The compo is over! Thanks for particiapting!
If you still want to submit a new example song using the same sample set for an upcoming version of OpenMPT, please see the post below (http://forum.openmpt.org/index.php?topic=5504.msg42353#msg42353) for the updated compo rules.
It's been a while since I've updated the example songs package for OpenMPT, but instead of searching for existing great tunes (mostly in IT format), I thought it would be a nice idea to run a compo with a given set of rules. Since OpenMPT 1.25 brings several new features for the MPTM format (fractional tempos and most importantly tempo swing (http://wiki.openmpt.org/Manual:_Tempo_Swing_Settings)), it would be great to make use of MPTM-exclusive features in these example songs, but it's not a must.
A rough sketch of the rules, which are not final yet:
- Use the MPTM format.
- Usage of DMO effects explicitely allowed, but no VSTs.
- Tune size should be below 200kb, using IT-compressed samples (http://forum.openmpt.org/index.php?topic=4961.0) and external FLAC samples is explicitely allowed.
Regarding the last point, I think it would be a neat idea to gather a little sample pool for all participants upfront to share common samples such as drums, bass, etc. - naturally you are still allowed to use your own samples, but using shared samples obviously gives you more room for your own samples, as they wouldn't count towards the 200kb limit. ;)
The compo would run until the release of OpenMPT 1.25, which is scheduled for late July or early August.
Any thoughts?
Im in, if the compo is going to happen.
QuoteRegarding the last point, I think it would be a neat idea to gather a little sample pool for all participants upfront to share common samples such as drums, bass, etc. - naturally you are still allowed to use your own samples, but using shared samples obviously gives you more room for your own samples, as they wouldn't count towards the 200kb limit. ;)
I already prepared some samples including instruments for the track im now working on for this compo, so if you need them for the compo, i can send them to you.
Together, there are though ITs Mono Sample Compression 154kb big.
If someone can share some samples that dont take up to much space, Im in.
Yes, I'll prepare a set of samples as soon temperatures here are down to being bearable again.
QuoteYes, I'll prepare a set of samples as soon temperatures here are down to being bearable again.
Oh, alright.
Okay, I proooobably went a bit over the top, so my sample pack is now about 4 MB large (as FLAC samples on highest compression ratio).
http://sagagames.de/stuff/OpenMPT_Compo_Samples.zip
Now of course this is no invitation to use all of them at once (:P), and I still want to emphasize that adding your own samples is totally okay too. Preferrably, they shouldn't be direct copies from sample libraries, sampled from commercial music or such. In my set, I mostly used heavily modified drum machine samples, selfmade and free stuff.
If you think the sample set is totally missing a sample, please let me know.
Please note that you can edit any samples properties of external samples (vibrato, loop points, panning, ...) but editing the actual sample waveform is not possible, as the sample cannot be shared anymore then. This means that modifying the sample will then count towards your file size limit as it's no longer external.
RulesThe compo rules stays the same as outlined in the first post:
- Use the MPTM format. You are encouraged to use new features of OpenMPT 1.25, such as tempo swing (http://wiki.openmpt.org/Manual:_Tempo_Swing_Settings) in modern tempo mode. You can grab current testing versions at http://buildbot.openmpt.org/builds/ (http://buildbot.openmpt.org/builds/) (and read the current changelog here (http://pastebin.com/wvAHQYFZ)). Don't forget to make use of the new artist field in the general tab. ;)
- Usage of the standard DirectX Media Audio Effects is explicitely allowed, but no VSTs.
- Tune size should be below 200kb including any custom samples. I won't be counting bits but please don't excessivly overshoot this. Using IT-compressed samples (http://forum.openmpt.org/index.php?topic=4961.0) and external FLAC samples is explicitely allowed. FLAC compressed better than IT, so external FLAC samples are obviously preferred. FLAC samples should be put in a sub-folder called "Samples".
- If you cannot manage to get your tune small, feel free to ask me for help.
- Own samples are allowed, but don't use samples which obviously violate some kind of copyright (direct rips from sample packs, sampled commercial music).
