Lucent's In-depth OS Composer Tier List.

[LucentTear]

Yay, another thread I won't commit to.

This will be my in-depth criteria to judge recognized composers on this site. This is all I can think at of the moment, so if there are specific criteria worth mentioning, please drop a comment on this thread.

Keep in mind that I am judging composers that have a recognizable style to analyze and break down. This is only a handful of people on this site. More users will be added over time, once I have a better idea of how to grade them.



General Composition
Memorability - How easily a sequence can be recalled to the listener.

Composition - Covers chord progressions, technicality and layers of song depth. This measures the composer’s qualitative values in general to make a sequence sound complete as possible.

Song Direction - Determines how well a sequence generally flows on top of song direction being meaningful to the sequence. Contains proper transitioning and buildups, all sections of the song are thought of beginning to end.

Clarity - The crispness of a sequence, detects if all aspects of the song are easily recognized by a listener. Sequences can generate a muddled quality if not volume tuned appropriately.

Completion - Are sequences generally completed or are they small drafts most of the time?

Decomposition - Can the sequence be taken apart easily to analyze how it’s made?



Composer Preferences
BPM Strength - General tempo range that the composer appears to be comfortable in.

Instrument Strength - Instruments that the composer appears to be most comfortable.

Note Technicality - How sophisticated a composer is when arranging notes for one instrument.

Instrument Technicality - Ability to use instruments in general.

Effects - Conducting creative techniques with multiple instruments/note variation to produce an interesting effect that is non-mainstream to the site.

Genre Variety - Does the composer produce varied styles of sequences or do they stick to one genre?

Genre Strength - Which genres the composer appears to be comfortable in.



Composer Options
Percussion - Is the composer able to do percussion (well)?

Hidden Instruments - Does the composer use console instruments to experiment with them in their sequence (well)?

Timing - Does the composer use irregular time signatures or other out-of-the-box techniques to compose music?

Critiquing - Does the composer tend to give specific advice among other composers?


Additional notes may be added to criteria in case exceptions appear.

[LucentTear]

Reserved.

LucentTear
Wafels
JHXC
Jonah
Muhngkee
Eric
UTComposer
Guest
Jay2k
d-c-s-m
Crimson
XStep
mysticswe
Void
nameless

[Jonah]

this idea has good bones, but it's really unrealistic in most cases...

i mean, to critique not just an album or an EP, but entire artists is just...

In order to make a semi-correct assessment, you'd have to listen to all of their sequences.
My reason for believing this is some of the rules you made don't really make sense in the scheme of a whole artist.
For example, most rules in "General Composition" are rules that could be applied to a single sequence better than an artist. Decomposition (Bad rule in general imo) is a great example of this.

Genre variety is gonna make your life hell. After all, most people DO make sequences in a large plethora of genres. However, the majority of sequences they make, and the majority of the sequences you've seen won't be like that.
Why? People have to practice their own style... If they don't, then they don't HAVE a style. (Good thing you didn't make that a rule.)
So if you have to actually actively search for other genres... how are you gonna do that?
Are you trying to tell me you're actually going to sift through all 2k of Xstep's sequences to find ones that match what you're looking for? If so then bless your soul, but I just don't think that's a reasonable idea.

Worst thing about this is that applies to every time you want to find uniqueness within a composer. You'd have to look through all of their sequences, and keep up to date with the ones they add in order to maintain the thread, and that's just not realistic.

anyway, I know I sort of helped bring this kind of stuff to the forums a long time ago with the "feel free to post your own top 10, or top 5, or top 69" I put at the end of my "Top 10 composers thread" which lead to guests ranking system... and i guess now this...? Maybe there's no connection there. Anyway, point is I did pretty much the same thing. I won't try to justify that thread completely, because it was really *****ty. But the difference is that it was always intended to be just my opinion, not fact. I mean, I *****ing screwed up because I advertised it as "Top 10" which is always used for stuff like "Top 10 facts about the ocean!" and ***** like that.
Another problem with it was that people took it too seriously. I feel like I seriously offended people when i did that, when in reality it was just meant to flatter them.

there was a sentenec here but i realizedit was too personal for a publec thread... ugh
jesus ***** im so... idontevenknowanymore.

i literally hallucinated unicorns a couple minutes ago. well.. unicorn. not plural.

idk why i always type up rants when im least cognitively functional. maybe only dysfunctional peolple rant??

anyway, i feel like im leaving some stuff out, but i think you probably got my poinr by now some im just gonna pst it anyway and call it good. ***** im probably gonna regret this. i dont even have the brain cells left to fix all the spelling errors i got from flopping my hands around at the speed of light and calling it typicng

lol bet you werent expecting this on your thread lucEnt hahahah yuore atree now.

