SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC061 September 2022 - Winners announced

[J.Golden12345]

Finally got it
Here's my entry to this SWC.


https://soundcloud.com/jack-golden-1119 ... al_sharing

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing


A little story about that one:
This is my first entry that I'm feeling able to have time, will, and strength to release.
The theme "devoid" caught me instantly since I was/am dealing with my mental health for nearly a decade. and the last three years (untill 4 months ago) have been hell.
I was there in devoid out of hope, my surrounding rotting away while the will to carry on or even get out of bed was gone.
Everything was just a fight against myself and searching for help without knowing anything only worsened it.
And so 2 days after my birthday I decided to go to a psychiatry to prevent myself from dying.
It helped me a lot and though I've also experienced some crap, it was good to know what the problem was.

So if anyone out there reads this, I can tell you this: search help and risk it all. Because if you're on the edge of losing yourself taking that risk is worth it.
It's ok to b afraid, but don't let your fear and desperation kill you. And if you can't do it on your own, get someone who can help you. It's not a shame to take help. A shame is to shame so much, that you might avoid help.
Good Luck and keep your head up

To everyone else: hope you enjoy the song

Tiny addition, heres my equipment (DAW was Reaper) and recording/composition progress:

Drums: audiolity samples (free dubstep pack) spliced into Sitala
Chords: Massive (Angkluster) & Spitfire Labs (Soft Piano)
Synth lead: Massive (Darkseed Balls)
Wobble: Massive
Rest of the Sounds (Glitter Pad, 808 Bass, Bell 2, Synthleads) :
Vital (Glitter Pad & 808 Bass own designed)

Vocals: Behringer C1 Mic, Neutron Compression, Stock Compressor, Stock Eq, SUM Channel
for Saturation, Room Reverb on Send & Delay sidechained.

Background Vox: different vowels & octaves

Main automation: Moog LP Filter JS, Noise Ash Speaker Sim (Telephone Emulation),
Pixelator (Bitcrusher), Objeq Delay


Main Recording Process:
1. Beat first in 7/5,
2. adding chords, lyrics, piano,
3. Chorus in 4/4, adding a wobble and multiple bells.
4. Doing the Bridge with chords and leads
5. adding bass
6. Arranging the instrumental
7. recording the main vox verses and pre-choruses
8. recording all chorus vocals
9. automating with bitcrusher and speaker sim
10. mixing

[EsteveCorbera]

How do I upload an entry? via soundloud?

Yes, through soundcloud or share the archive through Google drive. It must be some space on the other participants so we can download

[EsteveCorbera]

Awesome, you're really getting better month by month.

I like the bass and how it in some sort of way provides the main melody line. But now it's quite far away dwelling in the midst of tails of other instruments. I would test what would happen to the sound stage if the bass was closer and 3 dbs louder.

Check those end notes of the bass lines at 0.26, 0.39, 045, 1:01, 1.16 etc. As if something is out of tune. Could it be that the correct bass note blends with extremely long reverb tails of previous chords, giving the out of tune feeling.

For some reason I'm not a big fan of using pseudo-lady as the main instrument.

Thanks Olli H. Thanks to you I'm learning.
I have made some changes to my song following your recommendations.

You can access the changes through the original post

Thanks

[PocketSunlight]

Interesting entry. I think there's some timing issues and the drums seem a bit too upfront - good effort, none the less. Really loved the thumbnail too!

Finally got it
Here's my entry to this SWC.


https://soundcloud.com/jack-golden-1119 ... al_sharing


A little story about that one:
This is my first entry that I'm feeling able to have time, will, and strength to release.
The theme "devoid" caught me instantly since I was/am dealing with my mental health for nearly a decade. and the last three years (untill 4 months ago) have been hell.
I was there in devoid out of hope, my surrounding rotting away while the will to carry on or even get out of bed was gone.
Everything was just a fight against myself and searching for help without knowing anything only worsened it.
And so 2 days after my birthday I decided to go to a psychiatry to prevent myself from dying.
It helped me a lot and though I've also experienced some crap, it was good to know what the problem was.

