2024-MAR-01 Info: Check out Songwriting Competition 079 if you're into "Synthwave" music making.

SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC017 January 2019 - Winners announced

Thematic Songwriting Competition - recurrence: monthly
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Mister Fox
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SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC017 January 2019 - Winners announced

#1

Post by Mister Fox »

Hello and welcome to the Songwriting Competition 17 - January 2019


This is the introduction post, where we directly link to the challenge corresponding files (theme, submission information, sponsors) and start of the voting process. There will be no Round 2



Please take note of the following
  • IMPORTANT: please use the following naming convention for your productions: SWC000_-_ArtistName_-_TrackName.wav/mp3

Also please take note of the following
  • If you have an idea for future Songwriting Competition themes and/or genres, please post them here.
  • Social Media accounts can be found via the handles @MixChallenge (Twitter) and MixChallenge (Facebook). Please spread the word!
  • if you like what the Mix Challenge (community) has been doing in recent months, please consider supporting us.



This post will be updated with the corresponding links as we progress, and of course the suitable thread headlines. So please watch this spot:


Submission Period: General Information and Sponsors
Cheat Sheet: A couple of examples / audio demos for this month's challenge (not available if genre is "Free to Select")
Voting: Summarized entries and start of voting process
Results of the Songwriting Competition: Results of the Songwriting Competition
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Mister Fox
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Re: SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC017 January 2019 - Submissions until 24-01-2019 11:59pm GMT+1/CET

#2

Post by Mister Fox »

CURRENT CHALLENGE - GENERAL INFORMATION

Time Frame: Tuesday, 01st January 2019 to Thursday, 24th January 2019 (24 days)

Challenge submission will end on 24-01-2019, 11:59pm CET/GMT+1 (Germany) - until further notice.

Want to find out if you're still within the deadline, please consult the following options:
The Global Countdown on it's dedicated page or the countdown on the home page. You can also consult the World Clock at the top of the forum or alternatively the following tool - in this case please select "Berlin (Germany)" as location 1, and your location as location 2: Time and Date - World Clock Meeting Planner. We do post reminders via our Twitter account and Facebook page.



SONGWRITING THEME: Community Scramble (limited sound set challenge)

GENRE: free to select

Image
Image Source: ArtsyBee (background, via Pixabay), released under Creative Commons CC0


A few word about this month's theme:
Staff (Mister Fox) wrote:Hello and welcome to or very first special challenge on the Mix Challenge audio community - called "Community Scramble". As you've probably read in the news section a couple of weeks back, it is planned for this to be a yearly recurring game that will really push your creativity.


The twist of the current Songwriting Competition:

Create a music production in any genre that you feel like. However, you are only allowed to use the sounds and samples that are provided. You are free to mangle the content as much as you like. You are allowed to use re-sampling, wavetable synthesis, granular synthesis, modulation, or whatever else is at your disposal in terms of tools. But you are not allowed to add any additional sounds or instruments that have not been created from the available source material. Adding vocals is the only exception.

You've got access to 25 samples - plus some "pure tones" for additional modulation and layering. That is more than planned. But we're still experimenting with this game. Let's see how this goes. :tu:


You can find the source material here:
SWC017 Source Sound Package - Mirror on the Mix Challenge Homepage
(158,34 MB, LZMA compressed, zip -- 256,77 MB extracted)


Let us start off 2019 with a bang! I am really curious about your creativity this month.
Good luck! :phones:

Songwriting Add-On Rules:
  • You are only allowed to use the sounds provided in the package above
  • you can use any tools that are at your disposal to mangle the provided audio content (samplers, wavetable synths, modulation tools, etc)
  • It is recommended to not go higher than -14LUFS SLk (avg) or K-12v1 (avg) in terms of perceived loudness
  • for newcomers: no cover version or remixes

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Source Files:

SWC017 Source Sound Package - Mirror on the Mix Challenge Homepage (158,34 MB, LZMA compressed, zip)


The provided files were packed as ZIP with LZMA compression.
File size extracted: 256,77 MB, packed 158,34 MB (ZIP, LZMA)
In order to extract the files, we can recommend these programs:

Macintosh:
The Unarchiver - get it here
Keka (open source) - get it here

Windows:
7zip - Installation / Portable


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Please take note of the official rules - they can be found at the following thread:
Songwriting Competition - Official Rules and Guidelines

Please address any OT question in the official Gossip thread:
Songwriting Competition - Gossip and Discussion

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


SPONSORS (Prizes):

Prizes for Songwriting Challenge participants:

Note: All licenses are NFR (Not-For-Resale), except where noted.
Changes to available prices on short notice may be possible and will be announced separately.


