Freesound Forums

This is something I have thought about before, but never managed to turn into a dare. Until recently I was contacted by a developer.

Us Freesounders moan frequently about how many times people use our sounds and don't give us proper recognition. We moan about some of our sounds having many downloads and no star ratings or comments. We moan about how much work and effort we put into those things and so little we get back.

Well... here is somethig for you to think about
On average, maybe it takes you an afternoon to go out and do a recording session. Maybe it takes you a few evenings after that to cut up and clean your recordings. And maybe a few hours to upload, tag, describe into Freesound.
Lets say, 20h total.

This is NOTHING compared to how much time DEVELOPERS spend creating their DAW and plugin applications. 100s or 1000s of hours of their lives go into this.
And I am talking here about FREE SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS: the folks that do all of this and then release it for free on the internet.

How many times have you used free music software?
How may times have you gone back to the developer to say thanks? or to give useful feedback?

This dare is about changing that.

If you have an android device, I am going to ask you to download and use uFXLoops.
The developer, Andreas, has contacted me and we created this dare together.
You can get uFXloops here:
https://www.ufxloops.com

Here are some additional links
tutorial: https://www.ufxloops.com/tutorial
videos: https://www.ufxloops.com/gettingstarted
For questions and FEEDBACK:
support@ufxloops.com

Andreas will be active in the DISCUSSION thread to provide assistance, if you need it.
If you do not have an android device you can also participate, just pick another piece of free software and follow the rules.
(*)Also make sure you read the NOTE about using uFXloops at the bottom of this post.

RULES:
1 - If you have an android device (mobile or tablet) please download and use uFXloops for your dare entry.
https://www.ufxloops.com
2 - If you do not have an android device, pick another FREE sound software to use. You can pick more than one, but keep it reasonable as you will need to follow the rules below.
3 - Make sure you can actually contact the developer (their website should still be active, there should be a way to submit feedback/messages or an email...) 4 - If you are stuck for ideas, why not use one of these:
http://www.kvraudio.com/kvr-developer-challenge/2014/
5 - Use your chosen software, really try to explore as many features as you can.
6 - Contact the developer. Thank them for their product and provide feedback - This is the most important part of the dare. (**) - SEE NOTE BELOW
7 - Post your entry with a link to a music piece created with your chose FREE software(s). You can use other tools/software/hardware/samples also, but make sure your selected FREEE sofware plays a major role in your piece. If it helps, think that you have been asked to create a DEMO music piece for that software.
EXTENDED DEADLINE for submissions: 30 Nov 2014, 11:00pm GMT.
8 - Use this thread for submissions only. For everything else use the DISCUSSION thread.
http://www.freesound.org/forum/dare-the-community/35497/?page=1#post76577

(*) - There is another big benefit about using uFXloops in this dare. If you provide feedback, Andreas (the developer) will give you an infinite Premium account on uFXloops - This will enable High Quality Mode and make the app absolutely add-free.

(**) - NOTES ABOUT PROVIDING FEEDBACK
Above all, be considerate and polite. Remember the developer spent a lot of time creating the software, so even if you don't like it and/or does not work for you, try to give useful and polite feedback. Remember that any issue might be specific to your DAW or Operating System. Here is an example on how to complain about some features that you do not like or do not work properly:
"Hello X, thank you for taking the time to create the VST plugin Sound X. I like the distortion effect, but I found considerable latency when using it in Reaper. Works fine in Ableton Live. Also I found the filter to be a bit bland, there is no noticeable effect on the sound, except at extreme resonance settings. This happens in both Reaper and Live. I am using Windows XP on a 1GHz dual core laptop."

I will try that program

Hi all,

this is Andreas from ufxmedia. As César mentioned, I will actively support this Dare as good as I can regarding uFXloops, so if you have questions or problems, just get in touch with me, and we'll discuss it.

I am very happy to see some freesounders trying out uFXloops, because this this tool is somehow dedicated especially to you. Over two years ago, when I started with uFXloops, it was just an experiment, to see what's needed to make samples play together on a Galaxy S2 that time. An experiment that worked. So it took two years to build version 1.xx of uFXloops and it's far from being what I want it to be, but I am not finished with the features yet. So for all of you who try it out, I will actively join the discussion thread and post there if somebody has a question to me. And really feel free to discuss everything, also, and especially the "not-so-nice" things, as every kind of feedback will improve this app in future. The App is not a toy (and believe me, people on Google Play are really blaming me for that), it is designed for musicians, and this is how it continues to be.

Final note - the infinite premium account is not a joke. The only thing you need to do so that I am able to activate you is : register in the App - then send a mail to support@ufxloops.com stating that you are a "Dare" Freesounder - and send me your uFXloops userid. Then consider the upgrade to premium done latest 24 hours later.

Thank you very much for trying and using this App and providing your feedback.