[blobertthebob]

Reserved.

LucentTear
Wafels
JHXC
Jonah
Muhngkee
Eric
UTComposer
Guest
Jay2k
d-c-s-m
Crimson
XStep
mysticswe
Void
nameless

What I'm confused about (not anything you've written, though I guess I'm kinda pissed I'm not on here (aM I nOt A reCoGniZED coMposer On ThIS sITE?) but I'm not complaining about that) is how Wafels, who's like 10 times better than me has just over half as many total plays as. I don't deserve these plays can I donate them to Wafels.

[Lopyt]

You forgot to mention all those spammers that add 10 pages to the logs. They are the bast composers

[Kirbyderp]

Reserved.

LucentTear
Wafels
JHXC
Jonah
Muhngkee
Eric
UTComposer
Guest
Jay2k
d-c-s-m
Crimson
XStep
mysticswe
Void
nameless

Honestly not surprised that I'm not on here. Mostly cuz:

Keep in mind that I am judging composers that have a recognizable style

I mean, hecc, even I'd have trouble trying to describe my own style.
Either way, super hyped for your breakdown of UTComposer.

[Lopyt]

I have no style. This is a fact.

[blobertthebob]

Same..

[Frank]

I'll rate myself for fun, probs inaccurate

Memorability - How easily a sequence can be recalled to the listener.
Neutral, probs my best category

Composition - Covers chord progressions, technicality and layers of song depth. This measures the composer’s qualitative values in general to make a sequence sound complete as possible.
Probably on the low end

Song Direction - Determines how well a sequence generally flows on top of song direction being meaningful to the sequence. Contains proper transitioning and buildups, all sections of the song are thought of beginning to end.
Really bad

Clarity - The crispness of a sequence, detects if all aspects of the song are easily recognized by a listener. Sequences can generate a muddled quality if not volume tuned appropriately.
Neutral, probs one of my strengths

Completion - Are sequences generally completed or are they small drafts most of the time?
Small drafts

Decomposition - Can the sequence be taken apart easily to analyze how it’s made?
Probs

[LucentTear]

Sorry for late response, I looked over this a couple of times and I was either too lazy to continue digesting it with my opinion or that I didn't have much to say until now. I separated this by main points of interest so I can hopefully elaborate on your thinking.

lol bet you werent expecting this on your thread lucEnt hahahah yuore atree now

I was already expecting this rant considering most of my threads basically just copy of off yours anyway.
Knowing that, I appreciate you being able to point out all the flaws on this thread, as I know there should probably be a lot of them. I can attract a Jonah raging in with criticism, easy.

In order to make a semi-correct assessment, you'd have to listen to all of their sequences.
My reason for believing this is some of the rules you made don't really make sense in the scheme of a whole artist.
For example, most rules in "General Composition" are rules that could be applied to a single sequence better than an artist. Decomposition (Bad rule in general imo) is a great example of this.

The first point is mentioned in the answer of the fourth quote.

Some of the things in General Composition can be labeled better, so it might alleviate a bit of the pain if I could be slightly more specific. Another thing is that artists do form tendencies, so instead of looking at every sequence individually, it focuses on their psychology somewhat? I'm not the best at explaining this, but there's a good chance that your definition of "the artist as a whole" differentiates from mine.

Memorability is heavily focused on the song's melodies (90%) and only a little bit of the things that makes it unique to the site (10%). Sequences with freestyle melodies have a harder time maintaining the list, while ones with specific and more memorable motifs are more likely to be high in this stat. Style influences memorability, meaning it does tap into the user's psychology.


Decomposition can vary on a multitude of factors, and there's no clear-cut way to determine the perfect answer for this statistic from just looking at the note count.

