SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC029 January 2020 - Winners announced

[A Future in Noise]

Synths are not my field of expertise - others might be more helpful in that field.

My main concern is: how can I know what is allowed and what is not, if I don't know and you don't know?

[A Future in Noise]

According to people who are participating in the development of the Surge synth, this is how it is: "An oscillator is really just something that generates a periodic signal. The KEY is how that signal is generated. Wavetable synthesis uses wavetable oscillators. "Window" and "Wavetable" in Surge are both wavetable oscillators."

From now on I will regard this as the truth. The wavetable that I probably will be using is handled by some kind of electronical equipment. In this case it's called a window oscillator (not MS Windows). But that oscillator does not produce any kind of waveform; just handle the wavetable.

[The Exponent]

According to people who are participating in the development of the Surge synth, this is how it is: "An oscillator is really just something that generates a periodic signal. The KEY is how that signal is generated. Wavetable synthesis uses wavetable oscillators. "Window" and "Wavetable" in Surge are both wavetable oscillators."

From now on I will regard this as the truth. The wavetable that I probably will be using is handled by some kind of electronical equipment. In this case it's called a window oscillator (not MS Windows). But that oscillator does not produce any kind of waveform; just handle the wavetable.

The concept is quite simple really, not sure why you got confused. Wavetable synthesizers scan 'Single Cycle Waveforms' from a table, called a 'Wavetable'. Surge for example uses 4096 single cycle waveforms in its wavetables. Surge is a wavetable synth, it uses wavetable oscillators, as in it generates its sounds by scanning from wavetables and playing back those waveforms. The various algorithms simply change the way it plays back, interpolates or processes those single cycle waveforms. The advantage of wavetables is that you can scan across the single cycle waveforms, leading to morphing of sounds, typically achieved using filters modulation in subtractive synths.

Just watch something like this video on YouTube and you can understand it very simply.

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As I said earlier, as long as you import or use wavetables created from the samples supplied and NOT the ones already inside the synth, you should be fine to use wavetable synthesis. All the best!

[A Future in Noise]

The concept is quite simple really, not sure why you got confused.

Thanks for answering! I got confused because Mr. Fox wrote this: " ... which focus on "pure wavetable synthesis" alone (with no additional Oscillators, only LFO's for modulation). This is why I post this."

But now I'm not confused anymore!

[Mister Fox]

As I said earlier, as long as you import or use wavetables created from the samples supplied and NOT the ones already inside the synth, you should be fine to use wavetable synthesis. All the best!

This is exactly what the videos by Andrew Huang and Spectrasonics (Sound Design Tricks section) are showing, and "A Future in Noise" didn't understand. They use one sample and use this particular sample as oscillator (if we talk wavetable). If you want to alter it with another oscillator, you must use one of the provided samples, not the built in ones of your synthesizer.

If we talk straight up "sample playback" - that's a bit of a different thing. But just playing them back without mangling them at least a little bit (time stretching, ADSR, layering, etc)... where is the fun in that?


Apparently - the time I invest monthly with giving examples and possible explanations is still not enough to be crystal clear with setting up parameters for a game. A lot of participants still seem to have problems with that.

[The Exponent]

As I said earlier, as long as you import or use wavetables created from the samples supplied and NOT the ones already inside the synth, you should be fine to use wavetable synthesis. All the best!

This is exactly what the videos by Andrew Huang and Spectrasonics (Sound Design Tricks section) are showing, and "A Future in Noise" didn't understand. They use one sample and use this particular sample as oscillator (if we talk wavetable). If you want to alter it with another oscillator, you must use one of the provided samples, not the built in ones of your synthesizer.

If we talk straight up "sample playback" - that's a bit of a different thing. But just playing them back without mangling them at least a little bit (time stretching, ADSR, layering, etc)... where is the fun in that?


Apparently - the time I invest monthly with giving examples and possible explanations is still not enough to be crystal clear with setting up parameters for a game. A lot of participants still seem to have problems with that.

Mister Fox, certain concepts can very well require more than just examples if one doesn't have prior background, there's nothing wrong with that. Even you might not have enough knowledge or clarity in many sound design concepts. Anyway, I don't think any other participant is having any problem with the parameters, it's pretty straightforward.

Although I kind of find it very odd and contradictory that you say where is the fun in simple sampling, yet you provided waveforms like some basic wave shapes, white noise etc. Any participant can simply load those up and do a one synth challenge sort of a track just using those samples. Where's the fun in that? Just saying.

[Mister Fox]

Simple Waveforms were initially meant (2019) as alternative modulation source. You're still limited to this particular frequency - these sounds are not as clean as generated wave cycles from synths. My hope was to maybe see something like Mick Gordon's sound design content (see GDC2017 video) with this. But so far, this hasn't happened yet.

Maybe that will change with SWC029

[NERVA]

Just wanted to say hi, it’s been a while.. can’t keep up with all you gangstas! Keep rockin’ and I’ll see you all again once a do-able set of rules is in place for my current skill set, I really wanna be on theme for my next submission.

-ANTHEMIC

[Mister Fox]

A friendly reminder
Including today, 7 days left to submit your production

[Leonard Bowman]

Hello
Am i alowed to make a public vidéo tutorial on how to make musick from samples with your material, of course crediting mix challenge and the autors of the samples?
if yes,
i'll nead the names of the autors.
musically,
Steeve

You can use the 5 samples I provided for whatever you'd like, including commercial content- I've licensed them as CC0 which means you don't even need to credit me.


in other news, I've started a track for this challenge but my attention has been diverted to a different project recently. Not certain i'll create a full track by the deadline but I will try.