SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC086 October 2024 - Winners announced

[Ike H-mope]

I re-learned a couple of important lessons this month.

Even when I disagree with feedback on my music, it's important to see if from the critic's perspective.

If I'm confident about something, then hearing criticism makes me "re-prove" it to myself by relistening, rethinking, and leaving it alone if I'm still happy. If nothing else, it helps me cleanup details that might be distracting from my own goals.

When I'm not confident, a good critique can force me to confront things I already knew were weak. It's good to realize I can't hide things, I have to actually fix them.

It's also cool to see through style, genre and production and just get to the point -- Does the song/tune/piece feel good or not? If the song isn't there, the production doesn't matter. If the song is there, then production is just an extra layer to make it better.

I noticed that people have not really been discussing lyrics. For songwriting, I'd expect that to be almost as important as the music itself.

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Chasey24 -- Nice writing, nice arrangement.

Crispy -- Liked it, great disco vibe.

El Cubano -- I like it. Really like the acoustic/modal/pedal vibe and playing, the vibe of the textural sounds, all good.

EsteveaCorbera -- Nice. I like it, yet the soundtrack quality lost my attention without images or something to counter it.

Ike H-Mope -- Get it together, man, stop living in the past

KukoBass -- Definitely like the foundation of this song, but without a vocal or lead instrument, couldn't listen all that long. I'm sure it'll be good when you're done.

Mellow Browne -- Really liked this musically. For this, arrangement is clearly integral to the piece, and I think you hit it with the right dynamics and interplay of all sorts of sounds/instruments/rhythms.

OlliH -- Nice, entertaining, kept me engage start to finish. Another "soundtrack" type piece that I think would be great for a whimsical, mysterious Netflix show, but in the end feels incomplete without images.

PonyShow -- I like this this musically, and like the inclusion of what sounds to me like 70s, 80s, and 00s influences.

ROBooo -- There's a lot going on that's nice. I definitely like the drum break/solo at the end, reallly nice. I can hear the skill and musicality on this tune.

ryanc -- Nice tune, nice performance. Enjoyed hearing a straight-up singer-songwriter tune.

ThomC -- Really nice. Song itself is strong enough you could have just strummed and sung. The arrangement lifts it.

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My Votes:

► Show Spoiler

ThomC
El Cubano
ryanc
Crispy
Mellow Brown

[PonySho]

I re-learned a couple of important lessons this month.

Even when I disagree with feedback on my music, it's important to see if from the critic's perspective.

If I'm confident about something, then hearing criticism makes me "re-prove" it to myself by relistening, rethinking, and leaving it alone if I'm still happy. If nothing else, it helps me cleanup details that might be distracting from my own goals.

When I'm not confident, a good critique can force me to confront things I already knew were weak. It's good to realize I can't hide things, I have to actually fix them.

It's also cool to see through style, genre and production and just get to the point -- Does the song/tune/piece feel good or not? If the song isn't there, the production doesn't matter. If the song is there, then production is just an extra layer to make it better.

I noticed that people have not really been discussing lyrics. For songwriting, I'd expect that to be almost as important as the music itself.

I like your perspective!
Laughed at your critique of your own song

[PonySho]

I'm happy to answer all the questions. My guitar is made by a small one man company called HMS guitars (HMS = hand made stuff, hms-guitars.fi). Each guitar is different, but the main body is the same. My guitar happens to have tremolo bar and two mics: "Seymour Duncan Hot Tele Bridge STL-2 Guitar Pickup (single coil) and "Seymour Duncan Jazz Neck Black SH-2N Guitar Pickup (Humbucker"). These microphones, of course, are essential for the sound. With one switch I can get 5 different combinations. Just perfect for my preferences (50's and 60's rockabilly and country sounds) and good enough for other purposes.

I checked out the hms website...the electric guitars look GREAT!
If they sound as good as they look...

[Mellow Browne]

Thanks for your feedback.
No EQ was applied to the kick.

Well, I had hope one can hear a certain grow process within my entry and some blooming effect at the end with some extra layers of bells and percussion elements, it didn't seem to work in your case although you mentioned ear candy. The tom hit was actually on purpose And regarding the title, this was not the only beat I made for this challenge, but it was the one that fitted best to the theme so I chose this one to complete. Imo the title doesn't matter at all, it's like you would judge a book by its cover
Btw, I wish my previous finished production would sound like this one

I like the bottom end...letting the bass extend below the high-passed kick drum (I know...said I wouldn't talk nerdy mix stuff) but this gives a nice warmth to the track.
Likes: balanced mix, chilled vibe, ear candy, no prominent topline which is perfect for this style
Dislikes: doesn't fit the brief challenge -nothing about 'Harvest' in the song or the title and almost like this song was perhaps picked from a bunch of previously finished productions (apologies - I'm almost certainly wrong about this claim). Random tom hit at the end of the song.

[PonySho]

Thanks for your feedback.
No EQ was applied to the kick.

Well, I had hope one can hear a certain grow process within my entry and some blooming effect at the end with some extra layers of bells and percussion elements, it didn't seem to work in your case although you mentioned ear candy. The tom hit was actually on purpose And regarding the title, this was not the only beat I made for this challenge, but it was the one that fitted best to the theme so I chose this one to complete. Imo the title doesn't matter at all, it's like you would judge a book by its cover
Btw, I wish my previous finished production would sound like this one

I like the bottom end...letting the bass extend below the high-passed kick drum (I know...said I wouldn't talk nerdy mix stuff) but this gives a nice warmth to the track.
Likes: balanced mix, chilled vibe, ear candy, no prominent topline which is perfect for this style
Dislikes: doesn't fit the brief challenge -nothing about 'Harvest' in the song or the title and almost like this song was perhaps picked from a bunch of previously finished productions (apologies - I'm almost certainly wrong about this claim). Random tom hit at the end of the song.

