Battle 24 Poll

OP-1 Battles
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#21

Standard soo high.

Shortlist of three for me is…

3rd place @DOZr .Slick intro\outro and the most excellent beat science out the lot.The only reason you’r not 1st is the other two have the edge over musical harmonics,but a seriously tight production.
2nd place @beefinator .Sorry your not 1st.This was really a hard choice.
1st place @adrigax .Very well done maestro .The middle lead breakdown,with expert FX blend swung it,plus general musicality especially intro riffs.
#22

Really enjoyed listening through them all - had to keep reminding myself this all came from the OP-1!


Especially enjoyed @vehka, @yoof, @beefinator, and @Mixrasta in particular, but my vote goes to @ronic


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#23

I have to give my vote to Yoof, it’s just too cool and great sound as well! Thanks to Slomen and MrClean for the votes, and ali and spheric el for the honourable mentioningin’. And yeah, Tribrix thats what I thought too, l totally enjoyed your song, its very different than your other works! So Many good songs!

#24

you guys are all mad awesome. very intimidating now to join the battles as you guys are consistently raising the bar higher from battle to battle.
@yoof - sweet jeebus… nice job on editing those beats, would love to see your workflow… or are you just slogging through this in linear order? … my vote went for @blabux and the radical soundscape, guess I was just in the mood for stuff like this. great job everyone… one day… one day… I will join one of those battles. thanks for the inspiration

#25

@Ali You set the bar high with the first entry. flexing the synth choice is great. and dissecting the drum parts is again taking it that extra step.

@adrigax like the trip hop style the sample of the location and the synth play

@ronic Liking the flow and the groove!

@blabux like how you cut to the hit with the drums kept it simple…

@plasticdub Great playing with the sound scape of the synth

@DOZr love the intro! the effecting the drumming into the DnB

@yoof Tight!!! always at another level.

@vehka I always feel and upbeatness with your tunes! like that the drums beats aren’t the norm. great work.

@beefinator great piece! electro funk! like the switch up at the end!

@tribrix Always like your euro 80’s ness. like you treatment of the drums.

@Mixrasta good groove the drives the location sample. the melody is nice balance the the beat

@xjx this was interesting to listen to in the order because there was this build up and your piece sliced through it. like the mellow drive and subtleness.

@sparky love the minimalness of the track and it is a great mellow down piece.

@sosa Where did the track go?!?

@Aahz great tune!the layers from the synths and the samples of the the location with the downbeat style is nice.

@lymtronics Great as Always! like the downbeat style. the layers are great at the mid section. Like the beginning middle and end of the piece

I loved the slow versus fast of the beats. @yoof it may be we like the same stuff and I gravitate towards your work… my vote goes to you with @DOZr a nipping at your heels second.

#26

I voted for @Mixrasta, btw. @yoof was another fantastic one, though, but I guess I was feeling more like mixrasta’s genre at the time.


Is there any way to change the forum poll configuration to allow for 2 or 3 votes per person? In the end, the “best” one (the one that attracts most votes, I don’t want to suggest that any are inherently worse than others) still surfaces, but it helps with the hard choices when voting.

I’ll make sure to do a track-by-track review next battle.
#27

I voted for @beefinator, but nice job everybody else too! So many great entries, one of my favorite battles ever.

#28

My vote goes to @xjx for the melody and the simplicity of the song, which I really enjoy listening to.

@yoof I admire the way you seem to know the OP-1 so well you can do anything you want with it.

Congrats to everyone and I hope I’ll have time to give more personalized comments to each entry next time.
#29

glad this battle came along. Really got me thinking about how to use the op-1 to chop up beats then rearrange them and has made the op-1 more useful to me in my workflow. New to these battles (joined in with the last one as well) but really nice to have a group of dedicated people pushing the bar with this instrument and teaching me different ways to use it. Anyway, I digress.

@ali firstly, brilliant layers of melody highlighted by the right patch. And that sample, especially when it first comes in… perfect - pretty humerous somehow.

@adrigax the initial melody is particularly evocative of the place. I like the percussive vocal chops. Perfect example of how the op-1 gets you straight into the subtleties of dialects and languages and how you can bend them into something musical.

@dimi3 YES, instant atmosphere from the second it starts. Good and dark, with such light footed drum tweaking sitting nicely in the mix. Got me thinking of photek’s “rings around saturn”. Would like to hear how you went about recording those drums in, just had a real fluidity and offbeatness - without being off beat - to them.

