SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC093 May 2025 - Submissions until 24-MAY-2025 23:59 UTC+2/CEST

[EsteveCorbera]

Hi EsteveCorbera,

cool track, cool sounds and great voices. The intro sounds big and it really catches me. But for my ears at 0:45 or so the song looses its power. I think it's because of too much busscompression, the track doesn't breathe, and too much muddyness. I would try to give it more dynamic and clarity. Maybe the voices are a little bit too loud. Just my little two cents...

Greetings
Peter

Peter,
Thanks for your comments.
I have made some changes to my theme following your suggestions.

Esteve

[Mister Fox]

A friendly reminder:
Including today, 06 days left to submit your production.

So far, we have 03 entries and some minimal feedback among participants.

We need 09 participants for a regular sized podium, and more than 15 for an extended one.



Now is the perfect time to post your entry!

If you want to access the extended game mechanics of the Songwriting Competition (asking for feedback during production), please try to release your first edits within the next 3 to 4 days to have enough time to get possible feedback (if wanted/needed) and continue to work on your song.

To those sitting on the fence - please don't feel scared off and think "the bar is set too high, I will never make it" - set yourself a shorter private deadline. Just make music, submit your entry, join the conversation. See where this goes.

By joining, you're already a winner. The rest is bonus.

[Strange]

Hi EsteveCorbera,

cool track, cool sounds and great voices. The intro sounds big and it really catches me. But for my ears at 0:45 or so the song looses its power. I think it's because of too much busscompression, the track doesn't breathe, and too much muddyness. I would try to give it more dynamic and clarity. Maybe the voices are a little bit too loud. Just my little two cents...

Greetings
Peter

Peter,
Thanks for your comments.
I have made some changes to my theme following your suggestions.

Esteve

Yeah, you're on the right track. In my opinion you could do more, more clarity in the basses, more dynamic between the parts, to make it and feel it every time bigger and bigger.

[Rick Finsta]

Okay, I'll have to pop back and flesh out my description here but this is my first foray into any type of electronic music and the first time I've used MIDI for anything but programming drums.

The lyrics are designed to be unintelligible, but the song was based around a sample of the hydraulics on my surface grinder that I have had on my phone for years now to do some sort of Venjent-style mix on. I performed the bass, guitar, and (electronic) drums and everything else was playing with some UAD synth plugin I have for layering under choruses on punk rock stuff.

The song doesn't really go anywhere since I was really taking more time experimenting creating this type of music than I was creating a coherent song structure. So for the record, yes I have written songs longer than two minutes!!!!

[viklundorama]

Hello!

I decided to participate in this challenge with a piece.
It is inspired by Philip Glass Metamorphosis and Caterina Barbierinis Patterns of consciousness.

I am working in Logic Pro using a variety of software synths, mostly Alchemy, Thump and Pendulate.

This is still a work in progress with a lot of tweaks still needed. Mostly done with the composing part but still a lot to do with arranging and sound design.

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

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

All the best!

[Strange]

Hello!

I decided to participate in this challenge with a piece.
It is inspired by Philip Glass Metamorphosis and Caterina Barbierinis Patterns of consciousness.

I am working in Logic Pro using a variety of software synths, mostly Alchemy, Thump and Pendulate.

This is still a work in progress with a lot of tweaks still needed. Mostly done with the composing part but still a lot to do with arranging and sound design.

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

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

All the best!

Hello @viklundorama
my little two cents?
Great sound, hypnotic, glassy until part two. I like the intro very much, but the groove doesn't catch me. Part three is interesting, again, because of the bassdrum rhythm, cool idea. But the BD-sound seems to be too natural and outside the overall atmosphere. Part four introduces the groove, I don't like, again.
BUT, if you like the sounds and it's your vision, it's all perfectly okay! Thank you for sharing your ideas.

Greetings
Peter

[JMmusic]

This is my piece for the month. it was a lot of fun to put together.

Instrumentation:
Electronic drum kit
sounds and soundscapes mod'd in sample one (real world and digital recording samples)
bass vst

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uMWXvk ... drive_link

[Mister Fox]

Hi and welcome to the community.

This is my piece for the month. it was a lot of fun to put together.

Interesting interpretation of "Electronic music".

Can you please go a bit more in-depth regarding your equipment use? As in... I don't understand what you mean with "sounds and soundscapes mod'd in sample one". This would add to the learning aspect of our community.

