Freesound Forums

Voting rules:
1) if you entered a piece for the dare you must vote - otherwise you loose all your points
2) Not allowed to vote for yourself
3) For voting, please rank entries in your order of preferrence (1st preference gets 5 points from you, next one gets 4, and so on...)
4) Voting closes on 3rd Oct ~11pm GMT time.

Additional requests and bonus points:
1) please make your entry downloadable at Soundcloud - not mandatory, but polite
2) please comment/critique other people's entries - not mandatory, but also polite
3) You will get 1 bonus point for each pair of opposite samples you have used (but each set of opposites only counts once - see example below)
In order to get the bonus points, you must explain which samples pair up and which opposites they represent in your post with your entry (here at Freesound, at Soundcloud or both) - You are allowed to edit your post to make these explanations.

Example: say that you have used the following sounds to make your entry:3 loud sounds (a drum, a gunshot and a recording of a passing band) and 3 quiet sounds (a stream, a distant bird song and the tick-tack of a clock).
Although you have used 6 sounds (3 pairs of loud/quiet), they are all examples of the same pair of opposites, so you only get 1 bonus point.
If you based your composition around opposing concepts, but actually did not use opposing pairs of samples, that is OK - but you will get 0 bonus points.

after the end of the vote, results will be posted. Your total points will be = votes + bonus points

I like the bonus points thingy because it introduces an element of unpredictable/chaos/randomness to the end results
By the way... normally I only announce these AFTER the votes so that it is really RANDOM and UNNEXPECTED - and before you protest, I never get any bonus points myself

Here goes:
1) Mojomills | 5pt - This is bizarre, awesome, just a freakin' amazong thang. I mean the incredible use of samples, the creativity, the repeatability factor (for listening to it) - I'm runnin' out of adjectives here! I mean I am simply stunned how such diverse samples can be made to come together and "sound" as if in one environment. A big technical achievement! And did I mention creativity as well? Dude. DUDEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

2) Kyster, Joana (tie) | 4 pts each - I love the textures. Both are very, very evocative. For Kyster's piece, the texture does not have a name or an image, or even words that I can associate, but it just is awesome. For Joana's, I mean, I understand it's been put together rather quickly, but the arabic chant at the back with the commentary in the front is amazing. Like I mentioned on her piece on soundcloud, it's hard to not come back to it. It has a very war-peace film-like moment. Almost like an epilogue.

3) Escortmarius, thatjeffcarter (tie) | 2 pts each - I like what's been done, but I just found it a little difficult to find a direction or a theme or, I guess, a message - something - in the pieces. In isolation, they are great, however, and in that, they are both even unique!

Good job, everyone, and a warm welcome back to the dares!

5 points – Kyster – Melancholy Lane – Very nice. It sounds like something I wish I had produced.

4 points - joannageralyn – Peace in Prayer – I like it, though I might wish for more movement in the middle section.

3 points – afleetingspeck – The Shining Athlete – Smooth. Cool.

2 points – escortmarius – I Hope Your Time is Longer – I like the first section and the third section, but the middle silly bit seemed to stick out – unconnected and unrelated to anything in the rest.

1 point – Mojomills – Celebrating Diversity – I think I like the concept (Metal meets Jazz) more than the result – though I’m not sure I can imagine how I would like it to sound.

Of course these points are entirely subjective and the result of absolutely no attempt at scientific measuremnt or quantification.

Voting again........ I hate voting........

5 points go to mojomills, seems the most diverse piece to me and I love the transitions between the different pieces.
4 points to afleetingspeck, Its a nice piece overall and fits the discription.
3 points to joannageralyn, This piece really pulls you out of your seat and drops you somewere in a middle east conflict, nice!
2 points to Kyster, I like the atmos but I cannot find any diversity.
2 points to thatjeffcarter, Tie with Kyster for the same reason.

Nice work everyone, but I had to make a selection......

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My vote from highest to lowest ( * = 1pt):

***** "Peace in Prayer" by joannageralyn
**** "The Shining Athlete" by afleetingspeck
*** "Melancholy lane" by Kyster
** "Blue Orange" by thatjeffcarter
* "I hope your time is longer" by escortmarius

Read my notes in the DISCUSSION thread.

