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SMS Power! Sega 8-bit Music Competition 2005
Post Posted: Sat Feb 19, 2005 6:07 pm
Last edited by Bock on Fri Apr 01, 2005 10:52 am; edited 2 times in total
See competition page and rules here:
http://www.smspower.org/music/competition

Submission to be made before March 27th, 2005. *Updated*

Forms will be made available shortly. I yet have to do a news announcement and contact web sites. I think the textual content needs more changes/addition, but right now I'm desesperately tired of writing in english :)

Comments and questions are welcome.

Bjarni : if you have source for the logo, can you e-mail me one that is less than 600 pixels wide? This one is too large for some configuration. I can resize myself it but then it'll become blurrry.
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Fantastic and Thanks x 1000
Post Posted: Sun Feb 20, 2005 7:20 am
Hello Bock,

This is great news I have been looking forward to this for ages.

Just one question though, I have a slow internet connection and it will take forever to send you my mp3 so I was just wondering may the file be zipped? or shall I make it a lower playback rate say 64KB/s?

Thanks,

Jacko
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Post Posted: Sun Feb 20, 2005 10:24 am
As discussed previously, an MP3 file is already highly compressed and generally will not compress much more with ZIP, RAR, 7z etc unless it is particularly badly compressed to MP3 in the first place.

Try playing with your MP3 encoder, with options such as VBR, to maximise quality for a given bitrate.

64kbps mono is equal quality to 128kbps stereo.

Convert to 22050Hz and you'll lose a lot of dynamic range but only need half the bitrate.

In general, compress as much as you can without making it sound bad.
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Post Posted: Sun Feb 20, 2005 11:11 am
I'd say, better spend a dozen minutes uploading your music in its full quality rather than downsampling it. (unless you can do it without loss, such as encoding in Mono if you're not using Sterero)
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Post Posted: Tue Feb 22, 2005 12:37 am
another idea would be to use ogg instead of mp3.

about 72 kbps (possibly even less) in ogg is equal to 128 kbps mp3.

so the equivalent to a 4.0mb MP3 in ogg would be 2.25mb
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Post Posted: Tue Feb 22, 2005 10:27 pm
Bock wrote
See competition page and rules here:
http://www.smspower.org/music/competition


Hooray! Progress!

Quote

Bjarni : if you have source for the logo, can you e-mail me one that is less than 600 pixels wide? This one is too large for some configuration. I can resize myself it but then it'll become blurrry.


Uh oh. I don't have any sources, because it is just something I slapped together quickly in... the Gimp, probably. But I should be able to repeat the achievement. I'm a bit busy, but I'll try to get it done within in the next couple of days.


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Smaller logo
Post Posted: Sat Feb 26, 2005 7:38 am
OK, I have made a smaller logo, 512x130, which is here:
http://www.update.uu.se/~bjarni/smspower_compo/logo-liten.png

There is a bug. Let's see who can spot it :-).


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Annoybot mode activated
Post Posted: Sat Feb 26, 2005 8:01 am
Since I haven't posted in a while I'll make up for it by whining:

1. On the front page for the competition, where it says "a MP3" it should say "an MP3".
2. The word "category" is separated from its colon by a space, which looks kind of odd.
3. I see you've modernised my wording and changed a "what" for a "which". I picked "what" because I thought it sounded better... but this is really whining. Anyway, changing "another" to "the other" might be a good idea. Picky, picky.
4. Why am I posting this crap instead of building computers?


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Post Posted: Sat Feb 26, 2005 4:02 pm
Thanks for your logo, I posted it. I see it has been cut on the right but that's fine. SMS Power art has a tradition to look cheap anyway :)

I tweaked your text and then Maxim also did so. Hope it's ok. I won't worry about updating it now, seeing the task list I already have for this week-end.

Hope that some of you are already working on their entrie(s). We must provide the upload script soon.
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Post Posted: Sat Feb 26, 2005 7:51 pm
Bock wrote
Thanks for your logo, I posted it. I see it has been cut on the right but that's fine. SMS Power art has a tradition to look cheap anyway :)


Am I a bozo or what. Don't know how I managed to do that. I'll fix it... there, done. It made the image 515 pixels wide which bites slightly, but I am willing to live with that. The fixed version is in the same place as the old one was.

