Science Lab Challenge, February 2015

I think it would be really funny if they did, :imp:

natrixgli:
your going to love it the keys is just an amazing synth.
I have it for 2 months, and well thats why my OT track is so nasty, the keys just took my attention I just get strangely attracted when ever I walk by it it calls out play me play me ā€¦

yeah, just blows my mind how much can be done with just one sample.

Makes me wonder why I have sooooo many vsts and samples on my computer.

Well, it creates endless possibilities, which is good ofcourse.
But can criple the creativity as well. And I have to say, that happens to me.

If you have a deadline though it is good to have.
But still I think you better can be an expert in a couple of devices of vsts, than have a gazillion options and sounds available.

This competition is a proof for me that what drives my creativity is:
[ul]
[li]Extreme limitations[/li]
[li]Short deadlines[/li]
[/ul]
:slight_smile:

The submitted tracks really shows the impressive capabilities of the machines, and whenever someone says ā€œYeah, if I only get that new plugin/synth I would be able to do such an such a trackā€ - just point them to this thread :slight_smile:

yep the trouble I have is that I keep using the OT as playback device and as main recorder, together with the MD for drums and keys for melody.
With all these together I lack the time to use the machines to its fullest and it is just like backtracking which is a shame
as we all learned in this thread and older science labs on the forum:

the fun part really starts when you ruin the structure you made in the first place but it is always not what you I have in mind so creativity is there for the taking but it is not what you expect it to be it is great
but to just phrase it right:
AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT

It would be a fun new step if Elektron run a music label with itā€™s great community of producers :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

More seriously, I listen nice prods here. So much talentueux.

We canā€™t stop now !

We must find a way to transform this aficionados electronic producers community in something greater. Thatā€™s not a business nor star system way of thinking, I would prefer not walk in that direction.

But as far as we are hable to produce quality with restrictions, it would be nice to find a way to have more fun like this lab wich brough a great emulation in this social electronic group.

nopeā€¦ no slices. just worked with the start,length and loop. At the end itā€™s the same technically

nopeā€¦ no slices. just worked with the start,length and loop. At the end itā€™s the same technically[/quote]
ok cool ā€¦ well I have trouble getting the same sound without using slices as I get with slicing.
when I change the start point of the sample (slices off) I find it hard to get to exactly the same start point as my slice would have just feels its just not there and to me it can only get there with slices ( its my mind setting i guess)
how do you deal with this?

I work very well under pressure. Student syndrome ftw. Its why i loved the weeklybeats project.

Hi,

wow, IĀ“m absolute blown away listen to all those great tracks.

Thanks to mikkel_zen for the playlist,ā€¦ it makes my saturday night. :wink:

IĀ“m astonished about the melody lines in some tracks. It must be easier to do this with an AR or OT than with my MD. Maybe somebody has a trick or an advice to do it with the MD too. ItĀ“s seems very laborius to do this at MD only with adjusting the pitch. Is it possible realtime transposing the sample with the AR or OT playing the pads chromatic?

However for me it was a great experience with the extreme limitations. Ok the short deadline increase the pressure for a working man.
I donĀ“t wanna do the job of the jury. :wink:

btw. : I love this community, a bunch of friendly electronic musicfreaks with a lot of creativity and a specialized knowledge. :+1:

Have a nice weekend !
[url=ā€œhttp://de.pons.com/Ć¼bersetzung/englisch-deutsch/laboriousā€]

Very laborious indeed, i fine tuned the hp filter to find the right pitch for every note of the lead line. :slight_smile: lots of fun though!

Hi,
Hereā€™s mine with OT.
Made it a few hours before deadline (ex student synfrom also :wink: ).
I should have taken more time but was a nice experience.
Cheers

Curious whatā€™s next. All synthesis track with either the Monomachine, A4/Ak, MD, or AR?

