[**THE LIST SO FAR**]

Alrighty, I've been tossing around ideas over and over for a while now, and before I start the official clock for the challenge I need something from everybody to make this a much more random scenario than if I just picked things on my own.

I used to host a challenge once a month elsewhere(about a decade ago) when MIDI was still reigning supreme... so I'm having to adapt to modern times to make this work right...

The premise is, all the instrument you are allowed to use in your entry will be chosen at random. The other rules will come after this part is done though... because I need instruments to choose from.  Traditionally I would just use a random number generator from 0 - 127 (or 1 - 128 depending on the MIDI Base) to determine which instrument patches to use. Now however, I'd like everybody to "gamble" at getting instruments they would LIKE to use listed.  

SO... I need everybody(even if you aren't going to submit anything) to list 3 instruments(excluding drumsets) they would like to use in this next challenge.

Please do not list any form of drum "set".  You may pick a weird "drum" such as an UDU, or a Doumbek, etc... Tablas, whatever... but no form of a set.  Reason why?  You'll find out later...

I will pick my 3 choices(feel free to be cruel but make sure they are actual instruments, preferably ones that people will be able to find samples for)... oh, and also please try not to pick anything that has already been added to the list(I'll try and keep it updated as much as possible).  Adding a piano in twice will not increase your chances of getting a piano because I'll only add it if it's a different kind of piano(Grand Piano and Rhodes Piano = different pianos)

Also, do not list vague options.  "Guitar" is vague.  I need to know what type of guitar.  Is is acoustic steel, nylon, electric clean, distorted electric, dobro, etc?

My choices to start things off:

1 - Banjo
2 - Slap Bass
3 - Alto Saxophone

*poof*

**THE LIST SO FAR**
(Currently 45 Submissions)
Banjo
Slap Bass
Alto Saxophone
Oboe
Sitar
Didgeridoo
Square Wave
Harmonica
Soprano Ukelele
Kalimba
Steel Drum
Gunshots
Harp
Vibraphone
Acoustic Guitar (Steel)
Celesta
Erhu
Cowbell
Xylophone
Clarinet
French Horn
Solo Cello
Bassoon
Piccolo Flute
Sleigh Bells
Slide Electric Guitar
Foot Stomps
Piano
Flute
Double Bass
Guitar harmonics
Synth bass
Dulcimer
Large String Ensemble
Sine Wave  
Your Own Voice
Marimba
Hand clap
Tambourine
Hang Drum
Circlebells
Pan Flute
Baritone Sax
Melodica
Circuit-Bending Toy

Cool.

I have my idea... will be posting a "pre-challenge" thread for it because it's... different. 

Great entries by everybody, had fun listening to them all.

[Edit -]

ERMAGHERD!

When is the game coming out? :p

Edit - NEVERMIND.  Big ass covert art image... :[

You just have to have a google account and select "Request Access", and he'll get a notification to authorize it and then poof.

Hmm.... was hoping to see some feedback by now. :[ 

I'm a firm believer in doing it right the first time so you don't need to do any post prod mastering.  The only benefit to hiring someone else to do it is because their ears won't be biased towards the mix that has been heard by you 20000000 times.  Hard to master your own music without having that bias in there. 

But I'm opinionated from around 20 years of DIY/@#$% the other guy sort of mentality.  Not that other opinions don't matter... but I do things the way I like to do them, and make them sound how I like them to sound... Otherwise it's not... ME.  And when it's not ME, what's the point of writing music anymore? :D

(I'm a bad example of how to progress with the industry, so please ignore my advice in this regard )

Personally I would just consider that convenient timing and think nothing more of it.  It's not like you KNEW the challenge would be 'final boss'.

Wasn't looking for anyone to be sacked from the challenge, but more of expressing my discontent with their lack of effort to come up with something new... :p

[Edit -]

So, I scrounged up a couple of hours this morning of free time and put this track together... Would've spent longer on it but I'm going out of town for the weekend and need to pack(plus I haven't gone to sleep yet and I'm leaving in 4 hours).

http://soundcloud.com/zack-parrish/tigsource-musical-challenge

Tootles,
Zack

Edit - I couldn't help but notice... that a few entries on here have a posted date on soundcloud from a month or more ago... which is dating back to before this challenge was announced.  Kind of kills the spirit of the thread if you don't write something FOR the contest and just pulling something that you already wrote out and entering it.  Just sayin'.

Yeah... right now it's quite a bit disorganized and hard for me to keep track of since I'm only checking in once every other week ... sometimes only once a month(busy guy...).  It's seldom I have time to really just sit down and listen to the tracks over and over and really analyze what's going on. :p

I really need to come up with an alternative method for keeping track of these...right now it's so disjointed I have a hard time remembering which page I was last listening to, and then have to respond to 5+ ones at a time in multiple posts... hmmmmmmmmmmmm...

New idea... open to suggestions too.

Email me the info for your track(you can post it here too if you'd like) and then I will add it to my "queue"(spreadsheet) with the link, title, description, etc... and then I will just post once with multiple tracks in one post instead of trying to keep track in this thread.  Unless of course someone else has an idea?  If someone was willing to create a submission form by way of the internet I'd be willing to host it on my website.  Could just have it email me the submissions from that form or even store them on a separate page until they are marked as "Reviewed" or whatever.

