Weekly Challenge 12 - wake Up Nicely

Tom Cosm

Published on Tuesday, 25 September 2012 12:39

12_-_Tiger Hey, my name is Tittles the Tiger and my challenge to you this week falls under the Shoe Swapping category!

My challenge is this. I want you to put yourself in the shoes of a sound designer for phone alarms 50 years in the future (You know, when they are smarter and realise it's much nicer to wake up slowly than suddenly?).

You need to create an alarm that starts silent, and builds up gradually to the most hectic awkward buzz alarm GET THE HELL UP you possibley can, with a minimum of say, 5 minutes.

This way people can slowly wake up as things get more hectic, and by the time it gets to the point that they need to turn it off, will have woken up nice and fresh!

Here's some tips to help you out :

Feel free to use any samples you like, just remember they can't be copyrighted or I'll get in trouble for hosting them!
Alarms are usually detuned oscilators detuned by a dissonant interval
Try to imagine things that are really peaceful, and things that are really horrible, then find a transition between the two.
Remember this is probably going to be played on a phone, so low bass and stereo work aren't that important (even though Tom did in his video)

Enjoy yourself!

p.s. Here's Tom's attempt!

Click here to enter your submission

View / Download the submissions here (including Tom's)

Weekly Challenges

Weekly Challenge 11 - Write Your Name

Tom Cosm

Published on Tuesday, 05 June 2012 12:40

11_-_Sheep Baaaa - I'm Sanjay the Sheep, and my challenge to you this week falls under the Bizaaaaaarrrrrooooo category.

For this challenge, you need to write your first name using notes in the piano roll, then attempt to make it sound good!

Any style or genre is ok, as long as you write your name first then structure the music around it.

Here's a few tips to help you out!

To get melody and rhythm out of single notes, play around with the MIDI effects
- Use Pitch to move the note up and down
- Use Arpeggiator to get some rhythm happening (and notes if you're clever enough!)
- Use Chord to play more than one note
- Use Velocity to change the volume of notes
You can place anything in a Drum Rack, not just samples - you could have a whole drum rack inside of a drum rack!
If you want you can just use the first letter of your name

Have fun!

P.s. Here's a video Tom made of his submission

Click here to enter your submission

View / Download the submissions here (including Tom's)

Weekly Challenges

Weekly Challenge 9 - Production Template

Tom Cosm

Published on Thursday, 17 May 2012 04:36

9_-_Dinosaur Hey Producers! I'm Derp the Dinosaur and my challenge to you this week falls under the Practical category!

Often when you load up your program to start righting, jumping in and creating blips and bleeps is the most instantly rewarding thing to do, but this week I want you to spend 10 minutes or so creating a blank production template, so when you get future sparks of inspiration, you've got framework right in front of you to help speed up the creative process.

This can be completely different depending on your preferred genre, and can be as basic as setting up tracks for the most basic of instruments, or getting right down to adding in blank clips ready to populate with information.

And of course, if you felt like sharing it, then everyone can have access to a bunch of different templates!

Here's some tips

If you're not too hot on creating progression throughout a tune, take a track you really like, warp it in a new audio track so it's in time, then put Location Points on the timeline of when things happen, then all you need to do is remove the original and BAM a whole tune template ready for the filling.
Things like kick drums and snare drums are easy to put down, ie: a generic 4/4 kick midi clip on a blank track with an empty sampler can save time.
You could load all your favorite types of one sample (kick, snare, hat etc) into one giant drum rack read to go, so when you start producing you can just whiz through them with the chain selector
Try to color things how you like, and see if you can remember what is what. It really really helps when your tune starts getting complicated and you need to find something fast.
You can save your template as default in the preferences section

Have fun!

p.s. Here's a video of Tom's submission, plus about 4 hours of just production

Click here to enter your submission

View / Download the submissions here (including Tom's)

Weekly Challenges

Weekly Challenge 10 - Write a Porno Tune

Tom Cosm

Published on Tuesday, 22 May 2012 10:11

10_-_Spider Hi! I'm Sifty the Spider, and my challenge to you this week falls under the Shoe Swapping category.

This week we're going to get down and funky by putting ourself in the position of an "Educational Video" sound track composer from the 1970s.

All you need to do is create a 4 bar loop that can fit snugly behind the brilliant acting and plot lines that are currently happening on screen. We haven't seen any of the viewable content yet, but we have a pretty good idea of how the story is going to go.

Here's a few tips to help you out

Bow chika wow wow Gats are going to be a huge help here! If you can't synthesize them, get some samples and get wokka wokka-ing
As tempting as it is, try to get the music screaming porno rather than using any sort of human samples
If it helps, there are plenty of places online I am sure you can find inspiration
Check out Sampleswap if you need some funky drum loops or sexy bass lines

Good luck!

p.s. Here's a video of Tom's submission

Click here to enter your submission

View / Download the submissions here (including Tom's)

Weekly Challenges

Weekly Challenge 8 - Worst Tune Ever

Tom Cosm

Published on Tuesday, 08 May 2012 04:29

Hey, I'm Sarah the Snake, and my challenge to you falls under the BIZAARE category!

Over here at the 8bit zoo, we've had a bit of a discussion and decided to change a few things.

Firstly, challenges are no longer just for Pro Members... anyone can enter. Anyone at all. The positive feedback from people learning was so overwhelming that we thought it's time for everyone to be able to participate - so now you have no excuse.

Secondly, we're not going to set time limits. This is so people who missed out or didn't have time can complete previous challenges in their own time. You are encouraged to try and get each done within a week so you are ready for the next one, but it's not necessary.

The final thing we talked about was how some people have not been getting involved as they feel their skill level isn't good enough, so that's how we came up with the concept for this weeks challenge.

Write a short tune, but make it the worst thing you possible can.

It can be distorted white noise, it can be a pop song about teenage love, it can be bad rapping... anything and everything is accepted. It doesn't matter what it is, as long as it makes people cringe when they listen to it!

Here are some tips to help you out

Rather than just make as much noise as you can, try using space to make the noise even more annoying, contrast can really help make things sound like shit (and sound awesome, but that's not for this challenge)
Clipping is great!
Badly timed samples are awesome welcomed!
Can you sing? try singing out of tune, so how far you can sing out of tune, or see how far you can sing out of tune so it sounds in tune, but just a little off.
999bpm is fun. So is 20.

So you have absolutely no excuse not to submit this week! Everything is public, you have no time limit and no matter how bad your submission is, it will be valid.

Have fun! Any questions, head over to the forums.

p.s. Here's Tom's submission.

Write the Worst Tune you Can by TomCosm