Re: [LAU] Proposal for 'lo-fi' music competition

On Mon, March 17, 2014 10:04 am, Lorenzo Sutton wrote:
> In light of the interesting discussion on sample rates I propose a music
> competition among LAU around production of music pieces with quality
> considered 'low' by current dominating professional/audiophile standards
> in the digital domain:
>
> Specifics to be discussed, but I would start with the following:
>
> 1. Final piece shall be delivered with a maximum sampling rate of 32kHz.
> Lower sample rates .allowed.
>
> 2. Final bit depth of the file shall not exceed 8 bit.
> - Possible variations/additions to this restriction:
> - allow dithering?
> - allow 4/8bit codecs (e.g. ADPCM, ulaw)?
> - mono/stereo?
> - simply impose a max duration and max filesize (but keep sr and bit
> thresholds... and variations..)?
>
>
> - Participants shall strongly focus on exploring and exploiting the
> imposed limitations in a creative and artistic way
>
> Other specs, voting mechanisms, competition arrangements, prizes, ... ???
>

A few ideas for the mix.

- (one of) The prize(s) could be one of these:

https://www-ssl.intel.com/content/www/us/en/nuc/nuc-board-dn2820fykh.html

They go for around $130. Add in HDD and RAM for approx $300 total. I'm
sure we could all pitch in to make that possible. $10 each x 30 people. or
$1 each x 300 people. There are several thousand subscribers to LAU/LAD
these days and all the associated forums/mailing lists and irc channels.

- Alternatively we could offer cheaper allwinner or rikomagik boards that
have been fully preconfigured with a custom Linux OS that actually works
(not android because that is fairly pointless).

- We could create a webpage for the competition and some banner ads in
various sizes and ask members of the community to host them on their
websites linking back to the main competition page.

- It might also be possible to get some of the other Linux Audio companies
to pitch in with license keys for various proprietary Linux software or
other physical hardware.

- Maybe some of the Linux magazines will be prepared to offer
subscriptions in exchange for promotional logo placement on the
promotional webpage/media.

- We could hold an awards ceremony/event at a bar/venue and live stream
the shortlisted tunes in a town/city where there is a large group of Linux
Audio developers. Possibly the LAC would make a good forum for such an
event.

- We could provide a permanent radio stream of all the entries hosted by
one of the community focused websites like linuxaudio.org or
linux-audio.com

- We could ask major global corporations who make ridiculous sums of money
from Linux Audio technology (ex. alsa, pulse audio) to contribute prizes,
money, resources...

- Perhaps one of the numerous car companies that uses Linux for their
multimedia system will be interested in contributing. For example, we
could contact Tesla Motors to see if they want to throw anything into the
pot. An umbrella, t-shirt, other corporate mechandise that they routinely
give away at other events.

- We could ask of the people who work on the audio team at Ubuntu to ask
his boss if he would like to contribute anything.

- We could ask one of the people who work on audio at Intel if they can
get a contribution.

- We could ask one of the people who work on audio at Samsung if they can
get a contribution.

- We could ask the Linux Foundation if they have any spare Tizen devices
floating around that they would like to contribute.

- We could ask Valve if they would like to contribute a new SteamOS
machine that runs Linux and uses ALSA for the audio system. Or maybe they
have something else they can contribute that is not worth as much to them
but will still have value tot he recipient.

We could do all of these things if we wanted to be organised about
promoting the competition.

I have time and resources but in the past when these ideas have been
suggested no one else wanted to participate so nothing has come together.

Maybe now there are some other people who have the time/motivation too?

--
Patrick Shirkey
Boost Hardware Ltd
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