Music Competition

OK, this is something I've always kinda wanted to do, but knowing that more than likely there aren't enough people who will enter, I've never tried. As you all know, we have weekly graphics competitions here, in the form of Sig of the Week. Members design and submit sigs each week based on a chosen theme, and then members can vote on which they think is the best.

What I'm interested in doing is a similar thing, except with music instead of graphics. Some of you know that my degree is in recording arts, so sound is the artform I'm most passionate about. I'd love to do something like this, if there is enough interest.

Members would come up with musical arrangements based around a set of guidelines. For instance, one round could involve music form a specific game or movie, or from games or movies in general. Another, everyone would have a specific song to work with. Near certain holidays, the themes could involve music that fit the season (Christmas music for Christmas, scary songs near Halloween, etc.) Perhaps even, in time, taking a stab at things such as re-scoring a video clip.

Obviously, the time frame would be longer than a week, as there is more time involved in this sort of thing. I'd say a couple weeks for some of the smaller tasks, while a month or more for some of the larger tasks. At the end, all submissions would be voted on by the members of the forum.

Any style of music would be welcome. For instance, participants would be permitted to enter rock or heavy metal arrangements or classical pieces if they so chose, or classical arrangements of rock pieces. Any method of arrangement would be welcome as well, from basic MIDI's to scoring software such as Finale or Sibelius (which is what I would be using) to sequencers, synthesizers, virtual instruments, and even live recording. However, those voting would be reminded that they are to vote based on the quality of the arrangement rather than the quality of the playback. I don't people to be discouraged from participating simply because they can't afford good enough equipment or software to compare with the competition. I know in my case, default Sibelius playback is less than perfect, and tends to sound rather sterile.

Well, who's interested in this? I figure if I can get at least three or four people willing to enter, I can find a place to set this up and get rolling. That's about how many people we have participating in SOTW right now, so I imagine it'll do for this as well.

 

I'd offer to help you out with that, but audio software is the one type of software I refuse to get or give by those sorts of methods. I've got nothing against it, but since I eventually intend to use all my stuff professionally, I become a much bigger target for software companies looking to get even with people who aren't using the "proper channels" to obtain their stuff.

What are you looking for out of curiosity?

 

Well, here are some suggestions for your consideration, based on software I've used and found I liked.

If your good with written music, Finale and Sibelius are both pretty powerful scoring programs. Those allow you to write out music traditionally using staves and such. Classical notation. Of the two, I find Sibelius to be more user friendly. Finale has more of a learning curve. But both are equally as powerful.

If you're looking more to the sequencing side of things, I'd suggest perhaps getting a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation). Those programs are basically a recording studio on a disk. It can do everything from recording, mixing, effects, sequencing, you name it. As an overal DAW, I'd suggest ProTools. It's what I intend to get for myself. However, if you're it primarily for sequencing and MIDI, I found that I was more comfortable with Steinberg programs (Nuendo or Cubase).

You might also concider getting Propelerhead's Reason to work with this. It's a pretty cool tool that let's you hook up synthesisers and other virtual gear. You can then route your signal out of the DAW into Reason to get the instrument sounds. The intergface is actually a virtual rack. It looks like you're actually hooking up equipment. If you can figure out how to use all the various pieces of gear in there, it's a very useful and powerful tool.

All of these things are, of course, rather pricey, but I'll assume that anyone other than myself will be looking at some rather...inexpensive sources.