SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC022 June 2019 - Winners announced

[Mister Fox]

Hello and welcome to the Songwriting Competition 22 - June 2019


This is the introduction post, where we directly link to the challenge corresponding files (theme, submission information, sponsors) and start of the voting process. There will be no Round 2



Please take note of the following

• IMPORTANT: please use the following naming convention for your productions: SWC000_ArtistName_TrackName.wav/mp3 (Artistname should be the same as the username)
• If you only post a SoundCloud link, please name the file properly to uploading and make your song downloadable

Also please take note of the following

• If you have an idea for future Songwriting Competition themes and/or genres, please post them here.
• Social Media accounts can be found via the handles @MixChallenge (Twitter) and MixChallenge (Facebook). Please spread the word!
• if you like what the Mix Challenge (community) has been doing in recent months, please consider supporting us.

This post will be updated with the corresponding links as we progress, and of course the suitable thread headlines. So please watch this spot:


Submission Period: General Information and Sponsors
Cheat Sheet: A couple of audio tools that might help you for this month's challenge
Voting: Summarized entries and start of voting process
Results of the Songwriting Competition: Results of the Songwriting Competition

[Mister Fox]

CURRENT CHALLENGE - GENERAL INFORMATION

Time Frame: Saturday, 01st June June 2019 to Monday, 24th June 2019 (24 days)

Challenge submission will end on 24-06-2019, 11:59pm CEST/GMT+2 (Germany) - until further notice.

Want to find out if you're still within the deadline, please consult the following options:
The Global Countdown on it's dedicated page or the countdown on the home page. You can also consult the World Clock at the top of the forum or alternatively the following tool - in this case please select "Berlin (Germany)" as location 1, and your location as location 2: Time and Date - World Clock Meeting Planner. We do post reminders via our Twitter account and Facebook page.



SONGWRITING THEME: AI enhanced composing

GENRE: free to select


Image Source: "c.1725 painting of Johann Sebastian Bach playing the organ", spliced with "c.1966, IBM computer tape bank. Washington, D.C", original images released under CC0/Public Domain - photo edited by "Mister Fox"/Mix Challenge, 2019


A few word about this month's theme:

Finding a good theme for the Songwriting Competition isn't always easy. So it was out of sheer luck that I saw three words trending on Twitter on 21st March 2019: "Bach Google Doodle". Google LLC has been doing interactive "Doodles" (their form of custom logos) since 2010. Their first ever hands-on Google Doodle was a custom coded Pac-Man game in honor of "30 years of Pac-Man" - playable through your browser.

Throughout the years, Google LLC created countless interactive Doodles for various historic people and events. Among them, a "Doodle" about Ludwig van Beethoven's 245th birthday in December 2015 - where you could piece together four of his most famous compositions. You can still find it on the Google Doodles archive - it's great fun for a couple of minutes.

Curious as I was, I clicked on the trending "Bach Google Doodle", and I never expected to sink hours into this. Which in turn gave me the perfect idea for this month's Songwriting Competition.


You see, one of the special things of the "Celebrating Johann Sebastian Bach" Google Doodle, is that you can not only write a melody in this little game and harmonize it through the help of AI learning. You can actually export your creation as MIDI File.

And with this, we have our twist for SWC022!



Your task for this Songwriting Competition:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This month, you can create a production in any genre you feel like.

The twist will be, that you have to use the "Celebrating Johann Sebastian Bach" Google Doodle as composition tool. This app offers you two bars of music, but you can of course use this little gem to render out way more if you want. However, it would be nice to see the source for your finished creation - so please post screenshots of your "score sheet" (from the Doodle).

Other than that, you can do whatever comes to mind. Mangle the composition, maybe create 16 bars and replay it live on piano to add some humanization. If you want to, you can even utilize one of the many composition helpers (MIDI tools) I've listed below. For those of us that are not as skilled in songwriting, this might be a good entry level competition. Some of these tools are available for free, or mere pocket change. Though maybe you have one of those tools already on your HDD.

The main idea of this month's competition is to make music in the first place.
And what a great way to also celebrate "International Make Music Day" / "Fête de la Musique" on 21st June 2019.

So... Please have fun!



