SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC063 November 2022 - Winners announced

[Arelem]

The only comment I would have made would be about the mixing, but since you said that you are already aware and working on it, I won't. Nice track

You can give your comments on the mix you know
Maybe I was not thinking of the problems you found !

IMO the bass and synth are too quiet. The synth does come in and out though and seems to have a pretty good range of notes, so it might benefit from some loudness normalization. Not to prevent the in/out effect, but because of the variance in perceived loudness due to the note range. I can understand that you might not want it to be too prevalent but as someone who enjoyed the phase of EDM-Rock/Emo music (bands like Abandon All Ships and Sleeping With Sirens), I wouldn't mind it.

[Mister Fox]

A friendly reminder:
Including today, 7 days left to submit your production.

So far, we sadly only have 1 entry -- with some minor interaction.



If you want to access the extended game mechanics of the Songwriting Competition (asking for feedback during production), please try to release your first edits within the next 3 days to have enough time to get possible feedback (if needed/wanted) and continue to work on your song.

And to those sitting on the fence - please don't feel scared off and think "the bar is set too high, I will never make it" - maybe set yourself a shorter private deadline. Just make music, submit your entry, join the conversation. See where this goes. By joining, you're already a winner. The rest is bonus.



Bonus Info:
I've also updated the Audio Examples post (post #03). There are now 32 examples for the last decade, which are an addition to the Map of Metal, since this page only covers genres up until mid 2000s.

[becsei_gyorgy]

Hi all,

Here is my submission this month.
My goal was creating a "light" song in this "heavy" genre. A simple melodic lead that follows the chords, nothing complicated.
I still can't play a single note or chord on the guitar so I solved the guitars using vsts
I made also a lyrics video for those who are interested in the lyric.
I don't think I'll have time to do any more work on the song, so this is probably the final version.

phpBB [media]

► Show Spoiler

VST:
Addictive Drums 2
Shreddage 3
Uproar
Prophet V3
Spitfire Epic Choir

FX:
Pro-Q3
Maag EQ4
StandardCLIP
TDR Limiter 6 GE
MAutoDynamic
ReaComp
Acme Opticom XLA-3
SSL Bus Comp
SmartComp2
SSL X-Saturator
Saturn 2
RBass
RVox
Voxengo MSED

Seventh Heaven
Timeless 3
Gem Mod

Sonimus A-Console
bx_townhouse
Gullfoss
Oxford Inflator
Ozone Maximizer
Youlean LM
SPAN

Vocal:
Sings the song and contributes to the song: Vedrana.

[Olli H]

My submission
Olli H: Crawl!



I started this project by listening heavy music several hours during my log walks. Death metal seemed to provide a platform for different kind of lyrics. But for some reason — without any real knowledge of the death metal — most of the death metal bands sounded like a parody of death metal. Despite the fact that most of the time I'm a big parody of myself, still I didn't want to follow that path. Then I found a Finnish band "Children of Bodom". They sounded quite convincing, especially the singer-guitarist Alexi Laiho.
Quite soon I figured out that I couldn't learn any of Laiho's licks just by listening. But I realized that he used at least Bach and Vivaldi in his guitar playing. After listening several hours of Bach, I decided I would try to do a bachian death metal song. So, the main inspiration to this song is the arpeggios used in Bach's "Prelude & Fugue No. 2 in C Minor".

After I had found the preliminary melody lines, it was time for the lyrics - or the lyrical walk session. I started jotting down unrelated lines that came to mind and tried to follow the directions as to where the possible rhymes might lead. Pretty soon I realized that four themes keep coming to my mind:
- The God of the Old Testament tests man
- A deadly disease fights with a randomly chosen person
- A dictator is speaking to another nation that he has planned to conquer
- A force of nature that destroys the environment

So the end result is not a song about human relationships, but about the non-human evil forces that affect our lives. It is my description of what it feels like to hear the voice of an evil greater power attacking an innocent weak person.

DAW: Reaper
Vox: alter ego of me
Guitars: cheap and broken Kramer
Vst guitars: RealLPC
Bass: MODO
Drums: SSD

[Olli H]

Here is my submission this month.

Very convincing and cinematic submission. You have nicely used your strong sides to adapt to this months theme. It flows very nicely from one part to another. All the sounds are excellent. So, you surely now how to use your tools. With a quick listening I didn't come up with any suggestions. That said, maybe something could be improved with guitar solos' velocities and timings, some parts feel a bit robotic. (Well, actually also some of the fastest heavy metal guitarists sound a bit robotic in their super exact performances.) But the notes in those solo arpeggios feel perfect to me. But overall, those guitars are very well done, if they are midi based.

Where did you get that vocal track? Sounds nice. Did you write the lyrics?