@ronic really like your effecting of the sample and use through the song - it’s got wit about it and backed by a strong slow backbeat without ever feeling sloppy.

@blabux Good piece, always moving, never sitting. Love the drop into that glitchy beat breaking apart the first and second section.

@plasticdub excellent metallic fm type sounds your getting out of the d-synth. love the interplay between that violent bass noise and that sound that is like tons of miniture future cars flying past.

@yoof basically, you’re a bastard man! I seriously can’t get my head round how you’re getting so much texture, useful panning and dynamics directly out of the op-1 without taking years. It’s great dude. If you’re not guarding these secrets (I understand if you are) then i’d like let in on some of them! Mainly the great panning. awesome track

@vehka great swing straight away love that muted dial tone sound you’ve got in there. Again, a track with a solid and consistent atmosphere throughout - and atmosphere which I dig by the way. love that bouncy dnb bass line to especially when the dialtone melody comes back in. really great.

@beefinator very deliberate production sounds like you’ve got it all sounding exactly how you want it! and some really great melodic and textural changes. Making me think of prime colours and days on the N64.

@tribrix Love the space between your different parts, really nice colourful reverb filling the song allowing for the space between parts to become as important as the parts themselves. I like the repeated short sample which becomes an integral part of pushing the rhythm of the track - perfectly woven in there, even the way it harmonises with the chords.

@Mixrasta I find it hard to get the string engine to cut through the mix with such a sound like you have, you’ve made a great patch there, and got it working in amongst such nicely swung and cleverly used bursts of the original breakbeat. again big fan of space in mixes, and you’ve got your parts sitting there beautifully, all playing with each other and bouncing around.

@xjx really affecting melody sitting atop a great texture. Really enjoyed this one, seemed like it came in at the perfect time during the playlist. Melodically focused but driven by some good choice drums. also liked the use of the sample you chose - again, felt integral to the production.

@sparky yeah, excellent intro on this, sets you up for the listen brilliantly. That string melody that first comes in is not where I was expecting this track to go, which is pretty much always a good thing. caught me off guard but made sense. enjoyed the variations on filtering throughout.

@sosa - want to hear this track again so I can make comment on it. Know I enjoyed it but can’t hear it now in and amongst the others to chat about.

@Aahz excellent drive to the synth part here, and really enjoy the gutteral alloy sound you’ve got coming out of your sample.

@lymtronics again, polished production. Everything seems to sit without conflicting and each part has it’s space to shine. Love the pan pipe melody that comes in with the stuttered sample. 3, 1, 2… 7, 7, 3. something special about the numbers and how they’re spoken in this. Love the samples and how you used them.

My vote goes to @dimi3. Man, the atmosphere you evoked and the light, tight, yet fluid drumming you got coming out of that breakbeat, along with how you positioned the drums in the mix it just made it my favourite.

thanks for putting these tracks out, had a blast listening to them. Also if my comments are whimsical and shite, just put it down to the fact that your songs left me litte room to concentrate on writing anything interesting. I’m not going to read what i’ve just written

lookin forward to the next battle

#30

Wow ,is that the final result or can anyone still tip the balance?(dont want to spoil it incase anyone is still casting vote.)
Someone should get publishing rights on these battles coz there’s not one bad track there and it would make an excellent compilation.

#31
@ali - What lovely melodies going on in your track. There's a bass synth in the background that really sounds like a stringed instrument! Was that done with String then? Very nice :)

@adrigax - Heeeey, that's great man! Were you a scratch dj in a previous life? The start is so good as it is, and then the original break comes in for the second half - wicked! Plenty of details to listen to between the lines in this one. Good stuff.

@dimi3 - I really enjoyed this one, Dimitri. These classic breaks are so versatile aren't they. It's easy to see how all these different genres of music incorporate them. And this break sounds so good sped up to 170 eh ;-) Really liked that abstract ending with the filter sweeps over the radio samples all on top of each other. Sounded dead good.

@ronic - My vote goes to you my man! Such a class tune. It has so many great elements to it. First, you've got this skipping-through-the-radio-channels section at the start. Was that just recorded as is to tape? Haha, I'm jealous of your radio reception. Anyways, nice touch. Then it makes a sudden change to a slower tempo, another great feature, gives it a turntablist feel. Then, for the rest of the track, I love how this amazing break has been left to do the talking in the background with not too much messing around, but it left you the space to add this chill, hip hop feel using the synths and your radio samples. The track's got structure, a good balance of frequencies, you didn't forget about stereo. Ronic ftw!

@blabux - Enjoyed the non-conformist approach here what with the tape tricks and the way you move between the different themes. A tiny criticism was that it was a touch short - but that's just because I was enjoying it and wanted more. I especially like the way you treated the vocal sample... was it with Spring? It made it sound really new wave - the old school new wave that is ;)

@plasticdub - A great abstract piece. Some of those noises really piqued my interest.

@DOZr - this was awesome.... really love the effect of that low frequency build up followed by... SLAM! In comes the DnB style break. I also love some of the remixing of that break that you did, different versions of the beat, some bits of reversing going on, really effective. Great track man.

@vehka - Your one is a real head-bobber :) I like the way the fact it's broken down into little sections with lots of common themes going on. Each section with it's own measure of repetitious grooves and solo-y madness :) Good work.

@beefinator - "New Hav-v-v-v-v-v-v-ven.." Cool... really great tune @beefinator - it's definitely up there in my top 3. A lot of detail and attention has gone into it, I can tell. Really dancefloor friendly - definitely had me moving. That solo bit in the latter half is just sooooo good man, especially the way that it develops. Seriously good command of that slim metal box!

@Tribrix - I love that kind of cello sound going on there. Was that sample or String? Anyways, the Spring worked really well throughout. It's given the track a lovely rounded warmth. I also like the way you singled out that high frequency hat sound from the break and overlayed it on top of the warm springiness. Very enjoyable.

@mixrasta - Very cool track man. So laid back. No hurrying, just great grooves. And such a lovely swing giving the track a kind of swagger. I can't work out how that was done... I think it's a mix of free form playing over that lovely string groove that underpins the track. I reckon we share many similar tastes in music :)

@xjx - Super cool laid back track. Really nice and chilled out, the bong bubbling away at the beginning there :) I really liked the use of occasional really quick hihat sounds against the laid back beat. Nice calming melodies.

@sparky - Hey, I like that weird clicky stuff going on throughout. Is that some sampler shenanigans? And a very nice string patch - that is string isn't it? Beautiful. Sounds quite Hallowe'en even!

@Aahz - I loved the bass synth that you used. Possibly some unison going on there? Works really well with the filter you applied to it. Nice track.

@Lymtronics - Totally love your tracks. Always. This one's got a cool darkness about it. Seven seven three seven seven three.... memorable sample sequence that! It's been going round in my head :) As always, sound design a prominent feature. The track's got a super lovely chilled out vibe, but with a dark side! Beautifully constructed man. Always a pleasure, keep on keeping on!

Thanks so much for the kind words about my track. @Tribrix, your words blew me away man. @DOZr, hehe, your comments really made me smile :) @tasmansea, as for workflow... the crazy edits are basically just splitting up a breakbeat evenly over 8 or 16 keys and then playing them back in different sequences. There is a certain amount of linear slogging, but I see it as putting a lot of effort making a short section sound good and then remixing the heck out of it. @DOZr, ever since I first sacrificed one of my tracks to be panned hard left and the other hard right, I never looked back ;) So, lots of it is about playing the same thing on the left and right channels and with slightly different settings. Very effective :)

Thanks @lymtronics for hosting, that was a lot of fun! Looking forward to the milestone battle number 25!

#32

Great rules for this one, especially the very limited sample rule that could be taken a long way, but while keeping the music “very OP-1”. Really fun to see where everyone went with it.


@mixrasta got my vote. It was close. @yoof, @beefinator, @adrigax were also favourites.
#33

My vote went to @Aahz, I’m diggin your style and the sounds that you used with the Dr. Wave engine. The build up to the drums was on point!


@yoof Thank you for the kind words. That means a lot, especially coming from a master of the OP-1 such as yourself. I’m fairly new to beat making and still have lots to learn and u definitely make me want to step my game up, hopefully i can be on your level one day.

With the intro, i jus used different radio segments and recorded static noise in between to try and give it that effect lol.
#34

@ali I like what sounds like water underneath the melody at the beginning. Nice relaxed and bouncy beat. Nice use of the samples, it almost sounds like they sing along at times.


@adrigax Really cool atmosphere. I love how the mood is established before the beat. Great sample work at the end.

@dimi3 I love the emergency broadcast right off the bat! It really creates a sense of tension with the rumbling, atmospheric backdrop. Such a great sample idea for your location. I love the panning on that sample. Also enjoy the speeding up/glitchy drumloop. The radio stuff at the end is crazy. Is it master effects on long tape takes recorded with ear a couple times?

@ronic This is great. The drums sound nice and tight. The staccato synth is great, as is the stereo pad that takes its place briefly. Awesome groove.

@blabux I like the drums early on. Sounds like an old analog machine. Love the crazy glitchy breaks. Very nice live playing of the tape.

@plasticdub Deep tones. I don’t know where the binary is, but interesting idea. I want to find these sounds in dsynth.

@DOZr That filter sweep sounds so good coming out of the rumbling kick drum. Breakbeat comes out of nowhere! Awesome reverse recording between bars. I love the high pitched, almost out of tune melody sound. Ending with the big kick again is amazing. Sounds like a lot of work.

@yoof The master of the breaks! So professional sounding as always. Reverse and panning tricks are amazing. Not expecting the guitar stab to appear, but breaks things up nicely. Cool middle part with the other drumkit and heavy drive. The location sample at the end sounds lovely as well.

@vehka Nice heavy beat. You took samples of an organic nature and gave them a mechanical groove. This must have been an inspired afternoon! I love the grit of the synth sounds and the background crackle that sounds like vinyl dust. The sweep at the end is also very nice.

@beefinator Amazing bass sound! Great synth sounds all around. Very well-tamed Dr Wave stuff. I love those sweeps that sound like a Game and Watch. Great electric piano sound, too. Excellent arrangement. Good call on having the entries labeled with the engine they used, it made for better critical listening.

@Tribrix I think I need to spend more time playing with string, especially with spring. Sounds really good! The lower part sounds genuinely acoustic! I like the filter play on the drums, bringing the mood up and down. This would be great soundtrack music for a scene in a movie where the last line has been crossed and both sides are gearing up for a showdown.

@Mixrasta More excellent work with String. Ok, I’m definitely digging in. The bass kind of reminds me of the two minute mark and on of “Sly” by Herbie Hancock. I love the breathy, panning lead near the end. Nice punchy kick without being overpowing.

@xjx Nice gentle melody over the background texture. Was totally not expecting the drums. They offer nice support for the more analogue tones you’ve coaxed from Dsynth. I like the throaty, woodwind-esque pad sounds that come in as well.

@Sparky Crazy intro! I like the drums- like an old accompaniment machine or something. When the drums are present they expose the rhythmic perfection of the sweeping sounds. Good string sounds. I especially like when they start to drift or chorus or whatever is happening.

@Aahz Throbbing bass sounds heavy. Love the higher melody part, it sounds electric and alive. Nice song with a lot of pent up energy.

Thanks for the comments on my track. 312 and 773 are the main two area codes for Chicago. I think those samples were from people reciting phone numbers for local businesses or services. The “we get down sample” was pieced together from a radio announcer saying “we get into lollapalooza mode” and an ad urging the people of Chicago to “put the guns down.” Lollapalooza is an annual summer music festival here. I had fun and was glad to see so many participants creating so many wonderful pieces of music.

Favorites were @adrigax, @dimi3, @ronic @yoof and @beefinator. It’s too late for my vote anyway. It looks like @mixrasta wins? I have to admit I wasn’t paying close attention to the results at the posted voting deadline.


#35

Yay, congrats @mixrasta! Great track man.

#36

Woooooooo! MixRasta!

#37

Yeah well done @mixrasta! Looking forward to the next one. =)

#38

Yay!!! Thanks to everyone, battelists and Lymtronics for the host! I already have an idea for our next battle! Im going to post it soon…

#39

congrats @mixrasta !!! Thanks @lymtronics for hosting and for the kind words. @yoof the “cello” sound was string (my attempt at making a “bass” sound with that engine). Thanks @yoof @DOZr and @dimi3 for the comments. I really appreciate you taking the time to write and sharing your insights. On to 25!

#40

Good work all, congrats to @mixrasta, and thanks for the nice words on mine!