Very laborious indeed, i fine tuned the hp filter to find the right pitch for every note of the lead line. :slight_smile: lots of fun though![/quote]
Yep - except I used the custom LFO to modulate the HP filter in the same way! I actually only play one note per bar, the rest is modulation :slight_smile: [/quote]
I used the rtrm knob as a pitch parameter :wink:
Having rtrg up all the way lets you use samples as freq-mod synthesis. Its actually really cool, and then brr & filter tweaks leads to awesome results

Yes, thatā€™s one thing I thought too. I had an idea of what I wanted the track to be, and it turns out completely different.

Had to make all sorts of choices based on the limitations, but still look at all the good tracks that came of it from everyone.

Donā€™t worry about that right now. Weā€™ve had way more submissions than we anticipated. The final three will be asked for sysex/project files as proof. For the rest, we thought itā€™d be a great learning experience to share the sysex files but with the amount of entries, weā€™ll need to do that differently.
[/quote]
that competition was a great experience and there are a lot of talented people here doing
interesting stuff with the elektron machines.
but obviously there are some users here who made tracks that leave the rest of us completely puzzled.
what about sharing only the sysex files of the top 5 or top 10 for each machine ?
me personally, i would really like to know what the hell is going on on PongFu-s track/projekt for example.
PongFu, if you should read this - IĀ“d be forever thankful if youĀ“d share your sysex file with us.

nopeā€¦ no slices. just worked with the start,length and loop. At the end itā€™s the same technically[/quote]
ok cool ā€¦ well I have trouble getting the same sound without using slices as I get with slicing.
when I change the start point of the sample (slices off) I find it hard to get to exactly the same start point as my slice would have just feels its just not there and to me it can only get there with slices ( its my mind setting i guess)
how do you deal with this?
[/quote]
usually i would also use slicesā€¦ as you can be a bit more exact and donā€™t have to remember to right positionsā€¦ i only didnā€™t use as i wasnā€™t sure if itā€™s allowed

Slices are allowed, just the edit page of the audio editor is not allowed because that is destructive editing. In other words, elektron cannot verify that itā€™s composed only using the supplied sample. Cenk confirms this on page 2 of this thread.

The MD can do melody lines. There are a few ways to go about it (maybe this stuff would have been helpful prior to the contest ending!):

a) Use the AM effect. The AMF determines the frequency. It can be atonal, but depending on the source material, you can get some solid, recognizable notes.

b) Pitch. This is obvious, but it doesnā€™t work on all types of sounds and certainly doesnā€™t work on long loops, such as this one. For this contest, the best way would have been to isolate a ā€œtonalā€ speech-segment and go from there, p-locking pitch. SRR brings out some harmonics, too.

c) Modulating RTIM. Itā€™s an obvious technique (maybe the only viable one for making ā€œsynthā€ sounds out of this sample), but the key to getting a somewhat chromatic scale is the tempo. Since RTIM is based on a multiple of the tempo, this determines the pitch.

The idea is to put RTRG all the way up, so you get an infinite loop of a section of the sample. Next, adjust the STRT point to find an interesting sound (you could say that this is the base waveform of the ā€œsynthā€ sound weā€™re trying to make). Then, turn the RTIM knob to a value in the first half of the range.
You should hear more recognizable notes in this range.

Now, if your tempo is too high (say, 130 or above), you wonā€™t get a lot of resolution on the notes because the MD has a ā€œspeed limit,ā€ with regards to RTIM. Bring the tempo down to ~100 or less and youā€™ll get a few octaves worth of usable notes. Will it be all of the notes in a 12-tone scale? Maybe not, but who needs all of them?

PTCH works in tandem with STRT to produce the waveform and waveshape of the sound. Adjusting PTCH will get you some cool, hardsync-style sounds.

Now, just use that filter and standard amp settings, and youā€™re in business! Oh, and donā€™t forget to p-lock the RTIMā€“thatā€™s the most important part!

Hi,
thanks glitched for tips.
After the contest is in front of the next one :wink:

tip c is interesting I will play with it a bit

p-locking pitch is imho a real ā€œmeditaivā€ labarious way to do it. I donĀ“t wann spent so much time with it.
Seems IĀ“m not the impatient one.

Realtime transposing (after isolate the segment) with playing keys/pads seems to be the best way. Ar and OT can do it?