January Challenge: 10-Second Sample

December 19, 2014 5:37 AM

The January Challenge: 10-Seconds of Something

It feels like time for a short and sweet challenge after the epic Flood cover fest. So, slightly in advance due to the possibility of having no wifi over the last part of December, please prepare yourselves for January's 10-Second Sample challenge!

Inspired by a suggestion by Jimbob and fueled by the magnificence of this track (I know, it's not ten seconds, but it's like three words), this month the challenge is to record ten seconds of something and make music from it.

You don't have to use the sample whole, you can repeat it or use it once, you can distort it, mash it, stretch it, you can walk it home straight from school, but you have to use ten seconds of something.

Enjoy, and please tag your submissions with MeFiMusicChallenge and 10SecondSample
posted by greenish (11 comments total)

How stringent is the "10-second" thing? Can the sample be quite long? Can more than one sample be used? Also, you might want to post this over in MetaTalk where more folks might see it.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 11:01 AM on December 23, 2014


Strictly 10 seconds, but you can repeat it if you like.

We don't post every challenge over at MeTa generally, just the big beasts, so this one can be a quiet little one for musical MeFites to chomp on in the post-festive chill :)
posted by greenish at 11:03 AM on December 30, 2014


You're the boss ;)
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 11:05 AM on December 30, 2014


Nice challenge idea, glad I saw this in time. So, am I interpreting right that pretty much any amount of processing and slicing is ok?

Reminds me a bit of a challenge from a long time ago on the ableton forums where someone recorded various sounds from a water glass with a contact mic, it was super fun.
posted by advil at 8:03 AM on January 9, 2015


Okay, mine's done.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 3:06 PM on January 16, 2015


advil: correct. please feel free to take excessive liberties, as long as no more than 10 seconds of the original sample are used.
posted by greenish at 5:33 AM on January 19, 2015


Just finished mine. Thanks for organizing this!
posted by en forme de poire at 9:01 PM on January 19, 2015


I put one up here!
posted by advil at 5:40 PM on January 22, 2015


I think I may have misinterpreted the meaning of the challenge. I made this song using only a sample, without any singing or other instrumentation on top of that. Was I wrong?
posted by donkeymon at 9:32 PM on January 25, 2015


Nope, all interpretations of the challenge are welcome and it sounds like you've done a similar thing to advil. They both sound awesome.

Don't forget to tag your challenge songs though. Otherwise they won't show up on the Music frontpage. In this case, MeFiMusicChallenge and 10SecondSample.
posted by greenish at 6:17 AM on January 26, 2015


Can I just say that I was kind of expecting this challenge to slip by quietly after the bells and whistles of Flood, but there have been such awesome tracks posted, it's so great.
posted by greenish at 7:36 AM on February 9, 2015 [2 favorites]


« Older Writing is going somewhere, mastering sucks, help?   |   Red's On Strike Newer »

You are not logged in, either login or create an account to post comments