Smile: Smile Vectors by Vecteezy
Voting thread is now live: viewtopic.php?f=300&t=240647
Congrats to the winner, hombre x!
First of all, I looked back through some of the old contests to try and make sure I wasn't duplicating anything. I have to say, there were lots of really creative and elaborate contests and I'm sad I missed some of them!
Now onto this month’s contest:
Ahem, ahem. Welcome, class, to the new school year. This is Music 207: Theory for Looptalk, and I will be your professor, Dr. ShadowsOfLight. Now, some of you may be snarky and call me Dr. S.O.L. behind my back - please know that you will instantly receive a Fail in this class if I catch wind of any such nonsense.
This is a one month class; your grade will be calculated solely from your final assignment, and is Pass/Fail only. You must score at least 3 out of 4 points on Basic Techniques and 3 out of 4 points in Compositional Techniques for your final assignment to be valid. The assignment can be modified at any time until the end of the class, and your best grade will be taken. Only one final submission is allowed per student, but you are able to solicit feedback from any number of submissions as long as you indicate which one is your final submission before the deadline. Finally, at the end of the class, we will commence a round of peer evaluation; the student who wrote the track with the highest peer score will be given the fabulous prize of being the next professor of this class. (And freedom to change the name, syllabus and rubric as they see fit.)
Below is the scoring rubric for the assignment:
Basic techniques (4 points):
- Composition only uses Image-Line products (including Image-Line samples) as generators and effects. (1 point)
- Resampling/rendering using above as a basis is also allowed, as long as it can be proven.
- Editing/mangling of samples is allowed, as long as it is done solely with Image-Line tools.
- When choosing to forego this point: use of more than 3 instances of third-party plugins or samples is not allowed and will result in a failing grade.
- Song is at least 2 minutes long. (1 point)
- The song has a Patcher instance that utilizes Fruity Envelope Controller(s) to control 2 or more parameters. (1 point)
- The song uses the FLEX patch “Recorder” from the General Midi Library as a generator. (1 point)
- This can be routed through effects, or sampled and mangled with Image-Line tools, as desired.
- This needs to be noticeable in the final mix (whatever it ends up sounding like).
- Special note: in some parts of the world, including mine, recorders are popular instruments for young kids to learn music with at school. If there is an alternative in your part of the world or from your experience, please let me know and I will likely make an exception.
- There must be at least one time signature change in the song. (1 point)
- You must use each time signature for at least 20 seconds total. This time does not have to be continuous, it is allowed to be broken up.
- To be valid, time signature change must impact the piece. For example, change from 4/4 to 2/4 is not allowed if the underlying patterns don't change; it is allowed if it changes the flow of the piece.
- You must use two different chord types (either solid or broken) that include a 6th, 9th, 11th and/or 13th interval. (1 point)
- These are only required to show up once each, but can be used as often as desired.
- You must use at least two different types of tuplets (e.g. triplet) in the song. (1 point)
- Tuplets of the same division but at different intervals (e.g. triplet eighths and triplet quarters) count as separate tuplets.
- The song must have at least one clear crescendo or diminuendo lasting 10 or more seconds. (1 point)
Deadline is October 12 at midnight, UTC. I look forward to hearing your final assignments, and I hope that you are all able to learn something new!