This isn’t really a challenge for sharing tracks here, but I was missing the usual chat (and encouragement!) and I was wondering how everyone is finding it, and if anyone else has found themselves thinking at all differently about their workflow when using the given samples??
For myself (an enthusiastic amateur!) - I had no idea how much the expressiveness of some of my (few!) solo instrument patches informs what I make… feeling very grateful and a little more connected to the people who make the amazing samples and the musicians who played them!!
Like you, Ros, this challenge has definitely been a reminder to me of how much I rely on the (relative) authenticity of sampled instrument libraries to compose - it makes me realise that what I’m doing a lot of the time, even with traditional/classical/orchestral sounds, is part way between traditional composition and sound design. Being challenged to use such a limited palette is a vivid reminder of my first experiences of music tech; there never seemed any point trying to make orchestral arrangements with dubious PCM-based General MIDI sound sets, because they were so far from reality. We’re very fortunate to be empowered to make production-ready arrangements of real-world instrument sounds with the tools available to us (and even more fortunate that some of those tools are available for free).
It’s also shown me that I’m inclined to start writing with half an idea (or even less), and rely on the tonal and textural qualities of samples to lead me to a conclusion. I found it much easier to work with the challenge sounds when I had a complete idea to translate (first of all a re-arrangement for the challenge instruments of a piece I’d already written for brass, then a piece I wrote for the challenge band but with better-quality samples).
I just sent in my entry. I learned many things on this project.
You mean I’ve got only a minute an a half to say something? Everything? Listened to They Might Be Giants.
I built a mechanism to switch from my preferred samples and the DS Summer Challenge Library. Write the music to the performance, not the rehearsal band. Hope the recording drummer will have brushes and can work the brass.
Hope someone takes one of the suggestions and writes something Spike Jones meets the Marx Brothers.
My moment of ‘You Know You Know’ was when one stanza became an earwig but the following didn’t. I addressed the pickup notes for the next phrase to my breathing. Then practically the entire piece followed me around. There’s an old interview of Pat Metheny where he discusses his soloing is phrased no longer than a breath. We don’t want the audience to pass out, do we?
Thank’s for the opportunity. Now I can begin to explore something more arcane
I share the pain, there are quite a few things that make this one of the toughest challenges. No effects No layering No reverb …my reverb…
Definitely the most procrastination inducing part of this challenge is that the music is being created to fit with spirt of the YouTube channel. It’s trying to write something that will suite all the various tones of the shows, going from reflective and clam right through to chaotic and funny. Still not sure on the right energy for it.
Also the musicians actually have to be able to play what is being written. The inconvenience…
I tired improvising using samples provided. For some reason the results often lead to styles that sounded like early 80s unpolished hip hop, jazz or early 90s video game sounds. It made me wonder if the less polished a sample of a traditional instrument is, then the more conventional people’s choices will be when creating new music. In the sense that you are going after the most familiar thing.
Anyhow iI just ended up improvising the main part of the song using Vaults Bridge guitar. From there orchestrated it to an equivalent better sample instrument and then to samples we have. To make the piece fit I adjusted the automation of the volume, pitch bend and channel pressure only after this.
To distract from the reduced dynamics, timbre and harmonic content of the samples I did the following:
-Making the music very rhythmic
Hardly ever playing an instrument on it owns ideally creating a unison with another instrument to create a harmonic content.
- Trying to add more dynamics to the sound through automation per note and then trying to link that to overall moment of the music.
Not sure if any of this was actually needed or right.
I’m glad to hear that we all share the same collective trauma.
