SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC037 September 2020 - Winners announced

[Mellow Browne]

A common technique in lo-fi hip hop is side chain compression with the drum bus/kick as your side chain signal

[Mxofunk]

[url]spotify:show:02bAx6mruulU64H7jeLZwO[/url]

This mix never came from any sense of achievement lust but with love for music.

[Mxofunk]

[soundcloud]mxofunk[soundcloud]

[Mister Fox]

Hey @Mxofunk - if you want to join Songwriting Competition 037 - could you please provide proper links to your productions?

I found a "mxofunk" on SoundCloud, but nothing is even remotely close to Lo-Fi Hip Hop, and Spotify can't be linked to properly from this forum, not to mention that you can't download your entry form there. Please check in again with the official Rules and Guidelines.



To all other participants and forum regulars:

If you want to take advantage of the new game mechanic and get feedback to your production in "Work in Progress" state, you should ideally time your posts so that you still have three days to process the replies and edit your production as needed. I recommend to not post later than the 21st of the month in this case.

So far, we have one (number: 1) definite entry.

[canese]

I've taken in account the feedbacks made since I 've uploaded and also created a mix compilating other lofi tracks I've composed. The first track of the mix is the one I've submited to this month competition. Ty for listening and giving feedback.



to download the track :https://www.dropbox.com/s/huvq0bovustt6 ... e.wav?dl=0

[TrojakEW]

to download the track :https://www.dropbox.com/s/huvq0bovustt6 ... e.wav?dl=0

Track is great with very nice calming atmosphere. What I think needs to change is mix. It is compressed too much(high crest factor) and everything is glued together too much making stage sound narrow. Also mix feels bit boxy/muddy.

On most of sounds/instruments you removed air(everything above 10kHz is removed). Transition at 0:43 add some sounds that have bit of air and play above 10k but again even those are limited to 16k. That makes that boxy feel. Correlation meter show that few instruments have phasing problem but still they sound narrow. Better to use normal panning for positioning then use widening effects. Also fixing mud mix can improve stage.

[canese]

to download the track :https://www.dropbox.com/s/huvq0bovustt6 ... e.wav?dl=0

Track is great with very nice calming atmosphere. What I think needs to change is mix. It is compressed too much(high crest factor) and everything is glued together too much making stage sound narrow. Also mix feels bit boxy/muddy.

On most of sounds/instruments you removed air(everything above 10kHz is removed). Transition at 0:43 add some sounds that have bit of air and play above 10k but again even those are limited to 16k. That makes that boxy feel. Correlation meter show that few instruments have phasing problem but still they sound narrow. Better to use normal panning for positioning then use widening effects. Also fixing mud mix can improve stage.

Thanks for feedback, dude. The reality is I struggle a lot with transitioning from mixing to mastering. I'm capable of creating an okay mix but then it's hard for me to keep the punchiness while I raise the volume. I tend to overdo and that creates a mess in the end.

[Mister Fox]

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



Additional info:

If you want to take advantage of the new game mechanic and get feedback to your song in a "Work in Progress" state, you should ideally time your submission so that you still have three days to process the replies and edit your production as needed. I recommend to not post later than the 21st of the month in this case.

[Square]

Hi all,

I had a chance to lay down some keys and do a first draft of a mix, at the moment from a mix perspective, its over compressed and some of the clicks and pops come through too much bc of this, and the bass is unbalanced, im trying to find a good lo-fi feeling, without losing all clarity. But for now, its where it stands.

From a writing side, i almost always end my songs in a cadence that is a bit different from the core song, in this case it happens to be a lo-fi dub infusion which nearly as long as the core lol anyways, i thought, if i dont upload a version now, i might never, so here it is!

Square
¬

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1l4kY9z ... sp=sharing

[Double Tap]

Hello everybody, another SWC, another track and another bad and needlessly obscure pun - sorry about that.

Previous version is here:

► Show Spoiler

I'm not sure about the bird squawk at the start - actually, I am sure: I'll get rid of it - and I'm also not sure about the snare, the kick, the mix, the tune and the guitars.

Thank you very much for the initial feedback from Olli and Trojak - I did make some tweaks as a result.

Here's the competition entry



I started off by trying to take some Pugin wallpaper and turn that into a wavetable, but that was a bad idea that worked out really badly so I ditched it. And I found also that I started to quite like lofi the more I listened to it - it's a lot more interesting than aural wallpaper.

So I eventually started playing around with some piano sounds and tried to find a progression that I liked and seemed to fit the mental health side of things - it was really easy to come up with something in a minor key that was ambient, but I found it much harder to inject a bit of hope into the music, which I think I've managed to do, I hope. Badum-tsh.

Pugin Boutique
BPM: 65

DAW: Tracktion Waveform 11 Pro
Interface: Tracktor Audio 2 Mk2
Speakers: are really bad wifi speakers that distort at low volume - I will eventually buy some cheap monitors.
Headphones: AKG K702

VST:
Kontakt - Jazz Guitar, Nylon guitar, Gentleman piano, Scarbee Rickenbacker
Drums - XO
Brushes - Swirly Drums by Karoryfer Samples

FX:
RapidComposer
Fabfilter Pro Q 3
Soundtoys Effect Rack - Echoboy
Guitar Rig - Tube compressor and tremolo
Tracktion TCompressor
Valhalla VintageVerb
Valhalla Supermassive
iZotope Vinyl

Samples:
SGL - Sounds of Oman
Vinyl sound effect from MusicRadar

Mastering:
Wavelab 10 elements - EQ, compressor, limiter
Youlean

Loudness:
LUFS integrated max: -14.3db
True peaks: -0.8db
Momentary max: -10.7db
...according to Youlean