Mix Challenge

Hi folks,
How are you?
This time it seems that Mister Fox's proposal has had little success.

Personally Jazz is not a type of music that interests me too much, but I have accepted the challenge of learning new languages.
Really I’m pretty new to this world of music and I take advantage of the Songwriting Competition to learn, most of all, from the comments of the other participants.

What I present to you this time is a very simple topic of an improvisation session. In fact, I twisted very few notes after recording them on my DAW.
I've had enough of a drum beat accompanied by a bass where trumpet, saxophone and keyboard instrumentalists play the air.
I hope you like it or at least that you can critique me.
Thanks

(Translated from Catalan with Google)



DAW
Reason+

Virtual Instruments
Reason Dr.OctoRex
Reason Electric Bass
AIR Music Tech Velvet (x2)
AIR Music Tech Structure
Fanan Saxophia

Effects
Reason RV7000 (x6)
Reason Sweeper Modulation Effect
Slate Digital Fresh Air
SoundSpot Velo2
SoundSpot Kinetic
Plugin-alliance Brainworx bx_digital V3
Plugin-alliance ADPTR AUDIO Metric AB
Plugin-alliance SPL Hawkeye

Hi to all!

This is my song for SONGWRITING COMPETITION:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ik46npoxbcstw ... d.wav?dl=0

All guitars recorded. Synths, synth bass and drums played on Nektar Impact GX61 61-key Keyboard Controller.
Daw: FL Studio 20
Drums: Addictive Drums 2
Synths and bass: Morphine
Piano: FL Keys

Effects: Baby Audio: Super VHS, The Orb
Reverb: LXPChamber
Other plugins are from daw, EQ, Comp...

A friendly reminder:
As of this very moment, a bit more than 24 hours left to submit your production.


So far we have 3 entries, I'd love to see more than 10!
Looking forward to listen to your songs!

Hello everyone!
I really enjoyed this month’s work, it was fun.
I liked the theme and the genre, it was very interesting and exciting.

Song title: Arroz con mango
Though it's literal meaning is Spanish for "rice with mango," it is meant to be used in a less tasteful way. It is typically used in Cuban slang to mean a sticky situation, a mess, or a downright clusterfuck.



VST:
XLN Addictive Drums 2
IK Modo Bass
Xfer Serum
KORG Arp Odyssey
Kontakt Factory,
Session Horns Pro
Straight Ahead Jazz Horns
NI Cuba
Shimmer Shake Strike
Vintage Organs
Vintage Keys
EW Pop Brass
Musiclab RealStrat
IK Amplitube 5

FX:
Pro-Q3
MAutoDynamicEQ
Lindell 80 Channel
NEOLD V76U73
BlackBox HG2 MS
SPL Twintube
BOZ PanKnob
Seventh Heaven

Gullfoss
SSL Native Bus Comp
Waves J37 Tape
Ozone 9 Vintage Limiter
Youlean Loudness Meter
SPAN

Hi All,

The track: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NN454M ... sp=sharing

Chaotic Jazz Fusion that drives you crazy. O yeah, time to shell out those odd time signatures, weird harmonies and scales that have been laying dormant for so long! For maximum chaos, I did want some calmer, but still uneasy sections for contrast. And also a lot of mood changes.

It starts off semi-normal; non-diatonic chord sequence, but nothing too jarring. The drums making it slightly wonky or not at ease because of a quintuplet swing (= 5 notes in each beat) in the hi-hat and snare ghost notes. The leads into a 5/4 octatonic riff, and quite cleverly if I may say so, because the duration of the hi-hat stays the same, but now they are normal 16th notes. so it works as if the tempo speeds up the with a 5/4 ratio. I believe they call this metric modulation.
Anyhow, the third part is calmer, but again slightly restless for it’s in 7/4. It might not feel the weird because the guitar picking pattern and drums are designed to keep it rolling, and not make it feel like there is a beat missing each bar.
Part four: 4/4 at last! But quite fast and with a Phrygian harmony. The vibraphone / rhodes like solo is made with the help of Ableton’s arpeggiator.
Then we reach the first part again, but with some sounds we picked up along the way. The final part is the octatonic 5/4 riff again, with more dirty sound. To invoke even more doom and obliterate all hope, it modulates down a semitone 3 times. Because there is not a stable key center, this modulation might be less obvious than when it’s used in a more conventional sequence.

Gear stuff beeswax:
DAW: Live 9
Drums: Kit-WarmAndLow (from live suite)
Bass: Modo Bass: 60’s P-Bass with flatwounds, 5 strings
Vibraphone/rhodes: Electric (live suite)
Guitars: Strat and Custom weird-ass mahogany guitar (only for some lead parts)
Amp: Vox AC30
Notable guitar pedals: Zvex Distortron, N-ux Modcore (tremolo, phaser and other modulations), Boss RV-6, TC Electronic Nether Octaver in combination with Fender Blender (fuzz).

This is my entry called Warlock. It's inspired by In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew.

Chaos comes and goes and during changes I tried to capture that spliced together feel of the original albums. The track is way too compact for the genre, but I have a short attention span when it comes to my own music.

It's a total hack job on my part, I mixed the propulsion of those miles davis records with that dickey betts minor pentatonic scale and kept it very simple. I tried to make up for that with lots of movement on the pianos (okay okay i just bashed on the white keys but still). Put in a pretty hot outro guitar solo for the McLaughlin heads.