- I know I provided 4 MB worth of samples which won't count towards your own 200kb limit, but please don't force me to actually include every single one of them by using them all. ;)
- You may enter as many songs as you like.
- There will probably be some kind of voting, but in the end it is up to the development team to decide which tunes go into the release package. I'll reserve the right to slightly edit tunes if required (e.g. to trim their size if I can spot any obvious byte wasting).
DeadlineI'd like to set a preliminary deadline for this compo to
Wednesday, August 12th, 23:59 UTC (extended deadline!), but this is under the assumption that we will be able to make a release the following weekend. If we can't, the deadline will be extended.
SubmissionYou can upload your compo entries at http://s3m.it/join/602 (https://s3m.it/join/602). If you use any
custom external samples, upload the entire package as a zip or 7z file.
Early submissions are more than welcome and can be replaced by revised versions if required.
Happy tracking!
Nice. I might actually make something for this. :) Haven't heard the samplepack, but it must be good and thats a nice way to revisit tracking with samples. :)
Update: LossyWAV (http://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=LossyWAV) is a great way to shrink FLAC samples without any perceivable loss in quality, so I ran it over the sample pack to reduce its size from over 5 MB to just under 4 MB. I also added two more samples to the sample pack. Download link is the same as before.
If you are going to use any custom FLAC samples, I'd recommend to do the same.
LPChip noticed that two sample paths were wrong in the example MPTM file, so those have been updated. I also noticed that it would be kinda nice to actually have a tom in the drum kit, so that has been added as well! If you already started working on a tune, you can simply add the new sample by downloading the new sample pack, overwrite the existing Samples folder, load the new Room Tom.flac into a sample slot and enable the "keep sample data on disk" check box.
Sent in my fairly amateurish slightly_strange.mptm, appears to fit the rules, except that I've done it in 1.24 because I was lazy and just wanted to check out the sample pack... some interesting samples there - can I use them in my other stuff? That would be great. There are a few samples there that I really enjoyed using.
First version. Might add some volume/velocity dynamics to the second version.
Still working on my entry. :) Should be ready near 6th of august.
Quote from: Muzozavr on July 15, 2015, 18:40:11
some interesting samples there - can I use them in my other stuff? That would be great. There are a few samples there that I really enjoyed using.
Sure, feel free to use them for whatever you want. In its current state I'd say your submission is not really ready for an inclusion in the OpenMPT pack, but there are still a few weeks left to improve the track.
This seems interesting, i'm giving it a go. I've never really done any tracker competition things before so this is my first.
As the new release will be delayed by a few days, I've extended the deadline of the example song compo to Wednesday, 12th of August, 23:59 UTC. Now you have 6 more days for making an awesome example tune!
Feel free to share any progress you have so far, also publicly on this thread.
I finaly send my entry to the compo, the ''Only rocks remain'' Rock and Dubstep mix, with only custom samples (was to lazy to rework it, since i created the track originaly in XM for making some SNES music, but i hovewer used higher quality samples for better sound). If anyone wants to hear it, i can post it in this topic.
I'm not really sure what to do. I have two songs for this. One is an 8-bit song i made earlier that i changed to MPTM which i replaced it's tempo effects with the tempo swing feature. I actually posted a small bit of it on SoundCloud before which can be heard here (https://soundcloud.com/woutervl/song-previews-1), it's (as you may guess) the first song of the five. The other is a longer 8-bit style song, which i made in MPTM format and is much longer and more inspired by the current example songs (meaning i added a ton of delays to all the instruments). It's still unfinished though and it needs an intro and some lower sounds and things.
Should i just upload the already finished song or should i continue working on the other song?
Note that in case it wasn't obvious (I've added it to the rules now): You can enter more than one song into the compo! If you want you can continue working on both or just finish one of them... it's hard to decide if you just post one of them. ;)
Edit: Longer and more technical is almost always better for an example song, though.
Oh. In that case, i've sent the first one in! I'll still try to finish the second one and send that in too.
