2024-MAR-01 Info: Check out Songwriting Competition 079 if you're into "Synthwave" music making.

SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC042 February 2021 - Winners announced

Thematic Songwriting Competition - recurrence: monthly
becsei_gyorgy
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Re: SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC042 February 2021 - Submissions until 24-02-2021 23:59 UTC+1/CET

#11

Post by becsei_gyorgy »

It was an interesting trip this month.
In the beginning I started to create strange chord progressions, lush guitar sounds with lots of tape echo, delay, reverb, I tried to create modal melodies, key changes as it is written in music encyclopedias :smile:
Then i experienced that i like it less and less the whole process and I decided to leave it all to hell and start making music that makes me happy to create too. I kept some of the instruments from the first versions and recreated the song the way I like it, even if I took it back from the psychedelic line. (After the previous (august I think) drum and bass competition, I promised myself I would never create something again that I don't really like or do not enjoy creating. :smile: )

The meaning of life? There is no joy without sorrow, in order to appreciate good things, we must also experience pain. The song is about this duality even without the lyrics :wink:

The mix isn’t as open as 'modern sound' would require, I took it back from both the sub and treble.

EDITED Feb 21



DAW:Reaper

VST:
Superior Drummer 3
Jamstix 4
MODO Bass
Musiclab RealStrat Elite
Arturia AnalogLab 5
VOX Continental V2
Wurli V2
Kontakt -
Shreddage 3
The Giant
Theremin
Ethera Gold
Shimmer Shake Strike

FX:
AMPEG SVTVR Classic
Amplitube 4
Fabfilter Pro-Q3
Waves SSL Comp
Waves VComp
Waves RComp
ACME Opticom XLA-3
Purple Audio MC 77
Trackspacer
Audiothing Wires
Valhalla Delay
Valhalla Supermassive
TR5 Tape Echo
Waves The Kings Microphones
CLA EchoSphere
Quadravox
BOZ Pan Knob

BOZ Hoser XT
Ozone 9
Gullfoss
Waves J37
Ozone 9 Maximizer
Youlean Loudness Meter
SPAN
gruskada
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Re: SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC042 February 2021 - Submissions until 24-02-2021 23:59 UTC+1/CET

#12

Post by gruskada »

Here's my entry, "Yesterday Is History". The meaning of life for me is living in the moment - not being tied down by the past, or worrying about the future. I quote from two public domain Emily Dickinson poems on the subject, and the title comes from another one of her poems as well.

The song is mostly in 5/4 with a few bars in other time sigs, but ends up more or less in 4/4. I wanted to represent the uneasiness of spending a lot of your life trying to figure out what life is all about with the offbeat rhythm. When you're older, you've got some stuff figured out and are less uneasy (hopefully).

I had a hard time getting the sounds of psychedelic rock, but I used real guitars for most of it to get a more authentic feeling. I didn't want to use sitar, but I wanted a non-Western feel, so I used the awesome free NI Yangqin for some of the fills.

The poems are read how I imagine a 60's beat poet would have read them. I recorded them when I was super tired on purpose, so my voice sounded lower, older, and wiser :-)

I took some inspiration from the Deep Purple song, "Child In Time", that Mister Fox provided as an example, especially in trying to craft a longer guitar solo that builds in intensity, while maintaining a hypnotic feel.

The genre is not really my style of music, but I still enjoyed writing it quite a bit.



Instruments:
Vocal speech recorded w/ a Shure SM58 --> Focusrite Solo.
Ernie Ball Music Man Axis guitar --> Focusrite Solo --> Amplitube 4
NI Yangqin
Minimogue LUXUS (Mini Moog emulation)
IL Harmor (organ sounds)
NI Scarbee Mark I (electric piano)
Arturia Pigments (subtle enhancement for guitar harmonics)
OTS Rock Standard
OTS Strat
IK MODO Bass
NI 60's Drummer
NI Battery 4

Effects:
Blue Cat Flanger 3
SoundDevice Digital Royal Compressor
Softube Acoustic Feedback
ERA Voice Leveler
Izotope Neutron 3
Izotope Nectar 3
Eventide SP2016 Reverb
Valhalla Room Reverb
Infected Mushroom Wider

Post:
Softube Tape
Izotope Ozone 8
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Mister Fox
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Re: SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC042 February 2021 - Submissions until 24-02-2021 23:59 UTC+1/CET

#13

Post by Mister Fox »

A friendly reminder:
We're in the final 24 hours to submit your production.