Track: Warlock



Virtual:
Studio One
Guitar amp - Plugin alliance amps (mostly the fuchs overdrive supreme 50)
Bass amp - Plugin alliance ampeg
Piano 1: Sampleson Electrix
Piano 2: Session Keys Electric W
Valhalla reverbs and delays
Native comps and eq
Drums: Addictive Drums (sorry about the drum programming and sound I just couldn't get anything going that sounded right)

Real: Les paul and fender jazz

Its an entry . it aint pretty. I call it "And Over And" https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_0sKJw ... sp=sharing
drums - Xpand!2
drum fills- Virtual Drummer Phat
bass- Virtual bass Mellow
organ -DB 33 plugin
brass (trumpets and tenor sax) -Xpand!2
Electric guitar- Human
4 RVerb and one ModDelay

It is the 25th April 2021, 1:50 UTC+1/CET - this month's Songwriting Competition has official ended

A very, very warm welcome to all new faces on the forum. And welcome back to our regulars.


If I didn't miscount, we had 7 participants overall, which is 4 entries less compared to last month (11 entries), and 2 less compared to last year (9 entries). Please scroll further down below to read up on an update of the game mechanics this month for the voting process



The "staff balancing vote" add-on rule does not apply
"Sole Winners Podium" rule (equal or less than seven participants results in a single winner) does apply. (1-position Winners Podium)

There was no (number: 0) production submitted after the deadline
No (number: 0) entry has been disqualified (productions released outside of the game's timeframe)
No (number: 0) entry has been redacted



How do we go from there?

Over the course of the next (hopefully) 24-48 hours (usually up to 6-12 hours maximum after the game has ended), I'll gather all links into one post and hot-link to that from the first post of the thread. Please, no more changes to your entries, but please do check your links that these entries are downloadable. We then perform with the final feedback and "public vote" system.


We have 7 participants. That means that each participant can vote for 6 tracks, the staff will will not cast a balance vote, unless there is a tie that can't be broken.

Keep the Rules and Guidelines in mind. As long as we're not exceeding 20 participants, let's give feedback to all participants and(!) cast your vote for all of them.

The Top 10 list can look something like this:

01 (10 pts) - Mr Moon
02 (09 pts) - Mr Sun
03 (08 pts) - Mrs Venus
04 (07 pts) - Mr Mars and his companions
05 (06 pts) - ...
06 (05 pts) - ...

Please take a look at the last two Songwriting Competition for how your feedback and vote could look like (sans the super technical information):
SWC043 - Song Collection and follow-up
SWC042 - Song Collection and follow-up

Please cast your vote in collective form through the "spoiler text" bbcode: Please use the forum username of the participant to make it easier during the score collection to address what vote belongs to whom.



Please also take note of the Rules and Guidelines on giving feedback (mandatory for all participants, failing to do so results in a disqualification). Even if you already gave feedback prior to the deadline, please offer some final encouraging words, and maybe give some additional tips for improvements on the way.

Feedback from non-participants is highly encouraged (voting not needed!). The same goes for entries after the deadline, or those that sadly do not count for the current running game (even if you've exceeded the deadline, why not post your entry regardless?). Musicians and Engineers are always after constructive criticism. This is what this forum is about.


I also need to address an overhaul of the game mechanics, as introduced with SWC038. You can read up about the new concept here:
viewtopic.php?p=8957#p8957 (will be implemented into the Rules and Guidelines during Q2/2021)

Basically, disqualifications will only happen from this point forward, if you have submitted a production from outside of the game's timeframe and you're not participating in the feedback process. Everything else is handled through bonus points. This overhauled mechanic has been a test run from September to November and has been taken positive so far. If you don't want your bonus points go to waste, please update your posts with documentation by 3:00 (morning, German Time), and check that your files are properly named / downloadable.





Have some general feedback? Please voice your feedback/opinion/concerns here:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=97



Please have an eye on this thread!

Let us kick off the VOTING PROCESS, which will end on Thursday, 01-MAY-2021 23:59 UTC+2/CEST latest


There is a GLOBAL COUNTDOWN to check for deadlines.
Just follow this link: Global Countdown (on homepage)



Here is the collection of productions from all participants (in hope that I didn't forget anyone). As usual, if you click on the small upwards-arrow right beside the quoted name, you can jump to the original post and read up on the documentation for this production.


.

dadomachado wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 14, 2021 17:59 CEST

"Humpft"

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

EsteveCorbera wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 22, 2021 22:07 CEST

"JamSessionOne"

Gloo wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 23, 2021 10:43 CEST

"Swamp Head"

WAV: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ik46npoxbcstw ... d.wav?dl=0

becsei_gyorgy wrote: ↑

Sat Apr 24, 2021 17:17 CEST

"Arroz con mango"

Blang wrote: ↑

Sat Apr 24, 2021 17:57 CEST

"Piling Up"

WAV: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NN454M ... sp=sharing

erictracks wrote: ↑

Sat Apr 24, 2021 20:15 CEST

"Warlock"

AskAndy wrote: ↑

Sat Apr 24, 2021 22:10 CEST

"And Over And"

WAV: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_0sKJw ... sp=sharing

.



BONUS ENTRIES (submitted after the deadline - feel free to give feedback, but you sadly can not vote for these entries)

A Future in Noise wrote: ↑

Sun Apr 25, 2021 23:09 CEST

"Chaos"

.


Please consult the last post of how your vote could look like (which links to more sources). And to make it simple for me for counting the votes - please use the forum usernames in your listing. Thank you!

SWC044 participants giving feedback to each other (to every participant) is mandatory, else you will be disqualified. Please also keep the bonus point game mechanic in mind.


Good luck to all participants!




If you have an idea for a future Songwriting Competition, please post about this in the theme/genre request page

Bonus entry.

I never had time enough to finish this one (either).