zircon Posted September 1, 2008 Share Posted September 1, 2008 Most of you probably don't remember that SoundTempest, now a music industry news & help blog maintained by me, used to be a site connecting amateur musicians to amateur game developers. One of the most popular things we did were weekly (sometimes daily) one hour competitions called CompoSTs, involving ReMixers like OverCoat, Rellik, Tyler Heath, analoq, bustatunez, and many others. Video game composer Jeroen Tel has even compoed with us before! Anyway, I want to bring these back in the form of General MIDI only competitions held weekly (or perhaps more frequently.) You can join us starting tomorrow night at 9PM EST on #soundtempest, irc.esper.net. The rules are simple, basically taken from existing, successful competitions like kwakfest: * You can use any sequencer you want. * You have one hour. * Your entry must be written from scratch when the compo begins, with no pre-recorded parts. * Entries must be in General MIDI format (.mid) Once the hour is up, all the participants will download the entries, we'll listen to them as a group and then maybe do some kind of voting.. for example, asking everyone to pick their top 3 tracks. Each compo will have some kind of theme. Because this is SoundTempest, the themes will probably involve game music in some way. However, you do not have to stick to the theme strictly... it's better to write something fun if you have no ideas, rather than write nothing. These kind of compos are great ways of practicing your compositional and sequencing skills especially since you are limited to MIDI. We may expand CompoSTs back into the realm of audio but for now, I think MIDI-only will be fun. See you tomorrow! --- QUICK MIDI REFERENCE Don't have a sequencer? Pick up FL Studio for free by clicking right here. The demo version will not let you save, but it is just fine for a one hour competition, and will allow you to export whatever you make. Once you have FL installed and opened, go to File -> New From Template -> Utility -> General MIDI. This premade template opens up 16 MIDI channels armed and ready for recording or sequencing. Regardless of the sequencer you use, you can get a lot more mileage out of general MIDI by using CCs (continuous controllers.) These are basically controls present in every channel of a MIDI file, accessible in any respectable DAW. There are 127 CCs, most of which are not relevant here, but there are a couple ones you should know - CC 1 = Modulation. Most keyboards automatically assign the modwheel to this controller. It allows you to add vibrato (pitch modulation) to your sound. CC 7 = Volume. Pretty self-explanatory. If you want to make string swells, for example, automating CC7 is the way to go. CC 10 = Panning. Allows you to control the Left/Right balance of the channel. CC 64 = Sustain. If you have a MIDI foot pedal, it will likely control this. When CC 64 is "on" (turned up) then anytime you hit a note, it will sustain for awhile. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bleck Posted September 1, 2008 Share Posted September 1, 2008 this is such a good idea seriously I'm very excited Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dyne Posted September 1, 2008 Share Posted September 1, 2008 Awesome. Welcome to the game. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShinnyMetal Posted September 1, 2008 Share Posted September 1, 2008 yay, sounds like fun...never done midi before though Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OverCoat Posted September 1, 2008 Share Posted September 1, 2008 I'll still be holding the classic CompoST every now and then too, if I have the time Also: I so fucking miss Ty, his music was the best to come out of our compos. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sinewav Posted September 1, 2008 Share Posted September 1, 2008 Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes!!!!!! I can never enter competitions here because of time constraints, but I should easily be able to carve out an hour to participate in this. Can someone help a brotha out and tell me how to assign General MIDI instruments to a MIDI file made in something like Reason 3? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xerol Oplan Posted September 1, 2008 Share Posted September 1, 2008 Yeah sure okay. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
analoq Posted September 1, 2008 Share Posted September 1, 2008 Nice, I'll try to check it out sometime. cheers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sinewav Posted September 2, 2008 Share Posted September 2, 2008 Uh if anyone checks this, soon, ChatZilla keeps saying that there is no such thing as "irc.esper.net" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zircon Posted September 2, 2008 Author Share Posted September 2, 2008 First compo was a success - check out the entries here: http://www.soundtempest.net/mm1/ The theme was... "The newest casual puzzle game hit which is sweeping the nation, where the goal is to line up various fruits on an incredibly complex grid - requires intense concentration and years of practice to know what the hell you're doing" Next compo is NEXT Monday (Sept 8th) at 9PM EST, again. However if you hang out in #soundtempest on irc.esper.net, and there is enough interest on any given night, we can do another one spontaneously. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Pezman Posted September 2, 2008 Share Posted September 2, 2008 This will be a good first step towards actual remixing. But, like everything else, it depends on me getting and learning my new Mac first. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zircon Posted September 21, 2008 Author Share Posted September 21, 2008 We've had three MIDI Mondays so far and they've all been really fun. #4 is tomorrow... come join us, everyone! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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