Monthly MIDI Contest #3 - July - results out

[dust hill resident]

Monthly MIDI Contest #3 - July 2010

The results:

Code: Select all

082.07   Melody_of_Enchanted_Bird_Tweet.mid
080.71   FastJeepTrekthroughIndia.mid
080.57   OrganSong2.mid
079.67   DennistheRocketCamel.mid
079.42   WhirlwindForest.mid
079.36   OrganSong1.mid
078.75   downshow.mid
078.50   anillegaloperation.mid
078.50   Manflow.mid
078.17   TheLongTrekBack_endingtheme.mid
074.86   a_place_a_dream.mid
073.17   Funky Fellatio.mid
067.36   FlyingForest.mid
059.33   lituanica.mid
058.33   TechnoJungle.mid


CBLockDis:
Melody_of_Enchanted_Bird_Tweet.mid

wiseman:
an illegal operation.mid

Anonymous_A:
Fast Jeep Trek through India.mid

Rocco:
Dennis the Rocket Camel.mid The Long Trek Back (ending theme).mid

KungFuFurby:
TechnoJungle.mid

theultimatechimera:
Flying Forest.mid

Redmoonrising04:
a_place_a_dream.mid

Maxo:
Whirlwind Forest.mid

dusthillresident:
lituanica.mid Manflow.mid

Gigasoft:
OrganSong1.mid OrganSong2.mid

strugglepoo:
downshow.mid

jace:
Funky Fellatio.mid

The rules are:
Make (a) MIDI file(s) according to the challenge/theme of the contest. The challenge/theme changes each month.
You may make more than one file if you wish.
Send your songs in by the deadline. Then, if you wish, you can rate the songs (except your own). A voting form will be made available at the same time as the songs. Rate each song on a scale from 0 to 100.
You are to make original compositions only.
Your songs must be no shorter than one minute.
The authors of the songs must be kept secret until the scores have been announced.

If you believe that a song breaks the rules in any way, PM or email me with your concerns and any information that would be useful.

This month, the challenge/theme was:
Each individual person will be given eight randomly chosen instruments to use. You must use only the instruments assigned to you (but you may also use drums, too.)
Make sure you let me know that you want to take part, so that I can send you your instrument list.
You must use every one of the instruments that you've been given.

Dates and submission times
The contest begins July 1st.
The deadline for submission is July 27.
The songs will be released at 00:00 in the morning of July 28, London time.
The results of the voting will be announced on July 31st, 00:00.
(Make sure you send your entries/votes in at least an hour before these times. Try not to leave things too late.)

How to submit your songs
* Email (or if you can't email, PM) your MIDI file(s) to dusthillresident@gmail.com. The subject must be your username's MIDI songs.
* After emailing, post in the thread to let me know that you've sent your email. This is important because gmail has been known to move legitimate emails to the spam folder.

How to vote/rate
* Once the songs are made available, a voting form (text document) will be attached to the main post in the thread.
* Download and fill in the form, and email it to dusthillresident@gmail.com. The subject must be your username's MIDI votes. If you can't use email, you can PM your votes to me, dust hill resident.
* After emailing, post in the thread to let me know that you've sent your email. This is important because gmail has been known to move legitimate emails to the spam folder.


Contest participants
CBlockDis
The Ultimate Chimera
Rocco
Maxo
Jayster
Gigasoft
strugglepoo
dust hill resident
KungFuFurby
Spudge
Anonymous A
wiseman
blue.nocturne
Jace
Redmoonrising04

[Kris Troutman]

Whatever it is. It should be something we haven't been restricted to or without yet. So far we've done Picture limitation and polyphony limitations. Those were the two big ones. So the next big one should be of something different.

Maybe something like, only arpeggio or rolling chords rather than block chords, and they can't be any shorter than an 8th note roll (to avoid an easy dodge). And they must be used at least once in the song, and then if the person wants they can just use no chords to avoid penalty for block chords. 2 notes would be fine, but any more means they have to be rolled.

Make the person required to make at least one 8 or 16 bar section mirrored to another. In other words, it plays one section, then once that section is done, it immediately mirrors (from left to right) that section. Drums would not have to be mirrored, but everything else does, and nothing can be changed or added otherwise until the mirrored part finishes. Then another section has to also be inverted (flipped from top to bottom). Same rule applies as mirrored section.

The person is limited to only being allowed to use the instruments of the same family per section, nothing outside of the family can be used unless you get to a new section and change all the instruments to the new family. Percussion excluded. If you decide to use pads, then only patches named as pads can be used. If you decide to use ethnic, then only ethnic can be used.

Those are all I can think of. Any more ideas?

[CBlockDis]

Make the person required to make at least one 8 or 16 bar section mirrored to another. In other words, it plays one section, then once that section is done, it immediately mirrors (from left to right) that section. Drums would not have to be mirrored, but everything else does, and nothing can be changed or added otherwise until the mirrored part finishes. Then another section has to also be inverted (flipped from top to bottom). Same rule applies as mirrored section.

Retrograde...? Clever idea, easy to pull off if you use cakewalk though. Has a retrograde plugin that automatically mirrors anything you hilight. :p Would make the contest unfair advantage for anybody else with such a spiffy feature that never gets used.

