Tune Contest -- WINNER ANNOUNCED (10/04 - 18/04)

biothlebop · Wed 12/04/2006 12:27:52

EldKatt: Because great music can be made without classical knowledge. Pixels and palettes are the building blocks of sprites, scales can be ignored. Your example is comparable to someone asking what is rhytm or what is melody, which exist in practically every song except 4,33.
...but it's quite easy to learn the theory behind this weeks restriciton, or at least worth it.

Made with my first love since 4-5 years back (FL).
Castlevania 2030

EldKatt · Wed 12/04/2006 16:44:08

Quote from: biothlebop on Wed 12/04/2006 12:27:52
EldKatt: Because great music can be made without [theoretical] knowledge.

(You'll see that I've taken the liberty of changing "classical" to "theoretical", because the former word is quite ill-defined and means little to me.)

I disagree. It might appear that skilful "autodidacts" (J.S. Bach was one, would you believe it!) lack theoretical knowledge, but they don't. The only difference is that they got their knowledge from practical experience, rather than from a teacher or a textbook. The knowledge, however, is still the same knowledge. And music is still a craft like any other; you'll need the tools and knowledge of how to use them in order to be successful. Whether you learn of them by example or from a book is sort of irrelevant.

I fail to see how this answers any of my original questions, though. Is the fact that there are successful autodidacts a good reason to avoid theoretical knowledge? Non sequitur.

DoorKnobHandle · Wed 12/04/2006 17:00:12

I really hate to have to interrupt this interesting discussion, but this thread is really not the place to talk about this. If there's still need to discuss this matter, EldKatt, I'd like to see a similar argument over at the General Discussion forum. I do think you have a valid point.

Anyways, great entries.

I didn't even have the time to listen to all your pieces, but I will download them all and listen to all of them - one after the other - once this competition has timed out. So, thanks to all for participating!

EldKatt · Wed 12/04/2006 17:05:53

You are, of course, right. I'm sorry for my reckless hijacking of your thread. If the discussion wishes to continue, it should do so in General Discussion--I could start a thread now to aid it, but that would feel odd if nobody replies. Eh, should I?

Gregjazz · Thu 13/04/2006 00:47:21

Quote from: EldKatt on Wed 12/04/2006 16:44:08
I disagree. It might appear that skilful "autodidacts" (J.S. Bach was one, would you believe it!) lack theoretical knowledge, but they don't. The only difference is that they got their knowledge from practical experience, rather than from a teacher or a textbook. The knowledge, however, is still the same knowledge. And music is still a craft like any other; you'll need the tools and knowledge of how to use them in order to be successful. Whether you learn of them by example or from a book is sort of irrelevant.

Right! You can always tell when someone just doesn't quite have their music theory down.

He-Man · Fri 14/04/2006 14:10:52

Hi
I've made an entry but my website is down for some strange reason, so I can't upload the song.
I'm working on it and I'll post as soon as the song is uploaded...

DoorKnobHandle · Fri 14/04/2006 14:14:55

That's great to hear, He-Man! Remember, you still have almost 4 whole days left to get your page back to work and upload the song there. Alternatively you can always use some free uploading service (which may not be as user-friendly or fast but still works). For example savefile!

Psych0F0x · Sat 15/04/2006 11:08:32

ooh thanks thats what I needed, I'm almost done with my entry, and btw hi all, I'm Ravi, I'm new here.

EDIT
Eh does anyone have alternatives? savefile isnt very practical.

DoorKnobHandle · Sat 15/04/2006 12:17:23

First of all, welcome, Ravi! Can't wait to hear your entry.

Here are some others:

www.yousendit.com
www.rapidshare.de
www.putfile.com

He-Man · Sat 15/04/2006 13:31:44

OlÃ©

Thanks for the upload-links.
My song can be found here:
http://rapidshare.de/files/18062720/the_gypsy_castle.mp3.html
Somehow it reminds me of Seasons in the Abyss but maybe just been to long since I've listened to Slayer.
I'm not that good at making song from a scale and I was actually half way through recording this song before I reconized the scale.

Cheers

EDIT: I forgot to say that the entries are great...

EDIT2: If you want my tune without all the trouble you can get it from http://www.nielshs.dk/soundtrack/thegypsycastle.mp3
Enjoy...