Image
IK Multimedia is kind enough give away one license of MODO BASS to the winner (until January 2019)
License will turn into NFR
More info on IK Multimedia: https://www.ikmultimedia.com


Image
kv331 audio is kind enough give away a bundle of either SynthMaster 1+2 Bundle, or a freely selectable set of 3 SynthMaster Expansions (donations until Spring 2018)
License will not turn into NFR, you need to have a kv311 audio user account in order to pick up Expansions
More info on kv331 audio: https://www.kv331audio.com


Image
Luftrum is kind enough give away either a license of Lunaris, or any 2 sound sets of winner's choice (exception: Bundles and Nano Electronics)
License will turn into NFR
More info on Luftrum: http://www.luftrum.com


Image
Rekkerd Sounds is kind enough give away 1 sound set of winners choice (exception: Krezie EDM and Neurofunk Vol. 1)
License will turn into NFR
More info on Rekkerd Sounds: http://sounds.rekkerd.org/


Image
Bjulin Waves is kind enough to donate 1 sound set of winners choice and one "Inspire Me" sound set of choice for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place
License will turn into NFR
More info on Bjulin Waves: http://bjulin.de/


Image
Ghostwave Audio (Vincent Bastiat) is kind enough to donate any 2 sound sets to the winner
License will turn into NFR
More info on Ghostwave Audio: http://ghostwaveaudio.com


Image
Hollow Sun is kind to donate one license of "Music Laboratory Machines - The Suite I" to the winner
License will turn into NFR
More info on Hollow Sun: http://www.hollowsun.com


Image
Hornet Plugins is kind enough give away one license from the depicted tools (see image) to the winner
License will turn into NFR
More info on Hornet Plugins: http://www.hornetplugins.com


Image
Sound / Graphic Designer, and honorary Mix Challenge staff satYatunes is donating one commercial product of winner's choice (until further notice)
More info on satYatune's page: http://www.satyatunes.com/





THANKS FOR THE DONATIONS!
And also a thank you to all former contributors as well.

If you want to sponsor content (please have a focus on instruments, samples and sound sets), please get in touch with the Mix Challenge staff.

Please spread the word of the challenge on social media.
For example with our dedicated Twitter Account or Facebook Page

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Good luck to all participants.
And most importantly, have fun!
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Re: SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC017 January 2019 - Submissions until 24-01-2019 11:59pm GMT+1/CET

#3

Post by Mister Fox »

Creative Sound design examples by Youtubers:

Levi Niha - Making Music With Windows XP Sounds (although, the beat was not created from the source sounds)
Andrew Huang - Making a beat out of a Donald Trump sniff
Andrew Huang - I spent a year recording radiators to make music (a song made out of radiator clicks and hums)
Andrew Huang - Making music with actual sounds from Mars (sounds from Mars winds vibrating NASA equipment, added custom beats)



Sound Design Tricks:

Andrew Huang - 12 sound design tricks I use!
Andrew Huang - It turns any sound INTO A WAY COOLER SOUND (showing off a wavetable synthesizer)
Savant In The Studio With Future Music (showing how he re-synthesizes his recorded sounds)
Seamless - FL Studio Basics 29: The Granulizer (short Granular Synthesis tutorial)
Mick Gordon - DOOM: Behind the Music (worth watching these 60 minutes, Mick Gordon also unveils his sound design chain for DOOM from 2016)

A shout out to Levi Niha, Andew Huang, Seamless (Stephen O’Leary), Savant (Aleksander Vinter) and Mick Gordon



Tools worth a look for this task:

