SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC087 November 2024 - Winners announced

[PonySho]

FINAL VERSION
Here is my song called, 'Stringy.' It's an indie rock song. The song is about a guy who's girlfriend is fondly nicknamed, Stringy. He's so busy with work that he doesn't get to see her much. So in his morsel moments of spare time, he writes her letters. The song is quite energetic in an effort to portray his energy and enthusiasm for his girlfriend. Thanks for listening.

Lyrics

► Show Spoiler

V1
Hey stringy stringy
Watch you been doing doing
I've been doing nothing
Just a moving moving
Hey baby baby
I've been thinking thinking
I could take you out and
We go drinking drinking

PRECHORUS
But when theres nothing to do
And im dreaming of you
And i cant get out
The only thing i can do is..

CHORUS
Gonna write a letter to my best friend
Gonna lick a stamp then
Im gonna send send
Gona writ a leta 2 my best frend
Its a letter to u stringy
Coz your my best frend

V2
Hey sorry sorry
But I been busy busy
Stuck in a shitty job
Missing you makes me dizzy
Hey stringy stringy
Maybe tomorrow morrow
I'll see you pretty face and
You'll calm my sorrow sorrow

Production

► Show Spoiler

DAW: Tracktion Waveform
Drums: a live drum loop with added cymbals.
Bass: Fender bass played through a darkglass Alpha Omega pedal, played by me.
Guitars: Fender Squier classic vibe Telecaster through a TC Electronic Tube Pilot and a no-name phazer pedal. Played by me.
Vocals and backing vocals: Microphone is a Rode NT1 through a Retro Instruments Powerstrip. All sung by me.

Levels: <14 LUFS and = -1dB peak

[Mister Fox]

A friendly reminder:
We're in the final 24 hours to submit your production.



Please get your production ready and submitted (through the forum) today.

To make it easier for me to create the collection post, please update your initial post with the appropriate links (final version), or explicitly mark your entry as "final entry". Please also don't forget to make your files accessible to download. Thank you.

If I didn't miscount, we have 05 interesting entries so far.
It would be great if we see a sudden rush of 10 to 12 more entries this month.

[Elcubano]

FINAL VERSION
Here is my song called, 'Stringy.' It's an indie rock song. The song is about a guy who's girlfriend is fondly nicknamed, Stringy. He's so busy with work that he doesn't get to see her much. So in his morsel moments of spare time, he writes her letters. The song is quite energetic in an effort to portray his energy and enthusiasm for his girlfriend.

super cool, i love it!
super well mixed, well sung, well played, I especially like the bass.

[mouse the singer]

Final Entry.

Hello all.
I haven't done the singer/songwriter thing in a very long time, so when i saw this contest i thought it would be a fun way to dust off.
Thanks for putting on the contest, hope i have followed the rules properly.
https://soundcloud.com/iderdown/swc087- ... attached-3

[Ike H-mope]

*** FINAL SUBMISSION ***

Waiting in the Yard

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/wc5f8tw3 ... 6y2pi&dl=0

It's a simple polytonal song. (What can I say, I listen to a lot of early 20th century music.) Technically there are at least two simultaneous keys based on two guitars, and then ambiguously a couple of more depending on how you hear the melodies.

Instruments and Tech

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Chris Hein Guitars
- Logic's built-in midi modulators to randomize parameters
- Overloud Comp670
- Overloud SpringAge
- FabFilter Saturn

Synthesizer V Asterian and Solaria
- Lindell 902
- Overloud Comp LA
- FabFilter Q3

Verb
- Valhalla Delay
- FabFilter Saturn

2 Mix
- FabFilter C2
- SPL Iron
- FabFilter L2

[Ike H-mope]

FINAL VERSION
Here is my song called, 'Stringy.' It's an indie rock song.

This is a great

[VCA-089]

My submission:
WAV: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OAyjZj ... sp=sharing
MP3: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1J7WQsC ... sp=sharing

"When I get tired of the people I go to this place. The forest is cold and creepy in this season, but I feel calm and safe in the silence. The only thing that bothers me is memories of you. Sometimes I think I can see your face through the trees..."

A good topic to test your outboard skills (and to realise that you're not so good yet). I made a slow paced early 80's new-wave kind of song infused with influences of postpunk. 

It might not be the most complex composition for the stringed instruments, but I still had a lot of fun playing with my new outboard gear. I also tried to work in another DAW this month.

Instruments and techniques:

1. The bass riffs recorded on the single-coil bridge pickup of my PJ bass tuned to D-standard with flatwound strings (all played with fingers). The sound perfectly fits the style I think. The day before the recording the nut broke near the fourth string (fixed with duct tape), so it affected my playing. Processed with Tonelib GFX (Compressor, chorus, delay and clean bass amp).
2. Additional layer of shimmer reverb added to the bass that fades in and out throughout the song.
3. The electric guitar parts recorded on my electric ukulele (H/S pickups combined). This is the first song where this Instrument featured. Processed with Tonelib GFX (Chorus, delay and clean guitar amp).
4. The solo was made with the "RealLPC" virtual guitar instrument from MusicLab. I realise that learning to play the solo would take more than a month, but the actual musical ideas were thought out on the real instrument. Processed with Tonelib GFX (Tube screamer drive, flanger and Marshall style crunch amp).
5. The keyboard pads are mellotron sample libraries. There are four instances with different sounds layered together (Cello, Violins Twin, Orchestra and Violin Solo).
6. The synth parts were added to the very last stages of the arrangement:
- The synth string pad is Full Bucket "Oxid".
- The monophonic synth arpeggio is TAL Bassline-101.
- The synth keys are "PG-8X".
7. The drums are samples from Oberheim DMX. Overdubbed with cymbals from "MT Power Drum kit 2".
8. All tracks processed with Wavesfactory "Cassette" tape emulation.
9. The rendered tracks are reversed and pitch shifted here and there.

