Freesound Forums

Dare 10 - The minimalist half-dozen

This dare is a 'request' from my friend Klankbeeld. - Although it may not turn out exactly as he imagined it - Sorry Klankbeld, I can't be too predictable!
EDIT: I have added some edits to this post to clarify some questions that users have been asking in the 'DISCUSSION' thread.

Some participants of previous dares have a minimalist approach and use very few effects or none at all. Klankbeeld's request was intended to have a dare where people are to use no effects, but I say... lets prepare ourselves first... get a bit of training before we jump to the absolute minimalist approach of no effects... and, while we are at it, lets give Klankbeeld his own challenge and force him to use at least one effect... just this once!

There are many ways in which a piece could be minimalist: it uses few sounds, or few effects, or only a few notes, etc...
So, here is how it works... when creating your entry to this dare imagine you have a 'machine' where you are going to make your piece. This machine has 6 slots, into each slot you can load either a sound or an effect. You must use at least one sound, and you must use at least one effect, so the possible combinations are:
1 sound + 5 effects, 2 sounds + 4 effects, 3 sounds + 3 effects, 4 sounds + 2 effects or 5 sounds + 1 effect
So basiucally, if you want to use more effects, the more restricted you become in terms of sounds and vice-versa...
The samples ayou are allowed to use are at the end of this thread.

What counts as an effect? Read below and you will understand

Obviously chorus, reverb, distortion, etc count as one effect.

You are allowed to: cut, slice, trim you samples as you see fit. You are allowed to reverse them, you are allowed to apply volume and panning envelopes. Provided you do all of these manually (in your DAW or in a sample editor). For example, if you use a plugin/tool/utility to slice a loop or apply panning, that would count as an effect.

You are allowed to load your sounds or bits of them into a sampler.
EDIT - You are also allowed to process sounds using the effects you have chosen, re-sample and load the processed sound(s) into a sampler.
You are allowed to play them at a different speed to change the speed/pitch. - If you use any 'sound stretching' techniques or programs that counts as an effect.
EDIT: different DAWs may have different names for 'audio-stretching', such as 'audio warping', 'ellastic audio', etc. Also note that some DAWs apply audio stretching by default when you change the tempo.

You are also allowed to use EQ to 'clean up samples'. For example if you have a voice recording with a hiss noise you could remove the noise with a high-cut or high-shelf EQ.
However creative EQ (e.g. using a bandpass EQ to make the voice sound like a telephone voice) counts as an effect.

'Spectral' processing of any type is not allowed.

So... what effects can I use, then?
It is up to you (except 'spectral' effects and tools, which are forbiden).
But try and keep it simple (minimalist, heh?). Say for example you have got an effect which has distortion, filter and delay... That counts as 3 effects! Unless you can switch some of those modules off.

You can use more than one instance of the same effect, you can apply the effect to several tracks (even with different settings) that only counts as one.

EDIT: You can use as many instances of each effect as you want, they can even have different settings.
EDIT: Not all samples need to be processed through effects, but remember effects + samples must equal 6, and you need to have at least one effect and at least one sample.
EDIT: There are no limitations as how the effects can be used: in series, parallel, in a sample editor or in your DAW. As inserts or sends or even in feedback loops (if your DAW allows them). All that you must do is limit yourself to the effects that you have chosen in accordance with the rules. How you use them is up to you.

If you have any questions about what effects to use and no to use, or if something is allowe or not... use the 'DISCUSSION' thread.

Final comment from me: on this dare it pays to be organized!
Resources will be scarce, so set yourself up to what you want to use. Play a bit, try out some effects if you must before you start your project...

-----------------

Just a quick reminder of how this works in terms of rules:

GENERAL RULES - will apply to all dares I wil be posting. These are things like "must use sounds from Freesound"
THEME RULES - these will be specific for each dare.
VOTING - If there are enough entries there will be a voting.

Threads:
This is the thread with the DARE theme and rules. Submissions will also be posted on this thread.
There is a thread for DISCUSSION. This is where you can comment on other people's work, ask questions, etc.
I am hopping there will be enough submissions for voting. If so a VOTING thread will be created and then a RESULTS thread.