Oh, 2 songs wasn't clear to me either. If I knew I might've made a 2nd. Not sure if I will now though. Maybe... as the deadline has been extended.
What might be the text for activating lossyWAV to convert an FLAC file at ''high'' quality? I can't get it to work, since it can't read the FLAC files i made (exported from OpenMPT).
As the name suggests, lossyWAV operates on WAV files.
Then how did you managed to compress your FLAC files in the sample pack?
Please read the lossyWAV page to actually understand how this tool works.
One more clarification for some last minute entries: Submitted tunes don't need to be specifically made for this compo. If you want, you can for example upgrade an existing module to use the provided sample pack. Or if you have any other cool tune that doesn't use these samples but shows off the MPTM format really nicely, this would work as well.
I didn't really bother finishing my other song. I may aswell post it unfinished somewhere soon though. In the end i felt it was a bit too random and experimental for my taste and it didn't really use any new features of MPTM at all either.
I'm still very excited to see how my main entry will do though. Can't wait to see the results!
QuoteI'm still very excited to see how my main entry will do though. Can't wait to see the results!
Me to :).
Me three. :)
But as far as I know, the competition was set with this deadline because the new version is days from releasing and the songs that made it will be in that download.
Tried to improve "Slightly Strange", but only had a few days to do that, so it didn't work out that well... bleh.
Sent "Warning", which I did right after "Slightly Strange" and completely forgot about until yesterday... not very "technical", but actually uses some DirectAudio effects (or whatever they are called), so there is something to show, at least. Plus, my dad really liked this one. It's a dark horror track, then SUDDENLY SHAKUHACHI LOL, but I think it worked...
Still too amateur for any serious tracking "technique", but THANK YOU for the sample pack, some awesome sounds there.
No idea if I'm late or not and if the extended deadline ended at 12th or if it's still going. The site for uploading is still active, though...
EDIT: Is it possible for me to download slightly_strange from that archive? I think I lost the first version while messing around and trying to improve it.
OpenMPT 1.25 has been released (https://openmpt.org/openmpt-1-25-01-00-released) and includes the 8 best tracks from the compo. Thanks to everyone who participated, even if not all entries made it into the final pack. If you want to give the pack another try, there's always room for more songs in future versions, so don't hesitate to post more tunes made using the sample pack here if you want them to be included in the OpenMPT package.
All entries (except of my own, which I didn't upload to the platform) can now be found on s3m.it (https://s3m.it/compo/602).
:D
Really cool to have my own music featured in my favourite music program. I nearly couldn't believe it at first, haha.
I've decided to post it to YouTube and SoundCloud as well. I'll make a topic on it in a moment.
Awesome! I've read about some of the new features, those will be very useful for me...
... and I've been truly humbled, listening to the example songs and finding myself not even remotely in the same league. I was foolish to think that I had any chance at this. I still think "Warning" is kinda cool, but holy shit some of these songs are going to be the bane of my university classmates, I'm gonna be humming these days afterwards.
Good that I had a chance to get the old version of slightly_strange, too. Thanks for making that possible.
Quote... and I've been truly humbled, listening to the example songs and finding myself not even remotely in the same league. I was foolish to think that I had any chance at this.
The key is to keep practicing! ;) We all started small many years ago. And the more entries to the compo, the better!
"Warning" had some nice ideas but also sounded pretty random at times.
Yeah, i'd agree. When i first tried making tracker music in 2008, i made way worse stuff than the entries you made. Seriously. I never want to be reminded of the crap i made back then...
Then i just kept messing around, sometimes copying parts and effects from other songs to see what they'd do. Eventually i got the hang of it. Even now, the music i make now is nowhere near the music i made two years ago. You just need to practice a lot and mess around with OpenMPT's features until you understand them.
Quote from: Saga Musix on August 16, 2015, 21:52:05
Quote... and I've been truly humbled, listening to the example songs and finding myself not even remotely in the same league. I was foolish to think that I had any chance at this.
The key is to keep practicing! ;) We all started small many years ago. And the more entries to the compo, the better!
