SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC061 September 2022 - Winners announced

[Rich_Rath]

@olli h wrote:

In my small world there's only one Grady, and that's Grady Martin

LoL, nailed it. Here's your kudos. here's the scoop. Thank you for listening and looking forward to your comments.

[Rich_Rath]

LoL just figured out the rules...thought we were supposed to post comments from the get go. Plz delete since I don't think I can.

[PocketSunlight]

HI

https://soundcloud.com/pocket-sunlight/ ... al_sharing

Here's some extra details: -

Title Never Enough

This is a collaboration between me and myself!

The premise of the song lyrically is about falling short.

The song (lyrics and music) was written by me.

All instrumentation: Drums, Bass, E Guitar, Synths, Vocals, Backing Vocals (and anything else I may have forgotten) are played by me.

The Mixing & Production (in Reaper DAW) are my own sole work.

Instruments used as follows:-

Drums BFD3, run through a Reaper DAW ’parallel drum crush of General Dynamics and Event Horizon Limiter and ReaVerb (All Stock Reaper Plugins)

Bass – Guitar Rig 6 with Multi Compressor on different frequencies

E Guitar – Guitar Rig 6 x2

Synth: - Roland JX8P clone (PG8X) through a Saturator and ToTape6

Vocals (Backing & main) – Stock Reaper Plugins

Additionally used Air Windows ToTape6 on various components

Mastered through Reaper Plugins (ReaXcomp (Multi compressor) and ReaLimit (Limiter)


I currently record as Pocket Sunlight and have a YouTube Channel which features a large selection of my eclectic musical tastes (all written and produced by me).

For convenience, my YT Channel link is: - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbYb1Q ... LvbeoZuoAQ

Enjoy!

[Olli H]

Hi, here is my first entry in a contest, this one struck home for me.

I think you have a pretty solid song behind that chaos.

I like that age and rawness in your voice. It suits very well to this kind of simple, honest and a strong song.

Your song brings to my mind one of my favorites, John Prine's last recordings. I think he always had both the message and the humour in his songs. Just listen to his "When I Get to Heaven".

But to make your song to shine, there's one thing you should fix before doing the final singing. Your current version is a bit difficult to listen due to rhythmical problems. I'm quite sure that the drums and bass are just what they should be. But guitars have some bad timing problems. As if you had recorded them without properly hearing drums and bass. And that probably also affects your singing. It feels that you're not sure what to listen for the timing of the words.

That fuzz guitar solo is nice. How about making a bit darker, more energy to lower mids. And then give more room to it by playing simplified rhythm guitars during the solo, for example just quarter notes with downstrokes. And after the solo back to 8th note strumming.

[Olli H]

Hope I'm posting the link in the right place!

https://soundcloud.com/pocket-sunlight/ ... al_sharing

I was just walking in the rain and visited your SoundCloud. Lots of wonderfull stuff there. It seems to me that you "got a head full of ideas, that are drivin' you insane". Every song full of small details. Love it.

Not much to add to this song. Extremely good hook there. It's a hit. Or would be if we were back to 80's. Maybe at the end there's too many guitars playing. But actually it didn't bother me. If I remember correctly also all the transitions worked skillfully and naturally.

[PocketSunlight]

Hi Ollie

Many thanks for taking the time to give such positive feedback. Always good to get a different perspective on what I'm doing, as my eclectic musical interests/ approach to writing often ties me in knots directionally! There's masses more stuff on my youtube channel at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbYb1Q ... LvbeoZuoAQ Link given for your convenience. Cheers

[Rich_Rath]

I think you have a pretty solid song behind that chaos.

Thanks for listening. I actually tracked the guitars first then worked on the drums which is why they don't play nicely with the drums. That and I'm always messing with the timing in Ableton, which invariably does more harm than good, but gets things in sync enough to get the drums and bass arranged. so the bass and drums are kinda there, and I'll go back through and retrack the guitars again as you suggest. I'll try the other suggestions too.

[A Future in Noise]

.
Mental Health

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OnW9uU ... sp=sharing

Equipment

Real instrument: Cort AD 810 guitar

Plugins: ZynAddSubFx, Velvet e-piano (from Air Tech Music), Double Bass from the free Kontakt Player, Brush drum samples from Sonniccoture imported to the free Shortcircuit sampler.