Andreas

Sounds amazing. I usually avoid apps but as I have no home internet this is very tempting. I look forward to trying it out

I downloaded the app yesterday. Seems to be quite simple to get started. I had a sound that was to long 60s. But 30s was OK. Even 30s is looong. I know.
I will spread the word!
First I want to try it in some kind of track.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Thank you to those who have taken the challenge so far.
However, please move the discussions to the discussion thread. We want to hear all about it here:
http://www.freesound.org/forum/dare-the-community/35497/

We want this thread for submissions only, so they are easier to find later

Thanks folks!

Now I have made a … beat-ish with uFXloops. Works fine and is stable (on my Sony Experia V). Easy to import sounds/loops from dropbox (I used dropbox).
I used quite long loop/samples. That is 8-15 bars in 120bpm. When I push a sample it’s hard to know when it’s going to start playing. Hard to describe… Even if I used the track number function. Next time I will use shorter sounds.
The mute function is great. At some point “strange things happened” with it. But that disappeared when I restarted the program. It’s great to be able to pan the sounds in the mixer. Maybe I miss a filter function but pan wins.
I compare uFXloops with Launchpad for iPad. Launchpad have a filter function and that’s nice. But uFXloops if more “open”. Great program. I thought it should be a tough program for a smartphone but nope. Works fast and stable.
Next time my sounds are going to be shorter. I will try to edit sounds in the app and include recordings made via the mic.
I have never used the ogg format. Don’t know anything about it.… But for me it’s good enough.

https://soundcloud.com/gis_sweden/2chords

Hi gis_sweden,
thank you a lot for the feedback. I guess that other users might have the same problems in understanding when a sample starts playing in the soundboard, and I could imagine what you mean by 'it's hard to explain'.

Let me try an explanation how that works:
uFXloops is automatically determining the next startbar for a slot according to its bars.
Imagine you have already a slot playing which is sixteen bars long, and is currently playing in bar 5.
Now you start another 16 bars slot.
What is happening is, that the second sixteen bars slot has to wait, until the end of the loop of the first one is reached. uFXloops "thinks" that loops should always be synchronized in that way, that one of the next loops will play them synchronized together.

This is indeed different if you have a sixteen bars slot playing in bar 5 and start a four bar slot at the second slot. This time, uFXloops would start the second slot at bar 9, see this litte 'picture' how it works:


CurrentBar:.................*
1. Slot (16 bars)...X|X|X|X|X|X|X|X|X|X|X|X|X|X|X|X|
2. Slot (4 Bars)....................X|X|X|X|X|X|X|X|
....................................* (2nd slot starts playing at bar nine)
............................*(User clicks 2nd slot in the middle of bar five)

So the trick is, if you want a slot to start earlier, try to keep its bars low. Use long loops for loops that need to run long (e.g. a guitar solo, lyrics). And if you have slots with high number of bars, start them at the beginning, together if possible. And try to avoid slots with "uneven" bars, e.g. use 0.5,1,2,4,8,16,32 bars for slots, they will have best results as they can be synced very nicely.

I'm not sure if this is the right post to discuss that further, but maybe some admin could move it then to the discussion thread.

Best regards
Andreas

Yep sorry... Posted in the wrong thread again! :-/

I am extending the deadline to 30 Nov.
The first post on the thread has been updated accordingly.

Not really a track more of an intro
http://www.soundcloud.com/luckylittleraven/start-something

After asking me for an extra day to finish the track, Luckylittleraven actually posted on time and left me with the shame of being the last to post and being late

Doesn't happen often, but I must admit that this time I bit on more than I could chew. This was a true dare and stretched my far beyond what I expected. The process was a mix of stop-start, frustration and wonderfull creativity.

I was pressed for time, and only had a few 2h slots here and there to create my piece. Completely insufficient considering I was changing software, hardware and mindsetware...
UFXLoops allows you to create everything from scratch - starting from samples all the way to create drum kits or multi-sampled mellodic instruments. Further to patterns and complex arrangements...

I decided I wanted to create my own instruments rathre than rely on presets. But the time limits and steep learning curve forced me to abandon some of my ambitious plans and re-start again with a simpler idea.

I think the main challenge I faced was the hardware. I am not musically trained, having lived with the conveniences of midi and midi keyboards for a while, going back to composing on a piano-roll pattern seemed a bit daunting. Plus, my clumsy fingers did not cope very well with drawing notes on the small phone screen... The process was killing my creativity and vital time.
So I opted for creating my mellody in a familiar system and importing as loops, while using UFXLoops to create the drums and the arrangement.

Time limits force me to post an unfinished track:
https://soundcloud.com/alienxxx/ufxloops-recording-4-edited

I hope, nevertheless you find it somewhat enjoyable...

The dare is now closed. No further entries please.
(But don't dispair: More UFXLoops dares to come, in the future.)

Could I get one saying J. Mars, would be greatly appreciated.