Hi Mellow Browne
I guessed the tom hit was deliberate...just not my preference.
Regarding the kick, I'm not surprised that you didn't use EQ, but the sample you chose clearly had a defined EQd tone that worked well with the bass. Picking the right drum sample can really work well with the bass, as I'm sure you know.

We clearly have different ideas about meeting the brief - that's cool - my feedback was only my opinion, but it really stood out because all other submissions went to some effort to make it clear about meeting the brief.

Same as you, I worked on a different track first before submitting what I did. Now I wish I'd gone with my first idea but I didn't have the time.
I really liked your track btw, probably the best balanced mix of all the entries - killer skills! If this was a mixing competition your track would hit first place for me.

[OlliH]

I re-learned a couple of important lessons this month.

Even when I disagree with feedback on my music, it's important to see if from the critic's perspective.

If I'm confident about something, then hearing criticism makes me "re-prove" it to myself by relistening, rethinking, and leaving it alone if I'm still happy. If nothing else, it helps me cleanup details that might be distracting from my own goals.

When I'm not confident, a good critique can force me to confront things I already knew were weak. It's good to realize I can't hide things, I have to actually fix them.

These are very good and important points. Criticism is almost always based on just a couple of listenings, and very often without deep knowledge of the genre, etc. At least in my case. I admit: I just listen without background knowledge, and I get some vague feelings, and then - instead of saying "I love it, my dear" - I try to formulate my chaotic thoughts (with clumsy phrases for I'm forced to use a language that is not my native language).

So, I'm sure I'm wrong more often than right. But, on the other hand, mistaken or not, as a critic one should not be afraid that position, for I think every comment still has a value, for it forces the music maker to re-evaluate his/her choices. (I like that point you made.) If one is to succeed in music business, most of the listeners will be those musically and genre-wise illiterate persons, that listen for 5-10 seconds and then either open or close their minds to that music. What it exactly happens during those seconds, would be extremely interesting to know.

Your comment made me also think my own music making process. It's based on testing. I say to my self: "You should try this and that idea." And then I try. And 9 times out of 10 that idea didn't work. But the stupid critic within me continues to throw myself these half-baked ideas, and every now and then there comes out something that works.

[OlliH]

I checked out the hms website...the electric guitars look GREAT!
If they sound as good as they look...

I'm sure in your hands they would sound phenomenal. The most important part of the sound is the player's touch. On the other hand, If I could test with my sausage fingers Jeff Beck's guitar or Harry Potter's magic wand, those precision tools wouldn't create anything meaningful...

[ryanc]

I mean snaps, the snap sound made with fingers here take a listen, I added the snaps to the intro and to the outro so you understand what I mean.



I also made some fixs: removed some reverb on the vocals delay and turned up the delay volume cuz it was too low, less saturation on the bass, it was too much, added some lows on the guitars, I felt I cutted too much lows before, removed the autotune, automated tail lenght of the vocals reverb so that its shorter in the intro and outro and longer in the full instruments parts, especially in the last part before the outro where I made it very long to enphasize the climax, I also add some saturation on the wet signal of the reverbered vocals and did some adjustments on guitars EQ.

btw I did sidechain compression on the wet reverbered vocals with the dry signal so that the vocals where not muffled by the reverb.

So cool! Yeah I think those snaps fit in well! (I'm laughing at myself because I thought you were using some technical mixing jargon but now I understand.)
Thank you for doing this work and going so far as to tell me what you did - it's helping me learn a lot and I think this mix turned out really cool!

[ryanc]

ryanc, Law of the Harvest
(This is a copy-paste of my previous comment.)

You have a really beautiful and sympathetic song here. The melody line is absolutely top notch, and you sing it very sensitively. The guitar riff is absolutely perfect, simple but effective and supports the song. Very good potential to be this month's winner!

So, the songwriting part is superb, but I think you should do something to those drums. It feels like the drummer is playing without listening to the song. The drums don't have the same emotional sensitivity that you bring to this song. Is it too cold and he tries to warm himself by playing too loud? It's hard to tell what the problem is with a quick listening. Maybe if you could decrease the velocity levels a bit, it might give way to more sensitive drum sounds. Or is the problem in the groove of the drum. I'd definitely try some drum groove with ghost notes or something.

Thank you for your kind words of encouragement and feedback. I completely agree with you about the drums - I generally struggle to find a drum sound that works. I use the free MT Drummer vst which I like because of its simplicity and ease of use, but I'd be curious to hear from members of the community: is there a free/inexpensive drum kit vst that you would recommend?

[ryanc]

ryanc
First of all, you have great voice with a nice texture, and only a few minor notes are a little bit off. So, if no autotune was used I must say you have very good pitch balance.
I’m not a specialist in this genre, but it gives me a certain country/western vibe. Very friendly and warm chords with a nice song structure.
The mix is a bit on the weaker side, it’s not horrible or so, it works like it is. It just sounds a bit like a demo mix, or even raw version, just the clean recordings.
Even thouhg it’s a softer song I wish I could hear more punch from the drums and deeper sound stage from front to back (think of delay or reverb).
In sum, you did a really nice job.

Thank you, my friend, for your compliments and feedback. Yes, mixing is not my strong point. Thank you for the specific tips - I will have to try them.