-------------------

GENERAL RULES

1 - The dare is open to any Freesounder. Limmited to one entry per participant.

2 - In all dares you are required to:
2.1 - use sounds from Freesound (the details of what sounds you can and can't use will be specific to each dare, see below)
2.2.- Post in the DARE thread with a BRIEF description of your work, a link to the submission file (mp3 or ogg) list of attributions (i.e., list all sounds you have used from Freesound.
2.3 - Unless specifically stated in the THEME rules, you cannot use your own Freesound samples.
2.4 - Collaboration entries are accepted, but you still can only enter one piece.

3 - If there are enough entrants, a voting will take place at the end of the DARE. The voting will be open for 1 week.
3.1 - If there is a vote, all entrants to the dare must vote or will be desqualified.
3.2 - You are not allowed to vote for yourself. This means your own single entry or a collaboration entry that you are part of.
3.3 - Freesounders who have not submitted an entry are allowed to vote IF they have been Freesound members for longer than 3 months and have either uploaded 3 sounds to the Freesound database OR have 5 posts in the forums.
3.4 - If there are enough entrants for this dare I will post the voting rules on the voting thread.

-------------

THEME

The theme is "The minimalist half-dozen", as explained at the begining of this thread you have 6 slots in which to place a sound or an effect. You must use at least one sound and you must use at least one effect.

These are the THEME RULES:

1.1 - Your composition must be between 2 and 4 minutes long
1.2 - you have 6 slots in which to place a sound or an effect. You must use at least one sound and you must use at least one effect. EDIT: to clarify, all slots must be used. Samples + effects must equal 6.
1.3 - You are only allowed to pick from the samples at the bottom of this thread.

2. - Entry format
2.1 - we will accept musical pieces and sound collages.
2.2 - We would prefer compressed formats (mp3 or ogg) but wav format also accepted.

3. - Submitting an entry
3.1 - Remember: Freesound is for sounds, not music. So do NOT upload your entry to Freesound.
Upload to Soundcloud - www.soundcloud.com
(If you do not have an account at Soundcloud, creating one is free and takes less than 1 minute.)
3.2 - Your entry must be downloadable.
3.3 - Post in this forum with a description of your work, and the attribution list of samples used.
3.4 - Join the soundcloud group "Freesound Dares" and share your track there. If you do not know how to do this ask for help in the "DISCUSSION" thread.

4. - Attribution
It is very important to make sure you attribute all samples used. Not only this is required when using any samples from Freesound, it will also be important as part of the scoring at the end of the competition

5 - Other information
You must include in your submission a short description of what you have done to the samples YOU MUST DETAIL WHAT EFFECTS / PROCESSING WAS USED ON THE SAMPLES.
If you want to give more detail, please use the DISCUSSION thread, so we can keep this thread compact.

6 - DEADLINE
Submissions will close on the 26th February 2012.

Good luck !
For any questions, please use the DISCUSSION thread.

------------------

ALLOWED SAMPLES
(remember you must use at least one sample and at least one effect, but samples + effects = 6 ... So, out of the 6 available samples, you will be allowed to use a maximum of 5, if you are only using 1 effect

I collected the following 'samples of the day'

25 Jan 2012
http://www.freesound.org/people/Jovica/sounds/102980/

26 Jan 2012
http://www.freesound.org/people/santuccie/sounds/26762/

27 Jan 2012
http://www.freesound.org/people/arseniiv/sounds/136532/

28-Jan-2012
http://www.freesound.org/people/Corsica_S/sounds/86633/

29-Jan-2012
http://www.freesound.org/people/skyumori/sounds/104528/

30-Jan-2012
http://www.freesound.org/people/jamalboi101/sounds/92871/

Dare 10

Alienxxx made me feel no good. I HAVE TO USE 1 EFFECT

Here it is guys and girls:
http://soundcloud.com/klankbeeld/she-loves-me-even-if-i-drink

102980__jovica__layers-018-alchemic-hunting-88.flac
lowered 2 octaves 1 EFFECT
levelling 0 EFFECT
used as the base of the composition.