The bug I had in mind is where the text overlaps the arm of the robot: there are a few pixels there which are actually transparent and thus show up as blue although they ought to be red. I ran out of undos...

Quote

I tweaked your text and then Maxim also did so. Hope it's ok. I won't worry about updating it now, seeing the task list I already have for this week-end.


Don't worry about it. I'm sure there are more important things to do.

Quote

Hope that some of you are already working on their entrie(s). We must provide the upload script soon.


Such as that.


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Can we use Martins PSG Tracker
Post Posted: Mon Mar 07, 2005 6:41 am
Hello Everyone,

I was just wondering can we use Martin Konrads PSG Tracker to make a song?

I have already made a 12 bar blues progression in the key of C Major and I was thinking if it would be any good for the competition. And one more question, if we feel our entry is complete would it be possible as the submition script isn't up yet to send the file to Bock or Maxim via. E-Mail?

Thanks

Jacko
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Re: Can we use Martins PSG Tracker
Post Posted: Mon Mar 07, 2005 7:10 am
Last edited by Bock on Wed Mar 09, 2005 7:07 am; edited 1 time in total
jacko87 wrote
I was just wondering can we use Martin Konrads PSG Tracker to make a song?


Yes! Just be sure to submit a VGM exported from the tracker. You can also submit the original .psgmod source file if you want.

Quote
I have already made a 12 bar blues progression in the key of C Major and I was thinking if it would be any good for the competition. And one more question, if we feel our entry is complete would it be possible as the submition script isn't up yet to send the file to Bock or Maxim via. E-Mail?


You can e-mail submission to ME while the script is not up.
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OK I'll do that
Post Posted: Wed Mar 09, 2005 6:47 am
Hi Bock,

I'll E-Mail you my submission

Just another thing I think you made a spelling error you had "you can email be......" but I think "be" should be "me" (bit of a tounge twister)

Thankyou

Jacko
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Entry upload page is up
Post Posted: Wed Mar 09, 2005 9:46 pm
The entry uploading page is now up!
See:
http://www.smspower.org/music/competition/
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Moving deadline?
Post Posted: Sun Mar 20, 2005 8:41 pm
Only 2 submissions so far.
(someone also submitted 4 songs but I could not find any relation to SMS/GG and he won't answer my e-mails now)

I don't know if it'll help, but I could move the deadline to the 27. Tet said he will do a song if he has those few days. What do you think?
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Post Posted: Sun Mar 20, 2005 9:18 pm
Expand the deadline!
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Post Posted: Sun Mar 20, 2005 10:48 pm
Christuserloeser wrote
Expand the deadline!

I'll take your word and count on your submission!
Deadline expanded.
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Post Posted: Sun Mar 20, 2005 11:35 pm
Thanks, I will have a look then...
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humm... much better...
Post Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2005 12:17 pm
Because of school, I hadn't the time to finish and mix some of my tracks, maybe with the deadline "expansion" I can finish them...

Best regards
 
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Quick Submission Message
Post Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2005 7:01 am
Hello Bock,

Just to let you know I made my submission nearly when the submission window opened and I put my name as "Jacko" not "jacko87" which is my username for the forums

I was the one that did the 12 bar blues with Martin's PSG tracker

I am sorry if you got confused it was vey inconsiderate of me not to let you know.

Thankyou,

Jacko
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Re: Quick Submission Message
Post Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2005 7:09 am
jacko87 wrote
Just to let you know I made my submission nearly when the submission window opened and I put my name as "Jacko" not "jacko87" which is my username for the forums
I was the one that did the 12 bar blues with Martin's PSG tracker
I am sorry if you got confused it was vey inconsiderate of me not to let you know.


No problem Jacko! I got your submission, it's listed on the page.

Feel free to submit another if you feel so :)

Thanks.
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Friendly reminder :)
Post Posted: Sat Mar 26, 2005 10:17 am
Finish your stuff, guys !
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Allright, Allright Calm Down!
Post Posted: Sat Mar 26, 2005 10:41 am
Hello Bock,

OK I've just submitted my second entry. It's a BIOS medley.

Can't wait till judging starts. In my country it's 2 hours and 50 mins till the 27th of March begins.