IMPORTANT INFO: A short manual for the "Bach Google Doodle" can be found in the post below

Songwriting Add-On Rules:

• Create a production in any genre you feel like
• you must use the "Celebrating Johann Sebastian Bach" in some shape or form in your production (please provide at least one screenshot of your arrangement)
• you can use any tool that is at your disposal (samples, virtual instruments and/or real instruments)
• IMPORTANT: if you use non-licensed material (no material from sample CDs, etc), give full credit to the source material
• It is recommended to not go higher than -14LUFS SLk (avg) or K-12v1 (avg) in terms of perceived loudness. Music doesn't have to be squashed to bits in order to be impactful
• for newcomers: no cover versions or remixes

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Please take note of the official rules - they can be found at the following thread:
Songwriting Competition - Official Rules and Guidelines

Please address any OT question in the official Gossip thread:
Songwriting Competition - Gossip and Discussion

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


SPONSORS (Prizes):

Prizes for Songwriting Challenge participants:

Note: All licenses are NFR (Not-For-Resale), except where noted.
Changes to available prices on short notice may be possible and will be announced separately.


RECURRING LICENSE SPONSORSHIP:


IK Multimedia is kind enough give away one license of MODO BASS to the winner
License will turn into NFR
More info on IK Multimedia: https://www.ikmultimedia.com



Tone2 is kind enough to donate a license of Saurus2 to the winner (until further notice)
License will turn into NFR
More info on Tone2: https://tone2.com



kv331 audio is kind enough give away a bundle of either SynthMaster 1+2 Bundle, or a freely selectable set of 3 SynthMaster Expansions
License will not turn into NFR, you need to have a kv311 audio user account in order to pick up Expansions
More info on kv331 audio: https://www.kv331audio.com



JRR Sounds is kind enough give away any-1 sound sets or sample set of winner's choice (exception: Bundles)
More info on JRR Sounds: https://www.jrrshop.com/jrr-sounds



Luftrum is kind enough give away either a license of Lunaris, or any 2 sound sets of winner's choice (exception: Bundles and Nano Electronics)
License will turn into NFR
More info on Luftrum: http://www.luftrum.com



Rekkerd Sounds is kind enough give away 1 sound set of winners choice (exception: Krezie EDM and Neurofunk Vol. 1)
License will turn into NFR
More info on Rekkerd Sounds: http://sounds.rekkerd.org/



Ghostwave Audio (Vincent Bastiat) is kind enough to donate any 2 sound sets to the winner
License will turn into NFR
More info on Ghostwave Audio: http://ghostwaveaudio.com



Hollow Sun is kind to donate one license of "Music Laboratory Machines - The Suite I" to the winner
License will turn into NFR
More info on Hollow Sun: http://www.hollowsun.com



Hornet Plugins is kind enough give away one license from the depicted tools (see image) to the winner
License will turn into NFR
More info on Hornet Plugins: http://www.hornetplugins.com



Sound / Graphic Designer, and honorary Mix Challenge staff satYatunes is donating one commercial product of winner's choice (until further notice)
More info on satYatune's page: http://www.satyatunes.com/





THANKS FOR THE DONATIONS!
And also a thank you to all former contributors as well.

If you want to sponsor content (please have a focus on instruments, samples and sound sets), please get in touch with the Mix Challenge staff.

Please spread the word of the challenge on social media.
For example with our dedicated Twitter Account or Facebook Page

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Good luck to all participants.
And most importantly, have fun!

[Mister Fox]

TOOLS OF THE TRADE:
---------------------------

A random selection of MIDI tools that help you write a song. This list is far from being complete (I think I also left out "online-only" tools). Not counting are drum machines with step sequencers or loop players (like FXPansion Geist, Image Line Groove Machine, Spectrasonics Stylus RMX, Toontrack Superior Drummer), or VSTi that have chord generation tools built in (Toontrack EZKeys, AmpleSound AmpleGuitars, Musiclab RealGuitars).

Please also check, if your host has MIDI chord creators or harmony/scale creation tools built in (example: Steinberg Cubase - Chord Track)


Audio to MIDI:
interactopia - Imitone (Mind to Melody)


Chorder and Fixed-to-Scale Melody creators:
AudioModern - Random Chords Generator (needs M4L/Ableton Live)
AutoTonic - AutoTonic Modal MIDI Composer
ChordSpace - ChordSpace Original and ChordSpace Playa (idea for ChordSpace Playa was picked up by CodeFN42, Windows 32bit only)
CodeFN42 - Cales and Chordz (Chordz now has "Cales" built in, Windows only)
J74 (aka Fabrizio Poce) - J74 Progressive Standalone (else: needs M4L/Ableton Live)
FeelYourSound - Melodic Flow
Insert Piz Here - midiChords
Plugin Boutique - Scaler
WA Production - InstaChord and InstaScale (an old version of InstaChords can be found on the Computer Music magazine "Studio Vault")
Xfer Records - Cthulhu


Arpeggiators:
GrayWolf - BlueArp
Squareheads - Nora




Mini Manual for the "Bach Google Doodle"
https://www.google.com/doodles/celebrat ... bach?hl=en

!