26762__santuccie__belch1.wav
middle, left right 0 EFFECT
the rhythm section

92871__jamalboi101__wonderful-world.wav
cut out one piece 0 EFFECT

86633__corsica-s__slow-down.wav
acting as my loved wife 0 EFFECT
cut out one piece 0 EFFECT

136532__arseniiv__triangle-140-bpm-003.wav
acting as 'feel good' bell 0 EFFECT

Thanks al freesounders for these sounds.
Thanks www.Freesound.org for making this possible.
Thanks for listening.
Thanks for this dare Alienxx. I love it.

http://soundcloud.com/trickery_dnb/phase-slow-down-dwight

New member, so go easy on me, k? ^_^

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_p1kqpWa14 and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9AsOxTjqys for reference.

It was a minimalist challenge, so I decided to make a minimalist piece. Entirely based on the phasing effect, with one sample played at 1% slower than the other, falling out of phase with it and slowly passing it's apex and returning to phase one cycle later. Great way to work with limited material. Steve Reich is a minor genius.

1 - 92871__jamalboi101__wonderful-world.wav - Took first slice, looped as kick
2 - FabFilter Simplon - Parallel Raw BP filter to make kick sound
3 - Flux BitterSweet - Transient shaper to harden and pound the kick into submission
4 - 86633__corsica-s__slow-down.wav - x2, looped and panned hard L + R.
5 - Cubase Time Stretch - On Slow Down sample, x101% on second for phasing effect
6 - Cubase Roomworks - Reverb on Vocal samples, hiss annunciates phasing effect

my contribution:

http://soundcloud.com/sonofapreacherman/minimalist-at-work

only one sample used:
26762__santuccie__belch1.wav

effects used:
- filter/-envelope for bass-kind-of-sound
(this is where I wanted to stop, but had to use more, such a waste of ressources...)
- short reverb (return channel)
- short delay at master
- compressor at master
- limiter at master

My submission is now available.

Ten Till Four
http://thatjeffcarterwashere.blogspot.com/2012/02/ten-till-four.html

full details about my samples(2) and effects(4) and work process at the link above.

Michael_Trickery wrote:
http://soundcloud.com/trickery_dnb/phase-slow-down-dwight

New member, so go easy on me, k? ^_^

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_p1kqpWa14 and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9AsOxTjqys for reference.

It was a minimalist challenge, so I decided to make a minimalist piece. Entirely based on the phasing effect, with one sample played at 1% slower than the other, falling out of phase with it and slowly passing it's apex and returning to phase one cycle later. Great way to work with limited material. Steve Reich is a minor genius.

1 - 92871__jamalboi101__wonderful-world.wav - Took first slice, looped as kick
2 - FabFilter Simplon - Parallel Raw BP filter to make kick sound
3 - Flux BitterSweet - Transient shaper to harden and pound the kick into submission
4 - 86633__corsica-s__slow-down.wav - x2, looped and panned hard L + R.
5 - Cubase Time Stretch - On Slow Down sample, x101% on second for phasing effect
6 - Cubase Roomworks - Reverb on Vocal samples, hiss annunciates phasing effect

Cant find it.......

toiletrolltube wrote:

The first link is my dare entry.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/53189228/please%20slow%20down.flac

Hey toiletrolltube, I'm sorry but I don't have any software that plays .flac files, or any conversion software...any chance you could upload it to soundcloud or anywhere that it could be hosted online?

winamp will play it.

Michael_Trickery wrote:
New member, so go easy on me, k? ^_^

Of course!
By the way, welcome to the dare!

This time i am not listenning or commenting on any pieces until next week, at least.
I do not want to be influenced by what others have made and i do not want to influence people still working on their piece wity any comments i make.
So of my review takes a bit of time to come, that is the reason why.

In the meantime, check out the 'introduce yourself' thread on the dare forum and feel free to post there to tell us a bit about yourself, if you like.

escortmarius wrote:

Michael_Trickery wrote:
http://soundcloud.com/trickery_dnb/phase-slow-down-dwight

New member, so go easy on me, k? ^_^

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_p1kqpWa14 and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9AsOxTjqys for reference.

It was a minimalist challenge, so I decided to make a minimalist piece. Entirely based on the phasing effect, with one sample played at 1% slower than the other, falling out of phase with it and slowly passing it's apex and returning to phase one cycle later. Great way to work with limited material. Steve Reich is a minor genius.