Technical details:

► Show Spoiler

Hardware:

Washburn Lyon LB40 Bass guitar
Flight Pathfinder Electric ukulele

Recorded and edited in Reaper 7.27
Produced in FL Studio 21.2.2

Generators:

x1 FPC
x1 MT Power Drum Kit 2
x4 Audiolatry "MEL-lofi"
x1 Full Bucket "Oxid"
x1 TAL "Bassline-101"
x1 Martin Lauders "PG-8X"

EQ & Saturation:

x1 BPB "Dirty Filter"
x1 BPB "Saturator"
x1 FL Limiter
x8 FL Parametric EQ 2
x2 TAL "DAC"
x1 TDR "Nova"
x19 TDR & VoS "SlickEQ GE"

Dynamics:

x18 AdHd "Leveling Tool"
x1 D16 "Frontier"
x1 FL Stereo Enhancer
x1 TDR "Kotelnikov"
x8 Thomas Mundt "LoudMax"

Delay & Reverb:

x2 Audiority "Xenoverb"

x6 FL Delay 3
x6 TAL-Reverb 4
x1 Tritik "Irid"
x2 u-He "ColourCopy"
x1 VoS "epicVerb"

Modulation:

x1 FL PanOMatic
x5 TAL-Chorus-LX

Processing:

x4 ToneLib GFX
x12 Wavesfactory "Cassette"

Master Chain:

TDR "Nova"
Limiter №6 GE

Total:

x9 Generators
x104 Effects
x15 MIDI Patterns
x28 Mixer Tracks
x10 Audio Clips
x24 Automation Clips

[PonySho]

Final Entry.

Hello all.
I haven't done the singer/songwriter thing in a very long time, so when i saw this contest i thought it would be a fun way to dust off.
Thanks for putting on the contest, hope i have followed the rules properly.
https://soundcloud.com/iderdown/swc087- ... attached-3

What a cool and dreamy track. The singing reminded me of Bowie in parts. Can you post the lyrics, please?

[PonySho]

My submission:
WAV: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OAyjZj ... sp=sharing
MP3: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UqbNSY ... sp=sharing

"When I get tired of the people I go to this place. The forest is cold and creepy in this season, but I feel calm and safe in the silence. The only thing that bothers me is memories of you. Sometimes I think I can see your face through the trees..."

A good topic to test your outboard skills (and to realise that you're not so good yet). I made a slow paced early 80's new-wave kind of song infused with influences of postpunk. 

It might not be the most complex composition for the stringed instruments, but I still had a lot of fun playing with my new outboard gear. I also tried to work in another DAW this month...

What a sonic banquet! So much going on in this song. You've clearly put a LOT of work into this. I can hear the 80's vibe...I like it. Lots of different flavours in your track.
I love playing with outboard
So, what is your 'new outboard'?

[Paramnesia]

Here is my entry for the SWC087. I am new to this so I hope I am doing everything correctly please let me know if I need to fix anything!

Occams Krzr.Wav - https://drive.google.com/file/d/19ehLXe ... drive_link
Occams Krzr.mp3 - https://drive.google.com/file/d/17qx9OZ ... drive_link

This is a song written for a band I am currently working in this is a demo that I completed myself however, the drums and bass are both programmed using GGD OKW:Metal and Djinn Bass. All guitars were performed by me. It's all quad tracked rhythms this is just a demo version of the song and Occams Krzr is just a working title for now. Enjoy and let me know what you think!

I use Reaper for my DAW, and use a top down mixing approach. I followed Adam Nolly Getgood's setup initially and tweaked it to suit my person taste.

Master Bus
Gulfoss for High end and Low end boosting
Slate Virtual Tape Machine for Saturation
Fabfilter Pro-Q3 to cut 40Hz on the sidebands.
Flatline by Submission Audio for Mastering

Instrument Bus
VBC FG-Grey by Slate to compress on the snare hits
VBC FG-Red by Slate this compressor is setup to act like parallel compression for the entire bus.

Guitar Bus
Neural DSP Nolly and Omega going into GGD Zilla Cabs.
Virtual Mix Rack by Slate for eqing and saturation.
Fabfilter Pro-Q3 for some eqing.
Fabfilter Pro-MB to control around 117Hz for Palm Mutes
Ozone Imager 2 for some stereo widening.

Bass Bus
TR5 White Channel for some compression and eqing.
Fabfilter Pro-Q3
Fabfilter Pro-MB around 69Hz and below sidechained to the kick drum to help it push through.
Soothe2 to help control some noise

Drum Bus
FG-Stress by Slate for Parallel Compression
Kick and Snare are both gated even though drums are programmed just for a bit more realism.
Every drum mic has its own compression and eqing.
Reverb is epicVerb by Variety of Sound

Lead and Clean guitars have a seperate bus each but nothing special/surprising there.

The majority of my experience mixing has been following Adam Nolly Getgood and Misha Mansoor's setups with tips from JST and some other YouTube channels as well as hours of experimenting. Although I started out following these guides as a 1 to 1 I have spend a lot of time adjusting to my own taste and understanding what they are doing in the mix. I still have a long way to go however as my entry in the mix contest had some major compression issues on the bus which I overlooked at the time.

Goodluck to everyone else and can't wait to hear all the entries!