But yeah... open to suggestions.  I can make a form submission thing myself eventually  but only to email me direct.  For the other option it would require more skill with MySQL, and I'm not the greatest at database queries. :p

I have stuff on there, sold stuff on there, and have a friend in the same scenario.  I don't spend much time writing generic tracks for stock music situations so I don't have much I CAN put on there so I am not an avid user of it.

My friend uses it quite a bit more than I do, and comes up with a lot of 1 minute tracks to slap on there and seems to be doing okay with making sales.  It really depends on your focus I think... are you going to write for a project, or just write for whatever and hope someone uses your whatever track in their whatever project.

He must be using SB Audigy or something... because that sounds like something Audigy would do. :p

Generally they just import the video into the DAW they are using(which most DAWs these days will do that thankfully), and then write the music syncing it as necessary.  It doesn't ALWAYS have to be 100% synced though you do want to kind of map out where the music should change prior to working on it.  If your DAW has support for markers you can use those to put tiny little notes for different changes in the video, and probably wouldn't hurt to have other notes written down in a notebook for more detail.  As you develop the music you can playback the track with the video displayed and make a determination of what needs improvement, what to get rid of, etc.  Once you are done you would bounce the audio like always, then using whatever video editing software you have available to you(CS2 Adobe Premier used to be free on adobe's website, might want to check and see if it's still there), you can slap the audio onto the video and then nudge the start time of it just in case there was a slight shift in the start time within your DAW.

That's one of the many setbacks in audio is how it's handled from one device to the next, and it's not just the soundcards doing it, it's how mixers, monitors, headphones, etc... everything is balanced how the person making it feels it should be.  Some headphones are bass heavy, some have no bass at all, some mixers have a thicker output than others, monitors are the same as headphones only open space instead of wrapped around your head.  The acoustics of your room can alter the sound of monitors as well.

I'm not sure why you are switching drivers when you bounce though... what's the purpose of this?  If you have ASIO drivers loaded to write the music, just leave them there and bounce the track using the same drivers. :p

In the window that pops up after selecting all the tracks to bounce the audio from, it has several check boxes/options for last minute changes to how it bounces the audio.  The dither type can be changed, the bit depth, etc... and then several other options should be there, one of them should say something about the speed that it processes all the audio.  I'm not looking at my DAW so I can't remember exactly what it says at the moment...

Only one way to know if that's the problem for sure, and that's to bounce only that one part by itself, and then bounce the other tracks without it, and then see what difference there is.  It could be a problem with the VST you are using, and it might also be the plugin you are using to put reverb on it(if you are using any).  Have you tried using live bounce instead of a quick bounce?

Hello everybody!  Finally done with the soundtrack for Valdis Story: Abyssal City, and looks like my schedule has a bit of space opening up in it.  If you need any music for your game, whether it's just one track or 2034920394 tracks give me a shout and we can try to work out a deal.

Also, here is the soundtrack for Valdis Story: Abyssal City so you can hear what has killed my time for the past year...

http://zackparrish.bandcamp.com/album/valdis-story-abyssal-city

Tootles,
Zack

It's probably one of two things, or both contributing to the end factor.  When you are live streaming the music from your DAW the audio is completely uncompressed and running at the highest quality possible, which allows for much more headroom with the volume, the EQ, etc... it's a lot more technical than what I'm saying, but anyway... if you bounce at a much lower Sample Rate and Bit Depth than what is native to your DAW(Sonar in a 64 bit system will bounce at 64 Bits and depending on your soundcard can bounce anywhere from 96 - 172 khz).  When you chop that down to something like say... 16 Bit and 44khz, it sounds pretty badly mixed in comparison because it starts to cut things that otherwise wouldn't be able to exist.

There is also a limiter in Sonar.  You can mix a song at +7.5 dB and the song will sound just fine, but when you bounce it things will get chopped off like you overcompressed the mix.  Most often it'll sound like the bass was mixed too high.

Combining those two things results in a crap mix when you bounce, either of them alone can also do this if the project is abusing one of them too much.  The Sample Rate and Bit Depth most likely isn't the problem, because while it might give you more head room, and the fidelity of it's quite pristine, it won't do things like over mix your bass... which sounds more like your limiter is being neglected.  Try and kick the levels back on all the tracks or set the master out back about 5dB and rebounce it, then see if it's closer to what you originally tried to mix it as.

Wish bandcamp wasn't a bitch about it when you select something as a bonus... these are the bonus tracks(in no particular order...):

Random Track-
http://soundcloud.com/zack-parrish/legato

Arrangement of "The Stigandyr" from original Valdis Story game
http://soundcloud.com/zack-parrish/valdis-story-lost-in-the-1

Old Western arrangement of "Stay in the Shadows"
http://soundcloud.com/zack-parrish/valdis-story-lost-in-the

Random Track-
http://soundcloud.com/zack-parrish/filthy

Joke Track inspired by alternate ending in Silent Hill
http://soundcloud.com/zack-parrish/valdis-story-lost-in-the-abyss

Random Track-
http://soundcloud.com/zack-parrish/experimental

Scrapped Idea(Replaced by "Blood Ritual")
http://soundcloud.com/zack-parrish/valdis-story-abyssal-city-33

Scrapped Idea(Replaced by "Sanctify or Die")
http://soundcloud.com/zack-parrish/valdis-story-abyssal-city-7

Scrapped Idea(Replaced by "In the Wake of Valdis")
http://soundcloud.com/zack-parrish/valdis-story-abyssal-city-upon