Battle 47: A Linguistic Approach to ˈmjuzɪk - VOTE

Here is the original thread:
https://www.operator-1.com/index.php?p=/discussion/3398/battle-47-a-linguistic-approach-to-ˈmjuzɪk#latest

Thanks everybody who participated on this battle! I really enjoyed what each of you made following these quite difficult rules!
I also had to laugh a lot when the PT-solos came - hilarious stuff! xD

So here are the tracks that EVERYONE on this forum can vote for. Since we only have 5 tracks to vote for, everyone has got only ONE vote.
Here are the tracks, chronologically ordered:

  1. @gentlemanhog
    https://soundcloud.com/gentlemanhog/battle-47

  2. @rudolphrapid
    https://soundcloud.com/rudolph-rapid/vst-pvbl-t

  3. @millbastard
    https://soundcloud.com/mlbstrd/10-mljn-rad

  4. @Jonbro
    https://soundcloud.com/jonbro/tu-1

  5. @motone
    https://soundcloud.com/motone/the-drunken-raver

Voting ends in 10 days - 19th of July. Happy voting!

Thanks @Zach_Lambert for adding my late entry. :smiley:


EDIT: I updated the file. I made another mix with better EQing and added some subtle stereo. My ears were a bit tired when delivering the first mix…

I made a playlist:
https://soundcloud.com/motone/sets/operator-1-com-battle-47

Awesome tracks everybody, sadly there can be only one.


@gentlemanhog: what a beautiful ambient track. The noisy choir really gives me a (good) chill, and you mastered the Pink Trombone like a professional theremin player. The drums are a perfect match. I wish the whole piece would be 10 times longer :wink:

@rudolphrapid: Freaky track, I like the madness. Nice chord progressions, and the sing along solo at the end really killed it. Haha!

@millbastard: Woa, huge sub bass, and heavy beats. I don’t think you overdid the tape tricks. Your vocals fit well in there. Awesome mixing!

@Jonbro: Welcome to the OP-1 club! I love the bubbly bass part. And your Pink Trombone soloing is very good. Nice one!

Tough decision, each track is damn great! My vote goes to @gentlemanhog, because your track really made me fly away.

Thanks @Zach_Lambert for hosting this inspiring battle.

Hi, I’m new here, and new OP-1 owner.


That’s all very impressive, I’ll vote for @motone since I like it best, it’s a really professional sounding track!
@rudolphrapid: I love this track. So much fun. Love it when the main themes come back in again after the middle section. The solo at the end is funny as hell. I have no idea how you did the stereo effects.

@millbastard: Amazing production. Drums are ace. There's bits where your voice and the PT seem to merge into each other - in a good way.

@Jonbro: Wow. You really got that PT singin'! Love the LFO madness on the bass voice. You got a sound like little backing singers supporting the main tune as well. I liked that a lot.

@motone: The beginning sounds like a nightmare visit to the dentist! :D But then the drums kick in and crikey! Love the shaker sound you got going on. Then the funkiness starts about a minute in. Amazed at the number of synth type sounds you coaxed out of the PT. Great track.

All such greats tracks and hard to pick one to vote for, but @rudolphrapid gets my vote as the first time I heard the solo at the end I laughed tea up my nose.

Thanks @Zach_Lambert for this battle (and your track was bloody good as well)!

Impressive Battle tracks :slight_smile: Ton of variety across the entries and all strong. @gentlemanhog killed it for me tho. Really nice evolving atmospheres and textures, great track mate :slight_smile:

@Jonbro you did a great job as first trial on OP-1. Backing chords are very cute. Have a lot of fun with your new device :slight_smile:


My vote goes for @gentlemanhog. I really like how you managed to use this crazy synth to generate evolving pad sounds. And the drums are amazing :slight_smile:
Thanks for your kind words (and the vote :D). The stereo effects was just made through double recording on two trakcs (left and right) with slight phase/effect drifts as far as I remember.

I also have the same question to @motone: how have you managed to create that ping-pong delay effect on the solo? Your track is also awesome in all.

