Cableguys has announced a ‘preset contest’ for their Curve synthesizer for Mac & Windows – Kick It:.
Download the latest Curve demo, create one or more good kicks, and submit your creation from within the demo version to Curve’s online preset library until Sunday (February 6th).
We will then choose our favorite kick. Its creator wins a license of Curve.
Of course kick drums are not what we had in mind when designing Curve, but that might make it even more interesting.
I like the idea and its bound to give some extra attention to their product. However, I have to wonder if this is really feasible. I mean; when going over their website it appears that you can download a demo version but they don't have seem to have something like a demo license.
Meaning; you'll be using a demo version which cannot save your presets (the other limitation is one instance per song). I think this is a rather hefty limitation if you're going to try and do sound design on this thing. First I'd need a few hours to get slightly familiar with the product, then I'd be ready to try and create something more useful.
But I don't think its very appealing if you can't save anything. Suppose I run into something which I think to be interesting sounding while I'm demo'ing it? Then what? Freeze the whole thing somehow, try and get a new instance loaded and continue playing on that ?
And that's not mentioning another aspect; that you're basically going to spend several hours on something you'll eventually need to throw away. Even if you might be tempted to buy the program later on. That too doesn't sound too appealing to me…
Just my 2 cents here mind you.
@SynthFan: You cannot save your sounds in the demo, yes.
But you can add them to Curve's preset library and upload them to the Cableguys server from within the software.
We've heard that people get familiar with Curve within a very short time; also hallway tests that we did proved this.
Sure you can probably upload 'm, but that is not the point . But no offense: what good does that give me? Can I still reclaim my preset afterwards ? iow; suppose I pick up a license after trying the demo, is this preset still available or not ?
When I do sound design I *never* achieve my goal in one continuous run.
And that is what I think the whole contest is flawed since you cannot save and retrieve your work so that you can work on it again at a later time.
This isn't solely about becoming familiar with the software, but also regarding sound design in general.
Ahhh queet yar whinin' matey 'n jus model a fookin' keek drum, aight?
Yes, all presets that you upload with the demo version are still there when you get the full version; you just need to sync once and you get it from the online database.
In the full version you can save your preset via your host sequencer and add it to the preset browser at a later point if you wish. As soon as it's added to the preset browser, it will as well be added to the online database when you press "Sync presets".
There is a wish to be able to add presets to the preset browser while keeping them private, and it is one of our top todos. We will add this within the next time with a free update.
So there is two reasons to not add a preset to the database: Either (A) because you do not want it to be public or (B) because you think it's not good yet. As said, (A) will be implemented soon, and for (B) I think you should not be too cautious. If the preset is not good, users will rate it low, and it will be filtered away if you set the filters to show only presets with a good rating. And maybe someone else will pick up the preset and turn it into a better one, improving it for all.