So if anyone out there reads this, I can tell you this: search help and risk it all. Because if you're on the edge of losing yourself taking that risk is worth it.
It's ok to b afraid, but don't let your fear and desperation kill you. And if you can't do it on your own, get someone who can help you. It's not a shame to take help. A shame is to shame so much, that you might avoid help.
Good Luck and keep your head up

To everyone else: hope you enjoy the song

[J.Golden12345]

Thanks, I experimented a bit in 7/4 in the Verses & PreCho vs 4/4 in the Chorus, that's why it got that wonky feel.

[Rich_Rath]

Hi Everyone,

What a great experience this has been to get to listen to such a diverse and talented group of songwriters. Honored to be among you all!

I have finalized "All Empty," my song entry for the mental health awareness month songwriting contest theme "Devoid of..." -- a theme close to my heart. The lyrics track my state of mental health from a place as a teen after a major mental health episode devoid of everything but also a remarkable clearing out, responded to with a glimmer of hope /dreams and a final verse returning to the topic almost a half century later, still managing my neurodivergent self but with dreams still intact. If you are curious, this song is not much like my other music, but is part of my 16/61 project, looking and listening through my 61-year-old self to stuff I wrote, thought, or played when I was 16.

Entering the songwriting contest was a great learning experience and my track is way stronger for it. I'm glad I sent an early draft since it allowed you all to accompany me in developing it along the way this past few weeks. If you listened to it before today, I hope you will give it one more hearing as your input and my sweat equity have made it a much stronger track I think.

Thank you for all your wonderful suggestions, almost all of which I tried, and mostly implemented. The common refrain was to work on the timing of the guitars and vocals. I have tweaked timing on the guitar, bass, vocal, and 12-string, so I think it is much more coherent without losing the lively syncopation of the main rhythm guitar.

Here are: 1) the track in its final form (same link as first page), 2) the lyrics, and 3) up-to-date documentation.

I hope you enjoy.
~Rich

phpBB [media]

All Empty Lyrics:

► Show Spoiler

Well and my head it is all empty
My consc(ious|ience) disappear
my brain it is quite savaged
though my thoughts, they are still clear

My dreams they've all been broken
My plans all left behind
and I think that if I had one
I'd probably lose my mind

Dreams are fragile
to be floated with care
down rock sown streams
to dream is to dare

(Alright Grady, turn that thing on)
lead

Though my head it was all emptied
and my mind was barely there
my heart is fairly battered
but my dreams, I still hold near

I hold them near
I hold them near

Documentation:

► Show Spoiler

* Drums: various loops from loop loft bundle of brushes, "212_train" set, accents from Ben Burnes Brush sample pack., UBK-1 compressor
* Bass: Rough Rider Compressor, Brainworx Ampeg V4B bass amp VST
* Main Guitar. '62 Fender Jaguar, lower controls, neck pickup, bright off. Scuffham S-gear set to 59 Tweed, with touch sensitive distortion, so I can play crunchy clean most places, but dig in for a more up front distortion where it needs, such as the space between the bridge and the lead. Also put Waves Aphex exciter on the guitar everywhere but the very end to add some drama to the outro. No reverb or delay to put the guitar right up front in the mix. Just a little room ambience from s-gear to seat it in a space.
* "pad" guitar: choruses, bridge, and during fuzz lead: 59x12 Danelectro 12-string, both pickups, coil tap on bridge. UBK-1 compressor into Neutron 4 transient shaper to smooth out the attack. Analog Obsession fetish compressor with short attack to squash the transients a bit more, S-gear set to Jackal Neural Tone King amp played clean, going through a light chorus and some reverb.
* Fake pedal steel: a pile of stuff to delete the transients and increase sustain without distortion. Jag, lead pickup, bright off. A utility gain drives the input a little for the envelope follower which is next. The envelope follower passes through the slightly louder input note unchanged. It does nothing with the sound but sends a mod signal down the line. I'll say when below. TS1 transient shaper with the attack set to squish the heck out of the first quarter second and then boost the sustain. Then RoughRider 3 set 5:1 with a short attack and a long release, reinforcing what the TS-1just did. Autoswell light, which should lop off the attack by itself but has trouble catching the initial transients, hence the previous stuff. A second gain util, this one driven by the envelope follower to finish off the attack, then another gain to bring the signal back up after it gets totally squished, next is Neural Archetype Nolly on clean amp, followed by Arturia rev-140 plate reverb long decay, 50%mix, TB_barricade limiter with a few milliseconds of lookahead (which doesn't matter because without the attack, the note comes after you play it anyway) because if a transient gets through it will be super loud and needs to be controlled. Finally, after the limiter is Baby Audio Smooth operator to smooth out any mid and high-frequency resonances which built up from the other effects. Smooth Operator is set pretty drastic in stomping things out so that it really smooths over the playing to make it slide-like. Then it is sent to two send busses with a reverb and a dotted 8th and a quarter note stereo delay. When the watery hi end arpeggio comes on during the bridge, I added Waves BrauerMotion to let it dance round the stereo field a bit.
* The fuzz lead is played on pedal steel channel. I wanted a really old germanium fuzz (see the note on Grady in the spoiler on my original post), so everything else gets turned off except the compressor which gets fed to analog obsession Pedalz set to overdrive followed by free fuzz stone GE (GE for germanium) This got swapped out for Kaya distortion followed by Adioudamage Fuzzplus 3into a low mid-boost with a high cut on EQ8 as per Olli's excellent suggestion. Then on to the Archetype Nolly, still set clean to be a nice pedal platform, reverb off, both plate and send. The delay send is off for the lead until the penultimate note, then off for the last "surprise" note before returning to the pedal steel sound for the last verse and outro.
* Putting the fuzz way out front is the only way to roll here. Anything else, the fuzz just fades into the background. I tried Olli's suggestion to make the lead verse sparer by playing quarter notes and also tried tic-tacking the main rhythm guitar to mimic the bass. Either way, the fuzz guitar lost all coherence without the wall of sound to paint over. The chords are a "high and lonesome" version of the verse with a droning, banjo-like high note -- "bluegaze" (shoegaze+bluegrass) feel. I really like the interplay of the two rhythm guitars behind the lead.
* Vocals: Softube saturation, Ozone Neutron 3, slapback echo, send channel, set low: lowpassed offset stereo 1/4 note echo way down in the mix to seat vocals. Usually, I would accent a few places with backing vocals, but I wanted to keep the voice spare and lonely for this song.
* Mastered with Ozone 10 advanced, free Ableton Oxford Inflator clone, Kush Clariphonic mastering EQ.

All guitars and vocals, as well as composition, both music and lyrics, Rich Rath, drums as noted, programmed by me. Collaborator: My 16-year-old self, who has veto power over everything.

[aurelien.c]

Hi there, here is my submission, probably not really on topic as its more inspired by mental illness than mental health and being "devoid of".
It was a good oportunity to try things out and get used to softwares.

https://soundcloud.com/aurelien_castel/ ... edidentity

Public download should be activated.

[Mister Fox]

It is the 25th September 2022, 0:10 UTC+2/CEST - this month's Songwriting Competition has official ended


STATISTICS:

• If I didn't miscount, we have 12 submissions this month (4 entries more than last month, but also 4 more than September 2021)
• We have 0 submissions after the deadline (as of 25-SEP-2022 0:10 UTC+2/CEST)
• We have 0 submissions that has been disqualified (production released outside of the game's timeframe)
• We have 0 submissions that have been withdrawn (but counts as entry within the deadline)
• The "staff balancing vote" add-on rule does not apply
• "Sole Winners Podium" rule (equal or less than eight participants results in a single winner) does not apply (3-position Winners Podium)

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 12 participants. That means that each participant can vote for 11 tracks, the staff will will not cast a balance vote, unless there is a tie that can't be broken (or if it would add a bit more spin to the game, see below).

Please take note of the Rules and Guidelines (see post #7) on giving feedback (mandatory for all participants). Even if you already gave feedback prior to the deadline, please offer some final encouraging words, and maybe give some additional tips for possible improvements on the way. The only main criteria to drop out of the game, is if you do not participate.