Ed, I so hear you - I was so chuffed the day I spied a poor old Proteus orchestral module sitting unloved in a guitar shop and going super cheap!.. and Cats, that’s exactly what happened to me… I’l not say what my local critics thought of my first attempt with the challenge sounds, let’s just say they weren’t big Nintendo fans… They were speechless! Treelimbjim - really pleased that you enjoyed writing to the performance and found your earwig - I loved your idea there, I wonder if someone will take on that Spike Jones meets the Marx Brothers challenge now you’ve put it out there
I’ve handed in my submission now too, ably performed by the local primary school wind and strings band, bless them all for their efforts Some of my hopefully tasty dissonances sounded… er… fruity… sus? yes, a bit sus…
I’m so looking forward to hearing and seeing how the good ones translate into the live recordings - I always learn so much from the folk who win these things, and I think it’s going to make some great content for the channel. I foresee lots of amazing rhythm sections and clever use of the wacky instrumentation to make grooves that sound super fresh and at the same time like they’ve always been there x love to hear more thoughts and experiences if and when anyone fancies sharing. good luck everyone!
This may be a silly question, but is there any rule to the number of midi tracks for the strings. i.e. Can we ‘simulate’ the cello on its own midi track ?
My understanding is that there’s no MIDI track limit, and that splitting the strings into one track per instrument is a good idea - partly because it makes generating the parts easier for the live players, and partly because it makes it easier to check that you’re using pitches the instruments can play.
I gave 1 MIDI track per DS instrument so longs and shorts could better distinguish my intent. Early on I asked several timbres to leave and sit in the audience as there was no room on the stage, nor my rehearsal budget.
I did take the drum sample set and break it into individual elements with Logic’s Drum Machine Designer-- primarily to have the three HiHat-ish samples under the keys I preferred.
I could spend another week on the snare. I gave up, let it sound like machine guns. But I wrote with invisible ink on the MIDI score to flam, paradiddle, pataflafla or What Wouldn’t Bernard Purdie do (triplets against a half-time backbeat, perhaps) ?
Because we have to let it go for others to hear it.
I spent a fun evening on this in early July already. The mp3 sounded just perfectly abhorrent, with the drastically pitched-down notes having too slow an attack to match the rest. On the other hand, it’s funny how quickly one can move when the sound quality doesn’t matter anymore anyway! Just resubmitted it because I had received some error messages when trying to upload my files and didn’t feel confident they had actually gone through.
This was interesting challenge, since when writing to real players you don’t need to worry about limitations of sample instruments, but this time you need to write with wery limited samples.
I ended up starting from scratch two times. I really liked the first piece I made for “travelling videos”, but released it isn’t really background music. I’m going to save it for some future projects.
Next one I decided to do in style of “will they make it”, but I realized I tried to make something for big orchestra, I don’t think it would sound that great with solo instruments and again would propably interfere with dialogue.
Third and final one I did is more for sad videos. I have done music once for feature film and there I experimented with melodic minor. In this piece I continued with my expirements and result sounds quite similar, but who says you can’t steal ideas from yourself?
I wasn’t sure was it allowed to balance volume of individual instruments when sending mp3 file. Decent Sampler instruments didn’t change volume when I adjusted note velocities, so I assumed you should send your files with all faders at same level. I assume judges can hear beyond wrong balance and listen how compositions would sound with real orchestra.
This was difficult to compose with these particular samples - and with no reverb, or anything to help them sound just even a little bit like you could listen to the composition to the end… Quite challenging. Absolutely terrified of anyone actually having to listen to it.
I also definitely get inspired by the sound of real samples.
To me biggest challenge with the samples wasn’t sound quality, but lack of attack. I tried some faster notes, but couldn’t really hear previous note before next one started.
Sometimes when I need to compose and don’t have with me my external drive containing all my sample libraries, I just load my reaper synth and compose with basic sine waves.
It might sometimes be even helpful to compose with sounds like that. You clearly hear every note and if there is some issue for example with chord and melody.
No layering 
No reverb 
…my reverb…
They were speechless! Treelimbjim - really pleased that you enjoyed writing to the performance and found your earwig - I loved your idea there, I wonder if someone will take on that Spike Jones meets the Marx Brothers challenge now you’ve put it out there 
