SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC062 October 2022 - Winners announced

[ryanc]

Thanks for the chance to enter and for the inspiration!
This song is called, "Evergreen"
Recorded and "mixed" in Studio One. I used the stock Presonus bass vst, as well as the Studiogrand piano vst, Mt_drummer, and Analog Lab 4's farfisa organ. I used my harley benton tele directly into the di w/ the ampire plugin.

Here's the song: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DmfSPu ... sp=sharing

Lyrics:
She's on fire, And she knows where I've been
I'm a liar, And I'll break the rules to win
I'm inspired, She got me feeling again
Yeah, I'm ignited by her, And her spark's caught on to my skin

Let's go quiet A single moment, for once
And admire The splendid things that she does
Yeah, she's burning A wild orange and red
In patterns so uncertain, she's spinning 'round in my head,
Woah,

Chorus:
And the weather's getting colder
But her fire flickers on
When this garden's frozen over
Her evergreen is gonna keep me warm

(Chorus)

She's been burning A wild orange and red
In patterns so uncertain, She's spinning 'round in my head
Yeah, she's been burning' A wild orange and red...

[KukoBass]

Hello fellow writers, hello Mr. Fox,

here is my entry for this month's competition. The production is more a draft than a finished production, but at least this time I finished writing all parts for the song.

This is the soundcloud verson:


And here is the Wav-Version:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1A0fpZV ... sp=sharing

This month, I started with a small motif, the part that is now played by the muted guitar. I then wrote the chords for the verse and for the bridge. The hardest part was to find a different chord progression for the chorus. I had no ideas for that until last week.
I would have loved to have vocals and lyrics on this song, but I got stuck and couldn't finish the lyrics, so it ended up as an instrumental song.

There is still much to work on. The drums are basically not more than my click track. If I had more time, I would have added at least some fills. The timing of the melodies is still to be corrected. The bass line and the melody clash somewhere in the chorus.

DAW Ableton Live 11

Drums: Standard drum kit from Ableton, where I exchanged the samples later.
Claps: A mix of a standard drum kit clap sample and Boz Ditigal Labs' "El Clapo"
Drum-and Clap-Bus compressed with Hornet MulticompPlus MKII on VCA-Setting

E-Piano: Applied Acoustic Systems' Lounge Lizzard EP-4 on "Model V"-Preset, EQed with Ableton's EQ Eight to cut out the lower and higher frequencies.

Bass Guitar: Ibanez Soundgear 505, recorded through the Zoom H4nPro interface
Compressed with the Ableton Compressor and EQed with Ableton's EQ Eight to cut off the higher frequencies and the super low end.

Guitar: James Taylor Variax, recorded through the Zoom H4nPro interface
EQed with Ableton's EQ Eight to sculpt the main frequencies of the guitar and cut off the low end and the high frequencies.

Lead Synth: KV331 Audio's Synthmaster 2.9, "LED damaged brain1"-preset. The delay is part of the preset, I kind of liked it.
EQed with Ableton's EQ Eight to cut off frequencies below 100 Hz and to dampen frequencies above 10 kHz
The melody was first played on the guitar, then converted to midi and edited a little bit.

Master Chanel:
Hornet ThirtyOne MK2
bx_masterdeck true peak
Mastering the Mix Levels to check for problems
YouLean Meter for checking the loudness

[GamaGama]

Hi, thank you for introducing this inspiring theme.

For my part, I also took the opportunity to refine my technique a little:
- I made the drum part trying to put myself in the head of a drummer, I think I did it enough (perhaps with an excess of richness?);
- I played the melody (in the chorus) with the Farina brothers in mind (steel guitar), even here I think I have succeeded enough;
- as far as the text is concerned, this tells of the desire of a young woman (with a veiled and very thin voice) to be a leaf, which in the autumn will fall from the tree, mix with the mud and then return to live. She therefore she will never die as long as there are seasons: this is the desire of the young woman.
This is the initial text, which I then adapted when "singing" the song; as you can see my english is poor, but I think the idea is good:

"
I would like to be leaf autumn rain
that soaks of you right down to the fibers
that unite it to the branch and the branch to the trunk
and the trunk on the ground and you inside the veins
you pass and you spread and you quench your thirst.
I know that winter is announcing that soon
that leaf will fall made color
rust, and the mud will mix
but the roots will nourish the trunk
to rise from the branches in spring.
I would like to be a leaf
abandon me to your roar sure
that I will not die that I will not die that alone
I will change my face as long as the earth has it
the seasons of her and a tree will have fronds
"



