SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC080 April 2024 - Winners announced

[Arelem]

Hello Everyone,

For this month, I started out thinking about the prompt which led me to write some lyrics about a cyclical toxic relationship in which things were 'built up' just to be 'torn down'. I then used that to inform the intro and the breakdown in the middle of the song. However, I never was happy with how the vocals sounded (a symptom of me hating my own voice), and so I scrapped them. So ironically, the piece that most directly relates to the prompt is no longer featured in the song, but it was the initial inspiration for it. Anyway, I have been really into the mid-tempo inspired genres and also I've been having a lot of fun sound designing my own basses instead of relying on presets. So I present to you all my song 'Torn Down'.

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Details:
DAW: FL Studio

The lead bell is a Kontakt preset Blurred FM Bell with a Fruity Flanger automated in and out, EQ2, 2 instances of Spacer, fruity delay 3 (automated), and an EDM filter (also automated).
The drone/pad is an instance of Ethereal Earth with Fresh Air added to bring out the top end a bit and EQ2 for high-pass.
The bass was sound designed in Vital and has Trash, a frequency splitter, EQ2 (for automation), as well as fruity balance (for volume automation).
In the middle of the song, an instance of Pigments is added to get a slightly wider pad.
White noise is being EQ'd and automated to create the downlift gating and panning effect during the middle of the song as well.

[bpackard]

I have been really into the mid-tempo inspired genres and also I've been having a lot of fun sound designing my own basses instead of relying on presets.

Man, that bass is so good, well done.The whole track is ear candy, actually. The reprise of the melody at the end with the whole panned alarm thing was really cool. There's not much that sticks out to me as far as improvements. Maybe tame the highs a bit? IDK.

If you're not doing the sync thing, you should.

[Arelem]

Man, that bass is so good, well done.The whole track is ear candy, actually. The reprise of the melody at the end with the whole panned alarm thing was really cool. There's not much that sticks out to me as far as improvements. Maybe tame the highs a bit? IDK.

If you're not doing the sync thing, you should.

What is the sync thing? Appreciate the kind words, glad you like it

[bpackard]

What is the sync thing? Appreciate the kind words, glad you like it

Sync licensing is basically submitting music to libraries/publishers that work with visual media like TV, Movies, Video games etc. If an editor picks your track (or even a portion of the track) to "sync" to the media, you get paid for the license (front end pay) as well as royalties when the media plays (backend pay.)

There's a lot more to it, but that's the nuts & bolts of it.

[Arelem]

What is the sync thing? Appreciate the kind words, glad you like it

Sync licensing is basically submitting music to libraries/publishers that work with visual media like TV, Movies, Video games etc. If an editor picks your track (or even a portion of the track) to "sync" to the media, you get paid for the license (front end pay) as well as royalties when the media plays (backend pay.)

There's a lot more to it, but that's the nuts & bolts of it.

Ah, ok. No, I just make music as a hobby

[Crosshatched]

Frame for Nothing

https://soundcloud.com/g-jardine/swc080 ... or-nothing

track built on 28 seconds of loop
sorry, I didn't improv an acoustic melody over the top of the soft synths! so I can't claim this is a 'scaffold' or base for that. (I fantasized about doing so... but arranging songs is simply too much already)

Cakewalk, Surge, Synth1, Pianoteq, and some effects. I have a few more details in the Soundcloud link...

[Rafitown]

Updated 24/04/2024:

Here's my final version: ScaffoldThemeByRafitown

I'm sorry I can't just replace the soundcloud one.

Update details:

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Added some light variations on piano repetitions and some sustain pedal.
Pushed up a bit percussions and piano.

Original message:

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Hello there.
Sorry to submit so late, I'm new here. But I just got "inspired" by this challenge and wanted to participate.

This is a try to play without a clear structure, but let elements repeat and play on a line (more or less).

Technical details:

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I used AD for percussions, just internal mix, not much time for more.
There are three instrumental lines:
The piano for the percutive main line, strings for atmosphere and winds for different purposes.
Winds are trumpets and trombones from ot brass, the strings and piano are recorded with a Kawai ES-3.
Every instrumental line has a variable reverb recorded in a different track, from a external pedal: immerse reverberator 2

DAW Used: Reaper(last version)
Plugins: Reaper internal comp and limit
Addictive Drums
TDR Kotelinov (mastering VST)

Thank you

[KukoBass]

Hello everybody,

my first idea for this month was to write some industrial electronic music with lots of reverb, but I soon realized that I have no connection to that genre.

My second ideas was based on a pun ("SKA-fold") and tempted me to try to write a Ska song with silly lyrics and the energy of "We are number one" from "Lazy Town". I don't know why I went along with this one.

So here I present my work "Scaffold Ska":


The WAV is here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-Eu7Js ... drive_link

I know the vocals are unintelligible. I had a hard time recording them as my interface had an unnerving delay when recording, and trying to correct this with Ableton Live's warping feature left them with robotic artifacts. I tried to make the best of it and slapped on some voice effects. Still, think of them as a mock-up for the intended vocals.