Bonus Info

You can change the language of the Google Doodle through the Dropdown menu at the top of the page. Once you're past the tutorial, or skipped it even, you can do the folowing The amp on the right hand side changes the engine from a "Piano" to a "Synthesizer" Changing to "Rock Mode" also gives you access to the melody line of the "Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565" instead of "Mary had a little lamb" and "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" the up/down arrows on the UI change the tempo of the composing tool the Play button plays back your creation the Trashbin icon deletes everything you've created (warning!) If the "Star Button" to the left of the UI is not pressed, you can only create 4th and 8th notes if you press the "Star Button" to the left of the UI, you'll get an additional global song-key wheel, and you can now also create 16th notes once you paint a note, you can add a "flat" or a "sharp" as needed (in the UI section where the BPM values show up) you can not create chords, only melody lines sadly, you can also not change the time signature of the song from 4/4 to 3/4 or others after you're done with creating a melody, press the harmonize button to let the AI create harmony parts If you do not want to loose your harmonization, do not press on either the "Trashbin" icon (deletes everything) or the "Pencil" icon (closes the popup and edits your melody line) if you want to re-harmonize the part, use the "Circling Arrows" button The MIDI Icon to the top left exports your creation as MIDI file Important: Firefox Quantum has problems with exporting MIDI files, so try this Google Doodle without an ad-blocker. Else, try to use Google Chrome (Portable).

[functionform]

Even though it outputs in midi, can we record live instruments for this run?

[Mister Fox]

Even though it outputs in midi, can we record live instruments for this run?

If you use the Google Doodle and create your core arrangement, then replay it with real instruments and even built upon it... I don't see a problem with that.



In fact, take note of what was written in the premise above:

...

Other than that, you can do whatever comes to mind. Mangle the composition, maybe create 16 bars and replay it live on piano to add some humanization.

...

[DoctorBob]

I cannot export MIDI on mine - it says "bachpiece.mid" cannot be downloaded.

Aha - MS Edge won't do it … but Google Chrome does - should have thought about Google taking over the world!

Also, you ask for a screenshot - if I say create 16 bars, i.e. 8 lots of 2 bars from the app (making sure that that the 8 I choose progress appropriately), would you only need 1 shot of one of the 2 bars?

I might even do the whole piece stitching together many 2 bar items from the app - how many screenshots would you need?

dB

[functionform]

One final question for Mister Fox. We can compose on top of it correct? We don't have to use the direct output, we're allowed to change the notes once in the DAW?

[Leonard Bowman]

I believe you can compose on top of it.
The brief says to use it as a "composition tool," so as long as Robo-Bach is noticable in your work I think you are fine.

For example, I was considering writing a melody, letting Bach add a harmonic progression to it, and then possibly stripping away the original melody to leave a Bach-built background.

Of course, I'm still way up in the air trying to think if an approach to this, so I may do something completely different in reality.

[Mister Fox]

I cannot export MIDI on mine - it says "bachpiece.mid" cannot be downloaded.

Aha - MS Edge won't do it … but Google Chrome does - should have thought about Google taking over the world!

Has the same issue with Firefox. Shall I add MS Edge to the Mini Manual?

Also, you ask for a screenshot - if I say create 16 bars, i.e. 8 lots of 2 bars from the app (making sure that that the 8 I choose progress appropriately), would you only need 1 shot of one of the 2 bars?

One screenshot per 2 bars would be nice. It's just to show "hey, I used this tool".

You can be super creative and create a "score sheet" with screenshots, that would definitely be cool to see.

One final question for Mister Fox. We can compose on top of it correct? We don't have to use the direct output, we're allowed to change the notes once in the DAW?

I believe you can compose on top of it.
The brief says to use it as a "composition tool," so as long as Robo-Bach is noticable in your work I think you are fine.

For example, I was considering writing a melody, letting Bach add a harmonic progression to it, and then possibly stripping away the original melody to leave a Bach-built background.

It would be great if you could write a melody, then use the composition tool and stick to it. But hey... things can change. I won't go super in depth and be like "wait, that's not what you created with the Doodle". Use it as starter. Or write a melody in your DAW first, then port it over and use it as additional tool for harmony creation. As long as you use the tool in some shape or form.

This is where the documentation comes in - tell others "what" you did and why. We really do not have to get very detailed on actual plugin use (although that is interesting to read - for example with SWC021), but I do enjoy reading a thought process behind a production.



Whatever you do - have fun while being creative!

[DoctorBob]

--- post removed --- sorry, it might have been seen as a WIP - but was just to explain where you can go with using the tool for composition, but could fall foul of getting a screenshot as each time you harmonise you'll get a different result, and so your screenshot won't be the one you used, unless you screenshot each end every one you do :-) Even though you might have something interesting …

dB