1 - 92871__jamalboi101__wonderful-world.wav - Took first slice, looped as kick
2 - FabFilter Simplon - Parallel Raw BP filter to make kick sound
3 - Flux BitterSweet - Transient shaper to harden and pound the kick into submission
4 - 86633__corsica-s__slow-down.wav - x2, looped and panned hard L + R.
5 - Cubase Time Stretch - On Slow Down sample, x101% on second for phasing effect
6 - Cubase Roomworks - Reverb on Vocal samples, hiss annunciates phasing effect

Cant find it.......

Set to private by accident, herp moment. Should be fixed now.

AlienXXX wrote:

Michael_Trickery wrote:
New member, so go easy on me, k? ^_^

Of course!
By the way, welcome to the dare!

This time i am not listenning or commenting on any pieces until next week, at least.
I do not want to be influenced by what others have made and i do not want to influence people still working on their piece wity any comments i make.
So of my review takes a bit of time to come, that is the reason why.

In the meantime, check out the 'introduce yourself' thread on the dare forum and feel free to post there to tell us a bit about yourself, if you like.

Will do. Thanks man ^_^ Very fair about influences, particularly with such limited material. That said, once u get free reign over sequencing, you can cut and twist enough for the submissions to all be fairly varied. I just hope no one got the same idea as me -_-''

I've posted my dare 10 entry here:

http://soundcloud.com/kyster/sets/triangular-bells-dare-10
Please use headphones

Thanks to arseniiv for the sample

http://www.freesound.org/people/arseniiv/sounds/136532/

Effects used:
CALF reverb (LADSPA)
Echo delay (LADSPA)

Software used:
Ardour3 beta2
Jack
Jack keyboard
Specimen

I've put the triangle through specimen (a sampler)
Used LADSPA delay and reverb
Mixed in Ardour3 beta2
All software was connected through jack.

I hope this is inside the rules

This is my entry for dare 10

http://soundcloud.com/escortmarius/dont-think-dwight-will-slow

I have used the following samples:jamalboi101/sounds/92871
arseniiv/sounds/136532
skyumori/sounds/104528
Corsica_S/sounds/86633
santuccie/sounds/26762

Thank you all for the nice samples!!!

And, I have used an EQ as an effect on the kick.(sample 92871)

I really had fun with this dare, and again I learned a lot.
Normaly I use samples as they come, but this cutting and slicing is really great!!!
I will give a full discription later...

Here is my submission for now, although depending on what people say in the discussion thread about automation I may make a new piece and withdraw this one (can we do that @alienXXX?)...

http://soundcloud.com/joannageralyn/built-to-look-weathered

I used the tiniest part of the door sample from skyumori: http://www.freesound.org/people/skyumori/sounds/104528/

and the 5 effects I used were:
Non-Linear Reverb
Sci-Fi (a ring modulator)
GRM Shuffle
D-Verb
GRM Reason

and all you need to know about my track is that I've been to and loved LaMonte Young's Dreamhouse and I like to use effects to imply height and light (the last two may only be obvious on headphones since I was using headphones to mix).

@jgeralyn
Automation is fine.

Knock knock...

Here's my entry for dare 10:
http://soundcloud.com/copyc4t/speed-limit

Samples used: 5
http://www.freesound.org/people/skyumori/sounds/104528/
http://www.freesound.org/people/jamalboi101/sounds/92871/
http://www.freesound.org/people/Corsica_S/sounds/86633/
http://www.freesound.org/people/arseniiv/sounds/136532/
http://www.freesound.org/people/Jovica/sounds/102980/

Effects used: 1
Invada Studio Reverb

-- What and how --
Engine: 104528__skyumori__door-close-sqeuak-02.wav (slice, played low, loop, pitch wheel)
Insects: 86633__corsica-s__slow-down.wav (S from "please", loop, 4 consecutive semitones together)
Vehicles: 92871__jamalboi101__wonderful-world.wav (slice, fade in, trailing reverse copy, pitch wheel)
Bell: 136532__arseniiv__triangle-140-bpm-003.wav (slice, played low, fadeout)
Heartbeat Blip/Beep: 136532__arseniiv__triangle-140-bpm-003.wav (slice, played high, ping pong loop for the beep)

