Conceptual Music Competition 29: Star Force One

OMG folks. I dont want to hurt anyone but....Why James's piece got 19 votes???????? James you know, that I would never hurt you, but seriously I dont understand. The full orchestral pieces of Pawloff, Rich (and Nicholas, but it wasnt a big thing in my opinion) was far better I think. Your piece is not bad just it wasnt enough film music style that a theme like Star Force One reccomend...Of course its only my opinion...

The right piece won ;)

Congrats everyone! Especially James. He took on full sample libraries with midi from like 1999 and came close! Just goes to show it's really about the music and not so much the ambience. (I still hold by my suggestion though. Get some decent samples!)

I thought a Star Wars knock-off would have done well here. I'll have to rethink that one next time.

Though I liked most of the entries, I didn't think any of them fit the theme as well as LM's and my own. I think LM was going for the same type of thing I saw in the theme - sort of a Star Trek/Star Wars or video game of epic proportions title theme. Something explicitly heroic and catchy - ear candy. I think the other entrants focused too much on the aspect of creating a murky, far-out creepy space atmosphere - places where no man would boldly go. But where the team's theme? It's STAR FORCE! They created the atmosphere's but they didn't paint the picture of a majestic ship and her bold crew out to fight the perils of the other worlds. That's what I wanted to hear, and that's why I voted the way I did. My vote probably would have gone to Pavloff with an honourable mention to Nicholas Singer since I loved their tracks and their production quality was amazing, but I didn't think they captured the correct essence - wasn't appropriate for what the prompt made me picture. Also, lot a people seemed to want to use rhythm tracks, drum set, or whatever other percussion to create a drive. I didn't think that really fit well to this theme.

Edit: ah, Ravin'Spleen, I saw your shady suggestion of obtaining soundfonts/samples illegally - I would never do this. I do lack the money to spend $300 each on a sample set for winds and percussions and strings and a piano and all that jazz, but I'm not concerned enough to find other ways of obtaining these things. I think the music is more important BEFORE it gets processed. I'll spend money on a computer and a new Finale before samples and a VST. MIDI from 2008, by the way, not 1999. ;)

Before you get back on me - yes, a new Finale would have a nice bundle of GPO with it, but I've never been happy with GPO results, even coming out of a good production effort. I'm more aimed towards getting VSL and EQWL samples whenever I can afford them and have enough reason to justify using them.

Abadoss, are the threads in the other forums you post this usually this quiet? There's like... no actively in them for this round. That's sad. =[ and heh... TENOCH, we have a GameDev member infiltrating YC! =D

Well that's honorable of you. And of course the music is much more important before it's processed by a computer, and I think that's what I was trying to show to Pavloff et al in my comments.

I remember back when J.S. Bach was in his late forties his great friend Telemann showed him a prototype steam-powered computer he obtained from the Royal Academy of Sciences in London, which Newton built. Telemann strongly urged Bach to consider using it to help compose the Musical Offering, but Bach refused. Telemann kept the machine and went on to compose his Alster suite, Don Quixote, and other pretty good works. However, the rest is history, no?

And I enjoy being shady.

I had some anecdotal evidence before to convince you to obtain samples but your 15th edit nullified it. I still respect your desicions (and your music).

(Edit: BTW, I think Rolifer summed up my side of the argument in your thread for your piece.)

Heh, perhaps I over-edit my posts. :sweat:

Respect? For me? Don't be silly. I never get any of that.

Good job everyone, many great pieces.

Pavloff person, where did you come from and who are you? You're being too mysterious. :pinch:

[quote name='No

one can have expectations on what music should be to fit the theme but for my money there are several ways this can be done, and I felt the winning piece did that best. I found it filled with anticipation and event, while being quite subtle but rich and sonorous. It wasn't just about an awesome team who save the universe, or whatever. No piece fulfilled the brief near perfectly though, in my view.

Pavloff person, where did you come from and who are you? You're being too mysterious. :pinch:

Haha, Hello James, oh I'm just being all around here for quite some time, reading these forums,

btw well done with your piece. c:

Abadoss, are the threads in the other forums you post this usually this quiet? There's like... no actively in them for this round. That's sad. =[ and heh... TENOCH, we have a GameDev member infiltrating YC! =D

Sometimes. OCR and YC are the two most active. VGMix, MGMusic, and Gaming World tend to be the quietest, while GameDev gets off one or two on most occasions. Generally, it just depends on who's got something to say...

WOAH :w00t::w00t:

Third place! That's a very good surprise, for my first composition...

Comments mention bad samples, not polished enough, generaly lack of construction. To my defense, I used a free soundfont, the best I could find,.I started about a week before the deadline, which is far too little time. And well, I need more training, and for this your comments will be extremely valuable.

Another problem is all the sound treatment that, well, I didn't do because I don't know how. I suppose the piece would need adjusment for the power levels and spatialization and all that fancy stuff. Here I just recorded the output of the soundfont player, with reverb. Then again I finished composing really late...

