SPC #5 - RESULTS ARE OUT

[Blitz Lunar]

1. Processing the samples ate up a lot of time.
2. It was really hard to find a strong bass instrument this time around.
3. Samples would inspire something and then when you actually tried it, it sounded like crap.

1. this didn't take me too long. i did most of it within a day, though continued to make new sounds as i needed them as well. this took me longer in SPC4.
2. yes, very very very yes. i made one good bass sound, one that's probably pretty predictable.
3. probably to some extent ;p

[Anubis]

1. Processing the samples ate up a lot of time.
2. It was really hard to find a strong bass instrument this time around.
3. Samples would inspire something and then when you actually tried it, it sounded like crap.

I'm surprised you guys had these problems. I didn't have one either!
I must say the first time I heard the samples, my song was constantly boiling in my head and I didn't really change lots of the samples to get what I want.
For me, SPC 4 was much harder. Maybe because of the inexperience of the program I was using, but when I had Shadows of Swodahs in my head, I tried to do the best that I can to make it but it fails....Instead for this SPC 5, the song came out quite quickly.

However, hope to hear the damn SONGS! That's what I'm waiting this week!

[The Kroc]

I'm sorry I didn't say anything in all this time! I saw the message left on my email but thought it was just a reminder we had to ignore. I just saw the message on myspace left by dusthillresident and understood I was supposed to reply! I'm sorry!

My intention was to keep on modifying and editing my songs until the very last day and then send them. I have 3 songs, albeit pretty short. If it makes things easier, I can send them today! Sorry again. XD

And YES, I had loads of ideas when I first heard the samples but I've felt a little uninspired when trying to make these ideas "come true". Luckily I managed to make something, unlike last year. I can't wait to hear everyone's tracks!

And YES, DAMN bass sounds and drums. I've used the same in all tracks. XD

[dust hill resident]

My intention was to keep on modifying and editing my songs until the very last day and then send them. I have 3 songs, albeit pretty short. If it makes things easier, I can send them today! Sorry again. XD

Thanks The Kroc, it's good to see you around. Waiting until the very last day is fine - I just wanted to make sure that nobody had forgotten, since the thread had been a little quiet. But now I can see that people are re-appearing, so things seem to be going well.

Just to make things clear, the deadline is the end of the day on the 15th. So the official time of the deadline is 00:00 April 16th (London time). Of course, I won't strictly enforce the deadline; if I don't receive an entry from someone who I know has been writing a song, I'll wait a while for them to send their stuff in, and if I don't hear from them for some hours, I'll go looking for them. I'll make sure that everyone who has made something will get their stuff sent in.

I also had trouble with drums. I managed to get some very good drum sounds (compared to last year), but while they were good, I could only come up with one set of drums. So I ended up using much the same drum sounds for all my songs.

I'm very excited about this contest. I can't wait to hear everyone's songs. Thanks everyone for taking part.

[Lawrence]

There's one particular sample which I knew I'd use for percussion the instant I heard it. I bet others have used the same sample in exactly the same way, it'll be interesting to find out.

[Magister ZZ]

I actually processed a whole bunch of samples, but it's the song-making that's been difficult for me. Mostly cause I did pretty much everything in Live this time around, and it's a somewhat of a pain to actually record songs without a MIDI keyboard or something (can't find my damn power adapter ). Oh well, hopefully I'll be able to bang out at least one track this time around.

[Blitz Lunar]

submitted my tunes. now to wait for the song pack! hope everyone gets their tracks in on time.

[Anubis]

Hooray! 10 contestants give their songs!

I WANT MOOREE!!! MOOOAAARRR!!!

[IssacV]

Weeeeeeeeee!!! I should make the deadline, i was hoping to get at least 2 done but time has become a problem. Im going to have to settle for brushing up one and submitting it. Cant wait to hear what everyone has come up with! Should be awesome

[blue.nocturne]

Just finished all my entries.
I want to hear the rest of the entries so get them done!

[HyperX]

Probably should have realized what I was getting into when I signed up for this, but managed to scrape out an entry anyway.

1. Processing the samples ate up a lot of time.
2. It was really hard to find a strong bass instrument this time around.
3. Samples would inspire something and then when you actually tried it, it sounded like crap.

1. Only via initial lack of ideas.
2. Not really, but I wasn't particularly picky.
3. In spades.

[RAMPKORV]

CONNY AINOR MAURITZ ANDERSSON

[KungFuFurby]

...did everyone have these same problems?
1. Processing the samples ate up a lot of time.
2. It was really hard to find a strong bass instrument this time around.
3. Samples would inspire something and then when you actually tried it, it sounded like crap.

Answers to those three:
1. I plucked the ones that I thought would work nicely, and then for the samples that contained more than one different "sound" (example: Drums.wav), I chopped them off into sections (some of which I simply used the built-in note cut functionality to chop off ends of samples, and some of which I used the built-in sample offset on my tracker). Didn't take a long time to do, because I could preview loops in real-time, and thus I could use these loop points to my advantage: have a start point in which there was silence, and have an end point that was right in the sound, and move the end point closer to the start until there was complete silence. That Schism Tracker is very good for something like that, so I don't get silent delays on really low pitches.
2. I actually found one that would be suitable for bass, and I also used some other samples for expermientation on that. Thus, the difficulty was not in finding a good bass, but in finding a good kick drum sample, since there wasn't really one defined. That was a good challenge, and I eventually found a good one. ^_^
3. Good thing I usually don't define something as sounding bad unless I really think it does sound bad. To me, "good sounding" is not using a bunch of fancy effects, but how you use them only using volume and pitch modifications. I also used filters in one of the tunes that I made.

[Anubis]

Damn not even half of the people listed(the red-lined are excluded, i guess) have not yet give a song or any response......

Are you gonna extend the deadline Dust hill Resident? like for the weekend??

[dust hill resident]

Anubis: Yes, I'm considering extending the deadline. I may extend it to the beginning or the middle of the weekend.

There are some people on the list who I know won't make anything, but there are others who I know are making things, and those I'm not sure of. I'll go and cross out all the people that I know won't have made anything.