Fx: TR5 EQ-81, Cockos delay, JX chorus (Martin Lüder's), two different reverbs from Bricasti M7 transformed to IR-files and used together with ReverberateLE (Liquid Sonics).

Lyrics:

► Show Spoiler

Mental health

The nasty weather
never ends
for weeks it has been raining
but outdoors – the

sun is so bright
that's my fight

I live among the shadows
I'm hiding from the summer – its falseness
its flattering ways

and although

my present occupations
don't even bring me words out of pity
this is where I will stay

They are attacking
once – again
my only contribution
is silence

I live among the shadows
I'm hiding from the summer – its falseness
its flattering ways

so listen

your overtures are needless
'cause I don't need your dirty salvation
or your wicked ideas

Hours and hours
nickels and dimes
maybe a meal
that's freedom

… this is where I will stay

[Olli H]

Hi,

MY SUBMISSION

Olli H: Miten jouduinkaan tähän mukaan


Download: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_I69If ... sp=sharing

Lyrics are in Finnish, and they are written by my wife. The words dwell in the thoughts of a man who cannot live his life the way he would like to live, but instead is forced to live another persons life without room to be himself. It's not a story but rather a still image of his state of mind.

So, when I started to think about this song, the rhythm of the melody was somewhat given in the rhythm of the lyrics. This song was finally born around my experiments with simple but not so obvious double bass riff and an easy but an unexpected drum groove. I glued them together with straightforward double note guitar riff played with Jazz Gibson. The result of my experiments can be heard in the first half of the verses. And also in the intro.

Verses are in the key of D-minor, but in choruses the song switches to D major. I like that energy lift caused by the key change from the minor to the major.

INSTRUMENTS

Electric Guitar: real (Gibson ES-165)
Acoustic guitar: real
Shaker: real
Drums: SSD
Double Bass: Trilian
Electric Bass: Modo
Synth Bass: Massive
Synth: Cherry Audio Voltage Modular

RECORDING
Electric Guitar was recorded directly in. Althought I have bought many amp-plugins, this time I end up using Blue Cat's Free Amp. After that small eq-adjustment and parallel room IR. Nothing else.

Vox, shaker and acoustic guitar are recorded with AKG SE300b omni microphone. I like using omni microphones. They can be used very close and very far, and they always give natural sound. I've placed it in within self made reflection filter. It's ugly but if works very well.

Virtual instruments: first I played the parts in with guitar, transformed them to midi, and then a little or a lot editing.

[Mister Fox]

Aside from posting a reminder (incl. today, 9 days left for submissions), I need to step in for a moment to clarify some things.



First and foremost, a very warm welcome to all new users on the forum and the Songwriting Competition @Rich_Rath and @PocketSunlight respectively). I hope you enjoy your stay, and can take away something from the experience of how the game is set up and working.

Which brings me to the elephant in the room - as I've been forced to clean up this particular thread for 3 days now, even just saw yet another deleted post, and one reported post with actually a review of some sorts.


I ask the new participants to bar minimum read the TL;DR Rule Set for the Songwriting Competition, not the one for the Mix(ing) Challenge, as this is a fundamentally different game.

You are allowed to release a late stage "work in progress" production, ask for feedback, and continue to work/resubmit (edit) your initial entry as often as you want until the deadline has been reached. On that behalf, users giving each other feedback on where to maybe improve or address something that might bother you post release, is part of the game mechanic of the Songwriting Competition. This is to encourage interaction, learn how to give and receive objective criticism.

After the submission period has ended, then we talk about final words of encouragement and casting a vote.

Please use the proper modes of the forum (edit, quote, etc) to post and/or respond. If you seem to have made a mistake, seasoned participants will be sure to point that out. However, the Songwriting Competition is laid out to be a fairly relaxed game with a lenient set of rules, and there are game mechanic reminder posts at the most important stages of the game.


If you got any more questions, please use the corresponding General Gossip thread, or reach out on Discord (gossip-questions-answers section)


Please enjoy your stay.