MuTools - MUX Modular
GlitchMachines - Quadrant, Cataract, Fracture XT, etc (BONUS INFO: currently on sale at Plugin Boutique until 9th January, also nests you the AAS Session Series Bundle)
illformed / dblue - Glitch
Sound Guru - The Mangle (page takes a bit to load, but affordable Granular Synthesizer)
Sonic Charge - Typhoon (Yamaha TX16W sampler)
CWItec - TX16Wx Sampler (more than just an affordable sampler, as it can read WAV, SF2, Logix EXS, Typhoon, etc)

...anything that can load WAV files as wavetables (e.g.: kv311 Audio SynthMaster, Waves Codex, Spectrasonics Omnisphere, etc)
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Re: SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC017 January 2019 - Submissions until 24-01-2019 11:59pm GMT+1/CET

#4

Post by Mister Fox »

Thread update:

I just updated the second post with the link to the source files. I was informed that some users on Apple rigs can not open the zip file. I am sorry for the inconvenience this is causing. This is because OSX removed the LZMA routines from it's stock file packer/extractor early 2017. I've copied over the information on how to use extract the files on both Windows and Apple OSX from the monthly Mix Challenge threads.

For OSX, please either use "The Unarchiver" or "Keka" (both are free/open source).
For Windows, please use "7zip" or similar.

The files were packed with 7zip from December 2015 (v15). As long as your file extractor is newer than Spring 2016, you can open the zip file. This particular compression type exists since mid 2000s - providing "plain ZIP" would result in bigger files to download for all challenges. Please update your file compression/extraction tools.
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Re: SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC017 January 2019 - Submissions until 24-01-2019 11:59pm GMT+1/CET

#5

Post by Mister Fox »

A friendly reminder:
Including today, 13 days left to submit your production.


Please do spread the word. The more participants, the better!
FixInTheMix
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Re: SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC017 January 2019 - Submissions until 24-01-2019 11:59pm GMT+1/CET

#6

Post by FixInTheMix »

Song Info
Name of the track: Adaptation
BPM: 120
Key: D Phrygian (goes to F Phrygian at the end)

WAV: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1uTLsO ... vB-cUNXzeX
MP3: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1MsVbv ... r1jHKV_BwA

Since this month´s challenge has a focus on sound desing rather than songwriting I´ll be more specific on the first topic.

DRUMS

For the kick I blended two different samples: one kick from Marks´s "Chill out drums" and Mister Fox´s "Stomp", I rolled off the high frequencies on the first one and cut the lows on the second one, also reduced about 10dB on 1Khz area and boosted 8dB on 3Khz.

For the snare I used mutiple layers, the first one being my own sample "metal hit" which gave most of the high end, I slowed down the initial attack by changing the envelope on my sampler to around 31ms, added compression and hpf at 300hz.
The second layer was a "clap" that I made by sampling a click noise at the end of evk´s "bass" sample, added distortion, filtered both high and low end and used chorus to widen up the stereo width, printed all fx and then loaded into a sampler.
The third layer is the "punch" of the snare since it was lacking in low end information, I used Olly Audio´s "mix samples 36", trimmed the end, added compression and transient shapers to get a hard hitting sound, scooped the mids while boosting the fundamental freq at 192hz and the attack frequencies at 4Khz.
For the second and third chorus I added a reverse snare to lead into each snare hit, this sample was the snare from "chill out drums" with a long reverb at almost 100% wet, I printed the fx and then reversed it.

Hihats: for this I also blended two samples, one of which was made using the white noise sample from the general WAV files folder, simply by adding a dynamic envelope to it thus making a short and long version, the second sample It´s so processed that I can´t honestly tell from which sample it derived exactly but it´s got to be of evk´s samples, possibly the guitar one,I used distortion and eq to bring out the high frequency harmonics this sound was similar to the stick sound of a real hihat.

FX:
The snare has a modest send to a simple long decay and bright reberb and also a send to a delay set to 1/8T and with a chorus to increase the stereo width.

