SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC039 November 2020 - Winners announced

[Mister Fox]

To close this out:
Regarding "Royalty Free" content, check out Wikipedia and this article over on Loopmasters. I've also slightly altered the paragraph in the "Add-on Rules".


Other than that, I am putting an end to the recurring arguments now as my patience is running thin (as in: this is a warning!). The rules are really simple for the Songwriting Competition. Arguing that "time frames abc don't make sense" or "add-on rule xyz is stupid" is only adding to needless frustration on the community.

The focus of this part of the community is to just create something in the first place. If it's not in the "ideal song-length hot-spot", then so be it. It is just a suggestion in the Rule Book (exception to this: see SWC 026 / October 2019, where you weren't allowed to exceed 1:30min of runtime).




A friendly reminder:
Including today, you still have 9 days left to submit a production. If you want gather some feedback, please consider posting your submission soon. So far, we have no entries.

[The Exponent]

Yea I personally feel SWC rules are fairly simple and clear to me:

- Compose specifically for this contest
- Try to compose for the theme/genre, but put your own signature twist to it
- Don't use audio you don't own the rights to
- Name your files correctly
- Vote and give feedback to all
- Meet the deadlines for submission and voting
- Have fun! (not a rule, but people often forget to have fun )

The stuff like track length, naming your files correctly, not exceeding -14 LUFS etc. are guidelines and best practices in general. Since these have been violated several times in the past, they are now part of the bonus points mechanic, to kind of incentivize participants to comply or lose out. I personally don't worry about the bonus points as I usually always follow the best practices, which seem quite natural to me.

All the best everyone!

[A Future in Noise]

Song title: it

Real instrument: Cort AD 810 guitar: Plugins: Modo Bass. Shorcircuit soft sampler loaded with a lot of drum samples, of which most of them I have a long time ago forgotten where they came from (free stuff on the Internet). Jazz organ from Kontakt player. Rock organ from Kontakt player. VSCO trumpet samples (from GitHub) imported into Independence Free. Brass pad from ZynAddSubFx. Saxophone (Weresax) from Karoryfer. Two true IR reverbs from Samplicity/Bricasti M7 imported into four different copies of Reverberate LE.

mp3:

wav 48/24: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CkOhpt ... sp=sharing

[Mister Fox]

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



Important:

It is not mandatory to provide vocals. Just write a good song / instrumental.




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.

If you post a revision, try to update your old post (add a new version, point it out) while only mentioning in a new post "Hey, check out post #<nr>, I did some changes". This makes it easier for me to find the actual entries for the global song collection.



And if you have some sparetime, feedback to the following is still appreciated. Else, we continue the test-run:
viewtopic.php?p=8957#p8957

[Olli H]

Song title: it

Cool song. I like it the way it is.

Catch melody line all through the song.

My favorite is the organ part all through the song. Nice delay trick with organ around 0.49

From the point of view of song, I would leave it as it is now.

(the opening reverb is maybe too overwhelming as it masks the speech part.)

SKA

From the point of view of ska competition I might do some changes.

First I thought that this is not ska at all. But with more detailed listen I noticed that all the rhythmical elements are there but the mix is not taking them up.

Acoustic guitars masks the ska rhythm a bit by stressin 1 and 3.

Around 0:50 you bring upstroke ska effect with electric guitar (I guess?). I feel it should be shorter or quicker. Now it feels as if it’s too lazy midi guitar.

The hi-hat might support better the ska beat by changing the accent
from:
ONE-and-TWO-and-THREE-and-FOUR-and
to:
one-AND-two-AND-three-AND-four-AND
Or even:
.-AND-.-AND-.-AND-.-AND

Also in some parts kick might change the beat from 1 - 3 to 1 - 2 - 3 - 4. It might give nice groove change.

[gruskada]

My song is called, "Everything's Just Great". I'm not sure if people greet each other like this in other countries, but in the US, a lot of people will ask how you are doing, and you're pretty much expected to say "good", "fine", etc., then ask how the other person is doing and expect a similar response (unless you're talking to a close friend - then you can tell them what's really going on). It's kind of funny (especially now), but it's an automatic response. Anyway, that's what this song is about - saying everything is fine, when in reality, you're having a bad time.

I enjoyed making it. My daughter even helped out on saxophone, playing the horn riff, and on the chorus.