Bass: 86633__corsica-s__slow-down.wav (OWN from "down", reverse, played low, fadeout)
Guitar: 104528__skyumori__door-close-sqeuak-02.wav (slice, loop)
Organ: 102980__jovica__layers-018-alchemic-hunting-88.flac (slice)
Lead: 86633__corsica-s__slow-down.wav (2 different slices layered, played high)

Kicks: 104528__skyumori__door-close-sqeuak-02.wav (slice, played low, fadeout)
Hi hat: 86633__corsica-s__slow-down.wav (S from "please")
Snares: 104528__skyumori__door-close-sqeuak-02.wav (slice, Invada reverb)
Electronic Toms: 104528__skyumori__door-close-sqeuak-02.wav (slice, low, fadeout, various pitches, Invada reverb)
Bells: 136532__arseniiv__triangle-140-bpm-003.wav (slice)

Software used:
Petri-Foo - experimenting with original samples, MIDI-driven sampler
Audacity - sample processing
Virtual Keyboard - MIDI recording
Hydrogen - Drum sequencing
QTractor - MIDI master sequencing
Ardour - mixing, mastering
Invada Studio Reverb - reverb (o'rly? )
ZynAddSubFX - reference pitch tuning for the processed samples (quite humiliating role for such a powerful synth...)
JACK - the audio connection kit that makes all of them talk to each other

All the slicing and looping were tried in Petri-Foo using the built-in features, then manually recreated in Audacity not to burn slots as effects.

copyc4t wrote:

All the slicing and looping were tried in Petri-Foo using the built-in features, then manually recreated in Audacity not to burn slots as effects.

Hehe!!! nice trick. I was wondering how that all came from one effect (...and how much that effect might cost )

my entrance (Dwight's bad dream):

http://soundcloud.com/ramacod/dwights-bad-dream-freesounds

samples used (1): http://www.freesound.org/people/Corsica_S/sounds/86633/
effects (5): flanger, modulated bandpass filter, stereo expander, reverb, multiband compressor.

I didn't like being forced to fill the 6 slots, I would have preferred to be something like "at least" 1 sample + 1 effect. just an opinion, though. It was fun anyway.

thanks Corsica_S for the sample.

(EDIT2: Here is the video if anyone is interested. Watching in HD reveals more information): http://youtu.be/bmkjVuUAbe4?hd=1

Best heard with headphones, please, if possible!

I was on the verge of passing this dare because of commitments, but I am glad I found some time here and there. Took me a while to make it, and it was both fun and frustrating at times.

Here's my entry:
http://soundcloud.com/afleetingspeck/voices-in-the-head

Description:
Chopped up Dwight in pieces (Ai, Blow, Down, Ts, Tt, Untwai, Wai, and yeah, that too) and flavored it with some reverb and distortion (not the scream distortion unit in reason; I also bypassed the mastering unit).
Also chopped up the triangle and used pitch shifts (the regular ones, not fx) on the sample.
Finally used delay for the percussion and the Tt sample. Automation is used. Dwight also did what he was told to do. Some volume level changes here and there. Most things that seem like delay effects are done manually (eg: on 'down', and 'ai') even though I could have used the delay effect. Was more fun actually step-record all those.

So all in all, samples:
1) http://www.freesound.org/people/skyumori/sounds/104528
2) http://www.freesound.org/people/arseniiv/sounds/136532
3) http://www.freesound.org/people/Corsica_S/sounds/86633/

Effects:
1) Reverb
2) Foldback distortion
3) Delay

EDIT: I'll be posting a youtube video of how I set up this whole thing. Please comment on whether you would have done something more efficiently, if possible, when I put it up. I hope it also gives a chance to some to look at Propellerhead Reason in the freesound dare context (as in how I use it).

Here is my contribution for the Dare 10

http://soundcloud.com/osh37/dare-10-knocking

I used three samples:

http://www.freesound.org/people/Jovica/sounds/102980/
http://www.freesound.org/people/skyumori/sounds/104528/
http://www.freesound.org/people/arseniiv/sounds/136532/

and three effects:

- Simpler
- Delay
- Compressor

Made with Ableton Live.
Thx for this dare