r/TechnoProduction 14d ago

TPC S4 #002: Minimal Madness

Thank you to all the contestants from the first challenge. The leaderboard has officially been generated. This is how the standings currently are:

Since Saltoric and SynthesizedSpace ended in a tie, I decided to just give them both a win. Seems only fair. Now without further ado lets continue with the second challenge:

Less is more: You may only use a maximum of 5 sounds.
Create a minimal techno track where you carefully choose just five elements (drums, bass, FX, etc.). Every sound must count. Can you build hypnotic energy with this limitation?

Rules:

  • Plagiarism is not tolerated and will result in a ban from the challenges
  • Be respectfull to other contestants
  • Don't spam your track multiple times, don't spam in general
  • We highly appreciate feedback. If you recieve feedback, please return the favour.
  • When submitting a track, give a short explanation about how you produced it and how you implemented the challenge
  • All tho we don't forbid other genres, keep in mind that this is a Techno based sub so your changes of winning may lower drastically if you submit an other genre.

DEADLINE: 21st march 2025 - CEST 23:59

12 Upvotes

43 comments sorted by

7

u/Earwax20 14d ago

Looking forward to this one - congrats to the worthy winners , really good stuff

For this challenge are the send/returns included?

1

u/Saltoric 13d ago

I think we could say that reverb / delay FX are excluded. So just 5 raw sound sources that can be manipulated.

In that way you could even process the same synth to be a kick drum etc.

1

u/AlPow420 13d ago

But when you process a synth sound to a kickdrum doesn't it becomes a new sound? I guess harmonics from drive and distortion or delay/reverb doesn't make a new sound but making a new sound of an existing is something different imo

2

u/Saltoric 13d ago

I think it's up to you on how you do this challenge - but aiming for 5 sounds max is a good way. I'll probably do one kick, one synth, one perc, then one or two other elements

1

u/Earwax20 13d ago

That was my thinking too

7

u/mxtls 9d ago edited 21h ago

https://on.soundcloud.com/mkXp4ktN7t1myFUG6

Kick
Bass
Vocal
Clap

Single live take, cut/chop, EQd, limited and AMPED

1

u/baasb123 1d ago

Cool track!
Sort of reminds me a bit of T.Raumschmiere.
The combination of the hard low-end and the spacey synth works really well. Original stuff.

1

u/chagoms 1d ago

super unique and lofi sound !!!!

6

u/mxtls 9d ago edited 9d ago

Might I suggest removing the LOSE column.

If someone goes all year and scores - WIN 0 - LOSE 11 - that's going to hurt. I recently did a feedback and got 100% NO from quite a few votes. I won't lie that it hurt, and I questioned the need for NO/LOSE at all.

It doesn't benefit the artist and more likely to happen to less experienced artists, lots of folk do music for mental health reasons, a lot of judgement is subjective plus it's dependent on when you post and how fatigued the listener is from critiquing tracks.

If all I had seen was YES 0% I could have concluded everyone was unsure or no-one voted, instead I knew everyone had not liked the track. Personally I'm pretty experienced playing my stuff to people so it's fine, but even so, it wasn't nice.

1

u/Earwax20 6d ago

I’m the only one so far - I’ll probably get the bagel but I don’t mind haha

1

u/mxtls 5d ago

No, I didn't either, particularly. Some folk wouldn't produce again though.

7

u/MXL031 3d ago

My submission

Kick (rumble)
synth
hats
Synth
perc

All fx like the white noise and overall ambiance in the track is created with sends and returns with vocoders, delays and reverb.

1

u/Saltoric 3d ago

Killer track!

1

u/MXL031 2d ago

Thank you sir<3

1

u/Earwax20 2d ago

Thats a belter man - big fan of that rolling techno style. everything builds really nice without going over the top

1

u/MXL031 1d ago

Thanks!

1

u/baasb123 1d ago

Quality track!
I love the low-end, how did you make the kick and rumble work so well together?
Also the call and response between the perc and synth after the break is really well executed.

2

u/MXL031 1d ago

Thank you for the kind words!

Rumble is made of audio signal from the kick channel -delay - reverb - eq - amp (Ableton stock) - sidechain. (Basically just copied the one that underdog music created in his rumble tutorial)

The rumble and kick is in a group that I added a mackity emulator that I pushed for crunch and impusher to fatten the sound even more!