Also... please check in with post #002 regarding the filename template. You can change that directly on Google Drive. Thank you.

I decided to participate in this challenge with a piece.
It is inspired by Philip Glass Metamorphosis and Caterina Barbierinis Patterns of consciousness.

Great to see you back on the community.

You definitely have some interesting ideas, and I'd love to hear an overhauled mix. Because as of this moment, the weakest part is the imbalance between synths, pads and drums. The drums alone could be at least twice as loud (as they are the driving force of this song). Then you should consider cleaning up the frequency spectrum - giving each instruments their individual spaces.

Boosting the drums would already result in a different perceived loudness - but please do keep the limits in mind.

I also kindly ask you to check post #002 regarding the filename template. Unlike the Mix Challenge, it's not a disqualification criteria, but it will result in a loss of bonus points on the final score sheet.




A short reminder:

Including today, 03 days left to finalize and submit your production.

So far, we have 06 entries. The more participants, the more feedback, the more interaction.

[toadhjo]

Here's my track for this month! No vocals this month -- I'm venturing back into the weird sound design realm that earned me mixed reviews in March's competition, but this time around the composition is more fully formed.



Composition:

► Show Spoiler

I went back and forth between my DAW and a piano while figuring out the composition. The basic outline of the track is Intro/A/A/B/A, with some flourishes here and there.

In the A parts, the bass alternates between Am7 and BbMaj7 arpeggios, while the pad chords keep rising higher and higher. I'd never tried this before and found it was a fun way to generate lots of harmonic tension.

The B part is a simple vi/IV/ii/iii progression. I was a little worried about making the transition from A to B but I think I landed it without too much turbulence.

(My theory knowledge is relatively basic, so please forgive me if I'm misinterpreting my own composition!)

Production and Sound Design:

► Show Spoiler

Although I was originally planning to use older Reaktor libraries for everything, in the end I decided to relax that self-imposed restriction. That being said, the sounds are still primarily from Reaktor -- a mix of classic instruments like Junatik and Steam Pipe 2 and newer ones like Form and Kontour.

The prominent non-Reaktor instruments are the drums and the guitars. The drum loops that drive much of the track are from the Samples from Mars Lin Loops pack -- often I ran them through the DS Tantra 2 mutliFX plugin for extra juice. The snare in the B section is from Minimal Audio's Polarity pack. There are also a couple of pickaxe samples from Freesound in there -- with a little distortion they sound magical.

The guitars are all a Schecter C-1 Classic, DIed into the Helix Native VST. There's also one instance each of Arturia's Emulator 2 and AIR's The Riser, used for orchestra hits and a riser, respectively.

I went nuts with effects VSTs, particularly distortion and reverb. I'm not going to list them all here but if you have any questions about a particular sound, don't hesitate to ask.

On the master buss: TDR Infrasonic -> TDR Ellpitical -> VoS Feenstaub TC -> VoS Feenstaub TX -> Acon Digital Verberate 2 -> Fuse Audio Flywheel -> TDR Limiter 6 GE

That's a lot of plugins, but their contribution to the overall sound is relatively subtle. And in the end Limiter 6 is there just for peace of mind -- the track hit -14.1 LUFs-I with over 2db of headroom to spare.

I had a lot of fun producing this one. Thank you to Mister Fox for hosting the competition, and to everyone for listening and participating. I look forward to hearing your entries!

[The Exponent]

Hi All!

Been a while since I participated, hope you're all doing well.
I really wanted to do this month's challenge so put something together today, hope you all like/enjoy it.

Here's my submission:

Obscura


Technical Details:

► Show Spoiler

REAPER Version: 7.38/x64

FX Used in Project:

3x - JS: ReEQ
2x - JS: Volume/Pan Smoother v5
2x - VST3: Deelay
5x - VST3: Duck
2x - VST3: Infiltrator
6x - VST3: LoudMax
1x - VST3: Magma Lil Tube Stereo
2x - VST3: OTT
1x - VST3: OrilRiver
2x - VST3: Raum
1x - VST3: Supercharger GT
5x - VST3: smartEQ4
1x - VST3i: BLEASS Megalit
10x - VST3i: Pigments
3x - VST: GClip
1x - VST: Head Crusher
1x - VST: RC 48
3x - VST: ValhallaSupermassive
1x - VST: kHs Trance Gate

Mastering - smartEQ4. smartLimit

Also some free/royalty free drum. impact, swoosh samples I had collected overtime. All processed