Aaaaaanyway, thanks everyone for your comments (and votes :P), congratulations again for all entrants, and well, see you next time!

Oh and yeah, YC seemed to be the most active so I came here from GameDev :)

It's not just the samples you have, it's what you do with them that counts..

That's what my girlfriend tells me anyway.

Seriously tho, it's true that the composition is more important than the samples, but why does that mean you only have to use one/two patchs/instruments? A bit of orchestration would really make it shine IMO and would have beaten my piece into the ground.

Anyway congrats to everyone, thanks to all who voted- I'll make sure the next theme is a good one.. :thumbsup:

Oh I forgot: Congrats to all of you!! :thumbsup:

Anyway James, the bad thing is that not enough if you have EWQL samples.

I have EWQL GOLD but the f*cking WinXp (standard 32-bit) can only handle 2 gigs of ram what is not enough cause when I load all the samples of an orchestra an error messsage pop op: not enough ram. If you want to load Choir+ Orchestra and want to playback properly you'll have to have at least 4 gigs. That's why I thought of Winxp 64-git but everybody says its a scraggy. I'm not sure if EWQL would work on Winxp 64-bit properly but I think I'll give it a try. If you have any suggestions or ideas to solve the problem please Pm me guys.

Thanx...

win xp2 can support up to 3++ something gigabyte. and most music software work bad with vista 64bit.

OMG folks. I dont want to hurt anyone but....Why James's piece got 19 votes???????? James you know, that I would never hurt you, but seriously I dont understand. The full orchestral pieces of Pawloff, Rich (and Nicholas, but it wasnt a big thing in my opinion) was far better I think. Your piece is not bad just it wasnt enough film music style that a theme like Star Force One reccomend...Of course its only my opinion...

thats because he did everything right, musically-not prodcution wise, since it is a "composition" competition, and not sound design, however people like "ear candy" so they get bested by superior libraries even though their music is much better.

I, for one, was very much happy to hear this kind of level of orchestration, which definitely comes from educated classical music, which, uses notes as their power, and not sound envelope of sounds.

and i dont think people appreciate comments about competitions in this forum, thats why adanoss asked for PM and put it all in a proper place.

i can understand your immediate reaction for this, however unjustified.

Well... I think this is a conceptual music competition, not a classical writing competition, so the use of instrumentation or "ear candy" as you put it is important in providing some of that atmosphere. Orchestration and arrangement are pretty fundamental parts of 'educated' classical music, after all.

Sorry, I'm not trying to bash James' piece, it's just a bit annoying having spent so many hours arranging and mixing to be told that it's essentially just cheap tricks..

Hahaha. Okkkk. People dont appriciate comments on competitions. lol

Than why they participate??? :D

To the above three: this is not the place to discuss your issues. Take it somewhere private.

Edit: Thanks James. I try.

No :cool:

... yes.

Thank you for acting pseudo-mod, RavingSpleen. That was rather convincing, I must say.

ONWARD TO THE NEXT CMC! *two measures of his own Star Force blast fanfarically* :D

A few posts ago, James was saying how sad it is that nobody is discussing the competition on any of the forums, and now you're telling us to clear off? I would have thought a forum post about the competition was the place to discuss these issues and defend our entries, my mistake I guess :veryunsure:

bye bye

Nah, it's been getting a lot of discussion on this forum, but I was going on about how nobody's posting in the threads on the other forums. :thumbsup:

Thanks for sharing this useful information. It's great.

taux pret auto - taux pret auto differe selon la rise en compte ... calculent automatiquement le taux pour un pr

A few posts ago, James was saying how sad it is that nobody is discussing the competition on any of the forums, and now you're telling us to clear off? I would have thought a forum post about the competition was the place to discuss these issues and defend our entries, my mistake I guess

bye bye

One: The purpose of this thread is to provide information about this particular competition. In depth comments and critiques on entries should be posted on the entry's own thread, not in this one. This is a view previously expressed by "The J":

and i dont think people appreciate comments about competitions in this forum, thats why adanoss asked for PM and put it all in a proper place.

Two: You weren't defending your entry, you were whining about another entry doing "better". There's a difference.

Three: I'm not telling you to clear off. I'm only asking you to discuss it in a more appropriate thread. You could have easily expressed these views:

Well... I think this is a conceptual music competition, not a classical writing competition, so the use of instrumentation or "ear candy" as you put it is important in providing some of that atmosphere. Orchestration and arrangement are pretty fundamental parts of 'educated' classical music, after all.

Sorry, I'm not trying to bash James' piece, it's just a bit annoying having spent so many hours arranging and mixing to be told that it's essentially just cheap tricks..

in a thread discussing which is more important: the arranging and mixing or the actual composition. (And, to be completely honest, many people on this forum probably won't see it from your perspective.)

In essence, your argument is not constructive because it is misplaced (thereby not allowing it to be readily supported or negated) and because it is centered on comparing your work to another's.

Signing out.