I alway preferred contests that required specific use of 8 random instruments(or 4 as the last thing I did was...). Like say, you get a random number generator, and set it to go from 0-127 or 1-128, whichever numbers your sequencer uses, and let it randomly select 7 or 8 instruments for you. Done this type of thing as a contest a few times and the outcome was remarkably entertaining. :p

[The Ultimate Chimera]

Did you get my idea that I had PM'ed you, DHR? For the sake of everyone else here, I'll restate it.
How about we have to compose songs in the style of a well known game with prevalent music, like Kirby, or Legend of Zelda? Most people have played, those, and they have distinct music. Remember Blue.Nocturnes Star Station from the first contest? That's a good example of Kirby Style.

Or, we could even have each person assigned a different game to make in the style of. You know, one person makes a Mario style song, one a Kirby style, the next Sonic style, the next Earthbound style, the next Final Fantasy style. The only thing is that you'd have to make sure to assign the styles to the right people, AKA people that have played the game they're being assigned to. I think that would be a dump-truck load of fun!

Make the person required to make at least one 8 or 16 bar section mirrored to another. In other words, it plays one section, then once that section is done, it immediately mirrors (from left to right) that section. Drums would not have to be mirrored, but everything else does, and nothing can be changed or added otherwise until the mirrored part finishes. Then another section has to also be inverted (flipped from top to bottom). Same rule applies as mirrored section.

Really funny that you say that, because I was just thinking that same idea in regards to a possible Sonic song I had in mind...

[Rocco]

Assigning people different videogame styles would be more cumbersome than it sounds, I'm afraid. Mimicking other styles does sound fun, but the most recent contest encouraged similar-sounding entries already. I think we shouldn't limit style this time.

Kris, I do also like the "no block chords" rule, although it might also result in a lot of similarity in the entries. And it could be avoided by multiple tracks sounding at the same time in an ambiguously simultaneous manner. It would lend itself to a very subjective interpretation of the rules, and I can imagine the results might hurt some feelings.

I like the random instruments idea. It could be similar to the Sample Pack Contest if everyone participating suggests one instrument, and a certain number of them are chosen randomly out of that.

[The Ultimate Chimera]

I suppose you're right, Rocco. Maybe next time. But I also think if we were to do certain samples, it'd be better to pick random ones rather than user submitted ones... I don't think we'd get nearly as
fun results.

Anyways, when is the next SPC, Dust Hill Resident? I so want to join the next one.

Random fun fact: I posted this from my DS Lite! XD

[CBlockDis]

Chimera is right about randomness... makes it heaps of fun. I don't have any of the songs from the last thing I did here when we would take turns making MIDIs using random instruments... was very entertaining. I have 4 examples of some MIDIs I did for various games/contests like that... and it's a very good chance to really learn some tricks in getting around the limitations of MIDI. :p Lemme check my MIDIs...

First one was... (CBEntry)
Church Organ
Lead 7(Fifths)
Piccolo
Synth Brass 2
Accordion
Shanai
Helicopter
Bright Acoustic Piano
Percussion(optional, use or not, whatever patch you wanted)

Second song was...(Random 1)
Electric Grand Piano
Rhodes Piano
Slap Bass 2
FX 1(rain)

And the third...(Random 5)
Harmonica
Ocarina
Shamisen
Synth Drum

Very fun to mess around with, really wish I still had the ones that everybody else did... :p

[Kris Troutman]

The no block chords rule can be enforced in such a way that people can't obviously cheat by using multiple tracks/channels.

The rule would simply be: Any more than 2 notes at a time per the entire Harmony, or entire melody, or entire bassline, will have to be rolled with no shorter than a 1/8th note duration. You are allowed up to 2 notes to go on at the same time for each of the types of lines though, just so long as it doesn't result in one large block chord (I.E, having all 3 hit 2 notes all at the same time). If the notes going on at the same time are the exact same pitch, then it does not count against you. It's only if it's more than 2 pitches overall per type of line (for people who like to layer).

The random instruments does seem interesting, but I feel maybe the host should be the one using a generator and then passing out the numbers. If a person chooses to do more than one song, then he will PM the host and await a reply with a new set of random chosen instruments. I also suggest we allow the person to chose percussion and have it not part of the randomly chosen instruments (just so that more people will want to join in, as it can be a pain to not have any percussion, or get stuck with the SFX set).

And yeah, I suggest 8 instruments chosen at random, so the song can sound more varied.

[CBlockDis]

8 instruments definitely. And keeping the percussion as optional makes it easier to keep from HAVING to use percussion, but not removing the option to do so either.

And really, DHR can come up with 8 random instruments, everybody use them, and voila. Picking 8 different ones for each person would be a bit tedious to keep track of and hard to judge success... especially if one person gets piano, strings, harp, flute, etc... and another gets slapbass, helicopter, gunshot, banjo, etc... would be a tremendously difficult thing to balance.

Also an important thing to factor is how much of each instrument gets used. Similar to the vibraslap thing... I only used it twice in my entry for last contest, and it was very subtle how I used it. Almost unnoticable. That would no doubt be a factor in the scoring though.

[Maxo]

Count me in, whatever the theme may be!

[dust hill resident]

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[CBlockDis]

Don't follow... you mean we pick 8 and then somebody else uses them?

[dust hill resident]

-

[KungFuFurby]

Er... what is a block chord? Just out of curiosity. This might get confusing for me to follow properly...

Other than that, I'll join in for round 3... whatever it will be.

8 instruments? I can easily put those into Schism Tracker plus a drum channel (if permitted) and just simply limit myself to the inital selection. That's easy for me to adjust to! ^_^

[CBlockDis]

Block chords = what people do when they first start composing