- the subtle and veiled dreamy voice was achieved through the demo version of Yamaha's new Vocaloid 6. Unfortunately I don't know if due to problems with my DAW, the trial version, or my PC, I was unable to make the VSTi work. I therefore had to operate in the stand-alone version of Vocaloid and I struggled a lot (given the numerous slowdowns and tempo variations in the song). The new Vocaloid amazed me for its expressive abilities: it is equipped with artificial intelligence that intervenes (not always as desired) in a valid way: you can hear some "automatic" and appropriate expressivities in the song. Since I wanted a thin and ethereal voice, I think I took it to the limit of possibilities: unfortunately, having lost a lot of time in making it work, I then had not much time for the refinements. However, I believe that it is a tool that deserves to be tried by wasting some time.

- the finale ends by replicating the chorus on which an energetic guitar solo insists.


Qui c'è la versione MP3_320:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/16fZRCJ ... sp=sharing

E qui la versione WAV_44/24
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nQBW7A ... sp=sharing

Have a good evening!
GamaGama

[Arelem]

Hello All,

I had to listen to the current pop charts because I don't really listen to much modern pop music to be honest. The song I ended up making is based on the many sing-y/hip-hop type songs I found by artists such as Post Malone, Lil NasX, 24k Golden, Drake, and so on. The song structure also follows their influence in that it starts with the chorus which is relatively short and repetitive.



DAW: FL Studio

For this track, the melodies are made with various samples that I cut up, time stretched, and heavily modified with things like reverb, chorus, saturation, phaser, delay, and EQ.
The drums are just different samples that I programmed in and ran through a compressor (Maximus).
The 808 was done using Xsub.
The vocals are written and performed by me. As is typical of current pop/hip-hop, they are modulated and have a noticeable auto-tune effect.

Lyrics:

► Show Spoiler

(Chorus):
Why I always come back when you call
when I try to act like I don't care at all
Why you always makin me feel small
Well the greater the high, the farther the fall

I know ur gonna do it ta me
But I never seem to see
it's always right in front of me
Can't stop runnin
soon as you summon
for pain, i'm a glutton
and I say I'm a comin

and I'm always comin back
at it like an addict
can't seem to push past it
even though I know it's bad it's
almost like I can't
wrap my head around it
can't keep myself grounded

Chorus

This time, I'm gonna stay away
only one of the lies I say
to myself, can't be by myself
and you're stuck in my brain
I feel you in my veins
Like a habit I maintain

last time I thought that I was out
but in creeps the doubt
like it can't be all bad
or as bad as I remember it
thinkin back and I forget
here we go again, shit

Chorus

[patrlord]

Hello everyone,

I was not sure if I'd make it in time for this song challenge, but I just managed to finalize the vocal mixing today, so here it is.
I see a few people have been busy this weekend too, great to see more entries !

I decided to go all-out on an electropop song, and enlisted my daughter's singing teacher to do the vocals.
A collaboration I think I will be doing again ...

Original composition, melody and lyrics by me (Patrick Lord aka Digital Genes) + vocals sung by Laura Pistorio.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/mm1h27qnf64bv ... u.wav?dl=0

There are 16 tracks
- 4 Drum tracks: 1 core kit using UJAM VOID + UVI drum replacer on the kick and snare, 3 audio hat and percussion tracks
- 2 Bass tracks: a Legato bass for verses (Bass Master) + a Stab Bass for choruses (The Sub in a parallel rack with Bass Master)
- 4 'Body' tracks: Synthmaster 2 ambient pad, Kontakt The Maverick piano (bandpassed to make it boxy/LoFi), Kontakt Piano in Blue, a rack of 3 layered Serum saw synths for the chorus anthem
- 2 'Air' synths: a top end cheesy Serum saw synth to counterplay with the chorus vocals, Output Analog Brass&Winds as a soaring pad
- 2 FX tracks with reverse reverbs of main tracks + some hits and downer samples
- 2 lead vocals tracks, treated with Melodyne, iZotope Nectar, Baby Audio Smooth Operator - one for main vocals, one for harmony right at the end
Samples are from various paid royalty-free sample packs by Loopmasters, Abletunes, CR2, BigZ.