The end result reminds me a lot about Finnish band "Nightwish", especially the period when the classical singer Tarja Turunen was their lead singer. If you have any plans to develop your skills in this genre, I recommend you to check their music.

[becsei_gyorgy]

something could be improved with guitar solos' velocities and timings, some parts feel a bit robotic.
...
Where did you get that vocal track? Sounds nice. Did you write the lyrics?
The end result reminds me a lot about Finnish band "Nightwish", especially the period when the classical singer Tarja Turunen was their lead singer. If you have any plans to develop your skills in this genre, I recommend you to check their music.

Thank you for your feedback.
Yes, my song could be improved in many ways, could be made different variations both in the bass and the rhythm guitar parts.
And the midi could also be improved, it's a bit robotic also for me sometimes.
unfortunately I don't have much time and I can't play the guitar at all.

First I made the drum bases and wrote the guitar chords, then I played the melody over it (with zero-g ethera). So when the frame of the song was almost ready, I sent the instrumental base and the melody part to a female singer who helped write the lyrics to the melody and recorded the vocal parts.

Yes, I know Nightwish, although I haven't listened to such heavy guitar music many times, but the epic style of music is not far from me.

I also listened to your song and again you managed to create it with very catchy melodies.
The solos are very good, the classical music inserts are neat
The song itself is very good. However, I feel a bit more like this rockabilly (?) style than heavy metal.
There are a lot of distortion, but maybe I'd try to make it sound a little "darker", I'd add more pronounced dark-sounding power chords maybe to make it sound a little thicker, more metallic?
Of course, this does not detract from the value of the song, because it is again inventive and I like the mix too.

[Olli H]

First I made the drum bases and wrote the guitar chords, then I played the melody over it (with zero-g ethera). So when the frame of the song was almost ready, I sent the instrumental base and the melody part to a female singer who helped write the lyrics to the melody and recorded the vocal parts.

Cool, you should add that info to your submission post. The vocals are so good and rhythm of lyrics flows so naturally with the rhythm of the melody that one automatically thinks that it's taken from some high-quality sample bank. Hopefully your co-operation with that singing lady continues for she can really make your song to shine, and at the same time she shows how good your production skills are. Well, now that I think it again, hopefully that co-operation doesn't continue, for if it does, I'll probably stop sending my homespun submissions here for the very reason that the singer that I'm forced to use in my submissions can't keep the pitch, doesn't have the tone, doesn't have neither highs nor lows, and worst of all, he doesn't understand how ridiculous he sounds. And if I say it to him, he just nods and says: "cool, let's do the next one".

I listened again your song. Maybe the balance between the chord guitars and drums+bass isn't optimal yet. I would try even 5-6 db louder those guitars just to notice that it went too high, and then I would drop the level couple of dbs. Shortly, try boosting the rhythm guitars 2-3 dbs. The level of solo guitars seemed to be just fine.

[Olli H]

I also listened to your song and again you managed to create it with very catchy melodies.
The solos are very good, the classical music inserts are neat
The song itself is very good. However, I feel a bit more like this rockabilly (?) style than heavy metal.
There are a lot of distortion, but maybe I'd try to make it sound a little "darker", I'd add more pronounced dark-sounding power chords maybe to make it sound a little thicker, more metallic?
Of course, this does not detract from the value of the song, because it is again inventive and I like the mix too.

Thanks!
Well, definitely not three-chord rockabilly, but there could be some 60's rock influences.
About guitars, I first tried to make darker and lower pitch power chords, but my attempts just didn't sound right. I just don't know how to make it right. The main reason for my skillessness in that area is probably the fact that neither my guitars nor my amp can be dialed up to 11. Actually, the use of inadequate gear could be a valid reason to disqualify me.

[Dear David John]

Thank you Mr Fox for a really sick theme. I could not let this one slip.
For this challenge I decided to write a metal track.


Any feedback or comments are always welcome.

File Update:




Hardware used was :
1. Electric Guitar
Musician: Dick Winters
2. Bass Guitar
Musician: Dick Winters
3.Piano & Synth ( Analog Labs - Vintage Upright)
4. Drums (numerous, have no idea)
5. Vocals ( mostly esophagus)

Other Production notes:
I have always been a fan of RATM and in my latter years BMTH.

Bonus Production notes:
No deceitful girlfriends were actually taken "To the Lake" for drowning.

[A Future in Noise]

Any feedback or comments are always welcome.

TIP, before I possibly comment on this more in detail (but it sounds excellent): If integrated LUFS exceeds -14, or if true peak exceeds -1, you are going to suffer a points deduction. But maybe this is the way you want to compress? And you don't care about points? Anyway LUFS-I = -10,4, and true peak = 0 in your song.