Can we exceed 7 entries this month? :thinking:
Shea

Re: SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC042 February 2021 - Submissions until 24-02-2021 23:59 UTC+1/CET

#14

Post by Shea »

I took the theme but also kept a real modern feel as I don't think the goal was to exactly replicate 60's and 70's. I was hoping to sing my own thoughts/lyrics but that was too challenging in the timeframe given... or maybe I'm just not a singer. Therefore I grabbed some words from Alan Watts off youtube (not illegal) and relied on his voice and wisdom. I took the challenge upon myself to record a lot of guitar and bass. Playing bass is new too me, however, I have played guitar for years so that helps a lot.

I hope to see more entries... this was such a fun genre

https://www.dropbox.com/s/rnmj86f6xynhl ... m.wav?dl=0

Bass - Played on Fender Jazz bass
Guitar parts - Played on Fender Thinline Tele - Guitar Rig 5
Drums - Abby Road 60's drummer (Kontakt) and Battery
Piano - Kontakt the Giant
Trippy FX sounds - Battery and The Riser
Pads and Pluck - Absynth
Organ - Kontak Vintage Organs
Vocals - Alan Watts off YT
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A Future in Noise
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Location: Stockholm, Sweden
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Re: SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC042 February 2021 - Submissions until 24-02-2021 23:59 UTC+1/CET

#15

Post by A Future in Noise »



Plugins: Modo Bass. Shorcircuit soft sampler loaded with a lot of drum samples, of which most I have a long time ago forgotten where they came from (free stuff on the Internet). Jazz organ from NI Kontakt player. Rock guitar from NI Kontakt player. Three true IR reverbs from Samplicity/Bricasti M7 imported into six different copies of Reverberate LE. IndependenceFreeFXdelay. REDTRON_SE (Mellotron VST). Velvet Electric Piano (Rhodes) (AirMusicTech). It wasn't exactly on purpose I didn't have time to finish this entry. Until 2:45 it sounds almost the way I wanted it to.
Last edited by A Future in Noise on Thu Feb 25, 2021 18:43 CET, edited 2 times in total.
Blang
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Re: SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC042 February 2021 - Submissions until 24-02-2021 23:59 UTC+1/CET

#16

Post by Blang »

Hi all!

I started this composition by adding some psychedelic ingredients to a list:

Myxolydian Riff
Dramatic harmonic transitions
Big dynamic changes
Crazy guitar solo
Tempo change / half-time

This genre seemed like a good one to try and steer clear from a standard pop song shape (which I often default to). So it was more a trail by error to see which parts go well after each other. I used a lot of pitch effects during this process to check which key changes work best. Sometimes I liked the glitchy sound the pitch effect had and kept it.

Yeah, “The Meaning of Life”; humans have been wondering about that ever since we had some spare time on our hands. Since we haven’t really figured it out yet, let us ask some sentient beings from another galaxy; See if they can enlighten us. But perhaps we will get more than we bargained for…

The paragraph above was my inspiration for this month's theme.

Here is my track:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XOCcDB ... sp=sharing
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Re: SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC042 February 2021 - preparation phase

#17

Post by Mister Fox »

It is the 25th February 2021, 3:45 UTC+1/CET - this month's Songwriting Competition has official ended

A very, very warm welcome to all new faces on the forum.


If I didn't miscount, we had 6 participants overall, which is 1 entries less compared to last month (7 entries), but 4 more compared to last year (2 entries). Please scroll further down below to read up on an update of the game mechanics this month for the voting process



The "staff balancing vote" add-on rule does not apply
"Sole Winners Podium" rule (equal or less than seven participants results in a single winner) does apply. (1-position Winners Podium)

There was no (number: 0) production submitted after the deadline
No (number: 0) entry has been disqualified (productions released outside of the game's timeframe)
No (number: 0) entry has been redacted



:arrow: How do we go from there?

Over the course of the next (hopefully) 24-48 hours (usually up to 6-12 hours maximum after the game has ended), I'll gather all links into one post and hot-link to that from the first post of the thread. Please, no more changes to your entries, but please do check your links that these entries are downloadable. We then perform with the final feedback and "public vote" system.


We have 6 participants. That means that each participant can vote for 5 tracks, the staff will will not cast a balance vote, unless there is a tie that can't be broken.

Keep the Rules and Guidelines in mind. As long as we're not exceeding 20 participants, let's give feedback to all participants and(!) cast your vote for all of them.

The Top 6 list can look something like this:
01 (10 pts) - Mr Moon
02 (09 pts) - Mr Sun
03 (08 pts) - Mrs Venus
04 (07 pts) - Mr Mars and his companions
05 (06 pts) - ...
06 (05 pts) - ...

Please take a look at the last two Songwriting Competition for how your feedback and vote could look like (sans the super technical information):
SWC041 - Song Collection and follow-up
SWC040 - Song Collection and follow-up

Please cast your vote in collective form through the "spoiler text" bbcode:

Code: Select all

[spoil]01 participant
02 participant
03 participant[/spoil]
Please use the forum username of the participant to make it easier during the score collection to address what vote belongs to whom.