[EsteveCorbera]

Challenge companions and Mister Fox, Good night!!

I'm sorry, but this month I couldn't intervene earlier, and give you my point of view on your topics.

I present to you my theme for this month's challenge.
This time I tried to make a more normal song, with a more traditional structure.
I based my theme on some vocal samples and then added the instruments and accompaniments. I use vocal samples because I don't have the ability to record vocals with conditions. In this case, the lyrics of the song are not important.

I hope you find it interesting.

Thank you colleagues.

(translated with google)



Equipment:
DAW:
Reason 12

Instruments:
Rack Extension ProjectSAM Orchestral Sampler
Kong Drum Designer
Dr. Octo Rex Loop Player

Effects:
RV7000 MkII Advanced Reverb
Quartet Chorus Ensemble
Synchronous Effect Modulator
Audiomatic Retro Transformer
Channel EQ
Channel Dynamics

Players:
Scales & Chords

Utilities:
Combinator

Other instruments outside of Reason:
Native Instruments KONTAKT
Arturia KORG MS-20

Othet effects outside of Reason:
Waves Vitamin Sonic Enhancer
Analog Obsession ReLife
XLN Audio RC-20 Retro Color
Plugin-alliance Brainworx bx_stereomaker
WAProduction Vocal Cleaner
Plugin-alliance Noveltech Vocal Enhancer
SoundSpot Percolate Percussion EQ

Other tools:
iZotope Ozone 9
Plugin Alliance SPL HawEye

Kontakt libraries:
Dark Intervals Guitars in Space
Rigid Audio Acoustic Isolation
Ben Osterhouse Sospiro Strings

Samples:
Ghosthack - Ultimate Vocal Library 3

[Mister Fox]

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



Please get your production ready and submitted (through the forum) today.
And to make it easier for me to create the collection post, please update your initial post with the appropriate links, or explicitly mark your entry as "final entry". Thank you.

[Crosshatched]

And The Sky Opens Up

This is only the chorus.

Songwriting and recording take me too long. I actually did write the verses, too, so that's all done.

I hope you can help me learn how to mix vocals and how to mix and sing and record!

Basic Stats:

Motu M4, SE V7x Dynamic
Mainly Cakewalk
Prochannel (e.g. Eq), perhaps some more stock plugins,
also MAudio MCompressor, Oril River Reverb, Airwindows Cliponly 2, Sleepy Time Lisp (still available on bedroomproducers blog), MAudio MSaturator,

Audacity to envelope the vocal.

Downloads now enabled.

Oh sorry! Forgot to mention I used Pianoteq 7 (2 different instances)

[Olli H]

My submission:

Olli H: Still You Care About Me
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1A497kr ... sp=sharing

Most of my songs belong to a category of "introspective sarcasm". Also this one.

I started with lyrics. I went through a list of colours and tried to figure out how they might relate to my life. Soon I had to admit to myself that I'm quite a colourless and gray person in and out. But as I nevertheless enjoy my life, I had a suitable apparent contradiction for the starting point of this song. Quite soon after that I had a preliminary lyrics and melody. I almost always do the melody and words at the same time.

Words are at the same time both depressing and happy. It depends on how to read them. I guess that for extroverts they are mainly depressive, but some introverts may consider them as a description of state of happiness.

As I wanted that contradictory starting point also to prevail musically, I decided that the song should be both acoustic and synth based. So, first I created an acoustic groove with brushed drums and two acoustic guitars. After that I started to add different kinds of synth sounds upon that. End result sounds maybe more like Finnish pop than today's mainstream pop.

The day, when I sang the final version, I wasn't capable to express anything at all. No nuances, no whatsoever. So final vocal take is quite boring. But maybe it suits fine, as this is a boring song about a boring man.

DAW: Reaper
Drums: SSD
Acoustic Guitars: real
Shaker: real
Vocals: gray boring man
Synths: Massive, Massive, Massive, Massive, Voltage Module Designer

[patrlord]

Hello everyone,

I updated my track, the vocals needed to be sat a bit better in the mix.

This is my final submission !

https://www.dropbox.com/s/qv9azhqljd57y ... u.wav?dl=0