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

SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC022 June 2019 - Winners announced

Thematic Songwriting Competition - recurrence: monthly
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Mister Fox
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Re: SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC022 June 2019 - Voting until 01-07-2019 11:59pm GMT+2/CEST

#41

Post by Mister Fox »

Yeah - I'm sorry ANTHEMIC, but we were a couple of days late (as in 4 days, we're already in the voting process). In fact, even if the deadline would have been 27th June, as it is on KVR Audio's Music Cafe Songwriting Competition, you'd sadly be out of the game.


I agree with Leonard - a pity even. Interesting production, albeit a bit loud, mid-range heavy and the drums are super loud and over-processed. The next SWC starts on 1st July, and runs for it's usual 24 days. Maybe you'll make it into this round.
SimaGT
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Re: SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC022 June 2019 - Voting until 01-07-2019 11:59pm GMT+2/CEST

#42

Post by SimaGT »

This month pretty unusual compositions. Some went into past some, stayed at present. It was really hard to rate ,and critic.
I would probably rate id different week after.

Mozex:
Well, easy listening piano doodling.It seems like you copy/pasted it from google, bit more life to piano and maybe adding some more instruments could help.

canese:

Nice production, i really like those background vocals. You have put some effort into this that's for sure, so many details, really enjoyable to listen to.

functionform:

Very nice and interesting harmonies,good choice of instruments (I specialy like organs ).
Maybe it would be better if you somehow connected those parts.

MarkS:

Very unusual sounds there. Creepy atmosphere ,100% unpredictability could be good backround for some adventure game.
That delay is out of sync ocassionally ,although that might seem like a logical choice in this track ,for me it is
breaking "fluidity" of track making it lil bit harder to enjoy.Overall i like this track very much.

Clueless:

Ok this one i had to listen few times and try to focus on parts and find connection between them .
Interesting idea but its just hard for me to find the "message" between those harmonies.
Maybe I need to learn some more music theory to properly comment on this.


A future in Noise:

Nice and simple from the past ,maybe some editing in terms of expressions (volume ,articulations...) could make these piece less artificial.


Leonard Bowman:

What a big contrast from your last month vocals.Now i feel like a jackass when i remember that i spent 300 bucks for EW symphonic choir.
I m really impressed, you got to show me how, make a you tube video or somthing:D.I can hear legit female choir there, wow!!Boy alto to.
Harmonies are nice really enjoyable to listen to but for me biggest plus is your vocal sorcery here.Well done!





01 canese - 7 pts
02 Leonard Bowman -6 pts
03 MarkS - 5pts
04 Functionform - 4pts
05 A future in Noise - 3pts
06 Clueless - 2pts
07 Mozex - 1 pts
Leonard Bowman
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Re: SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC022 June 2019 - Voting until 01-07-2019 11:59pm GMT+2/CEST

#43

Post by Leonard Bowman »

SimaGT wrote:
Sun Jun 30, 2019 21:31 CEST
What a big contrast from your last month vocals.Now i feel like a jackass when i remember that i spent 300 bucks for EW symphonic choir.
I m really impressed, you got to show me how, make a you tube video or somthing:D.I can hear legit female choir there, wow!!Boy alto to.
Harmonies are nice really enjoyable to listen to but for me biggest plus is your vocal sorcery here.Well done!
Thank you very much!
I don't feel like setting up stuff to make a video, but I'll tell you what i did (i can share the project files if you're still curious about it)
I did all of the vocal stuff with stock Reaper tools, because I'm cheap and Reaper comes with suprisingly good stock plugins.

ReaGate because my recording space isn't silent and I fidget and make a lot more noise than I realize when recording.
Volume automation to erase bad pops (I'm new to the recording world, and even when I have a pop filter things come through).
Time stretching to align some of the bad entrances (i'm not a great conductor).

ReaTune & Take Pitch Envelopes to clean up the intonation. I'm not a perfect singer, and I didn't have lots of time to learn all four parts of the song. ReaTune's automatic correction was enabled with an attack time of 150ms. I wanted it to still sound fairly natural, just more in tune than I was. Take pitch envelopes made sure I was corrected in the right direction.

