Didn't mean to create another format suggestion thread shortly after my previous one. But since field recording is currently being allowed in the Appreciate Nature battle under the allgear umbrella, it feels like an unprecedented opportunity to suggest the change.

allgear is described as a music and, specifically, as a mixist format. It's for using any tools to "create your piece" and "mix music from scratch". But we know that's not what field recording is.

while I agree that the definition of allgear isn't quite fitting for field recordings, I don't think we need another format simply for "put ur mic somewhere and press record"

allgear and visuall both kind of work as catch-alls where it's also okay to sometimes have a more restrictive/specific bitpack. though there's maybe an argument to be made for the "sample" format here, its filesise limit is restrictive (so not conducive to potentially long recordings) and there's no plan to associate them with a remix or anything

as a lover of field recordings i would obviously *enjoy* a separate format but broadly speaking i personally don't see the need

wildgear

Who wouldn't want a format called "wildgear"?!

Also, kleeder, that would be the same as dismissing the photo format as simply pointing the camera somewhere and taking a pic. But there's much more than that: a lot of techniques, a whole vocabulary to learn that is inherent to photography.

Likewise, field recording is it's own thing in a number of ways. For example, you must consider if unwanted noise is getting in the way during the recording and, if it is inevitably getting in the way, there are steps to remove it depending on what the noise is. That's the practice of noise removal, which occurs during the post-production phase after you chose your favorite recording. So, it's not as simple as it seems.

Then, if you still think field recording is too passive of an activity, there's the cousin art of foley: recording your own sound effects for a movie by playing around with everyday objects like fruits and vegetables, among other things.

After hosting a few photo OHBs, I realized there's something special about getting up from your chair for a mini battling adventure. So at least a general sound recording format would broaden the horizons for that unique experience. Have some ambition!

imo no this wouldn't be a good format

photo makes sense to have as its own format as photography is its own skill that many people do partake in frequently and often casually too. very easy to rank in an ohc (what looks better, what follows the theme, which you prefer etc)

field recording is a very specialized field within recording that would not make sense to have as its own format. how do you rank them in an ohc for example? i wouldn't know how to and i imagine you dont either, there's very little criteria to actually go off of.

like, my interpretation of field recording is literally, nature's background noises imprinted in a medium to be recalled later (if it's in nature, if it's in man-made material then man-made background noises)

Mel, like I said, there's literally a field recording battle happening in a major right now. The fact that this is a thing is enough proof that it merits some discussion in which it's possible to evaluate a field recording entry as better than the other.

Which recording sounds more pleasant to the ears? And which one sounds harsher? Which one has extra sounds getting in the way that one may find undesirable (wind noise, mouth clicks, static) and which one doesn't? Does the recording shares one's preference for cricket sounds or someone's else's for rain sounds? Part of the criteria may also take a specific bitpack into account.

ahhh this is interesting but i think this does not need a new format for it.
i think the analogy you used is not fitting for this either. by your reasoning, it is equally positive to create a guitar format because it was in a major, or a band format because it was in a major.
while i appreciate trying to split up the large formats, this one particular seems unneeded. instead of formats, additional restraints is what bitpacks are for.

1) field recording was added to the major after one or two people asked for it. it was a 5-second-decision because i thought it wld promote the idea of actually leaving the house for my battle instead of just checking ur image archive for a nature-photo. you know, since people tend to have lots of pictures saved but usually no field recordings.
therefore, the thing to judge on those entries wld rather be the effort to get to the recording instead of the recording themself, at least imo

2) how exactly do u think the format wld work in ohbs? it seems to work well for photo, because as mel said, you can capture a lot of different things around u from different angles and zoom and focus etc.
field recordings are just meant to capture the sound around you.
which means you wld submit same-sounding recordings of ur apartment over and over OR you go outside and record your similar-sounding town/city over and over.

and then... what if the bitpack says "include rain", but it just doesnt rain rn?
what if the bitpack asks you to include sound xy, but sound xy doesnt exist in ur area?
what else cld a bitpack consist of for this format?
and even if you say that theres a lot of technique behind it, do you really think that the average botbr knows about it and wont just drop their smartphone somewhere and wait 5 mins, then submit that?
it promotes lazy low-effort work, especially in ohbs.
if you want people to go outside, you have ur photo format now, or you can simply use bitpacks to ask them to take a walk for the ohb.

it does work for the appreciate nature major only because you had a whole month of planning outside-activities. its not suited to be its own format

mioh, your comparison doesn't makes sense to me for a fundamental reason: guitar and band are music, so they belong in allgear by default. But field recording isn't music. You know kleeder agreed to this much, at least.

I am not suggesting the format because it's expected to be as popular as the recently added plaintext and photo formats. I am suggesting it because it's what makes sense, especially given that we have shown, multiple and multiple times, to be concerned about what fits a format description and what doesn't.

kleeder, since you are skeptical about how well field recording would belong in OHBs, and justifiably so, my answer is simply that it doesn't have to be a XHB format, but a major exclusive one like chip battle art or mix battle art. Except only to be featured in Appreciate Nature and future photo-centered majors.

while there's potentially some language edits on the lyceum that could better support the idea of submitting recordings of not-music to allgear, i feel like the 'restrictions on submit' section as-is basically covers this use case, and the format is intended to be an audio catch-all. (just, obviously we *do* focus on music here and this is an occasional outlier, lol)

Restrictions on submit



Generally, the resulting submission must at least be a piece of audio or something that can be played back as audio. In other words, anything that isn't audio is off limits.

having a format for majors only, especially if there's not much interest for it in the first place doesn't make sense to me.
changing the allgear wording to be more inclusive seems more like the way to go.

But since allgear has always been associated with music (precisely because there is little interest in field recording), I'm imagining scenarios such as an allgear trophy displayed in a profile and someone clicks on it expecting a music entry and gets confused when they realize it's a field recording.

And allgear is a very competitive format due to its popularity after all. So having it associated with something as contrastingly unpopular as field recording doesn't seems to emphasize the same symbolic weight of competitive display to me.

i see no reason for confusion as allgear is The miscellaneous audio format