Please also take note of the Rules and Guidelines on giving feedback (mandatory for all participants, failing to do so results in a disqualification). Even if you already gave feedback prior to the deadline, please offer some final encouraging words, and maybe give some additional tips for improvements on the way.

Feedback from non-participants is highly encouraged (voting not needed!). The same goes for entries after the deadline, or those that sadly do not count for the current running game (even if you've exceeded the deadline, why not post your entry regardless?). Musicians and Engineers are always after constructive criticism. This is what this forum is about.


:arrow: I also need to address an overhaul of the game mechanics, as introduced with SWC038. You can read up about the new concept here:
viewtopic.php?p=8957#p8957 (will be implemented into the Rules and Guidelines during Q1/2021)

Basically, disqualifications will only happen from this point forward, if you have submitted a production from outside of the game's timeframe and you're not participating in the feedback process. Everything else is handled through bonus points. This overhauled mechanic has been a test run from September to November and has been taken positive so far. If you don't want your bonus points go to waste, please update your posts with documentation by 3:00 (morning, German Time), and check that your files are properly named / downloadable.





Have some general feedback? Please voice your feedback/opinion/concerns here:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=97



Please have an eye on this thread! :tu:
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Re: SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC042 February 2021 - Voting until 01-MAR-2021 23:59 UTC+1/CET

#18

Post by Mister Fox »

Let us kick off the VOTING PROCESS, which will end on Monday, 01-MAR-2021 23:59 UTC+1/CET latest
Due to February only being 28 days long, that is in less than 5 days. Every participant should have gotten an SWC update newsletter.


There is a GLOBAL COUNTDOWN to check for deadlines.
Just follow this link: Global Countdown (on homepage)



Here is the collection of productions from all participants (in hope that I didn't forget anyone). As usual, if you click on the small upwards-arrow right beside the quoted name, you can jump to the original post and read up on the documentation for this production.


.
SoundBeing wrote:
Fri Feb 19, 2021 11:11 CET
"Don't Bail"

WAV: https://www.dropbox.com/s/55l484qhs5egl ... l.wav?dl=0
becsei_gyorgy wrote:
Sat Feb 20, 2021 23:24 CET
"Never Again"

gruskada wrote:
Tue Feb 23, 2021 03:43 CET
"Yesterday Is History"

Shea wrote:
Wed Feb 24, 2021 21:30 CET
"Living The Dream"

WAV: https://www.dropbox.com/s/rnmj86f6xynhl ... m.wav?dl=0
A Future in Noise wrote:
Wed Feb 24, 2021 21:38 CET
"The Meaning of Lifre"

Blang wrote:
Wed Feb 24, 2021 23:48 CET
"Interplanetary Explanator"

WAV: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XOCcDB ... sp=sharing
.



BONUS ENTRIES (submitted after the deadline - feel free to give feedback, but you sadly can not vote for these entries)


<no bonus entries>
.


Please consult the last post of how your vote could look like (which links to more sources). And to make it simple for me for counting the votes - please use the forum usernames in your listing. Thank you!

SWC042 participants giving feedback to each other (to every participant) is mandatory, else you will be disqualified. Please also keep the bonus point game mechanic in mind.


Good luck to all participants! :tu:




If you have an idea for a future Songwriting Competition, please post about this in the theme/genre request page
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A Future in Noise
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Re: SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC042 February 2021 - Voting until 01-MAR-2021 23:59 UTC+1/CET

#19

Post by A Future in Noise »

now more documentation
Blang
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Re: SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC042 February 2021 - Voting until 01-MAR-2021 23:59 UTC+1/CET

#20

Post by Blang »

Hi Everyone,

The sky was the limit this month and I think we reached it and enjoyed it!
I hope you find something useful in my thoughts.

SoundBeing - "Don't Bail"

Nice rock opening, some “When the levee breaks” inspiration perhaps. Cool haunting vocal melody, and voice! Heard some beautiful 90's grunge angst in that performance. Reminded me of Pearl Jam at times. So I would put it more in the (grunge) rock category than psychedelic rock, but it's rock nevertheless.
I would have liked some extra dynamics. The chorus could have even more impact if the verses were taken back a bit. Or perhaps add another, more distorted, mid-focused guitar in the chorus for extra beef.
Cool track! To really make it feel like a finished track I would prefer a third part; bridge or solo, preferably with some new chords. I hope you do it :)
Nerdy, less important stuff:
Might be a bit bright and mid-scooped for the genre, but that's nitpicking and very subjective. On second listen, I believe it is the level/tone of the cymbals that make it sound bright to me.
Good stuff, don't bail out man!

