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2020-10-31 22:02

Frostbyte

Registered: Aug 2003
Posts: 170

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).

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2020-11-03 21:20

Count Zero

Registered: Jan 2003
Posts: 1825

There should be more limits - fearing the event leads to 1 zillion entries. Maybe 10 loops per composer or time limit the event to whenever the US votes are counted? :)

2020-11-03 21:34

chatGPZ

Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11123

"five entries per count zero"?

2020-11-03 23:30

F7sus4

Registered: Apr 2013
Posts: 112

Quoting Jojeli

if someone makes a 110bpm acid house loop, 8 bars would be 17.5 secs and be still a "natural" length for a loop without becoming a composition, i.e. in this case the length would be fine. But then for the loop to adhere to the rules, the hard limit would need to be set to 17.5 secs. If we'd do that, that would also enable longer loops with faster tempos, longer loops with time signatures other than 4/4, longer arrhythmic loops etc, again increasing the "risk" of them becoming short compositions rather than just loops.

It's pretty similar to 3-minute length rule at music compos. In most cases, the last 2-3 seconds exceeding the limit won't get cut out, but 20 seconds most likely will.

2020-11-04 18:31

Frostbyte

Registered: Aug 2003
Posts: 170

Hey all, one thing I didn't think about when writing the rules: We have varying degrees of experience with C64, and not everyone has the skills to create a SID playing executable.

Unless someone has very compelling arguments against it (or better suggestions), I'm going to allow using PSID64 for the task: PSID64 V1.2

This OK with you all?

DISCLAIMER: I've never used PSID64 myself, but I'm assuming it can loop loops. :)

2020-11-04 19:49

Mibri

Registered: Feb 2018
Posts: 199

Quote: Hey all, one thing I didn't think about when writing the rules: We have varying degrees of experience with C64, and not everyone has the skills to create a SID playing executable.

Unless someone has very compelling arguments against it (or better suggestions), I'm going to allow using PSID64 for the task: PSID64 V1.2

This OK with you all?

DISCLAIMER: I've never used PSID64 myself, but I'm assuming it can loop loops. :)

Yeah, I think it is sensible to allow this.

Here comes the deluge! :D

2020-11-05 13:55

Frostbyte

Registered: Aug 2003
Posts: 170

OKDK, as no objections from anyone, using PSID64 for creating the executable is now allowed.

2020-11-18 13:31

Frostbyte

Registered: Aug 2003
Posts: 170

Changed the compo name to "2020 Short Music And SFX Loop Competition" to clarify the scope. If it is SID that makes the sounds, and entry adheres to the rules, everything goes. Use your imagination! :)

2020-11-23 14:26

Frostbyte

Registered: Aug 2003
Posts: 170

One week to go! Lots of great entries already, but the more the merrier. :)

2020-11-30 18:54

Frostbyte

Registered: Aug 2003
Posts: 170

Just a few hours left! GO GO GO GO!

2020-12-01 11:54

Frostbyte

Registered: Aug 2003
Posts: 170

THE COMPO IS OVER! Many thanks for the overwhelming amount of interest and entries! Many super cool loops in the compo. A lot of variety, a lot of imagination put into them. Well done people. :)

Re. voting, I'm preparing the votesheet, but will need a bit of time due to huge number of entries, and also catching a minor cold and being a bit tired. On the other hand, I'm quarantined until covid test results, so plenty of time for C64 shenanigans. :D

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