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Forums > CSDb Entries > Event id #3001 : 2020 Short Music Loop Competition

2020-10-31 22:02

Frostbyte

Registered: Aug 2003
Posts: 179

Event id #3001 : 2020 Short Music Loop Competition

Let'em few seconds shine! Finally a compo to publish those sweet, sweet patterns that never evolved into complete tunes!

RULES:

1) Original, previously unreleased work. No covers, no remakes or parts of composer's own (released) tunes, or anyone's tunes, from C64 or other platforms.

2) No graphics or effects of any kind. I know this rule isn't going to be everyone's favourite, but this is a music competition, not a demo/graphics competition, and fx & gfx do affect people's ratings.
Black screen with the following static, undecorated single colour text (using standard unmodified PETSCII) in the upper left corner:

[Loop Name] by [Composer Name]
(C) 2020 [Group Name]
[SID type, e.g. 8580] / [Tune Speed, e.g. 4x]

For example:
'Short, thank Cthulhu' by Jojeli
(C) 2020 Artline Designs
8580 / 4x

No transition or screen wipe effects, replacing standard characters with PETSCII's graphical symbols, or other sneaky ways to add effects or to decorate the player.

3) Single SID at standard $D400. In other words, the loop must be playable on an unmodified C64 with either 6581 or 8580 SID.

4) No samples in any form. We don't want this to become a "best sample loop" competition. Otherwise, anything you can do with a SID goes, and you can use as little or as much rastertime as you want.

5) No lower limit for the length of the loop. Yes, even very short but interesting loops are allowed, even encouraged. :)

6) Upper limit for the length of the loop is around 15 seconds. However this is a flexible limit, depending on the tempo of the loop. For example 8 bars in 4/4 time signature @ 120BPM (16 seconds) is perfectly okay. So no, you don't have to cut your loop one bar short just to meet the length requirement. :) For arrhythmic loops, stick to the max 15 second limit.

7) Loop must be immutable: Every time the loop is played it should sound the same, and it shouldn't evolve in any way. No trickery or utilising SID's ADSR bugs etc. to add random note skippings or other variation to the loop. Think of a loop sampler playing the same loop over and over again - that's the goal here.
However, as an exception to this rule, a tiny overlap of the end and beginning of the loop is allowed. For example letting an instrument on a channel play from end of the loop until the first note in the beginning of the loop on that same channel. But this must be within reason, for up to 1-2 secs. Any longer than that is considered to be an evolvement of the loop, which again isn't allowed.

8) Up to three entries per composer, with permission to replace one of already submitted three entries with a fourth one. It is preferable to stick to the entries already submitted. However if you just made a fourth loop and it is an absolute killer, one of the three entries already submitted must be moved outside compo. This can be done only once.

9) Because many SID players would play the loop only once until progressing to the next tune, please lengthen the playtime by manually copying the loop until the length of the tune is at least a minute, and then jump back to the beginning (for infinite looping on C64 and such players).

2020-10-31 22:04

Krill

Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2940

Are init-once update-never ringmod soundscapes and the like ok? =)

2020-10-31 22:07

Frostbyte

Registered: Aug 2003
Posts: 179

Quote: Are init-once update-never ringmod soundscapes and the like ok? =)

If the first iteration of the loop sounds different than the second and all subsequent iterations of the loop, then no. :) Rule #7 covers this.

2020-10-31 22:21

Frostbyte

Registered: Aug 2003
Posts: 179

Forgot to mention the voting: After the deadline, voting will be done outside CSDB, and will last for a couple of weeks or so, so that people have time to vote.

Voting outside CSDB will
a) Allow people to give the tunes CSDB points they deserve, regardless of where they think the tunes should place in the compo, and
b) Minimise the possibility for last minute vote manipulation and other trickery.

2020-10-31 22:27

Krill

Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2940

Quoting Jojeli

If the first iteration of the loop sounds different than the second and all subsequent iterations of the loop, then no. :) Rule #7 covers this.

Hmm well, the "loop" would be infinitely long. There are no SID writes after init. :)

2020-10-31 22:36

iAN CooG

Registered: May 2002
Posts: 3177

<Post edited by iAN CooG on 31/10-2020 22:41>

> 9) Because many SID players would play the loop only once until progressing to the next tune

Point 9 imho is not required, don't force people doing some artefacts based on "some" players looping or skipping to next tune. That requires an entry in the HVSC Songlengths database, the tunes are yet to be added to HVSC and hence still not there in the sldb, and no player knows exactly how long the songs plays before it loops, yet =)
Besides, the auto-skip feature can be always turned off.

2020-10-31 22:40

iAN CooG

Registered: May 2002
Posts: 3177

Quote: Quoting Jojeli
If the first iteration of the loop sounds different than the second and all subsequent iterations of the loop, then no. :) Rule #7 covers this.
Hmm well, the "loop" would be infinitely long. There are no SID writes after init. :)

the compo is "Short Music Loop" not "single SFX" so it has to be music. If you manage to make actual music without further sid writes, I'd like to hear one.

2020-10-31 22:49

Krill

Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2940

Quoting iAN CooG

the compo is "Short Music Loop" not "single SFX" so it has to be music. If you manage to make actual music without further sid writes, I'd like to hear one.

One could argue that "single SFX" is a (degenerate) special case of a loop. And what does and does not constitute "actual music", well... philosophical question, innit? :)

2020-10-31 22:53

Frostbyte

Registered: Aug 2003
Posts: 179

Quote: the compo is "Short Music Loop" not "single SFX" so it has to be music. If you manage to make actual music without further sid writes, I'd like to hear one.

To be exact, the tune can be anything the composer can come up with, let it be music in a traditional sense, or arrhythmic buzzes or noises or whatever some people may not consider music, or may consider SFX. As long as it loops back to the beginning after 15 seconds(ish) or less.

So @Krill, your idea of writing to SID only on init breaches the length rule #6.

2020-10-31 22:56

iAN CooG

Registered: May 2002
Posts: 3177

Music must contain melody and rhythm. But if John Cage's 4'33" is music to you then, anything counts, even silence, so why even bother, a single RTS counts as a sid =)

2020-10-31 23:00

Frostbyte

Registered: Aug 2003
Posts: 179

Quote: > 9) Because many SID players would play the loop only once until progressing to the next tune

Point 9 imho is not required, don't force people doing some artefacts based on "some" players looping or skipping to next tune. That requires an entry in the HVSC Songlengths database, the tunes are yet to be added to HVSC and hence still not there in the sldb, and no player knows exactly how long the songs plays before it loops, yet =)
Besides, the auto-skip feature can be always turned off.

I respectfully and wholeheartedly disagree on this. Eventually the players will get to know song lengths, and if the length of the song is a single iteration of the loop, on many (most) modern players it will only play once until progressing to the next tune. I added the "multiply until 1:00 or more" rule to avoid this.

If I'd add some of these loops into my playlists, I'd want them to play for a while, not just once, especially in the case of very short loops.

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