Becsei György - Never Again

Cool use of theremin for spacy, spooky 60's vibe.
The groove difference of swung 8ths in the drums and other thing straight 8ths (the guitar echo) was a bit too much for me, especially so early only. Later on the groove settles in, still fairly loose, but I find that very fitting to the style.
Around 2:40 I thought “What should I be listening to?”. There was plenty going on creating a nice vibe, but nothing really taking the lead. When the double time part comes in there is a clear theme. Interesting, on the one hand the Balkan feel (I could be mistaken here) didn't really evoke the psychedelic mood for me, but since it is common for this months genre to blend in other styles, it actually does fit; Just not in a traditional way (like using Indian elements).
Having a full, layered arrangement is definitely one of the hallmarks of the genre, but guiding the listeners attention would highlight your cool themes even more. Let me elaborate:
For example around 1:50 the right guitar presents a theme, the left guitar is doing some variations on it and than there's the shredding organ in the middle. That's quite a lot to take in, especially because they roughly have the same level and are in the same frequency space. Making one noticably louder and/or brighter than the others will help you get more clarity and separation. Volume automation can also be you friend in these cases; for spotlighting certain events.


gruskada - Yesterday Is History

Cool mysterious theme, very phygrian. The extra guitar shredding at the be beginning feels kinda out of place at that moment; we've just established the mood and we're not yet on our epic rock climax.
The voice (around 1:50) is quite loud en full sounding. Since the beat is already relatively soft, this kinda disrupts the groove. You do do you have the spacy effects on it so I don't think is has to be loud to get that psychedelic vibe from it.
Nice, I like the transition into major around 1:40; quite surprising, but fitting.
Hmmm, noisy outro felt too uuh... noisy for me. Or perhaps just too long. Be careful because it's mostly the end that people remember. However, when going for this type of chaos, fade out approach, you could try fading out the drums first and leaving only its reverb (send pre-fader in that case).
Nice job for taking on an odd time signature. In those cases I think its even more important to give extra care to the groove. In the 0:53 section the hi-hat feels a bit rigid; even dynamics throughout. If the has more accent on the on-beats (1,2,3,4 and 5 in this case) and less on the off-beats, that would help I think. Or perhaps more open hi-hat and leave out the 8th notes for that half time rock vibe (“When the Levee Breaks”).
All guitars seem somewhat in front of the beat most of the time. You could try nudging them all 10-20ms back or perhaps all drums forward and see how that feels. I'm a guitar player as well and in my experience guitar players are more often early than late. We just get so excited! :)


Shea_Living The Dream

Cool a steady groove. Yep, that groove fits well with the title.
Hmm, this combination of the drum, bass and high drone note, with occasional bend kinda gave me a triphop vibe.
The riser at 1:20 does what it should do, but feel out of place in this genre. Kind of an anachronism. But as you mentioned, you kept a modern feel.
In the sections that starts at 2:10 and 3:45 the A on the bass is quite persistent and becomes a bit tedious a times. The rest of the bass uses pentatonic blues licks. You could try and mix with it up by using a walking bass there or alter the rhythm.
2:10 section" Cool use of effects here. Some classic reverse and fuzz tones and some modern elements. Neat! Cool fuzz solo sound! Reminiscent of The Doors in a way.
The voice intermezzos work really well IMO. Good use of dynamics, the groove keeps going, but you spice it up just enough so it doesn't get boring.
At 3:43 there is a a flam on the drop that prevents it from getting on the radio. Awwh shucks :P (on a sidenote: "flam on the drop" sounds pretty funny to me)
It depends on what your going for, but if you want to make it feel more 60's/70's you could make the bass less bright and add some (tape) saturation. Or use a bass with flatwound strings.
I began to like like it more each time I listened to it. That's probably a good sign :D

AFutureInNoise_TheMeaningOfLifre

I kept on hearing “the meaning of life” but the title says “The Meaning of Lifre”. I really wanted to know what “Lifre” means. Alas, I guess I'll never know...
Just messing around :P Let's get to it.
Classic mellotron flute and tasty towel drums really captured the 60's vibe.
Really dig that phaser/uni-vibe on the rhodes on the left. I like how all the instruments are introduced one at a time; Very story like.
Cool that is has a lot of different parts. However, the transitions do feel a bit clunky to me. Especially because it transitions the same way three times in such a short track. It would be nice if some sort of groove element keeps on going when going to a different part.
Production wise, you practically checked all the 60's boxes, except for the vocal sound IMO. These are generally a lot thinner - a HPF at 200Hz is a good starting point - and some (fake) double tracking will give you instant 60's mojo. It might sound trivial, but because all other elements neatly capture that vibe, I think it would really tie it together.
Awwh, fade out, so soon? Did not really feel finished to me. Hmm, weird but because I do think you have enough different parts. Maybe it's just that the final parting feels more like a beginning than an ending.
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