Please cast your vote in collective form through the "spoiler text" bbcode. Please use the forum username of the participant to make it easier during the score collection to address what vote belongs to whom. To get an idea how this usually works, please take a look at the last two Songwriting Competition for how your feedback and vote could look like:

SWC060 - Song Collection and follow-up
SWC059 - Song Collection and follow-up

⚠	Moderation Message from Mister Fox
	For transparency: Due to time constraints, the staff (Mister Fox) will not give feedback to all entries and/or cast a vote this month.

Feedback from non-participants and/or collaborators 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.





Have some general feedback? Please provide that here:
Songwriting Competition - General Gossip Thread, or on Discord.



Please have an eye on this thread!

[Mister Fox]

Let us kick off the VOTING PROCESS, which will end on Saturday, 01-OCT-2022 23:59 UTC+2/CEST latest


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.


.

"Here For You"

"All Empty"

phpBB [media]

WAV (easy access): download

"Never Enough"

"Mental Health"

WAV: Google Drive playback and download

"Miten jouduinkaan tähän mukaan" (translation: How did I get involved in all this?)



WAV: Google Drive playback and download

"FakeJam(aica)"

WAV 24/96: Google Drive playback and download
MP3_320: Google Drive playback and download

"Depression"



WAV: Google Drive playback and download

"Love Takes"

Listen on SoundCloud (since the player doesn't work)



Admin Info:
The song can't be listened to/downloaded through the integrated web-player here on the forum due to a myriad of technical reasons (track must remain "private"). You can still use the following direct link to go to SoundCloud and listen to the entry in a new tab. Apologies for the inconvenience - but there is no other way. The participant agreed to loose out on a couple of bonus points due to this. Please give this entry a fair listen and suitable feedback.

"Meditactio12"

"Good Enough"



WAV: Dropbox playback and download

"In My Remains"



WAV and MP3 Google Drive download folder

"dissociatedidentity"

.



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


<no bonus entries>
.



GAME MECHANIC SUMMARY:

► Show Spoiler

Please consult the Rules and Guidelines (see post #7) on how your vote could look like. And to make it simple for me for counting the votes - please use the forum usernames in your listing. Thank you!

This month's SWC participants giving feedback to each other (to every participant) is mandatory. If you have collaborated with somebody, then only the one doing the main entry needs to give feedback and vote. Bonus feedback is always welcome, however. Ideally, please focus on the "overall experience", and what you think could be improved in a future release of this production (technical or even instrumentation), maybe even provide the occasional tip for mixing. Please be open minded, objective and constructive.


INFORMATION: If you have submitted your entry in multiple file formats, the statistic sheet (posted alongside the results) will focus on the uncompressed material first (WAV), then FLAC, then MP3. The higher the quality (e.g. lossless format), the less possible loss on bonus points for "Loudness Specs" due to offsets introduced by a used CODEC.

Good luck to all participants!




If you have an idea for a future Songwriting Competition, please post about this in the theme/genre request page.

[Olli H]

tried implementing them, but unfortunately at this stage I can't really "place" an instrument. The trumpet just sounded less loud, not further away, when I reduced the volume.

There's many tricks to do that effect. Here's some.

Slightly backwards in sound stage:
Use reverb where you can adjust separately early reflection and tail, Early reflection give ear a hint of distance of a close object. If instrument is near you hear more early reflections than tail. If you don't have such reverb, then use very short reverb. Same trick can be done with a short delay (mono or stereo). Reverb may be more natural but delay may sometimes be more musical.

Far behind:
Distance makes dry signal duller and compressed. Air is probably the most natural compressor and lo-pass filter there is. To mimic that, add for example a tape plugin so that no dry signal goes through, only wet. Or add lo-pass filter. Send that duller signal also to parallel reverb. No early reflections. Only tail. Or try long plate with predelay. Or long tape delay. Adjust the width of the reverb more to mono than full stereo.


If you happen to find nice impulse responses of different sized rooms with variable distances, you might do the trick with it. If you don't find, start with these
http://www.morevox.com/web/freebbie.html

The other thing I tried is to put a compressor with the voice as sidechain source on the trumpet. It is my first time experimenting with sidechain compression and I could not get it right for now.

Just automate the volume by hand -3 dbs. It's quick to do and result is natural. I use sidechaining with compressor only if I want to give room for the attack of snare or kick.