The real magic comes from ReaPitch.
I used it for shifting my voice up the octave for the soprano part, but the real magic happens with the formant shifting controls.
Bringing the soprano formants down an octave helps avoid "chipmunkiness" as the pitch shifts up. I was able to sing the alto part as written, because it was (mostly) within my range as a tenor.
After that, bringing the female formants up (around 1-6 semitones) and tweaking the male formants (+/- 2 semitones) helps give each part a slightly different character, so you aren't listening to 13 exact copies of me.
Some of the high sopranos with higher formants still sound a little bright and synthy but I thought that they blended well enough with the ensemble.

DoctorBob made some comments about it in the OSC Slack channel; he noted that it's harder to synthesize a convincing female voice than a male one. Arguably bringing a high voice down to a lower register would yield some better results, but nothing quite matches people singing in their natural voice.

Formant shifting also has more applications than making a chorus out of yourself- as a solo singer it can add some wild timbral variety! This Video shows a different (paid) plugin but demonstrates the effect pretty well.

After all of this there's reverb and the ambisonic stuff but those are less mystical.


TL;DR:
Use ReaPitch to make yourself sound like a woman/man/chipmunk/etc. and
The choir library is still valuable because it will sound more authentic for less work. Formant shifting sounds obviously synthetic at higher intensities, and Pitch and Pop cleanup took a hefty chunk of time, even though I consider myself a decent singer and used a pop filter.
Clueless
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Re: SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC022 June 2019 - Voting until 01-07-2019 11:59pm GMT+2/CEST

#44

Post by Clueless »

Well, an interesting idea for a challenge
Got a bit distracted by the Cure @ Glastonbury, so almost late or would I have been, not sure, will look to post earlier next time :)


A future in noise
Very well put together, although a bit short, would have liked a little bit of variation in volume, however it filled its time nicely.

Canese Oblivion
Interesting use of the doodle, seemed to lose some of the instrumentation to other elements, however that was up for being pretty epic in places.

Function Form

Liked a lot of this, would have done with being more joined, as this just seemed a bit unconnected, overall interesting.

Leonard Bowman On wings

Well what to say, really excellent, a few plosive in sections, but that can be dismissed as the overall piece was well constructed :)

SimaGT Bachop

Liked the otherworldly sounds, very nice and wobbly, timing of the beats were a touch off and the pitch was a touch low, although this could have been on purpose to accompany the piece, I couldn't really identify Bach, but I could hear extracts from a movie film score in place

Mark S Slow wind

There were parts of this which held my interest and could have been expanded upon, overall well done :)

Bach composition

Had the sound of the age, didn't really have very much emotion to it and ended a bit abruptly, overall it worked.

7 Leonard Bowman on wings
6 Canese Oblivion
5 Mark S Slow wind
4 Function Form
3 SimaGT
2 A future in noise
1 Mozex Bachpiece
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Re: SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC022 June 2019 - Voting until 01-07-2019 11:59pm GMT+2/CEST

#45

Post by Mister Fox »

A friendly reminder:
We're in the final 24 hours to submit your feedback and cast a vote.



EDIT:
Global Song Collection post has been updated with ANTHEM's production. Since it has been submitted on 28th June, it is therefore sadly disqualified. You can not vote for it, but if you want to give feedback, please feel free to do so.
SimaGT
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Re: SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC022 June 2019 - Voting until 01-07-2019 11:59pm GMT+2/CEST

#46

Post by SimaGT »

Leonard Bowman wrote:
Sun Jun 30, 2019 23:08 CEST
SimaGT wrote:
Sun Jun 30, 2019 21:31 CEST
What a big contrast from your last month vocals.Now i feel like a jackass when i remember that i spent 300 bucks for EW symphonic choir.
I m really impressed, you got to show me how, make a you tube video or somthing:D.I can hear legit female choir there, wow!!Boy alto to.
Harmonies are nice really enjoyable to listen to but for me biggest plus is your vocal sorcery here.Well done!