So here are the lyrics

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Scaffold (x 4)
Skaaaa

Skaaaa
Scaffold - so many parts that work as one
Scaffold - making sure that work gets done
Scaffold - elevating everyone

Scaffold - takes you where you need to be
Horizontally and vertically
its a simple necessity to
make your work place safe
Skaaaa

Scaffold
Scaffold

Tools used:

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DAW: Ableton Live 12

Drums:
Two instances of IK Multimedia Modo Drum: "Rock Custom" preset for the Kick, Snare and Toms and "Black Oyster" preset for the hi-hat and cymbals.
Ableton Live's compressor was used for slight compression of both tracks.
The pattern was inspired by Ian Foreman's Youtube-video "How to play a Ska Groove on the drumset"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0-10VGL6kk

Drum bus:
IK Multimedia TRacks Bus Compressor

Keys:
Soniccoture's "Rocksichord" (NI Kontakt instrument).

Horn section:
Three instances of NI "Session Horns Pro", presets "Bass Trombone", "Tenor Sax" and "Trumpet 1"

Bass:
IK Muldtimedia Modo Bass 2, preset "Rockabilly "

Vocals:
Two tracks, recorded through my ZOOM H4n pro
They were about two beats delayed to the song, so I tried to correct this with Ableton Live's "Warp"-feature.
Both tracks were run through Izotope Neutron 3 Gate to remove the sound of the laptop and through Sounddevice Trap Tune.
The "Scaffold" and "Skaaa" track uses the "Kind of Raspy Voice - Reuven Amiel" preset, and the other track uses "The Announcer - -Reuven Amiel" preset (that is the one with the eccho).
Both tracks were compressed with the Ableton Live Compressor.

Master Chain:
Hornet ThirtyOne MK2 Equalizer
brainworx bx_masterdeck True Peak to make the song louder and to make bass frequencies below 120 Hz mono
LUveler to make sure the loudness is below the target of -14 LUFS integrated -1 dB peak

Tools used for mixing:
AYAIC Mix Monolith
Polyverse Wider 2
spl Hawkeye to check for possible sound problems
YouLean Loudness Meter 2 Free to check for loudness problems
Hornet VHS 1.31 to calibrate the frequencies for my Superlux and Beyerdynamic headphones for mixing

[EsteveCorbera]

Dear fellow challengers and Mister Fox,

This month I wanted to try something new. Far from my comfort zone.
Inspired by a spotify theme that my son liked, I followed his directions and ended up doing something different from what I usually do.
I don't like the style of music very much and it doesn't interest me too much, but I think that in the end it wasn't all bad for me.

I hope you like it or at least can appreciate the work I have done.

Thank you colleagues.

(translated with google)




Equipment:
DAW:
Reason 12.7.4d3

Reason Instruments:
Mimic Creative Sampler
Parsec 2 Spectral Synthesizer
Humana Vocal Ensemble
Kong Drum Designer
Thor Polysonic Synthesizer
Umpf Retro Beats
Dr. Octo Rex Loop Player
Monotone Bass Synthesizer
NN-19 Sampler
NN-XT Advanced Sampler
Layers Waves Edition
Europa Shapeshifting Synthesizer

Reason Effects:
RV7000 MkII Advanced Reverb
The Echo
MClass Compressor
Synchronous Effect Modulator
Pulveriser Demolition Unit
UN-16 Unison
Quartet Chorus Ensemble
D-11 Foldback Distortion
Scream 4 Sound Destruction Unit
MClass Stereo Imager
Master Bus Compressor
Channel EQ
Softube Guitar Amp
MClass Maximizer
Audiomatic Retro Transformer
Sweeper Modulation Effect
Polar Dual Pitch Shifter
ECF-42 Envelope Controlled Filter
PEQ-2 Two Band Parametric EQ
Alligator Triple Filter Gate

Reason Players:
Pattern Mutator
Scales & Chords
Beat Map Algorhythmic Drummer
PolyStep Sequencer

Reason Utilities:
Combinator
Line Mixer 6:2
Spider Audio Merger & Splitter
Mixer 14:2
Pulsar Dual LFO

Reason Packs (like Presets):
Drift Phonk
Phonk
Melodic Techno Bass

Other effects outside of Reason:
Waves Vitamin Sonic Enhancer
Mastrcode-music Substrate Subharmonic Bass Booster
Kilohearts AB kHs Frequency Shifter
Antares DUO Automatic Vocal Doubler

Samples:
Multi-Osc Trap Riser.wav
Kick Boom.wav
FreakyFuzzer_eLAB.wav

Other tools:
iZotope Ozone 9
Plugin Alliance SPL HawkEye
HoRNet Plugins HoRNet VHS

[bpackard]

There are three instrumental lines:
The piano for the percutive main line, strings for atmosphere and winds for different purposes.

I like the tone, urgency and sparsity of the piano and strings are a whole vibe. I like the no structure thing as it plays well as an underscore track. Only thing I feel it needs is more variation in the repeating piano parts and maybe using the sustain pedal for the arpeggiated spots. Good job.