I was wondering...

I have decided on two orchestrations that I like and not yet the third. Do I have to vote for all three at the same time or can I come back and add the third in a few days? I want to give the brain a chance to re-acclimatize (real word?) before listening to all these renditions again.

There's also the interesting problem/question we have to deal with when doing a recording with software - and that's how to make a recording which sounds good as opposed to just "correct" in its seating

And, the not-so-interesting problem we have with customers who come to us because they can't afford the real orchestra, but want their record to sound like they could, and did..... I truly wish I had some who only wanted their recording to sound "good" instead of "real".   If I could only educate them to accept that software is an instrument itself, like some of them have finally accepted synths (after 3 decades of rejecting them).   One of my bluegrass customers, last year, actually chose to use a sampled acoustic bass instead of the "real" doghouse.  He recognized that it provided a cleaner and better-recorded bass than doing it "live".  It's a very tricky instrument to record well in a small room.
Thanks again, guys, for taking the time and effort on this.  All the results which come from this are going to be interesting. 

Thanks Randy and bitflipper, those are both excellent suggestions.

nprime


Hmmm...now I am asking myself what the purpose of the contest really is. Was the purpose of the exercise to create the most realistic rendering of the orchestral piece provided? If that was the goal then I cannot use my votes as I had planned, that would defeat the purpose  of the contest. In fact, I see no reason to vote for more than one if I believe that one of the attempts is truly the best. Voting for two more might have an undesirable result of putting someone else above my first choice.

If I think about that way then one vote is the way to go.

Hello again, Nprime - Another very interesting post from you.  I really appreciate your participation in this.

I'm sure you've noticed that we all have our individual preferences, and our own unique perceptions of "reality."  So like everything else, this contest and its purpose is open to interpretation.

The original intent was to collect demonstrations of various libraries and synths all using the same source material so that in at least that basic sense, there would be a "level playing field" for comparison.  But since we all know there's no such thing as a "pure demo" it was acknowledged immediately that no matter what sound sources are used in the entries, a major ingredient to the sound of the results would be determined by the personality, experience and taste of the individuals making the MP3s.

The idea is for everyone hearing this collection of MP3s to get at least some idea of what different software instruments can sound like.  It's a pop-orchestral piece we're all using, this imperfect "played by ear" sequence based on the Star Trek movie theme, and so coming up with some sort of emulation of an orchestra is an implied factor.  But not everyone would agree that this means the recordings have to sound like and attempt to re-create the sound of classical recordings which use traditional seating etc. 

In other words, there are many factors, and everyone has their own preferences for what they would like to hear in these entries.

There are 72 tracks, and the vast majority of them make an attempt to be "orchestral"--whatever that happens to mean to the people who created the entries. 

To me, there are so many fun recordings in this collection, it took me days to choose 3 which I feel were especially outstanding.  If you can only nominate one worthy of notice in that whole lot, then to cast only one vote is fine, you aren't obligated to choose more than one.

Randy B.

Thanks for taking the time to approach this systematically, Dan. Let's hope everyone is as diligent in their appraisals!

My only rant is that I had wished I knew it was a competition when I joined in the fun. 
 
I skimped on the mixing side cause Bit and Randy were waiting on my entry (which I appreciate).  But then I find out that there IS a prize (thanks Bit!!!)
 
Oh well, too late now. :-P

I'm sure everyone else who joined in the beginning feels the same way, so it's all good.

And you are right, we all benefit from this (I know I already did).  This was a good experience for me, for sure.

Take care and thanks again for putting this together with Randy.  It's a great idea.

Very Important Announcement.

Exactly the opposite of this thread's subject line - Polling is now Closed for the Orchestral Shootout.

ONLY TEMPORARILY - Very sorry folks, but the poll had been drastically compromised and wasn't representing the actual vote.

We'll re-group as fast as we can and have a different method posted for voting.

Thanks for your patience--And for those responsible for the polling problems----um,--watch your step.

Randy

Oh man, I tossed out my paper with my favorites written on them!  I think I remember 2 of the numbers. 
I don't know how one could have a online voting contest that is immune to being comprimised in some way.  Heck, people are barely honest in person, here they have the luxery of being anonymous behind their computers.  

Well if nothing else, if the 'winner' gets posted we can all listen and decide for ourselves if it was an 'honest' win.  Or..if Bitflipper show up at the next SONAR forum meeting driving a Mercedes and wearing 5 pounds of new gold chains and watches, in might be a clue something was amiss in the judging...

Hey Randy, any idea when we'll be able to vote again?

The reason I ask is that I'm going on holiday on Monday and won't be back in the UK until Septmber 2nd.

So here's the deal. The software behind the poll was flawed, allowing people to vote multiple times. One person did so accidentally and let us know about it. But at least one other person did so intentionally. I will not embarrass that individual here, but he knows who he is and we know who he is and that's enough.

The software vendor, polldaddy.com, could have provided a workaround -- for two hundred bucks. Not an option for Randy or me.

<grumble>Of course, users on any other music-related forum would have simply used their forum software to create a secure poll. But for some reason CW has elected to not make that feature available here. Sure would have been nice, though.</grumble>

Our sincere apologies to everyone who did it by the book, listened carefully to every entry and voted once. We're determined to make sure your efforts will not have been wasted, even if it means you may have to vote again.

I'm guessing my vote made last night 08/18/2010 is invalid. Darn cheaters!
 
I only voted for one entry because I thought that entry was the best. I had two more that were tied for second (in my mind), but because I had a clear #1, I went with a single vote. Of the 70-some entries, I thought there were about ten that were really, really good, and a whole bunch that were very good. I applaud those individuals... indeed everyone who took the time and effort to make an entry... Especially "Moog Trek"!
 
However, I could see an argument that the prizes should go to perhaps not the lowest vote getters, but maybe the entries that fall right on the mean or median or some such thing. After all, this IS an educational exercise...What better encouragement than to say "Here's your copy of the Garritan Library...Now go for it!" 
 
 ...And another "Thanks" for setting this up, guys!

bitflipper


at least one other person did so intentionally. I will not embarrass that individual here, but he knows who he is and we know who he is and that's enough.

I suspect you might suspect that individual is me.
I did vote once.
I told one of my colleagues about the contest, and told him which entry i thought was mine and I have learned he voted also - he works for me and obviously wanted me to win.
We'll have had the same IP address as we sit behind the same firewall.
 
I did not intentionally vote twice although it may look like that to you.
 
There really is no way I could win, so many of the entries are better than mine - I admit I voted once for mine and a colleague also voted for mine - probably the only votes mine would get - LOL
 

I suspect you might suspect that individual is me.

No, it's not you, Twigman.

Bristol_Jonesey, use the email link in this thread's header to send me your votes.  I'll put your email in a special folder, and I guarantee your votes will be counted.  Sorry for the hassle.

Jose, LpMike, Yorolpal, rbecker, twigman - Thanks. It's good to see some friendly, cheerful posts in the wake of this slight fiasco.

Rbecker - Thanks for spending time making your voting choices.  To have people giving the decision making process some real consideration is exactly what we need.  

I have a suggestion I'd like you to consider when we have the voting up again.

After explaining why you decided to vote for only one entry, you said, "...I thought there were about ten that were really, really good..."  I think most people would agree there are a number of really good entries. That's why we chose to give everyone 3 equally weighted votes.  It would be great when you vote again if you could go ahead and help out 3 entries which you think are especially good.  I hope you'll consider doing that, since you found so many recordings outstanding--go ahead and reward them.  No need to think in terms of choosing "The Best"- since there really isn't one.
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As the guy who collected the MP3s and info texts, put up the two Shootout sites where there are still 72 pages yet to be revealed (info on synths used and technical comments), and put the poll together - I want to add a few things to what's been said already about this crummy turn of events.

Polldaddy is the service which is hooked up with Wix where the main Trek site was built.  The only protection they provide against multiple votes is to block IP addresses after they've been used once.  If the "pro" service at Polldaddy is used, it costs $200 but STILL doesn't provide any more protection against multiple votes.

I'm not aware of an online polling service which does any better than this, unfortunately.

David "Bitflipper" and I tested the poll, and we were consistently blocked from voting more than once.  We had to accept that as a sufficient test.

The problem is that though many of us have one IP address assigned to our computers, there are many people still using DSL which assigns new IP addresses "dynamically" so that a computer's address is constantly changing.  Those computers can't be blocked from returning and using a poll like this over and over.

On the first day of the poll going up, I was alert to a possible problem because several entries instantly shot way up to the top.  In a very short time these entries had between 5 and 10 votes each, while the vast majority had either no votes or 1.

It wasn't logical that a group of voters could have zeroed in so early on such a small group of MP3s so quickly.  We can all hear for ourselves that it's not as if there's a group of easily chosen hands-down winners in the group.

I kept monitoring the poll, not wanting to believe that there really was any "ballot-stuffing" going on. But then it became clear that a small percentage of participants were clicking away, artificially boosting their entries.

Then yesterday one of the contestants helped immensely by pointing out that he'd accidentally discovered that he could vote multiple times.  He ran more tests, we had an email discussion about it last night, and it became clear that my earliest suspicions were corrrect, that the voting had been compromised since hour One of the contest.  The poll had to be shut down.

It's a pain in the backside to have spent so much time and effort on this to have a few cheaters cause this problem, to have wasted everyone's time, and to cause yet more work for David and me.

If I had my druthers, I'd eliminate several entries from this contest.  But we can't do that.  One person has been proven to have voted for his entry repeatedly, but we don't have the same solid proof for other entries that also shot to the top in an impossible way. We can't single one person out.

So we'll retain all the entries when the voting starts again, but we'll do everything we can to prevent any more vote tampering.

We'll have a voting email posted ASAP both here and on the Shootout sites.

Once we're going again, would everyone please help out by boosting that up-coming voting thread.  It needs to remain in view towards the top of the front page so we can get as many people involved and voting as possible.

To all the good guys, thank you for your time spent so far on this contest, and thanks for your patience.  

To the cheaters - nice try, but I'm happy to say - No cigar, losers.

Randy B.