TL;DR:
Use ReaPitch to make yourself sound like a woman/man/chipmunk/etc. and
The choir library is still valuable because it will sound more authentic for less work. Formant shifting sounds obviously synthetic at higher intensities, and Pitch and Pop cleanup took a hefty chunk of time, even though I consider myself a decent singer and used a pop filter.
Very nice of you to explain it with detail just what i needed cause i never produced/mixed vocals before.Also got reaper and yes their fx plugins are good.Might try some vocal-ish track this month.
Thx Leo you cool ! :tu:
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Re: SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC022 June 2019 - Results in preparation

#47

Post by Mister Fox »

It's the 02nd July 2019, 7:00am - the Voting Period has officially ended.

The Summer Heat might not work out for everyone, it seems. I currently count 5 votes out of 8. I really have to lie down and get some sleep in - so this is your very, very last chance to give feedback and cast your vote. (as in: I'm really generous this month in terms of bending the rules!)


Should I not see any feedback by 6pm GMT+2/CEST from the following three people, you're sadly disqualified.

Missing feedback / vote:
- A Future in Noise
- Mozex
- Functionform


To everyone else, bonus feedback for ANTHEMIC would be nice.
I'll probably release the results by Wednesday midday.
functionform

Re: SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC022 June 2019 - Results in preparation (missing participant votes)

#48

Post by functionform »

Sorry for the late ratings!

Clueless - Red Now Wonder
Right away you create a nice mood with the feedback delay/glitch.
It kind of ends up in a bizarre place right after, gives off an interesting indie soundtrack vibe.
I love the reintroduction of the delay, would've liked to hear more of it during the
the tuneful parts. I loved the end with the heavier hits.

A Future in Noise - AI-Fugue In D Minor
Very nicely done. Sounds like you knew what you were doing!
The bass is well produced sitting at the bottom but not invisible.

Leonard Bowman - On Wings
I have to give credit to the incredible job of re-recording with vocals.
I had ambitions to do with this instruments but I couldn't find the time for it.
Not only did you do it, but you did it really well. Tuneful with interesting lyrical work.

SimaGT - Bachop
Great textures right away. It's like someone sampled two old time movies and spliced them together.
The hip hop style beat could've used a little more dirt on it, but really puts the track in a great place.
I really like where you took it, you didn't necessarily have to force the AI to get the notes right,
you let the robotic nature of the output work for you which I think shows great understanding of working
within the limitations of this month. Great outro into verbspace.

Canese - Oblivion ft. steelyvibe
Well this is fantastic. You took more liberty with the output, but the output is interesting.
I find the output a little clean for my tastes, but its well mixed and produced.
Tasteful panning on the vocoder.

Mozex - bach composition
I think this track would benefit from some diversity in sound. The keys are nice,
but consider maybe using a free bass plugin or sf2 instead of having the keys play everything.
Also consider allowing space at the end of the track for the natural decay of the instrument.

MarkS - Slow Wind
Interesting ambient piece, dreamy. Parts wander in and out - it's almost like the track
has a hard time deciding if its completely textural or looks for its melodies.
I like the reversed piano if that's what it is.
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Re: SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC022 June 2019 - Results in preparation (missing participant votes)

#49

Post by Mister Fox »

Well, that is a pity. It is 6:30pm GMT+2/CEST, "A Future in Noise" and "Mozex" (our newcomer) is still missing.
Look like I have to go with the 00-JUL-2019 convention from now on for the voting process...


Also:
Didn't DoctorBob want to submit something? (he had a WIP - but then he didn't follow-up with an actual release).
And while downloading all entries, I realized that ANTHEMNIC not only has the wrong SWC listed (SWC019 and not SWC022), but also no proper file tagging. Not the first time this has happened either. Are you okay?



Please keep an eye on this thread for the results
DoctorBob

Re: SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC022 June 2019 - Results in preparation (missing participant votes)

#50

Post by DoctorBob »

Sorry, I just didn't have time to develop the WIP into something I would consider fit for a release into this rather good arena of musicians!

I may look at something bangin'/trance-like - at 70 years young this will be a challenge for me!!!

Some very nice entries btw - as usual, varied in style, but most retain some notion of Bach.

dB
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