"Warning" had some nice ideas but also sounded pretty random at times.
I take it you didn't like the shakuhachi, then. Or was it the echoing electro-bells that sounded too amorphous?
Thing is, this actually alerted me to how good a single properly used sample can sound -- as soon as I got my hands on soundfonts/VSTs I pretty much forgot about actual tracker samples... AND effects, because they used to not work with VSTs -- I think some of them still don't, right? But, apparently, some do... I tried this just for fun, but actually found a few sounds that I will use continously. I especially love what happens if you put the "City Guitar" sample on low octaves under reverb, it's such a menacing bass sound. So, in a way, this taught me a lot, actually.
I too checked the examplesongs and there are indeed some pretty good songs in there.
I did noticed most songs tend to follow the same kind of style, which seems to be either how our userbase likes to go or perhaps also how the samplepack makes people go. Nothing bad of course, but for example songs more variety of styles would've been nice I think.
One of the things that happened to me in the past, was that I left an audio app because the examplesongs were all dance songs which seemed that the tool was mostly used for making that kind of music. I was obviously wrong, but had too little experience to know. Now I will challenge that and make my own style regardless of what others do. A good example of that is the DS-10. Most people used the Korg DS-10 to make dance/house/techno kind of music. I went for various styles and released it to youtube, and soon others were doing it too. :)
To get back on topic here, I am making music for 22 years now, and even now, I still get better and better. I do enjoy listening to my older music, but I also find that I have older songs that are crap compared to what I can do now. I even have listened to music that I made when I had say... 4 years of experience or even 8, and those songs just plain suck. I listen to them from time to time to hear the ideas I had, and use them in new songs, but I can't really enjoy those songs anymore.
Quote from: LPChip on August 17, 2015, 10:24:07I did noticed most songs tend to follow the same kind of style, which seems to be either how our userbase likes to go or perhaps also how the samplepack makes people go.
Except for me, since i forgot to use the sample pack. :-[ I'll try to make another song using it though.
Quote from: Muzozavr on August 17, 2015, 08:22:37
AND effects, because they used to not work with VSTs -- I think some of them still don't, right?
Actually most of them do these days, but it's not always easy to let the plugin know about them - because, as I've said countless times, the concept of volume is very different in modules and MIDI. There is no standardized way to change the volume of a playing note in MIDI and thus in VST plugins.
QuoteI did noticed most songs tend to follow the same kind of style
I actually think that the example songs are rather diverse, but the samples lend themselves perfectly to synthpop and related styles of course. It's hard to do e.g. a hard rock with these samples. :P But yes, the more diverse styles I can include in the pack, the better, so if you come up with any new tunes, let me know!
Saga, I'll try and make something completely different with these samples and let you know. :) Challenge accepted.
May i also try making another example track using only the example samples?
I finaly found some inspiration after a long while and made something amusing using the example samples.
Quote from: FreezeFlame(Alchemy) on August 18, 2015, 19:56:56
May i also try making another example track using only the example samples?
Why do you ask, do you think I care about what you do or don't do in your spare time?
The only answer I can give that if you make something on the same level your previous tune, it will most likely not make it into the example pack.
wow rude
Quote from: WouterVL on August 18, 2015, 22:24:57
wow rude
I'd say its honest, not rude. But don't see this as a way to not even try it. You can always try, You already have no and may get a yes. Not trying means you definitely have a no.
I see it this way:
"You miss 100% of the shots you don't make" (Wayne Gretzky)
Indeed. For example, I hadn't even signed in, so there exists someone that even hasn't got no no! ;D
QuoteBy the way, we are still looking for new example songs to ship with the tracker. If you are interested, grab the samples found in the installation directory under ExampleSongs\Samples and use them to create a song, following the rules from the example song compo!
Oh! that's still open?
has anyone made a demo song showing off the custom tuning? (or is that even sharable?) I've experimented with that a good bit and could probably public-domain-ify some of my better tunes :D
There haven't been any example songs with custom tunings yet, so that would be a great thing to do. As long as you move all "local" tunings to the "tune specific" tunings list, they are shareable.
is it ok if I link my tune here?