Bass: I simply used olly audio´s bass sample and filtered out the high frequencies starting at 2Khz, added some parallel compression

Keys/background chords:
To make this sound I started with my own flute sample, tuned it in melodyne and rendered it, after importing into a sampler I added a detuner to make it stereo, compressed it and filtered the high frequencies since the harmonics were really harsh, after that I pitch shifted the whole thing one octave down. At the start of the fisrt chorus I automated the pitch shifter to add another two copies of the track one octave higher respectively at lower levels which gave it an electric organ type of sound imo, theres also a parallel copy of the track with the low frequencies filtered out and with added saturation.

Chorus melody synth:
Again I made this sound by blending two different samples, the first one was a fragment of donkey´s guitar loop 01, I extracted one of the first string noises since I noticed a clear pitch in it, I filtered the low frequencies and tuned the sample, after that I added extra compression and eq, after that I created a reverb send which was compressed through sidechain so that the tail of the reverb would come up after the dry signal was quiet.
The other layer was based on Mister Fox´s "water heater (pick up tea mug)", again the mug hit had a very clear pitch to it so I filtered and isolated the fundamental frequency and compressed the crap out of it until I got a very "spiky" sound.
Both sounds play simultaneously at the same octave except when the chorus repeats, at that point the second layers goes up an octave higher to increase the energy level.

Verse melody synth:
The sample I used for this sound was Mister Fox´s "Fan Fast", I tuned it, brought it into a sampler, then boosted 8db around 2.6Khz, added a copy of itself an octave below and at a lower level and added a detuner to make it stereo. This sound is also the main layer on the extra chords on the second and third chorus.

Chorus extra chords:
I took a small fragment from evk´s guitar sample after adding a virtual amp and speaker sim, it was a very quiet accidental note at the end of one take that I amplified and stretched using paulxstretch, then filtered the high end at 4.5Khz and compressed, added a send to a medium decay reverb.

Bridge "Violin":
It´s essentialy the same same sound as the chorus extra chords except I gave it a slower attack (480ms) and release (340ms) with the sampler and added some modulation through a slow rate chorus.

Fake cymbals and transitions:
I made two versions of crashes/rides one by using the white noise sample and the electric toothbrush sample, tweaking the envelope, adding chorus, eq and a lot of reverb, the transitions were made in a similar way adding extra modulation and delays.

When it comes to the songwriting element I´ll say that the main challenge I put myself through was to keep the track interesting while keeping the same harmonic background (main chord progression is only 2 chords repeated), also I managed to add a key modulation that I think flows naturally so I´m pretty happy about that :grin: All feedback welcome, I´d like to hear different opinions.
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Re: SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC017 January 2019 - Submissions until 24-01-2019 11:59pm GMT+1/CET

#7

Post by Mister Fox »

I just listened to the song, and it's a really nice production that you pulled off from these samples.


There is still 8 days left. I'm curious what others will create.
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Re: SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC017 January 2019 - Submissions until 24-01-2019 11:59pm GMT+1/CET

#8

Post by Mister Fox »

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


Please do spread the word. The more participants, the better!
8 or more participants would result in a winners podium of 3. Let us try to exceed 10 participants this month :phones:
TrojakEW

Re: SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC017 January 2019 - Submissions until 24-01-2019 11:59pm GMT+1/CET

#9

Post by TrojakEW »

I was worry about this round because when I do sound design it eats most of my time. I'm still struggling with designing "perfect" instruments for my entry. I'm trying to limit my self to number of used samples. Also I'm not going use wavetable synthesis becuase it feels more like cheating. With provided basic shapes you can make almost everything throught that type of synthesis. So far I still tuning created sounds to be more organic. Emulating dynamic behavior.

Also I hope for more entries.
Leonard Bowman
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Re: SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC017 January 2019 - Submissions until 24-01-2019 11:59pm GMT+1/CET

#10

Post by Leonard Bowman »

I will try to join this month, still working through composition.
I will be using wavetables as well as some granular synthesis, but i'm trying to avoid using the generic sounds. In general, my wavetable stuff uses the sound with no modification other than filtering... more details if I finish.

I'm a transplant from OSC, i guess, and samples are rather new to me. This has been a fun project.
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