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My votings for the 15th dare. (it's an not a thankful job, having to differ and give votes)

Jgeralyn - Peace in prayer - 5 pts.

Such a masterpiece. First Bush quote works for me, second time its distortion takes me away and shows me a meaning with this. The whole piece is shifting from propaganda to documentation to antipropaganda. What a way to make diversity.

Thatjeffcarter - Blue orange - 4 pts.

Reminds me of a spacefaring human. Just passing though space unnoticed alone and hoping to get to what would be the final destination. Perhaps hoping to find an explanation of some sort, about life and everything. A very beautiful contribution! (on a sidenote, this really makes me wan't to play Homeworld again).

Afleetingspeck - The Shining Athlete - 3 pts.

Happy! That's what enters my mind when i hear this piece. Quite brilliant! It really takes me to the paralympics, eventhough i wasn't there. (One of my old friends won his third gold medal there this year.... sorry for my bragging ) I don't know about diversity theme here, but my way of seing it is that opposite samples was used, and that's covering the theme. The crowd is applauding, this smells of succes!

Mojomills - Dare 15 celebrating diversity - 2 pts.

Such a lovely way to start this contribution. A tune up from a whole orchestra, it's diverse in it self. The whole jazz / hard rock mix blends well, and you've done a great job with both bpm and key. It's a very thought through piece, if i may say so!

Escortmarius - Hope your time is longer - 1 pts.

A very diverse piece, that starts off very well. The clarinet creates some kind of tension over the floating chords, which is very nice. The Middle part and ending, with castagnettes, is sort of weird, but very much in the spirit of diversity. I'm not at all sure what to think of it, but i have the feeling it'll grow on me!

I think I've made it just under the wire!
In addition to it being the last second I'm also super behind on some work for school (but don't worry it should result in lots of great field-recordings uploaded to freesound come December) so I hope you will all forgive me for leaving my comments at soundcloud as my only explanation...

5points: thatjeffcarter (and as an asside I think he should get two points for opposites color in the title and typeology of sound)
4points: escortmarius
3points: afleetingspeck
2points: kyster
1point: mojomills

it was great to hear from you all again!

Dear participants,

I see you have all voted, so I will be closing the voting thread together with my votes.

Here is just a list. Some detailed comments about each piece posted on the discussion thread.
Please read those, as I believe those are far more important than the voting or the ending scores.

mojomills - Celebrating Diversity 3 - 5 points
Perhaps not spot on with the opposing samples rule, but certainly the most achieved piece from a musical perspective. I think the point of diversity/contrast/opposites is beautifully made through the combination of so many different moods and genres in this piece.

Afleetingspec - The shinning athlete - 4 points
What a great piece! A deserved tribute to all the athletes in the olympics and paralympics.
Out of your comfort zone it may be, but you have absolutely pulled this off in great style!

jgeralyn - Peace in Prayer - 3 points
Not exactly a musical piece, more a sound collage.
The message here overtaking the form is the reson for the score. - Read my comments on the discussion forum

Kyster - Melancoly lane - 2 points
At this point it gets really difficult!
Musically this piece should score much higher. It al boils down to deciding how well the dare concept was captured and executed... Indeed an impossible task!
Don't feel bad if the score is not higher. I am absolutely amazed by this piece musically: creates such a strong mood.

Thatjeffcarter - Blue/Orange - 1 point
What I saidd to Kyster also applies here.
Great piece and I really love the idea of choosing samples based on opposing colours. However, these opposites are not obvious sonically in the piece itself, therefore the lower score.

Escortmarius - I hope yout time is longer - 0 points
I really have conscience problems on this one!
Musically it is a piece that has several things I do not like (and also others I like quite a lot). Part of me feels that this is perhaps the second-best entry to the dare, but in terms of my personal taste that scoring would not make any sense!
Read my comments to understand why I think this piece is a great dare entry, even if it seems to clash with my personal taste in several points

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Right. That is it: voting is closed!

A little reminder: This is only half the story. I still need check for bonus points and then add up the total scores.
Work commitments and the fact I still need to finish some tasks relating to my computer rebuild mean the results will probaly only be out at the weekend.

The next dare will be posted soon.......