Lyrics:

I wake up in the morning
and I get out of bed
Just to get the nightmares out of my head, yeah

Get ready for the day
and I read the news
Something tells me that I really should have just hit snooze, yeah

HORN RIFF

Fighting on the left and right
the country's a mess
All this ugly noise makes my day full of stress, yeah

It's hard to stay safe with
cases piling up fast
I hope this all gets better before our hopes are all dashed, but I say that

CHORUS:
Everything is fine
everything's just great
everything is fine
everything's just
everything's just great!

I've got no money anymore
cause I've lost my job
Don't know what to do, maybe join an angry mob, yeah

Everybody's hurting
it gets worse and worse
Not sure how we're going to lift this terrible curse

HORN RIFF (x2)

CHORUS

Pick it up!

GUITAR SOLO

People think I'm ok
but I'm going insane
I feel like my whole life is being flushed down the drain, but I say that

CHORUS
--------------------

Vocals:
me

Instruments:
Yamaha YAS-280 Alto saxophone - my daughter
Ernie Ball Music Man Axis guitar - me
Realitone Screaming Trumpet
NI Session Horns
LinPlug SaxLab 2
OTS Rock Standard (Les Paul) - used on the guitar solo
OTS Stratosphere (HSS Strat)
IK MODO Bass
Sennheiser DrumMic'a

Effects:
NI Guitar Rig 5
Valhalla Room reverb
NI Supercharger
Izotope Nectar 3
Softube Saturation Knob
Izotope Neutron 2
Polyverse Wider

Post:
Izotope Ozone 8

Song edit: fixed plosive, fixed horn riff timing issue.

[Olli H]

”Reggae”, ”Ska”. This time I know that these are words that refer to music genres.

Relaxing experience to create something within in a genre I’m somewhat familiar in.

As reggae and ska are so closely related, I wanted to create a song that switches the genre several times. Structure is about like this:
reggae chorus - ska verse - ska verse - ska solo - reggae chorus - ska chorus - ska solo - ska+reggae chorus

Lyrics were written by my wife about 20 years ago. Everything else is done by me.

Reggae and ska are interesting genres. It seems that lyrics can handle whatever theme from love to human rights but musically the sound and the beat remains the same. As if that healing soundstage has room to any kind of message. In my reggae-ska-experiment I poured introspective existential problems into that machine, just to see what happens. Those genres work like a magician Oz who will solve all your problems when they are shown in a new relaxing context.


DAW: drums
Drums: ssd5
Bass: Modo
Organ: Kontakt
Sax + Trumpets: kontakt
Plenty of real guitars


My Heart Gathers Dust - Olli H
Wav: https://drive.google.com/file/d/10QLA65 ... sp=sharing

SWC039_OlliH_MyHeartGathersDust.wav
Momentary Max = -10.12 LUFS
Short Term Max = -11.63 LUFS
Integrated = -14.58 LUFS

[Doc Jon]

Whenever I think of ska I always think of fun and happy times
As it has been such a difficult year for travel and holidays, I wanted to create a track reproducing the British saucy seaside vibe in song form, with memories of childhood holidays from years gone by
I wrote most of these lyrics about 8 years ago and then never got around to putting them to music. The idea had always been to make a ska track, so this month's competition has provided the perfect opportunity to finally finish the writing and create the track!
Lyrics are there in the spoiler section at the bottom of the post



Host
Cubase Pro 10.5

Instruments
Toontrack Superior Drummer 3
Steinberg Halion SE
Steinberg Virtual Guitar 2
Native Instruments Session Horns
Arturia Farfisa V

Fx
Cubase EQ, Gate, De-esser, Chorus, Amp Simulator, Multiband Compressor
Soundtoys Microshift, DevilLoc Deluxe, Radiator
ValhallaRoom reverb
T-RackS 5 VC-670, Opto Compressor, Stealth Limiter, Metering
FabFilter Timeless 2, Saturn
CamelPhat3
AudioDamage Dubstation, Panstation
Izotope Nectar 3, Ozone 8
Voxengo Span

Samples
Various homemade samples together with the following from the Freesound website
https://freesound.org/people/juskiddink/sounds/56532/
https://freesound.org/people/han1/sounds/19026/
https://freesound.org/people/han1/sounds/19025/
https://freesound.org/people/www.bonson ... nds/24965/
https://freesound.org/people/Dave%20Wel ... ds/194364/
https://freesound.org/people/bajko/sounds/399656/

