anyway, I just started playing with the "analog" waveform synthesizer in Reason. It's very mathy and fun

Hope you like my debut:

http://www.mediafire.com/?8zwjgdp1cgf

Jel

EDIT: I've updated the link. I made a small change to the piece, specifically the loudness, since it was rather quiet.

Permanent Link: http://www.chenkaili.com/ags/Alien_Message.mp3

Thaatiba · Sun 15/07/2007 17:20:32

Hello everyone

This is my first participation to these competitions.
http://www.mediafire.com/?9hh4gwog2xs
I hope you like it!

Jelfish · Sun 15/07/2007 17:51:17

Quote from: Thaatiba on Sun 15/07/2007 17:20:32
Hello everyone
This is my first participation to these competitions.
http://www.mediafire.com/?9hh4gwog2xs
I hope you like it!

Hey Thaatiba - I liked your piece a lot! I think it's well mixed/balanced, something I'm not very good at yet. Welcome to AGS!

Hammerite · Sun 15/07/2007 20:25:36

I suck at mixing too, that's why most of my "tunes" tend to be one or two layers, short, and fairly simple.

Thaatiba · Tue 17/07/2007 21:57:16

Thank you Jelfish!

Jelfish · Wed 18/07/2007 09:38:32

Hi guys

So I was listening to all your submissions and then I listened to mine and realized that mine was a lot quieter, even though it was normalized. So I went in a played around with the levels and discovered the compressor

. Now you can actually hear everything:

http://www.mediafire.com/?8zwjgdp1cgf

I've updated my original link as well. Mediafire seems to be the popular host, so I'll use that as well.

Jelfish

Permanent Link: http://www.chenkaili.com/ags/Alien_Message.mp3

Hammerite · Thu 19/07/2007 22:24:27

whens de winner announced?

Le Woltaire · Thu 19/07/2007 23:09:04

So here I am:

Hammerite: I liked the Idea to work with channels. I especially liked, the break at the end. You stayed very long at one height, then you bring it suddenly on a very low level. I think that is impressive.

Djres: These blurp impression I got was followed by a kind of rush. It was a very interesting experience as well. It was very symmetrical an equilibrated. Interesting...

Jelfish: You mainly work with one sound, that seemed to be completely synthetic and slightly changed it. You made many variations but all were different although they were somehow similar. It reminded me a bit of Morton Feldmans approach to music.

ghormak: I liked this more mathematical approach. I tried to listen very long to it, to get the slight changes. I think this is something that can be sent in space very long, and shows that we are somehow intelligent...

knum: A very minimalist try, that consists of multiple ostinati. Very clear from its basic puristic idea.

maaark: A very entertaining one. Somethong for late night I'd say. Do aliens have a guitar?

Thaatiba:
I think especially the beginning is very strong. Later you worked more with repetitions. I also liked the very aprubt ending line.

So, after all we sent the whole bunch of music into space. It took more than 2 million years until they sent us an answer. An answer, that couldn't be misunderstood...

The winner is:
http://spectrum.sitesled.com/music/monolith.avi

Jelfish · Fri 20/07/2007 03:00:42

Hah - I admit I sort of gave an eye roll at that having download a video to see the winner.

This was a lot of fun to do. It was interesting trying to find a way to interpret/incorporate the wavy lines and dots in your picture.

Thanks for choosing my piece! It was a pleasure to make.