Psych0F0x · Sat 15/04/2006 23:01:46

Here it is, my first attempt to do anything musically with cubase: http://media.putfile.com/Gypsy-tune- I guess it's more of a background music. Nice work yall.

DoorKnobHandle · Mon 17/04/2006 17:59:43

Allright, just letting you know that there are ~30 hours left for entering! Although I really have to say that I haven't seen a tune contest with so many and so great entries in quite a while, thus motivating you guys to enter seems kinda pointless.

Psych0F0x · Mon 17/04/2006 18:13:07

question: is my link working?

DoorKnobHandle · Mon 17/04/2006 18:20:42

Yes, it works, Psych0F0x. Very nice!

As I said earlier, I will give a short review of each song, so rest assured - I will definately go through all your entries and listen to them one after the other to keep things fair.

Psych0F0x · Mon 17/04/2006 18:23:52

cool thanks, I sent the link to a friend and he couldn't get it

Paper Carnival · Mon 17/04/2006 23:38:46

I finished mine in a while, it didn't come out neardly as good as I hoped it would.

I have a problem, the program I use doesn't save to digital audio and I have to record my soundcard's output to save to mp3. The problem is, when I do that it loses a lot of the atmosphere. I spent most of the time trying to get the best atmosphere, fixing the volumes and everything, and most of that is lost because of this stupid thing. So if anyone can suggest something I could do in the future I'd be very thankful...

Anyway, here is what I have now: http://rapidshare.de/files/18272870/Gypsily.mp3.html

DoorKnobHandle · Wed 19/04/2006 16:13:08

Allright, the contest is closed.

I was really very, very satisfied not only with the amount of entries but also with the quality of your work! In the end, it was you who made this round a total blast. Really great, I wish all tune contest had this interest and level of quality -- you can image how hard it was to judge it. Anyways, a short review sentence to every entry will follow. After that I will announce the winner.

Sorted randomly...

Guybrush Peepwood: Very nice piece, I love the atmosphere you create by using distorted guitars with traditional instruments and a great sounding drumset.

ProgZmax: Really atmospheric. You used a very good sounding drumset as well -- however I found the baseline to be repeated too often. Apart from that it was great though.

Ghormak: Amazing piano work. This one reminded me of classical compositions and was very impressing overall!

Psych0F0x: Your song starts off very minimalistic, but I really love the way it turns into a stunning movie theme kind of song after 30 seconds. However, overall the other parts except the theme didn't stand out enough in order to be a track on its own and not a soundtrack in my opinion. Still, that theme is absolutly fantastic!

He-Man: I loved this song. Simple as that. Your voice fits very well -- however it didn't personally remind of Slayer's Seasons In The Abyss.

Cameron: I loved the creepiness of your entry. Especially the piano chords were very scary. It could've used some polishing here and there with the mixing possibly though.

Cino: Very atmospheric, it set a great mood for a game in my opinion. The ending was very abrupt though and seemed unnatural.

Helm: I dig your guitar work. You pulled off some very interesting riffs, a few supporting instruments (bass, drums, synths etc.) may have helped to get the most out of your great ideas -- but that's your decision and it did have character with guitars only.

Geoffkhan: Your sond was great. The drums sounded very smooth as well. It was really a great tune featuring great solos, but it I missed a little variety -- I imagine it would've been great if the overall sound would've changed just a bit at times (for example kick in some distortion for one part of the solo or add new instruments), thus it really only seemed like one long solo part over a constant backing track -- but it was one great long solo!

Biothlebop: This was a great soundtrack for a game. I loved it, but it too was bit repetitive to my ears.

So, before I really announce the winner, I want all of you to know that even if you didn't win, all and every single one of your entries were great. It was really, really close and to be honest, it was impossible to come up with one winner -- but, of course we need one, because that's how tune contests work.

I chose Geoffkhan, because his entry really seemed to appeal the most interesting to listen to. However, again, all your entries were great and deserved prizes as well. So, congratulations to all of you, keep it up!

Thanks for your time, work and interest.

Cino · Wed 19/04/2006 19:39:10

Congrats to Geoffkhan. It was a really good competition, had some very cool entries, even some jaw dropping ones.