Loudness -14.3 LUFS

► Show Spoiler

Great British Holiday

Finish work it's time to play
Time to take a holiday
Off to get some summer cheer
Go the same place every year
Start the car it's time to go
Leave the dog with Auntie Flo
Heading off through city streets
Sweaty backs on vinyl seats

On our way to our summer destination
We don't need no suntan cream or travel vaccinations
British holiday, oh, nothing could be finer
Heading up the A16, in the Morris Minor

(Chorus)
On our way
On the Great British Holiday…
Come with me
To the beach with all the family…

Setting up down on the beach
Deckchair, windbreak, one towel each
Picnic hamper, picnic rug
Drinking tea from a plastic mug
Mother wearing Sunday best
Father just in pants and vest
In his deckchair turning red
Knotted hanky on his head

Brother finds a dirty mag, clip around the ear
Sister snogs a local lad underneath the pier
Looking round the beach, so much flesh upon display
Don’t know where to look, Madam, please put those away!

(Chorus)

Bumper cars upon the pier
Fish and chips and feeling queer
Candy floss and Kiss Me Quick
Too much beer and being sick
Treasures hidden in the sand
Hypodermic in the hand
Broken bottle Stella brand
Condom, clearly second-hand

So much fun, oh, nothing could be better
Even though it couldn't be much windier or wetter
Windbreak blowing out to sea, picnic soaked by rain
Driving home in gale force winds, can't wait to come back again!

(Chorus) rpt to fade

[Blang]

Hi Folks,

Here’s is the link to my ska Song:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/16XW3CE ... sp=sharing

The writing process started with listening to (primarily two-Tone) ska and getting the desired guitar sound. I recorded some progressions in minor that had a ska vibe. The next day however the chorus lyric came to me. I quickly realized that all the melodies that came naturally with “dancin’ in our pyjamas” needed major chords, so I tried a bunch of different I IV V combinations and landed on I V IV IV for the most part.

First I had a walking bass figure throughout the entire song, but my bass playing pall Auke Haaksma was saying how much he enjoyed a studio sessions he just did. So I invited him to play on the track. The first few takes I let him do his thing and then we went cherry picking and zooming in on specific parts. I am quite blown away about how much life it gives the track, even though I was already content with the bass I had. Now it really feels like a band playing. You can check out his band MoonUnit over here https://moonunithq.bandcamp.com/track/jeanny or on spotify https://open.spotify.com/album/1fOExtsm ... edium=open.

Ska often feels like a party so Auke also joined in on the backing vocals to make it more festive.

The organ part in the interludes was actually just intended as a placeholder to check out different sounds, but I later found that it had exactly the right amount of stupid the songs needed I tried some more sophisticated (horn) parts, but it didn’t work so well.

The drums are a hybrid of a real snare (Pearl Free Floater) and the ‘WarmAndLow’ kit from Live’s ‘Suite Sessions Drums Club’.

Definitely had fun writing this one!

[becsei_gyorgy]

Hi,
The current genre was interesting, completely unusual for me, but it was quite interesting and joyful to create in this genre as well.
As I listened to the earlier uploaded, really great songs, I think I’ll be at a disadvantage as there are no vocals and lyrics in my song. The song is dominated by brass, giving a bit of a bigband feel. BPM is 170.
The concept was completely simple: adapting to the theme, nothing but Pogo on the dance floor. Simple melody, but fast rhythm, with one or two solo parts.



BPM:170
Host: Reaper

Instruments:
Superior Drummer 3
MODO Bass
EW Play: EW Fabfour, EW Gipsy, EW PopBrass
Kontakt: Shimmer Shake, The Giant, Session Horns, Indiginus Torch

FX:
EW Spaces II
Fabfilter Pro-Q3
PA SPL EQ Ranger Plus
PA Vertigo VSC-2
PA Vertigo VSM-3
PA bx_Console SSL 4000 G
PA Acme Opticom XLA-3
PA bx_subfilter
Kilohearts Compressor
Soundtoys Decapitator
Kazrog True Iron

Ozone 9
Waves SSL Comp
Youlean Loudness Meter
SPAN