Some sequences can be really layered with instruments but still have a generally easy method of doing so. Other instrument-stacked sequences have these complex patterns going on that I can't even comprehend how it's done.
The same with piano, some sequences can have a distinguishable left-and-right while my sequences vary from having 2~5 tracks at one time while having notes intermingling between all of them.

As for Decomposition, maybe I can elaborate better by specifically applying it to the composer's better projects? It'd be no fair if I did it to their scraps and stuff of course. After all, this site is just fundamentally for getting ideas down, so there's no points taken off if their 120 note sequence looks really simple compared to their 10k godsend.

The above question can also apply to some of the other things listed in General Composition.

Genre variety is gonna make your life hell. After all, most people DO make sequences in a large plethora of genres. However, the majority of sequences they make, and the majority of the sequences you've seen won't be like that.

There won't be a one-size-fits-all genre to describe an artist, that much I can agree with.

However, I've noticed that even veteran composers on OS tend to hug their comfort zones, and that it's not too noticeable as a lot of them end up having a cocktail of genre-blending plus style to make it seem different from the mainstreams. I'd like to clarify that Genre Strength will be used to list out the possibilities of what kind of genre their work falls under.


"Comfort zone" is described differently per composer. Genre variety also draws attention to other aspects in Composer Preferences, since other criteria can indirectly affect how you rank on genre variety.
I'd also want to note that "Genre" not only includes the flavor of music, but it concerns different atmospheres as well (fast-paced, dreamy, melancholic, etc.) For now I can give a rough idea of how I might rank "Genre Variety".

A person like Eric, for example, would rank lower in genre variety due to his limited instrument choice and little atmospheric change when reviewing all of his sequences. He would rank around a 2 out of 5.

A person like Wafels would rank higher from frequently experimenting with instruments  in different scenarios. His style in general incorporates distinctly different genres as is, therefore he would score at least a 4 or 5.

JHXC would fit in some in-between, and although his stuff is mostly EDM-based (single genre) he has a large bookcase of experiments that it would be sensible to rank him at least a 3 or 4.



As a prediction, I think most veteran composers would score a 3 or 4 for genre variety. They have a specialized genre they are good in and try to expand it as much as possible with slight experimentation while staying true to their style.

Also keep in mind that I will spend the time to review a composer's profile for their sequences, and realistically, this chart would take a LONG time to update. (Combined with my lack of motivation as is.) If worse comes to worse, then I can just hunt down the user through Discord, piece of cake.

Ultimately this thread will end up being an encyclopedia of the above-average users of OS, since my analysis/personal interviews will be included.

Are you trying to tell me you're actually going to sift through all 2k of Xstep's sequences to find ones that match what you're looking for? If so then bless your soul, but I just don't think that's a reasonable idea.

Worst thing about this is that applies to every time you want to find uniqueness within a composer. You'd have to look through all of their sequences, and keep up to date with the ones they add in order to maintain the thread, and that's just not realistic.

As you said, sequences have to be up to date in order to maintain the thread. I feel this can suggest that I'm already able to bottleneck a bunch of their old sequences from the first few months of OS. I'm certain that I won't be able to replicate my style from 100k now, therefore it loses relevance in here, as this thread primarily focuses on the current trend. This also rules out a decent, and I say decent, portion of Step's experimental crap that he's done in the past.

Often, style stabilizes once a composer grows comfort into what they're doing. This also means that there's little chance that a drastic style change will occur, and if it does happen, then it will only be applicable to a few sequences. If it's the case that it is a permanent style change, then there still should be a good chance that they still compose in their stable style to an extent. I wouldn't have to have a complete makeover of their profile once I finalize the information.

Another problem with it was that people took it too seriously. I feel like I seriously offended people when i did that, when in reality it was just meant to flatter them.

I don't think anyone on the Top 10 were offended, especially DC since he kinda made fun of it by making his own sequence about it. I just think people who thought other composers deserve more attention kinda looked more disappointed in the list than originally anticipated. It's a Top 10 list, stuff like that should happen.

I hope this list just gives as much information as possible so that I don't look too biased, or that I'm excluding people out of the list. Eventually there will come a point that I can offer a good review on the frequent composers here, mediocre and good, but for now, I'm working with the best as they provide a clearer view of how they make sequences on the site.



Thank you for taking the time to reply to this, I've been kinda writing for one hour already, it's almost 5 AM here anyway.