SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC059 July 2022 - Winners announced

[Mister Fox]

A friendly reminder:
Including today, are 3 days left to submit your entry.

Please keep in mind, due to given time constraints, there will sadly be no further "client feedback" anymore. Please get your productions finished, upload/post your content, triple check all of your links. Thank your for participating and/or spreading the word.

[VCA-089]

I have updated my initial post with final submission. All links checked...

[canese]

I'm updating my entry for this month's challenge:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hgpCTZ ... sp=sharing
For me, this track represents a hand-drawn/pixel art steampunk video game. It was tough to nail down this premise. I've come across many ideas and finally decided to work on this one, which was the most simple and solid one. I think it will suit very well in a card game because of the fast pace and repetitiveness. It has Rondo structure (ABACA), parts A and B are more aligned in emotion and part C could be used when you are in low health or with a BOSS. Anyway, I hope the client and you guys, like it.

The track was made with a laptop and headphones in FL studio. My usual studio had electrical problems so I needed to leave and take the essential.

Lead instrument: Sakura Vst.
Bass: Sawer VST and GMS VST
Drums: Drumax and some samples
Brass: Layered brass samples.

Cheers

[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]

A simple taunt intro/outro, but the music has more sound to it.
The intro/outro might be looped, but the idea is that the loop is without them. Will have to adjust reverb to loop properly maybe.

glitches arise.
Admittedly a bit...
I'm probably quoting lots of things. I can't figure out how to swerve away from quoting anything.

Melody (and some of Harmony):
Pianoteq 7
Vital
Sforzando - MadBrain's DecentWarp2

Harmony:
NeoOrchestra Viola Ensemble
ADLPlug
Decent Sampler - Glass Harp - Pianobook - gnbusby
Sforzando - Etherealwinds Harp II: Community Edition (I believe)

Intro/Interlude/Outro:
Pianoteq 7
NI Hybrid Keys 2.0 x 2 (Kontakt Player)

Bass:
Vital
Synth1
BBC Discover Cellos

Plugins:
Cakewalk's builtin pro-channel, especially for EQ
also:
tube maybe?

Cakewalk:
sonitus compressor
Breverb 2

airwindows cliponly 2

Main
:
https://soundcloud.com/g-jardine/entire ... al_sharing
Not sure the file name is correct, but the name of the thing is.

Looping:
exists, don't have time to upload it though.

[Mellow Browne]

Hi,

Sorry for the late submission. It took me some time to wrap my head around this month challenge but I really wanted to participate and learn new things. Unfortunately, I only started a few days ago, so this is a shorter entry, maybe a b part like other users did would fit and support the "emotional ride" even more.
Steampunk, Video Card Game and Soundtrack, a nice combination to create something that sounds like an adventure imo. When thinking of steampunk I see machines and crazy inventions.
So I went for that fantasy cinematic style sound with a more adventurous, dramatic and emotional touch like "Hand Of Fate", this is why I chose Omnisphere as the only synth for "instruments", it has a lot of great presets for this type of sound. The percussive instruments and orch hits are from AiR Xpand!2, the high pitched string hit is a Logic Sampler patch I made some years ago, the trombone is from Orchestral Companion Brass.
It is possible to loop it without a huge break from end to the next start, I really did not want to start and end with a big rise fx or similar thing.
I know, it gets a bit repetitive, this is why I tried to give it a more musical variety and I hope it gets not too boring.

Mixing tools I used:

-StandardClip
-TDR Kotelnikov
-Kilohearts Compressor
-Channel EQ
-UAD bx digital v3
-UAD Little Labs ibp
-UAD Fairchild 660
-UAD LA-2A
-NI Raum
-Devious Machines Duck

Stereo bus tools:

-UAD Fairchild 670
-UAD bx digital v3
-UAD Studer 800
-UAD Pultec-Pro Legacy
-Ozone 9 Elements

Let me know what you think:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xz7U0i ... sp=sharing

Cheers!

[KukoBass]

I made the mistake of listening to the early submissions and felt I could not compete with them. So I temporally abandoned my project.
But you're right, Mr. Fox, this is not about winning but about the experience and the feedback.

So here is my submission:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SjaSx9 ... sp=sharing


DAW: Ableton Live

Instruments
Drums: Native Instruments Action Drums
Percussion: Ableton Live TamTam Drums
Strings: 5 instances of Native Instruments Session Strings (Ensemble, Basses, Celli, Violi, Violins) with Ableton Autofilter on the Violins

Percussive Synth: KV331 audio Synthmaster 2 "BT 80's snapper sequencer" (BigTone Analog Basics 02 expansion)

Lead Synth: KV331 audio Synthmaster 2 "LD Edgy Rezzo"

Edit (added 25.07.2022)
I updated the picture and the description of the soundcloud track, but not the track itself.

My goal was to write a soundtrack that works well as a background; something you don't really notice when playing the game, but recognize when you hear it again.

The song is based on IV V iii vi. According to a video by David Bennet Piano, this chord progression is often used in Japanese game soundtracks and songs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aezSL_GvZA
Unfortunately it is ONLY based on this chord progression. I had no inspiration for a B part, so the structure is AAAAAAAA (ran out of ideas).
I started with the strings and found the song boring until I found the "Snapper Sequencer"-Sound to spice up the song a little.

I had timing problems with the melody. The song is set in 75 BPM, as the action drums use 16th notes and I wanted to keep the speed down. The backside of this approach was that the quantization of the melody did not work out. Feedback on how to fix this is very welcome.

The plugins I used:
Drums: Hornet Spikes to tame the spikes.
Violins: Ableton Live Autofilter on Cut-O-Move-preset. The violins were a little too annoying in the high frequencies, so I decided to put a filter on them and automate the frequency for some extra movement.
Percussion: AudioThing Megaphone on "50s Vintage LK" preset to make them a little more present.

Master Bus:
Hornet ThirtyOne MK2 on "Continuous Auto EQ-Mode"
Brainworx bx_masterdesk True Peak for slight changes in volume, tone and to make the bass below 126 Hz mono
Hornet The Normalizer for volume control
Mastering the mix Levels for checking possible technical issues
(end of Edit)

[Olli H]

My final submission can be found in my earlier post:
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=569&p=13062#p13062

[Nick Collins]

https://soundcloud.com/nickcnoise/luck-of-the-draw

Last minute thingy, maybe a bit loud I need to get some LUFS monitoring tools I guess I've been using RMS forever to get an idea of average loudness because it's what FL has built in via wave candy.

Instruments:
Pianoteq(clavi+piano)
Earthbound sf2(sub bass)
Chrono Trigger sf2(pizzicato)
Planet Phatt sf2(drums)
DirectWave Guitar
Sytrus(another sub+2 op 2:1 FM synth for odd harmonics)
FLEX(808s)
Zebra(crackles noise)
Not sure where the triangles come from I've had these samples for like 10 or 15 years so probably some sf2 or tracker mod...

Mostly stock FL effects, used a lot of Air Windows To Tape for saturation and flutter

I haven't played a lot of card games aside from a little of the FF minigames so I mostly used this for some other homework like chord planing and whole tone scale. I think the general disregard for diatonicism and the modulations would prevent listener fatigue as it isn't the same tones the entire time but this can also risk becoming incoherent so for balance some elements like the bass line stay fairly consistent throughout.

[Denisioo]

I updated my initial post, with my final submission! Thank you for the nice feedback on my first entry! Good luck to everyone