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Frostbyte
Registered: Aug 2003
Posts: 165 |
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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Krill
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2825 |
Are init-once update-never ringmod soundscapes and the like ok? =) |
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Frostbyte
Registered: Aug 2003
Posts: 165 |
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. |
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Frostbyte
Registered: Aug 2003
Posts: 165 |
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. |
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Krill
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2825 |
Quoting JojeliIf 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. :) |
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iAN CooG
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 3132 |
<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. |
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iAN CooG
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 3132 |
Quote: Quoting JojeliIf 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. |
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Krill
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2825 |
Quoting iAN CooGthe 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? :) |
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Frostbyte
Registered: Aug 2003
Posts: 165 |
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. |
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iAN CooG
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 3132 |
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 =) |
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Frostbyte
Registered: Aug 2003
Posts: 165 |
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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iAN CooG
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 3132 |
> many (most) modern players it will only play once until progressing to the next tune
I don't know of any players that detect a sid loop by themselves without the Songlength database, care to name one or two?
> manually copying the loop until the length of the tune is at least a minute
this is useless as the loop is detected anyway on first repetition. 15*4 or 15*1000, the loop is still after 15 seconds. |
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Jammer
Registered: Nov 2002
Posts: 1289 |
I cannot even imagine the flood that's gonna happen :O Mini PETSCII was nothing compared to this :D |
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Frostbyte
Registered: Aug 2003
Posts: 165 |
Quote:> many (most) modern players it will only play once until progressing to the next tune
I don't know of any players that detect a sid loop by themselves without the Songlength database, care to name one or two?
There probably are none. Let me rephrase what I meant: The players will play for the duration of the song as per Songlength database, and then progress to the next tune. The scenario I would like to avoid is that the loop would be played only once, and what I would like to achieve is that the loop would keep on looping for a minute or so, before the player progresses to the next song. How this is done, I don't mind.
Quote:> manually copying the loop until the length of the tune is at least a minute
this is useless as the loop is detected anyway on first repetition. 15*4 or 15*1000, the loop is still after 15 seconds.
What detects the looping? Is there an automatic tool to determine the song length that then gets added to the Songlength DB? Sorry, but I don't know much how the song lengths get determined. I always thought this was a manual decision, or some fancier tool would have been taught the specs of many player routines, and recognise the speed commands / settings, and the end of the pattern list (from where there may or may not be a loop back).
If the song lengths of 1:00 or more could be manually added to the songlength DB for each compo entry, that'd be absolutely fine. Then indeed there would be no reason to repeat the loop for X amount of time until looping the whole song. |
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Frostbyte
Registered: Aug 2003
Posts: 165 |
Quote: I cannot even imagine the flood that's gonna happen :O Mini PETSCII was nothing compared to this :D
:D I reckon it may be a popular compo... Not sure if as popular as tiny PETSCII compo, though. That was insane. |
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iAN CooG
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 3132 |
Quoting Jojeli
Quote:What detects the looping? Is there an automatic tool to determine the song length that then gets added to the Songlength DB?
Yes, a tool developed by Wilfred Bos/HVSC which actually plays the tunes (very fast, without actual audio output) for the equivalent of 20 minutes (or more when needed, hardly) and detects the point of repetition - or if it goes silent for a while, if it doesn't loop - by analyzing the whole data emitted. It's not even a 100% success guaranteed method as many tunes don't even have the same values emitted on loop or some channel goes out of sync on loop etc, so there are many in an exceptions list that have to be adjusted manually. The sldb even has errors due to this, it's nearly impossible to verify every tune and subtunes in a lifetime, but they gets fixed after a wrong timing gets reported to us.
It's one of the lengthy processes we need to do when we close the update, and gets longer each release, not surprisingly.
I see that while writing this the first entry just got added, let's check it out
C:\temp>sldetect.exe 200mph_24_7.sid
Processing...
; /200mph_24_7.sid
36ace184cdf1eb8e5fa1b69e5c092885=0:15.323
Total time: 00:00:09 (+659 milliseconds)
nice one, and seems detected correctly.
Quote:If the song lengths of 1:00 or more could be manually added to the songlength DB
Not happening, no. =) |
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Frostbyte
Registered: Aug 2003
Posts: 165 |
Well, that kind of sucks. What you are saying is that there is no way the song lengths could be different from the actual loop length? That means that the loops will be totally "unusable" as songs in e.g. DeepSID playlists, which'd be especially true for short loops of up to a few seconds.
I'd be happy to manually create (or adjust) the song lengths for the compo entries before the next HVSC release, if I'm allowed to do that. Seems to be just MD5 hash and length key-value pairs? It'd be a shame if these loops would not enjoy the same amount of playability as longer tunes in modern, non-looping sid players. |
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ChristopherJam
Registered: Aug 2004
Posts: 1370 |
Nice idea!
I must admit, after several weeks exploring tunes with short loops over at deepsid.chordian.net I was starting to consider running a 256 frame (5.1s) music compo - but this will do quite nicely :)
Quoting Jojeli
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.