Have fun judging/listening

Jacko
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Entries are up!
Post Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2005 10:44 pm
http://www.smspower.org/music/competition/

I'm not posting comments right now, must catch up with the other things :)
Hope you enjoy them. Thanks all!
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Brilliant!
Post Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2005 1:33 am
I'm actually surprised by the quality of the entries - good work people :) Now all I need is a place to vote!
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oopse
Post Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2005 1:51 am
haven't realized i included the older version of the song in psgmod format. it's just a mistake, but you don't have to remove it as some of you might think the later part is unnecessary. anyway here's the latest version:

http://www.vorc.org/crew/hally/MISSION76496.PSGMOD

as you see, my pattern allocation is sorta messy though ;)
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Last minute dungeon
Post Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2005 11:00 pm
If anyone was wondering, the last entry, "Last minute dungeon", is by a friend of mine, Jakob. Lisbeth Åkerman Fanclub is the name of our band. I tipped him of the competition, and he was already thinking of recording a Wonder Boy III cover any way, so he entered it into the competition and signed it with the band name even though I had nothing to do with it. Our next album will probably feature a version with lyrics and everything :-).

When can we start voting?
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My Comments
Post Posted: Wed Mar 30, 2005 7:43 am
Hello Guys,

Did you all enjoy the competiton?

I know I did and I enjoyed listening to everyones entries last night

I did put two song in for the compo. but I don't want to comment on my own because it is both unfair and bias.

The two songs that I would pick that are the best for the competiton are

-Mission 76496
-Last Minute Dungeon

Mission 76496 I feel has a good groove and has very good control over dynamics and it almost reminds me of some of the songs from lemmings with both white noise and periodic noise being used. I love how at the start one of the tracks was put to good use and plays a very high tone almost sounds like a triangle very cool.

All in all I I rate it 7/10

Last Minute Dungeon to me has beautiful expression in the playing. You can seriously feel that it was played with the right sort of mood in mind. It has good dynamics and clean strokes on the guitar wich make it a brilliant piece of music

All in all I rate it 8/10

Thanks for your time,

Jacko
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Voting procedure
Post Posted: Wed Mar 30, 2005 4:31 pm
Hello,

Should setup proper voting procedure.
What do you think ?

1. Use phpBB poll feature.
Pro: easy to setup
Cons: only 1 vote per user, no comment. Best entries may be too advantaged.

2. Create some custom form / script
Pro: can customize almost how we want it
Cons: takes ages to do, and I'm incompetent (maybe someone can do it? :)

3. Do it the old fashioned posting way like Jacko did
Pro: easy to setup (nothing to do hehe), people can comment
Cons: we have to admit that this website is cheap =)

What do you think?
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Re: Voting procedure
Post Posted: Wed Mar 30, 2005 7:04 pm
4. Test out some pre-written voting scripts. There might be something appropriate for our use that doesn't require writing from scratch (or paying money).

A casual googling turned up this:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/actionpoll/

But I'm sure there are other options.

So, what sort of judging system would you like to have? Have everyone rank each from 1-10 and total the results? I agree that just voting for one favorite is going to skew the results towards a couple of entries and leave the others with few or zero votes. Would we also break it up by category, like a seperate ranking for technical and artistic merit...

Well, I don't know, that's getting complicated.
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Post Posted: Wed Mar 30, 2005 9:34 pm
I checked plenty now, I cannot find any (free) one that does proper voting on a range (eg: 1-10). The very most of them are just single choice vite. I'm doing one now... turns out not to be difficult.
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VOTING (beta test)
Post Posted: Wed Mar 30, 2005 10:22 pm
"F34R my PHP skills"

http://www.smspower.org/music/competition/vote.php

Actually it turns out to be fairly correct. I resisted the temptation of making a fully generic script, but it's halfway there in my mind, and I may improve it in the future so it can be reused for various other things.

It should be working well, but just in case, I'll leave it not mentionned on the competition page (only on this forum) for a day or so, to confirm it works.

What do you think?
Should I add a billion more fields?
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Post Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2005 2:59 am
sweet.

Tet's gotten me into SMS music a little, though I make NSFs and use MML (I'm not too great with trackers), but we'll see if I make anything good.

I'm going to vote for hally... it's just so complex and well-written.

And I like the use of the noise for bass since the squares suck :P
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