Hello Online Sequencer! As we’re now about to be heading into mud season (unless you live somewhere that doesn’t experience that), it’s time to announce the April Monthly Contest.
This month’s theme is simple: make some music fit for a rainy day.
Oh, and we’re also bringing back the example sequences (and I suppose I should also post the general rules here as well)!
General Information
The entry period is from 4/1 ~ 4/21 (11:59 PM EST). Winners will be announced on 4/30!
While we will post general notes on every contest, please refer to the Monthly Contest announcement thread for more details on Monthly Contests themselves.
Entry limit of 2 sequences per person.
Committee members are allowed to enter the contests, but will not enter their example sequence nor will they vote for their own entry.
Sequences made prior to the current Monthly Contest are allowed, although we don’t recommend entering the same sequence in different Monthly Contests.
Making a remix of an existing song is allowed.
The standard Online Sequencer Rules will apply and any entries violating a rule will automatically be disqualified.
I’m excited to see what you all come up with! Good luck!
Hey everybody! I got some example sequences just to give you guys an idea of what’s goin’ down.
##1075323
Credit to Wafels and whoever discovered the pizzicato trick, but in this example I have here, you can simulate rain by taking the Drum Kit and turning the volume way down. You can play around with the slap, cymbals, and hi-q in a random order with reverb to get that crisp sound of water droplets hitting the ground. (Or you can just copy and paste mine. ;D)
To make thunder, turn your pizzicato down low and make a small wall of notes (preferably on the scale). The preferred range of notes goes from C2 to about E3. Adding delay and reverb to top it off, and boom, you got yourself some thunder.
As for the music itself. Go for anything that could make you imagine a rainy scenario. Perhaps you want to go for the classic rainy cafe jazz. Or perhaps you want to make a tribal african rain dance. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Get creative with it.
Speaking of Guest’s idea of a rainy jazz cafe, let’s take that idea and turn it on its head, shall we? Instead of dark and gloomy, while it might be raining outside, the clouds are a bright white and it’s midday. While there’s certainly a band in the cafe, it’s not playing a slow, dreary, tune, but instead one that’s more upbeat but calm, providing a relaxing break from the mundane midday of the outside world. What music would you think of in a scenario like this? Well, here’s my answer to that question.
##1080217
Speaking of which, is it just me, or does no one ever try to go for the bright, cloudy midday (with or without rain) scenery. It’s always either clear skies with the sun beating down, a dark and gloomy night (oftentimes with rain), or a scenic sunset.
This is probably the single, most worst event that has ever occurred to the internet, and has made it the worst day in the entire history of the internet.
Small channels and content creators all over the web, like my own, will be wiped out by the new laws. Such websites as YouTube have stated that they will not allow anybody within the EU to upload anything onto their platform, many other sites will most likely follow suit to this trend. Content creation is one step closer to being completely *****ed.
I'd suggest you guys raise awareness to the issue and cause a bigger uproar to the problem at hand. We need them to realise that what they're doing isn't "protecting copyright laws", it is *****ing the world wide web up completely, in the present, and the forseeable future. The government officials have zero idea what they are doing, and how this will effect the internet as an entirety.
Furthermore, if you live outside of the EU, do not back down and go into a "I don't care" state. This colossal change to the internet will also effect you. Most websites, such as YouTube, use the strictest laws in a given area as their entire security and rule system, as this is easier to do, and makes it easier to uphole the laws of the stricter areas. Thus, this will effect you. There is no doubt about it.
Hello Online Sequencer! It’s time to announce the March Monthly Contest! We haven't been getting much, participation this year in the previous contests, but this is a much simpler theme like the ones in the beta contests, so maybe that'll help?
Anyway, since this month will mark it being 1 year since the world update (to the month, that is) this month's theme is to make a song using just the instruments that were added in the world update! In case you don't know exactly which instruments those are, here's a list of them.
Church Organ
Electric Drums
Flute
Jazz Guitar
Koto
Music Box
Muted Electric Guitar
Pizzicato
Pop Synth
Ragtime Piano
Saxaphone
Sitar
Slap Bass
Steel Drums
Synth Bass
Vibraphone
808 Bass
808 Drums
Distortion Guitar
8-Bit Drums
Good luck to you all!
NOTE: this does not mean that you have to use all of the instruments in the list, you just can't use instruments that aren't in the list.
Hello Online Sequencer! It’s time to announce the February Monthly Contest! We have a very special 2 themes for this month!
Sorry that this got deleted, none of us have any idea on how this happened. We've decided to push the deadline back 2 days because of this, so you'll now have until the 24th to submit entries.
There is a couple rule changes that we have to make. This time you cannot place in both themes. However, you are allowed to enter in both categories still to maximize the chance of getting points from at least one theme. If you were to place in both themes, you would get leaderboard points for whichever theme you placed higher on. Secondly, you can only enter one sequence into each theme.
We sadly don’t have any example sequences. My bad, I completely spaced it on preparing for this month. However, it shouldn’t matter because of what the themes are this month.
The first theme is to remix a song that another user has made! Preferably this song would be an original song or a partially original song made by that user.
The second theme is to make a song in the style of another user! I’m really excited to see what you guys come up with in this one!
As always, if anyone has any questions, feel free to ask!
Good luck, and may the creativity flow through you!
Hello everyone, I hope everyone has had a good start to their year so far!
Although I haven’t really started on new projects on the site in a while, I’ve made some resolutions over the month to improve writing stuff in Korean. Been progressing much further in this one month than I did a year ago, often I would just pick the language up and throw it away after some time.
So you can ask me… simple questions in English so I can reply in Korean! It would really help.
What have your resolutions been for January? Crushed any bad habits? Anything you’ve learned to do during the month? Feel free to reply to the thread!
Oh, and Wafels I love you. Please love me back. :’)
January… was slow. Awfully slow. I obviously lied about getting back into the groove for last month, but nonetheless January was slow. Probably the least productive month so far with the fewest entries being entered in the contest.
The Millionth Sequence event is still in play, we just kinda forgot to let you know about it all last month. At this time we’re accepting specific time ranges we still need. We’re not accepting any original sequence made after 1m duh, but please get them in when you guys can!
We made a new Grand Leaderboard so we don’t have to worry hard on that one. I finally updated the January Ongoing Events hub a week ago but it’s February now so I gotta update it again. Goshdarn.
I’ve talked to JHXC earlier in the month for his prizes and stuff. If you guys didn’t know, one of his prizes was to decide a Monthly Contest theme for this year! We have that settled but we’ll announce it once the month for it actually comes. Now if I stop drawing other things, I can start working on the digital illustration he was supposed to receive. A month ago.
Pssssst. Jacoooob? Can you please re-add the event banner to the top of the forum page? I promise to use a different font for it! Can you also add the OS Achievements soon so I don’t have to get too worried about it? Kaaay, thaaanks.
Let’s get into the details of this month, shall we? Well, there aren’t a lot. It’s probably gonna remain the same for the next several months or so. I’ll just be complaining about something else each time.
February’s the season of love and affection! And appreciation! Mostly appreciation.
If you appreciate your fellow composers on this site, please participate in the February Monthly Contest! Not only do you have an excuse to express your gratitude to them, if you actually love them you can be super lowkey about it and no one will notice. In fact…
If you’re reading this on February 14, you can shout out someone you love on this thread and get a free OS point! I just want to make sure people are reading these. Has to be 2/14!
As mentioned before, we are still holding the Million Sequence event but are only accepting original entries made before 1m. To clarify, your REMIX can be done on a sequence after 1m, but the ORIGINAL must exist before 1m.
Alright, now I feel like I’m dragging this post on. Someone get me a FunDip already.
Sorry that this is so sudden, and that it’s really close to when the entry period ends, but it has come to our attention that we need to update one of the rules regarding the monthly contests.
You see, many of the winners of previous contests had to go up against 20 or more entries, and, well, this monthly contest only has 7 entries. Therefore, to keep things as fair as possible between all the users, we’ve decided that if there are not enough entries in a monthly contest, we’ll reduce the number of winners announced accordingly.
Here are the ranges of entries for the number of winners to be announced.
Hello everyone, I hope you all had fun over the holidays, I know I didn't.
Holidays aren't great. Vacation time is, but people pulling me around to every single holiday party can be a real headache.
In fact all of December was just stressful, though, finals week actually wasn't that bad. Since I'm a person who still lives under my parents' house, they're still pushy and angry and do whatever finals week parents do. I won't get into any detail since I think all of you know where this is going.
All I wanted to do was just stay home and play video games. That explains why I haven't been on the site for the past week, and it also kinda affected my mentality on how the events were going.
With that being said, we started December doing great things. We had a nice beefy Monthly Contest going on, a Christmas gift giving event, and finished one million sequences right before the year was due.
We could have finished December on a strong note, but then my brain just sort of decided to jump ship and neglect all my responsibilities as the main event admin. Fun.
Now I know this year that I shouldn't burden myself with a bunch of tasks during December and start making everything easier to do. By this I should probably work on everything regarding OS Events for the whole year starting this January.
But for right now, I'll just list out the things that were supposed to be finished in December but never got to due to me being a lazy bum. I hope you guys are glad that you aren't the ones preparing for these events.
OS Present Wrapping!
-Forgot to keep track of presents because hardly anyone was sending me things.
-Didn't announce presents on Christmas.
-Will probably never distribute 2018 points at this point.
-Might compensate participants with... 1 OS point this year? I'll ask Kirby.
A Million Sequences of Making Music Online.
-New submissions won't be accepted at this point, but we're waiting on one really important one. The person of this sequence is really busy with college though.
-Songs have been sorted out but we're still trying to put them in a good order. So far we literally only have 3 songs that are in order.
-We'll get it done... soon.
Grand Leaderboard
-I didn't vote on the entries for the December contest until last minute, then I cold-shouldered Kirby so he'd be convinced to let me vote. If you're reading this Kirby I'm not actually doing it on purpose, I just freaked out on it.
-The final 2018 leaderboard hasn't been uploaded yet and I'll probably ask Kirby for the final scores again so I can do it ASAP.
Event Consistency
-This post is one day late.
-Didn't update new events on the Current Events hub.
-Didn't update the "Winners Announced!" on the December contest until now.
-Didn't create banner for the January 2019 Monthly Contest.
-Didn't remove the "NEW!" from the Events banner on the top of the forums.
-Didn't update any documents in our Events Committee Discord so now my OCD is really hitting me.
-Had to edit the January contest thread for small details.
Prize Distribution
-The "Digital Trophy" drawing that I was supposed to start on... was never started on. Whoever the grand winner is, please come and talk to me because there's a certain way I wanted to do it and it'll need your input.
-The OS Achievements haven't arrived as a function yet, but the badges for the events are complete. I'll need to ask Jacob whenever I'm feeling in the mood to ask.
-Here's my undying gratitude to all the participants of the 2018 Beta Events. I hope you guys enjoyed these events as much as we enjoyed making them.
Now that's all listed out, there should be no excuse for me not doing these. My goal for these events was to make each one of them flexible to whatever you guys want to do, as well as some experimentation from our department.
Like the cherry on top, I also wanted to present these events as nice as possible. Little things like the banners or formatting of the posts can change a lot about how one views these threads. A little professionalism goes a long way.
I'd like to think of this blog as a sort of reflection because last month in particular really made me think over the events. So if anything, I'd like to fix my faults from there and make it a New Year's resolution to do better for 2019.
Once again I'd like to thank you guys for staying on the sequencer, and I hope you guys make some good resolutions too.
Hello everyone and welcome back! It’s officially time to kick off the 2019 Monthly Contests! I hope that you’re all ready!
As it’s the start of the new year, the theme is to compose a sequence a new genre for you! Just pick any genre you’ve never composed in before and compose a sequence in it!
The entry period is from 1/1 ~ 1/21 (11:59 PM EST). Winners will be announced on 1/31!
While we will post general notes on every contest, please refer to the Monthly Contest announcement thread for more details on Monthly Contests themselves.
Entry limit of 2 sequences per person.
Committee members are allowed to enter the contests, but will not enter their example sequence nor will they vote for their own entry.
Sequences made prior to the current Monthly Contest are allowed, although we don’t recommend entering the same sequence in different Monthly Contests.