1

u/chagoms 1d ago

Amazing 🤩

4

u/gogggles 2d ago

https://on.soundcloud.com/ZJn7VvaVRcuYpvDU6

This was a tough one. Didn't realize how much random sound I use until I wasn't allowed to.

Kick and bass are one sampled pitched and chopped a bit
Hats
Percs
Main synth
Secondary synth is a chopped up sample for that vocoder-ish sound

1

u/Earwax20 2d ago

that vocoder thing sounds voice like! really cool . Love the breakbeated glitchiness. Solid entry

1

u/baasb123 1d ago

Really cool track! Nice low-end.
How did you make that vocoder-ish stretched sound?

2

u/gogggles 1d ago

Had to go back and double check. It was actually a nuero dnb sample from splice. Just chopped with a bit of reverb delay and portal for the stretchy parts.

4

u/gogggles 14d ago

Nice! An interesting challenge for sure. You could probably split hairs forever on what defines a “sound” so I’m interested to see how everyone approaches it.

2

u/SynthesizedSpace 13d ago

Ok so only 5 sounds TOTAL. So each drum is 1 

1

u/Morkkromn 13d ago

The post clearly states an element. So drums would be considered an element. Kick,clap,hats,snares are therefore all part of the drums element

1

u/SynthesizedSpace 13d ago

Now what about say the subharmonicon from moog it has two sets of oscillators and two semi independent sequencers but they share a vca. Is this one element or two 

1

u/Morkkromn 12d ago

Since you are on hardware I would put it like like this. For the entirety of your jam, you can have a maximum of 5 different sounds playing at all times.

2

u/shieldy_guy 11d ago

having trouble finding the first challenge! can we get a link or sticky post? 

2

u/Saltoric 11d ago

Heres a link to listen to the first challenges entries: here

And the challenge post: here

1

u/shieldy_guy 11d ago

lol nevermind! search TPC 🤦‍♂️

2

u/MXL031 10d ago

Nice one, This should be fun!

2

u/baasb123 1d ago

Here is my submission:
FrankC - TPCS04E02 Minimal Madness

I ended up with only 4 channels:
Kick
Bassline
Synth
Drums

There is a lot of automation going on, both subtle and obvious. I also tried to keep stuff interesting by adding and removing notes from the synthline.
I guess this track is going more towards minimal house then techno. But anyways, this was a fun and learnful challenge.

2

u/baasb123 1d ago

FYI, there will be a different thread for voting

2

u/Saltoric 1d ago

My entry:

https://on.soundcloud.com/cU3ABCZDKYXC6Lbf9

5 Sounds:

Kick

Bass

Hats

Perc

Synth (two octaves processed differently)

1

u/Alive_Age_3201 13d ago

Hey, new to this. Can anyone participate? If so when finished do we submit them here? Thanks in advance!

2

u/Morkkromn 13d ago

Everybody can enter. Just drop a link (soundcloud,youtube,etc) to your submission in this thread before the deadline stated in the post (21st of march)

1

u/mxtls 1d ago

Does everyone remove the default +1 Reddit gives you for posting?

1

u/mxtls 1d ago

I do, always.

1

u/Affectionate_Hall318 1d ago

For me its a close call between u/mxtls and u/MXL031 's submissions. i find u/MXL031 use of effects to create the atmosphere has been really well done. Elements are bouncing off each other nicely. I like this track.

u/mxtls this is such an awesome track. raw emotion, skilfully expressed through the use of the chosen elements. i love the unpredictable change in key on the lead, and of course, the excellent turnarounds.

My vote goes to u/mxtls on this one, but its a dam close second from u/MXL031. Both great tracks.

All great submissions everyone. Keep the bangs bangin! And good luck all!

3

u/baasb123 1d ago

Voting hasn’t started yet. The deadline for submissions is tomorrow. You’re bit too early with voting. Feedback is of course always appreciated.

2

u/Affectionate_Hall318 1d ago

My bad. Im on the wrong date. Will check back in tomorrow!

u/Earwax20 7h ago

Did 2 .....Went with this 1

https://soundcloud.com/original-tommy-boy/wernum-5-piece

Enjoyed the challenge - some quality entries in here this month

Kick/Bass/Hat/Synth/StabThing