SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC033 May 2020 - Winners announced

[A Future in Noise]

I just wanted to say that I'm going to post my entry before May 24 11.59 pm. Or damn me! I won't wait until May 23 before I make the final recordings, this time. And I really hope that we will have as many participators as we had in March and April.

[Mister Fox]

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

[Mister Fox]

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


So far we have 1 entry. That is not a lot. I hope @A Future in Noise will not forget to submit his entry.
Can we exceed 10 participants?

[nixon85]

Where do we have to raise the issue?

[Olli H]

The challenge of this month was to make ”a blend of Experimental and Progressive Rock/Metal mixed with Funk elements”. I think I managed to match that. I also added many tempo changes 3/4 => 4/4 => 3/4.

Theme of this month: ”Madness Rising”
Day by day, I’m getting older. Here’s another song as theme”I’m going crazy as I get older”.

First of all, I borrowed a legendary opening line from Paul Ankas Diana: ”I’m so young and you’re so old”. But of course with twisted meaning. For the funk part I wanted to smuggle in James Brown’s often repeated phrase ”get up”. Again, with new meaning given by the context.

Drums: Kontakt
Bass: played in with guitar > midi > Trilian
Electric and acoustic guitars: real
Hammond: Kontakt
MusicBox: played in with guitar > midi > Kontakt


Youlean loudness meter gave me these results:
Momentary Max = -12.31 LUFS
Short Term Max = -13.88 LUFS
Integrated = -16.63 LUFS

Slow Motion:
WAV: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1MHZSL ... CxUvJpAYQt

[gruskada]

I chose to do a rap-rock funk / avant garde song about the current environment in the US.

It''s a song about personal and political breakdowns. There are quotes from our president (all US government federal employee speeches are public domain, according to my research), and the personal point of view is from someone who has been quarantined for too long, railing against the state of things, and can't take it anymore.

It's a big creative stretch for me. I'm not much a fan of the genre and I've never tried to "rap" before. I also employed different time signatures, tempo changes, and scales I don't normally use (whole tone).

The title, "Canary Release", is a software development term that describes a process where new features are rolled out to a small subset of users. It's great for the development team, as they basically get free and early testing. It's not always so great for the people who download the release. These releases are often very unstable, and can really wreck your system.

Lyrics:
I wish I could go back to the days
before this all started
It wasn't all great
but it was better than this

Now were alone in our homes
waiting for the clear sign
nothing to do
and no one to see

Chorus (x2):
Heroes on the front lines
risking their lives
While the cowards in the government
tell so many lies

The enemy is here
indiscriminately choosing
A masked army assembles
but no one is safe

Preparing for the new normal
whatever that is
When will it end
I've got to get out

Chorus (x2)

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

Details:

Instruments:
Ernie Ball Music Man Axis guitar
OTS Dracus (some parts are MIDI guitar, some played on keyboard)
IK MODO BASS
NI "The Grandeur" Piano (~doubling the guitar solos)
u-he Hive
Fluffy Audio Aurorror
IL Harmor
NI Battery 4

Samples:
radio transmission by ReadeOnly (freesound.org)

Tools/Effects:
NI Guitar Rig 5 (guitar and some vocals)
Eventide Quadravox
Eventide SP2016 reverb
Valhalla Supermassive reverb
Izotope Nectar 3
Accusonus Voice Leveler
Izotope Neutron 2
Bark of Dog
IL Vocodex
NI Replika
NI Supercharger

Post:
SoundTheory Gulfoss
Izotope Ozone 8

[A Future in Noise]

Details:

gruskada! Maybe you should try to name your entry as the rules say: SWC033_ArtistName_TrackName.wav and/or .mp3

But perhaps it's a good idea to ask Mr Fox first, don't know exactly what is considered to be a re-submission. (And I thought the downloadable file has to be .mp3, but appearenly I'm wrong there.)

[gruskada]

Crap - forgot to do that. Thanks. @Mister Fox - is it ok to rename?

EDIT: I didn't hear back form Mister Fox, but I will be out of pocket for most of the rest of the day, so I renamed the track. It's the exact same file. Hope that's ok.

[becsei_gyorgy]

After the November symphonic metal contest the task was to create another heavy guitar music.
My submission is an avantgarde metal with folk/ethnic elements (Q&A) with an epic twist at the end.



Title: Legend of an angel (Heaven's War)

DAW:
Reaper

VST:
Addictive Drums 2
KORG Wavestation
BBC Symphonic Orchestra
Heavier7Strings
Kontakt:
Shreddage Abyss
Shreddage Jupiter
Kontakt Factory
Embertone Sensual Sax
Zero-G Ethera
Metropolis Ark 1

FX:
Fabfilter Pro-Q3
Waves V-EQ4
Waves Renaissance Axx
Waves RVox
Waves RCompressor
Waves L1 Limiter
IK TR5 White 2A
bx_subsynth
bx_control V2
kiloHearts Gain
Valhalla Vintage Verb

Ozone 9
SPAN

[TrojakEW]

So I'm posting the track even it is not finished. Even overall composition is not done not to mention mix and master. Do not have much free time for it. Track is colab project with Jilliam.

He made first version and send me project. What I have tried to keep the mood he made and add some more stuff. I wanted to blend more different style together while maintain the theme. It start with aleatoric/dystopian intro then it goes to this weird alternative blend of noise. Synthetic sounds blend with orchestral sounds, acoustic drums together with analog drums with some additional soul like vocals. Many layered instruments there. Some guitar stuff that was hard because I do not want to change the theme in order to do metal riff so it is more kind Avant-garde rock. No funk there. Most of stuff I did quickly today so Jilliam do not even hear this version. I do not have time to wait for him because I need to go to bed. I'm going to work in few hours.

Just wanted to have more tracks in this round so I posted it.


Made using FL Studio 20.6
Instruments used:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1x Metropolis Ark 1
1x Metropolis Ark 4
1x Klusterkitt Konstruktor
1x 8Dio Hybrid Tools 1
1x Output Substance
2x Samplelogic Cinematic Guitars Infinity
1x OTS Evolution Statosphere
3x Zero G Ethera 2
2x Output Rev
1x Ni Studio Drummer
1x NI Rise & Hit
1x Project Sam Sypmhobia
1x Project Sam Swing
1x OTS Evolution Dracus
1x Shreddage 3 Serpent
1x H7S
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Used Effects:
5x VSTzOne Arx One
1x VSTzOne Stratum
1x Izotope Neutron 3 Equalizer
1x Guitar Rig 5
4x Noveltech Vocal Enhancer
2x NI Raum
4x Pro Audio DSP DSM V3
1x Izotope Neutron 3
1x Izotope Ozone 9 Advanced
1x NI Replika XT
1x Fruity Balance
1x Fruity Parametric EQ 2
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Statistics:
Max momentary loudness -9,3 LUFS
Max short-tem loudness -11,3 LUFS
Integrated loudness -14,4 LUFS
Loudness range 8,0 LU
True peak L -1.37dB
True peak R -1.27dB
DC offset L 0% (-175.0dB)
DC offset R 0% (-170.9dB)