Making a remix of an existing song is allowed. Please make it as creative as possible while applying the contest’s theme.
The standard Online Sequencer Rules will apply and any entries violating a rule will automatically be disqualified.
Committee Notes
Hopefully you haven’t composed in all the genres there are! You probably haven’t though….. Anyway, this is relatively self-explanatory, but there was good feedback about the example sequences on the survey, so let’s keep going why not?
I haven’t ever composed in ragtime before, so that’s what I decided to do as an example sequence. Ragtime is relatively simple, using only 2 hands, the left being for alternating between a bassline and chords and the right being for the melody itself. Rag usually has a jumpy melody with notes being both on and off beat.
I decided to try my hand at composing atonal music.
I have never intentionally made something sound so… Interesting... before.
The idea of atonality is to make it not fit into standard harmony. Which I think I managed… It does kind of sound like just a bad sequence, but it’s intentional so it’s art.
It tells a little bit of a story. The GP represents mountains that a character (EP) must overcome. In some spots you can see that he goes over some and simply goes around others.
At the end, the mountains give way to flat ground and the man can rest.
Hello Online Sequencer! We’ve observed how the 2018 Beta Monthly Contests went and, as we’re about to launch the 2019 Monthly Contests, it’s time to add in some extra clarifications on the rules.
Anyone with prior knowledge of the contest themes are not allowed to create and sequences that they plan to enter before the contest is announced. Sharing of any themes is not allowed either.
While past sequences that have been made before (that still follow the previous rule) are allowed, sequences that have been entered into previous Monthly Contests aren’t.
When you enter a sequence into the monthly contests and it is not completed, make sure that the sequence ID of that entry is the same as the sequence ID of the final. Otherwise (due to how the voting is set up) the voting will be performed on the incomplete piece.
Do not delete a sequence after you have entered it. If this happens, let one of us know and (if you have the completed version of the entry) give us the sequence ID of that entry. Any entry that got deleted without the user notifying us before the entry period is over will be automatically disqualified.
Once it is past the entry period for a monthly contest, do not edit any of your entries. This is blatant cheating and will result in immediate disqualification from that monthly contest.
Thanks for reading and I hope that you’re prepared for the 2019 Monthly Contests!
Hello everyone! Now with the 2018 monthly contests coming to a close and the winner to be announced shortly, we’d like to be able to revise the contests and the events in general for the users of Online Sequencer.
A quick survey has been created. It only takes a few minutes to do. While it does require a google account sign in, this is only to ensure that there is one response per person. It is a completely anonymous survey and does not collect any information about you.
Please respond to the questions to help make the events on Online Sequencer even better. We thank you for reading this and answering the survey (if you do).
![[Image: avatar_2740.png?dateline=1556629097]](https://onlinesequencer.net/forum/uploads/avatars/avatar_2740.png?dateline=1556629097){kind=avatar}
Hello Online Sequencer! As we’re now about to be heading into mud season (unless you live somewhere that doesn’t experience that), it’s time to announce the April Monthly Contest.![[Image: avatar_6702.jpg?dateline=1523245530]](https://onlinesequencer.net/forum/uploads/avatars/avatar_6702.jpg?dateline=1523245530){kind=avatar}
![[Image: avatar_2740.png?dateline=1534443788]](https://onlinesequencer.net/forum/uploads/avatars/avatar_2740.png?dateline=1534443788){kind=avatar}
Hello Online Sequencer! It’s time to announce the March Monthly Contest! We haven't been getting much, participation this year in the previous contests, but this is a much simpler theme like the ones in the beta contests, so maybe that'll help?![[Image: avatar_1632.png?dateline=1537691382]](https://onlinesequencer.net/forum/uploads/avatars/avatar_1632.png?dateline=1537691382){kind=avatar}
Hello everyone, I hope everyone has had a good start to their year so far!![[Image: jan2019.png]](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/484479777508687892/536681947280179200/jan2019.png)
![[Image: avatar_7666.png?dateline=1505485634]](https://onlinesequencer.net/forum/uploads/avatars/avatar_7666.png?dateline=1505485634){kind=avatar}
I decided to try my hand at composing atonal music.