@rudolphrapid I bounced both the voice and the melody tracks on one track, made a duplicate and panned them hard left/right. Then I enabled the DELAY in master FX + set the master EQ (cut bass, more mid, less hi), and overdubbed each stereo track via the EAR recording function. On the second take I just altered the DELAY time. Et voilà, stereo delay!

@motone That’s interesting. I’ve learned something again :slight_smile: Thanks!

Hi folks, sorry I’ve been absent from this one.
My vote is for @motone, though @gentlemanhog was pretty close.


Killer stuff everyone

Its a hard choice between motone and millbastard but im going with @motone! Great job everyone, seemed like a fun challenege

@motone gets my vote. The main melody is great… There are a few passages where I thought I had to run from some Daleks.


@millbastard 's production was off the chain!!!

Love the pads and vibe from @gentlemanhog

Nice work, everyone!

Alright guys! First of all: thanks a ton for the awesome and great tracks! My vote goes to @jonbro for the hilarious soloing! Here are the results!

@gentlemanhog: 3
@rudolphrapid: 1
@millbastard: 0 (but 3 almost-votes!)
@jonbro: 1
@motone: 4

So the winner is @motone!
CONGRATS, buddy!!! You are the winner of Battle 47!

We’re now looking forward to your rules for the 48th battle!

Thanks to all for participating and voting.

Wow, thanks to all voters, though I’m a bit shocked that @millbastard didn’t get a single vote! Your track was really good.


Alright, I already have the next battle in my head, and will publish the rules VERY SOON!

Congrats @motone! :slight_smile:

hey guys, I missed the voting but I’ll go ahead and vote for myself so I don’t look like a chump :smiley:

@millbastard How it could happen that you got “only” almost-votes? :smiley: Your track is really great so the self-voting is also well deserved :smiley:

@motone Congrat! You were the very close candidate for my vote but finally I chose those evolving pads by gentlemanhog :slight_smile: So you got my almost-vote :smiley: Hey, I’m just wondering how some people can achieve such nice mixes on OP-1 with big stereo, pumping bass, etc you also did in your track. Would you mind to share some additional tricks? I’m really interested. I’m still finding out how to make an acceptable mix on this device.

hey @rudolphrapid this might seem like a bit of an “almost” answer… But my mixes got better on the OP the more tracks I made. I think now I’ve got about 60 or so full tracks just on the OP, and probably the first 30-40 of them didn’t really achieve what I wanted to mix-wise.

The biggest thing IMO to get your head around is the super low headroom of the device - as soon as a kick or bass sound comes in the whole mix gets compressed and squishes right up. If you fight against this, you will be really disappointed (as I was at first), BUT, if you roll with it you’ll find that your arrangements will change slightly, and you will kind of compose/arrange your tracks around the sound of the instrument, rather than the other way around. Once I began to embrace the sound of the OP1 my mixes on it got a lot better.

The big one is trying to get decent low-lows (and subs) out of it, as this eats up the most headroom. In my battle track above, you can hear the sub kick hit at 0:31, but then when the other instruments come in and kind of gets swallowed up in the headroom. I just accept the fact that it’s not going to be a club-bangin-mixing-device! My favourite trick for firming up drums is to resample them (using Ear) over themselves, which boosts the hell out of them and hard-comps them quite a bit. I always keep a “backup” by lifting the tape first, in case the resampled version is too aggressive.

Kind of reminds me of the famous vinyl-sim from the SP303/505, which I mentioned (and compared) in a thread a few months back.


In terms of stereo, I almost always arrange my tape tracks like this:
1. Drums, FX, some samples - centred.
2. Harmonics (synths, samples, backup vocals) - panned hard left
3. Harmonics (synths, samples, backup vocals) - panned hard right
4. Bass, occasionally a third Harmonic addition - centred

If I do lead vocals they will live on tracks 1 or 4, or sometimes I will sacrifice a harmonic track to do vocals instead.

hope this helps!

@millbastard Thanks a lot! I use similar arrangement you described above. I think I use low recording volumes however. I’m getting to be more brave with raising the levels. But yeah then I’m faced the low headroom.
I think the usage of EQ and the Drive also matters a lot. I use them in static mode, but maybe those should be adjusted on-the-fly.
Just practice, practice, practice :slight_smile: