SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC060 August 2022 - Winners announced

[Arelem]

... makes it a bit difficult to differentiate from the ePiano at times (especially with chords).

Thanks for your feedback, Arelem. Would you have prefered a grand piano over an epiano? One clean ( the grand p.) instrument and one with overdrive (gtr)?

It's in fact two (real) eGtrs.

Yeah, I saw that the guitars were real. That was my fault for assuming. They do sound real, so it wasn't meant as a knock there; I was actually complimenting how real they sound thinking they were synthetic. A grand piano might make it easier to differentiate, but the ePiano does fit the track really well. Without hearing it, that is a tough call for me to make. I think it has more to do with them occupying the same frequency spectrum than anything.

[Mister Fox]

Quickly joining in with this feedback, I also agree that the main concern here is the similar occupying frequency spectrum.

Unfortunately, this can't be prevented. And there is no definite solution. You (A Future In Noise) already to address this by using a strong Chorus effect on the guitar, and trying to push the E-piano off to the side. I think the difficult part here is finding the right space in the frequency range, maybe changing (if still possible) the attack of the E-piano.

But in the grand scheme of things, it gets the "cloudy"/dreamy/water feeling across.

[A Future in Noise]

@Arelem I don't know if real life is like the movies, if you hear a ping sound inside a submarine from the hydrophones in hostile ships coming closer. Anyway I got an under water feeling directly, but that could have been due to the fact that I had read the title: Under Water. Anyway: hydrophones, and then the synths behind, almost like noise, could be the submarine's engine. Good.

That deep bass beginning at 0:14, has it some kind of reverb to it? I almost get a feeling that's the case, when I listen in my studio monitors and sub. In that case maybe you should remove it.

I really can't comment on your choice of kick and snare. Is it supposed to be looked upon as snare? I don't make this kind of music, so I don't have any expert advice. Don't really have an opinion about extremely rapid hihat-like sound / rhythm instrument.

I had a look at the lyrics. There is a lot of water, here! Maybe I would have avoided to use both river and sea, and had instead picked one of those two. Although I understand this is metaphors and not a movement from the river out to the sea. The line “storm comin' on like a hurricane“ uses two words with very similar meaning (even if the hurricane is somewhat stronger). But is it a storm or a hurricane? And do the walls close in, out on the sea, over or under the water? On a ship?

Combining selfish and shellfish is very clever.

Your second, middle chorus is without percussion. A good idea to create variation. Also the vocals is handled in another way here (EQ/filter/FX). Sounds like he's trapped somewhere. Under water? So the girl left him. Too bad.

[A Future in Noise]

... kind of a long time to get to the good part so to speak. That's just my opinion though, so take it with a grain of salt.

Another tedious song with kick only on third beat in every bar. Killing me softly, Roberta Flack 1973

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4A5XuMz_Tw

[Arelem]

That deep bass beginning at 0:14, has it some kind of reverb to it? I almost get a feeling that's the case, when I listen in my studio monitors and sub. In that case maybe you should remove it.

I had a look at the lyrics. There is a lot of water, here! Maybe I would have avoided to use both river and sea, and had instead picked one of those two. Although I understand this is metaphors and not a movement from the river out to the sea. The line “storm comin' on like a hurricane“ uses two words with very similar meaning (even if the hurricane is somewhat stronger). But is it a storm or a hurricane? And do the walls close in, out on the sea, over or under the water? On a ship?

Hello,

Thanks for the feedback. There wasn't any reverb on the bass but it does have a phaser on it which might be causing what you're hearing. I put a freq splitter on it and passed the low end so that it's only effecting the higher freqs. My original post was updated to include that change; you'll have to let me know if that fixed it for you. (I wasn't really hearing an issue but I can see how it might have caused problems)

For the lyrics, you make some good points. If I have the chance, I'll look into re-writing and recording them. I don't know that I'll get the chance though. My house is quite busy and I don't have many chances for quiet lol.

-Arelem

[A Future in Noise]

There wasn't any reverb on the bass but it does have a phaser on it which might be causing what you're hearing. I put a freq splitter on it and passed the low end so that it's only effecting the higher freqs.

The bass sounds better this way. Now I can hear it's a phaser (maybe because you told me). Yeah, if you don't want a straight static synth bass, you have to modulate somehow, don't you.

[EsteveCorbera]

Challenge companions and Mister Fox, Good afternoon!!

I present to you my theme for this month's challenge.
This time I kept experimenting. The sounds have been chosen to represent drops of water. For the percussion I used water sounds, creating a different rhythm than usual.
I've created several layers of pads that modulate over time.
I have made a very simple melody that also wants to remind the falling water drops.

Thank you colleagues.

(translated with google)




Equipment:
DAW:
Reason 12

Instruments:
Kong Drum Designer
Thor Polysonic Synthesizer
NN-XT Advanced Sampler
Grain Sample Manipulator
Mimic Creative Sampler

Rack Extensions:
ProjectSAM Orchestral Sampler Filmscore Instrument

Utilities:
Combinator
MicroMix
Mixer 14:2

Effects:
RV7000 MkII Advanced Reverb
MClass Equalizer
Alligator Triple Filter Gate
ECF-42 Envelope Controlled Filter
CF-101 Chorus/Flanger
BV512 Vocoder
MClass Stereo Imager
MClass Maximizer

Players:
Scales & Chords

Other instruments outside of Reason:
Arturia Korg MS-20 V
Arturia Analog Lav V
Arturia Emulator II V

Other tools:
iZotope Ozone 9
Plugin Alliance SPL HawEye

Samples:
Boom Library Flowing Water

[KukoBass]

Hello everybody,

This month I'll try to upload my work in progress. I hope I find the time to edit and polish it a little bit before the 24thst.

Edit:
The final version can be found here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YLeugH ... sp=sharing

I wanted the melody to fall like water drops from a fountain.

DAW: Ableton Live 11
Slowly getting on terms with working in session view (I prefer the clip view).

Instruments and Effects:
E-Piano: Applied Acoustic Systems Lounge Lizzard EP-4, "Tine based Basic 1" preset (slightly modified)

Bass: My beloved 5-String, Ibanez Soundgear SR 505, recorded through a Zoom H4nPro recorder
Virtual Bass Amp: Softube Eden WT-800 with compression on 4

Melody piano: Native Instruments "Alicia's Keys", "Big Auditorium" preset
Ableton AutoFilter: Low Pass Filter on 3,3 kHz
HoRNet Tape on "Japan 30 IPS" preset

Arpeggio piano: Same as melody piano
Ableton AutoFilter: Low Pass Filter on 3,3 kHz and High Pass Filter on 159 Hz
HoRNet Tape on "Japan 30 IPS" preset
HoRNet Spikes

Drums: Ableton "Acoustified Kit 2"
I changed from a one bar loop to a four bar loop with subtle changes in volume, extracted a grove from the bass, used it on the drums and quantized the drums back with 90 % because the bass grove was too sloppy.

Strings: Native Instruments "Session Strings Pro 2", Preset "Celli - Modern"

Master Bus:
HoRNet ThirtyOne MK2 on "Auto EQ" mode,
Brainworx bx_masterdesk True Peak,
Mastering The Mix "Levels" for detecting possible technical glitches.

Things I learned with this project:
Drawing in the rhythm of the shaker in MIDI drawing mode, divide some notes in half, randomize loudness for a more human sounding shuffle.
Using Ableton Live's Grove-Pool and Autofilter
Recording sounds of mineral water bottles and playing around with the samples (not included in the song)
Looping a sample from a fountain in Italy, playing around with it and leaving it out of the song in the end because it sounded like pink noise and I had no idea how to include it in a musical way.

[A Future in Noise]

This month I'll try to upload my work in progress. I hope I find the time to edit and polish it a little bit before the 24thst.

Interesting bass line.

Interesting chord progression.

Maybe drums and melody-piano a little bit too loud? Maybe 1 dB down and bass guitar (/synth) 1 dB up? Melody-piano gets a bit cutting for my ears. (Is it going to be replaced by vocals?)

[KukoBass]

Maybe drums and melody-piano a little bit too loud? Maybe 1 dB down and bass guitar (/synth) 1 dB up?

Thank you for your feedback. I haven't uploaded the new version yet, but I have turned the snares and hi-hats a little down and made the bass guitar a little louder.

Melody-piano gets a bit cutting for my ears. (Is it going to be replaced by vocals?)

Replacing the melody piano by vocals is a great idea. Unfortunately, I have no talent for singing, and also I haven't written any lyrics for this song.
This is literally a bedroom production. For singing, I'd have to move all equipment to the shower (and practice a lot beforehand).

I have now put a low pass filter on the melody piano and a high pass filter and low pass filter on the background piano. I hope this will make it sound less cutting.