Hmm, why not just make it a hard 16 second (802 frame) limit to avoid any doubt or quibbles?
Closest most SID editors get to 120bpm is 24 frames per quarter anyway, which translates to 125.3bpm - that gets you 15.32s or 768 frames for the example given.
Quote: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).
As iAN's already pointed out, there's no real benefit to this. No current players would be affected by it, and it's really down to SID player implementers to add a feature like "don't skip to next track until at least a minute's worth of repeats of current track" if that's what you want.
The rest of the rules are excellent - I particularly like the hard ban on any kind of graphical accompaniment beyond static text in standard font. |
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Krill
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2825 |
Quoting JojeliSo @Krill, your idea of writing to SID only on init breaches the length rule #6. Alright, no problem. Might run my own compo then at some point. =)
Quoting iAN CooGMusic 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 =) There is a vast spectrum between "melody and rhythm" and silence. :)
"The creation, performance, significance, and even the definition of music vary according to culture and social context. Indeed, throughout history, some new forms or styles of music have been criticized as "not being music", including Beethoven's Grosse Fuge string quartet in 1825,[3] early jazz in the beginning of the 1900s[4] and hardcore punk in the 1980s.[5]"
(To me, any kind of structured sound can count as music.) |
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Frostbyte
Registered: Aug 2003
Posts: 165 |
Quote:Hmm, why not just make it a hard 16 second (802 frame) limit to avoid any doubt or quibbles?
I didn't want to (too much) limit the tempos people can use in their loops, but on the other hand I didn't want to push the upper limit too high either. The main idea of the flexible upper limit is to promote shorter loops.
E.g. 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.
So rather than setting a hard limit for the length (which I think would be an arbitrary rule), in my opinion it is more fruitful to set a guideline that promotes shorter loops, but also doesn't limit some special cases like the aforementioned.
Hope this makes sense? It sure is difficult to write down one's train of thought, especially in a foreign language. :D
Quote:As iAN's already pointed out, there's no real benefit to this. No current players would be affected by it, and it's really down to SID player implementers to add a feature like "don't skip to next track until at least a minute's worth of repeats of current track" if that's what you want.
That's exactly what I was after. It would of course be possible to (manually) set the song length in the Songlength DB to something else than the length of a single iteration of the loop, and that would "fix" the issue for all players that use the DB (which are probably all that use the full HVSC collection), but it is another question if HVSC should provide a workaround to this issue introduced by this compo. Thinking about it for a while, I'm leaning towards "no". Logically this would be the easiest solution. However, from data point of view, the song length in database would then become an abstract value, rather than a value that represents what the length of the SID data actually is.
The "play for at least X seconds or until silence" option implemented in the SID players themselves would be a very nice solution indeed. I hope Jens is following this discussion. ;) |
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JCH
Registered: Aug 2008
Posts: 193 |
In the DeepSID settings, where it already have options like e.g. "auto-progress should automatically skip songs and sub tunes that lasts less than ten seconds," there could be another option that makes a loop play longer.
For example, either playing it X times or for X seconds/minutes before moving on. Maybe with an additional logic added that it only does this if the song length is less than Y seconds/minutes. |
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Frostbyte
Registered: Aug 2003
Posts: 165 |
That'd be great! Something along the lines of "play a looping song with length of <X from beginning to the end for at least Y seconds" would add some flexibility to listening to short loops.
For example if X would be 25 and Y 30:
- A 17 sec loop would play twice (i.e. 34 secs)
- A 2.7 sec loop would play 12 times (i.e. 32.4 secs)
- A 28 sec loop would play only once (i.e. 28 secs)
Anyway, drifting away from the context of this competition now. :) |
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Frostbyte
Registered: Aug 2003
Posts: 165 |
Due to popular demand (and the rule being redundant now when I know how the song lengths in HVSC are determined), rule #9 is now dropped. No need to copy the loop over anymore to increase total song length, as this wouldn't work as I thought it would.
Just make sure your loop still loops. :) |
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Frostbyte
Registered: Aug 2003
Posts: 165 |
Would everyone be okay with a slight change to the visuals rule #2: Okay to change border colour to visualise rastertime used? (no trickery allowed with this one either to generate any rasterbar effects, of course - just alternating between black and a single colour of one's choice when out or in the music play routine).
EDIT: What the heck, let's allow this. Only three entries in the compo so far. Flotsam, JCH and The Syndrom are allowed to update their entries to show the rastertime used, if they really wish to do so. Not a big, game-ghanging rule change anyway. :) |
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Zyron
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 2381 |
I should roam my old work disks. |
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Frostbyte
Registered: Aug 2003
Posts: 165 |
Quote: I should roam my old work disks.
Please do! :)
Regarding visuals, rule #2 has been adjusted to allow choosing backround colour of one's choice (as some participants had already done so). So the choice is now free for single backround colour, single text colour, and single rasterline usage colour.
But that's it, no more adjustments to the rule. Plenty of visualisation options for a music compo. ;) |
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Count Zero
Registered: Jan 2003
Posts: 1820 |
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? :) |
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chatGPZ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11100 |
"five entries per count zero"? |
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F7sus4
Registered: Apr 2013
Posts: 112 |
Quoting Jojeliif 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. |
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Frostbyte
Registered: Aug 2003
Posts: 165 |
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. :) |
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Mibri
Registered: Feb 2018
Posts: 197 |
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 |
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Frostbyte
Registered: Aug 2003
Posts: 165 |
OKDK, as no objections from anyone, using PSID64 for creating the executable is now allowed. |
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Frostbyte
Registered: Aug 2003
Posts: 165 |
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! :) |
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Frostbyte
Registered: Aug 2003
Posts: 165 |
One week to go! Lots of great entries already, but the more the merrier. :) |
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Frostbyte
Registered: Aug 2003
Posts: 165 |
Just a few hours left! GO GO GO GO! |
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Frostbyte
Registered: Aug 2003
Posts: 165 |
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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Frostbyte
Registered: Aug 2003
Posts: 165 |
Let the voting begin! Votesheet is here: https://forms.gle/Pvjhnth4gAaYka1C8
Please read the instructions in the beginning of the votesheet, and also please let me know if there are any errors, issues or strangenesses.
I set the voting deadline to end of Monday 14th December (CET), but if the voting seems to totally dry up before that, we may bring it forward a bit. |
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F7sus4
Registered: Apr 2013
Posts: 112 |
Quoting JojeliPlease read the instructions in the beginning of the votesheet, and also please let me know if there are any errors, issues or strangenesses.
Sorry if it's noticing the obvious, but I hope nobody will confuse 1st-100th rank and 1-100 points scale, since the results would become devastated. ;-) |
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Frostbyte
Registered: Aug 2003
Posts: 165 |
Probably not. But I'll add a note about it anyway, just in case. :) |
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Frostbyte
Registered: Aug 2003
Posts: 165 |
A friendly reminder: Whenever you have time, please help us bring the compo to a glorious, graceful end by voting. :)
We had a ton of entries to the compo from many, many different composers, but now we need more voters too. It'd be a shame if the result of the compo would be determined by opinions of just a handful of us who voted (so far)... ;) Make your opinions heard too! |
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Jammer
Registered: Nov 2002
Posts: 1289 |
Voting done but I must complain. Grading that many entries in scale 1-100 via pulldown menu is kinda putoff ;) |
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Frostbyte
Registered: Aug 2003
Posts: 165 |
Yeah, agreed. On a hindsight, scale of 1 to 100 was too much (especially for a compo with over 60 entries), and it wasn't really possible to do it with anything else than a dropdown in Google Forms. Going back to it, I would change it to either the usual 1 to 10 rating with radio buttons, or just star rating. I would change a few other things too. Lessons learned for next compo, if there ever will be one. ;)
Thanks for your massive effort @Jammer, and all others who have contributed and/or voted too! Still 7 days to vote... |
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Frostbyte
Registered: Aug 2003
Posts: 165 |
Four days of voting to go! Every vote counts! :) https://forms.gle/Pvjhnth4gAaYka1C8 |
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ChristopherJam
Registered: Aug 2004
Posts: 1370 |
Whoa, voting done. Now that was a mission and a half.
Jojeli: Thank you for making the scoring so fine grained, and for all the deepsid links. Those two things made voting waaay saner than it would have been otherwise, especially with so many entries.
The only thing I really missed was a way to go away and come back later without relying on my browser remembering the form content. It meant I pretty much had to do it all in one day, or I'd have been paranoid about a browser crash or accidental window closure.
Some excellent entries in there, folks! |
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Frostbyte
Registered: Aug 2003
Posts: 165 |
No worries at all, and thank you for voting! Much appreciated. :)
Yeah, Google Forms, even though very easy to build votesheets with, was not necessarily the best thing to use in this occasion due to high number of entries. I do have an idea for the next compo... It will be organised in quite a different way from this one. I'll try to come up with a better solution for the voting too. If the compo ever materialises, that is.
One day of voting to go! |
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Frostbyte
Registered: Aug 2003
Posts: 165 |
Voting and thus compo has come to an end, the results are on the event page. Congrats to Psych858o for yet another win! :)
THANK YOU ALL! <3 |
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Flotsam
Registered: Jan 2004
Posts: 80 |
Thank you Jojeli. Nicely organised compo. And fun too. |
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psych
Registered: Aug 2004
Posts: 140 |
Jojeli, thanks for organizing this awesome compo. Thanks also to all participants. So much of great stuff out there. |
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Jammer
Registered: Nov 2002
Posts: 1289 |
Thank you and congrats to all top dogs! :) |
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GH
Registered: Sep 2014
Posts: 77 |
Thanks to all the fine beatmakers and congrats to Marcin for yet another win! :D
Extra trophy must go out to Brian of Graffity and Syndrom for making the best and undisputed king of c64 player /editor to my ears... DMC!! |
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Frostbyte
Registered: Aug 2003
Posts: 165 |
GH, can't but agree on that. There's that special... something in DMC. Not to say I have managed to get any stuff out of it that would have sounded even remotely as good as Psycho's. :D |