I made a 20TET tune that I like, but that doesn't mean anyone else will :P
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/149306395/dleo%20(trimmed).mptm
it uses samples from a Kawai R-50e though. I have no idea where I got the sample pack, but they're pretty straightforward samples from an existing drum machine (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0GnBTV-NMY). where does this sit on the spectrum of "don't use samples which obviously violate some kind of copyright"?
I think the tune is pretty nice, but rather short. Would you want to invest some time into making it a bit longer? I'm pretty sure some of the samples could also be replaced by samples from the compo pack while still sonuding close to the original.
Drum machine samples are okay, I have been using those for the pack as well after all (although all of mine are a bit processed, so not direct recordings). The copyright thing is mostly about ripping samples from commercial music and from sample packs like Vengeance.
Quote from: Saga Musix on September 21, 2015, 12:04:17Would you want to invest some time into making it a bit longer?
...not really. :\
in this case, I feel like the musical idea behind this song is complete, so I don't want to change anything.
I'd offer up my other microtonal experiments, but the rest are all DSP heavy. I'll just use your sample pack for my future experiments, and then post the results if I make anything good :P
Quote from: Saga Musix on September 21, 2015, 12:04:17The copyright thing is mostly about ripping samples from commercial music and from sample packs like Vengeance.
ah, I thought so, but I wasn't sure how many hairs I should be splitting!
Well, I do find < 1 minute to be rather short for an example song, so if you can find / come up with anything longer, that would be great :)
Well maybe you might want to ask for example songs for new releases again, and since this topic was right at the top already anyways I thought I would post here - I am making something along the lines of an example song, doing my best to keep it small and sticking to samples and dma effects - been using vst speek to render some stuff and wanting to add more - doing a lot of downsampling to keep it uber low - still below 200k, and feeling fairly confident I can keep it at least close. :) would you guys be interested in it - it is dubstep 2:45min so far but I havent filled it with everything I want yet - ie more vst speek (not too much more) a bit of lead perhaps and a few noise samples.
As said before, I'm always open for more example songs. Whether a new track will be added or not entirely depends on whether I think it is suitable or not, though.
Don't focus too much on keeping it small by downsampling and 8-bit conversion - I will take care of compression if it's required. In particular, I will compress and optimize samples using lossyWAV as previously mentioned in this thread.
Quote from: Saga Musix on October 05, 2016, 23:31:24
Don't focus too much on keeping it small by downsampling and 8-bit conversion - I will take care of compression if it's required. In particular, I will compress and optimize samples using lossyWAV as previously mentioned in this thread.
Cool, thanks for the information, I admit I am just stoked at how small I can get this thing 200k is nothing. When done I will send it through to you guys and you can tell me if its "appropriate" ;) it doesnt have any swearing and I do not plan to add any - and it uses some of the cool tricks of samples in modplug so I hope it will be... also thinking I am going to add some cut up loops to it, so thanks for the heads up that I dont need to focus too much on keeping it small. - I admit I have a bit of a lifelong obsession with modplug, so having a song or two as examples would just be awesome.
Well here is the file, got twice as big as I had originally been going for with the system I was using, but 416k is still insanely small. - maybe a shorter version to stay under 200k... if you need me to do so just say...
you mentioned lossy compression, that would probably work well for the voice stuff made with vst speek and the recording of my voice I added in. The rest I think is marginal in contributing to the size. so looks like I am going to have to compress to attach it here. - damn ok well the zip got it to 390k...
I'll put it on modarchives.org - apparently they screen them, so I suppose I will just wait, been years since I uploaded anything there. Ok modarchive is going to take a lifetime... going to compress into two files under 256kb each gah! lol... there hope that archive zips works :o
Gah that too cant be uploaded because the second file is .zip.002 and as a 7zip .7z.002...
Ok I will get back to you once I have it uploaded somewhere. annoying
Ok I'll upload it on my google drive and pop the link here :
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3NxRrx--hZPTFVtSktmc1F0UTQ