Hello, and congratulations to the winners !
It was a great experience for me, especially in terms of feedback : thank you all !
While I totally agree my submission was borderline, I would like to add a few bits of information here and there.
I didn't originally did this for the songwriting challenge but for a friend, who gave me the idea of doing a "soundtrack". And the inspiration was a video game called "Katana Zero" (at least for scene 1 and 2, scene 3 being some kind of... digression). Since the game aesthetics is 100% 80's/synthwave, you know why it ended up sounding like this...
And if it's called "Scènes", it's for a reason xD (there are 3 scenes by the way).
:::Scene 1:::
I started with a bass line, and some inverted chords for scene 1. To add variety, the first drums to enter are from a DR660. And since I HATE the sounds of electronics drums, I layered Superior Drummer behind, with some samples I recorded for my work (Mapex Saturn V 22x20 :: Coles 4038, Mapex Hydro 13x7 :: M130/160 pair + Coles 4038).
Sending these samples to several reverbs is one of my favourite snare sound !
Then enters the lead guitar... This was a "risk" given the topic of this month, but it seemed to have paid off ! I don't have a MIDI keyboard with pitch bend/modulation wheel, making it quite hard to write interesting and "musical" parts (oh, and it does not have velocity either
). I am more "fluent" with a guitar anyway...
For all scenes, the melodic lines were improvised, until something interesting came out. In terms of workflow, I used a simple method : record 5 different takes, comp (or drop) and iterate until ready.
Even if I have a very solid melody at one point, I would record another take just to be sure I cannot improve on it. 5 is an arbitrary number to avoid making 798 takes.
If you listen (not so) closely, you can hear glitches in Scene 3 : the computer was overloaded during recording but I was happy with the vibe of the take so... I kept it...
By the way, if someone wants to have a guest solo on their track, you can send a PM
The harmony for Scene 1 is very simple ! On repeated bass line (which is basically A,C & G ~ A minor), pads are added, with the following progression : A-, Csus4, C/E, A- (at least, that's the way I think of it). It gives an certain ambiguity while being very simple.
For the transition to scene 1 to scene 2... I wanted to have the siren sound as a transitional sound between the parts, but I couldn't find any samples. Then it came to my mind I could use a scene where there is such sound ! And here it is :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFjsgvUuEUY (from 0:30 to 1:25, quite dark when you think of it). The siren was extended with copy/pasting.
The other samples are from the Dannasko anime pack, and were meant as private jokes (I have said it at the beginning of the post, this wasn't meant to be a SWC candidate at first).
Fun fact : I tried to used these samples as chopped vocals (S3RL-style). It didn't really turn out well, so it got scrapped. But that explains anime ad-lib here and there.
::: Scene 2 :::
Scene 2 has a small modulation from A minor to D minor (trying to make a clear transition) but it doesn't mean I knew where I was going. Until I listened to Invisible Touch and In the Air Tonight (I like this era of Genesis (and Phil Collins solo albums too)) so what ?
). The idea to have some kind of tom hook made it's way, to complement the a slightly syncopated bassline.
The harmony here is D-|%|Bb|%|A-|%|G-|C#o . The diminished chord at the end is the "key" of the key change between scene 2 and 3. The transition here is D minor to Bmajor
::: Scene 3 :::
Scene 3 is just based on the "introduction" sample ("Daisuki desu"...). Following the implied theme (rather than the one built by scene 1&2), I ended up with a more mellow and "cute" (I love sparkly synths and arps for this) scene, while trying to keep some kind of consistency with the sonics of the earlier scenes.
Harmony wise, it's a cliché : B|%|E|%|G#-|C#-|F#sus4|F#. But it sounds good, and cute. Cuteness is good. For added cheesiness, add strings and piano to taste.
Ending with the beach noises is actually a cheap way to mask the fact I was completely lost.
::: Overall :::
Why I agree the structure is odd (at best), it was a conscious choice. In terms of sonics, I did not stray very far from what I know (i.e. heavy rock...) in order to keep some kind of control of the production. For me, going with lead synth was too risky : not enough benefits with my current knowledge.
I don't write with "emotions" in mind in general. Which means I need to start somewhere. As I wrote at the beginning, the main bassline inspiration came from [
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P196hEuA_Xc] : it's close to plagiarism too... Then I would build on this by adding parts : pad here, an arp there, just like legos... Add a beat at some point for punch. You are done.
When I write with an "emotion" in mind, it can get cliché very fast like scene 3. Actually, the process stays almost the same but rather than using an existing song, I would rather follow what my brain finds appealing. Since it was trained on a mix of Phil Collins, Steve Hackett and Arch Enemy, it went.... sideways ?
::: Conclusion ::
Thanks for the feedback ! Maybe you will find something useful in this post !
I especially liked the interpretation you guys had on this song ! It's funny to see how the same thing can bring such different interpretations !
Congratulations to the winner for some outstanding productions !
The winners podium consists of:
