SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC029 January 2020 - Winners announced

[Mister Fox]

Hello and welcome to the Songwriting Competition 29 - January 2020


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 (artist name should be the same as the forum username)
• If you only post a SoundCloud link, please name the file properly before 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 examples / audio demos for this month's challenge (usually not available if genre is "Free to Select")
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: Wednesday, 01st January 2020 to Friday, 24th January 2020 (24 days)

Challenge submission will end on 24-01-2020, 11:59pm CET/GMT+1 (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: Community Scramble (limited sound set challenge)

GENRE: free to select


Image Source: ArtsyBee (background, via Pixabay), released under Creative Commons CC0


A few word about this month's theme:

Hello and welcome to or second special challenge on the Mix Challenge audio community - called "Community Scramble".



The twist of the current Songwriting Competition:

Create a music production in any genre that you feel like. However, you are only allowed to use the sounds and samples that have been sourced and provided by the Mix Challenge audio community. You are free to mangle the content as much as you like. You are allowed to use re-sampling, wavetable synthesis, granular synthesis, modulation, or whatever else is at your disposal in terms of tools. But you are not allowed to add any additional sounds or instruments that have not been created from the available source material. Adding vocals (your own voice or a collaborating singer) is the only exception.

You can read more about the "Community Scramble" concept in the news post from September 2018.


This year, you only really get access to 11 new "community sourced" samples - one of them a recited poem by one of our participants.

Since that amount of "new samples" is sadly way less material than initially expected / planned due to severe lack of participation, I stepped up. As written in the sample collection thread, I would find a way. So I raided my personal recordings and actually also found some additional fun stuff on the internet that I edited together. You will notice a trend towards more industrial sounds - if want to prevent this for Community Scramble 2021 - please participate more next time.


You can find the source material here:
SWC029 Source Sound Package - Mirror on the Mix Challenge Homepage
(77,93 MB, LZMA compressed, zip -- 132,74 MB extracted)


Your creativity will be pushed to the limits this month. I'm curious about the results.
Good luck!

Songwriting Add-On Rules:

• Create a production in any genre you feel like
• You are only allowed to use the sounds provided in the package above
• you can use any tools that are at your disposal to mangle the provided audio content (samplers, wavetable synths, modulation tools, etc)
• 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

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Source Files:

SWC029 Source Sound Package - Mirror on the Mix Challenge Homepage (77,93 MB, LZMA compressed, zip)


The provided files were packed as ZIP with LZMA compression.
File size extracted: 132,74 MB, packed 77,93 MB (ZIP, LZMA)
In order to extract the files, we can recommend these programs:

Macintosh:
The Unarchiver - get it here
Keka (open source) - get it here

Windows:
7zip - Installation / Portable


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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

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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

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

[Mister Fox]

Creative Sound design examples by Youtubers:

Levi Niha - Making Music With Windows XP Sounds (although, the beat was not created from the source sounds)
Andrew Huang - Making a beat out of a Donald Trump sniff
Andrew Huang - I spent a year recording radiators to make music (a song made out of radiator clicks and hums)
Andrew Huang - Making music with actual sounds from Mars (sounds from Mars winds vibrating NASA equipment, added custom beats)
dilliot2k - How To Make Michael Jackson's Scream (layering samples to create a rich and interesting drum beat)



Sound Design Tricks:

Andrew Huang - 12 sound design tricks I use!
Andrew Huang - It turns any sound INTO A WAY COOLER SOUND (showing off a wavetable synthesizer)
Savant In The Studio With Future Music (showing how he re-synthesizes his recorded sounds)
Seamless - FL Studio Basics 29: The Granulizer (short Granular Synthesis tutorial)
Mick Gordon - DOOM: Behind the Music (worth watching these 60 minutes, Mick Gordon also unveils his sound design chain for DOOM 2016, starting at the 17:02min mark and going until about 27:51min)
iZotope - Iris 2 (Spectral Synthesizer Pad Sound Demo by SYNTH ANATOMY)
Spectrasonics - Omnisphere 2's User Audio Import Feature (Quay presents synthesis with a Fishing Reel as sound source)
Spectrasonics - Omnisphere 2's User Audio Import Feature (Quay presents synthesis with striking a Water Jug as sound source)
Spectrasonics - Omnisphere 2's User Audio Import Feature (Sound Designer team shows off "everyday sounds" turned into bell pads)


A shout out to Levi Niha, Andew Huang, Dillio (DillioT2K), Seamless (Stephen O’Leary), Savant (Aleksander Vinter), Mick Gordon, Tom from SYNTH ANATOMY and the Sound Designer team from Spectrasonics



Tools worth a look for this task:

MuTools - MUX Modular
GlitchMachines - Quadrant, Cataract, Fracture XT, etc
illformed / dblue - Glitch
Sound Guru - The Mangle (page takes a bit to load, but affordable Granular Synthesizer)
Sonic Charge - Typhoon (Yamaha TX16W sampler)
CWItec - TX16Wx Sampler (more than just an affordable sampler, as it can read WAV, SF2, Logix EXS, Typhoon, etc)

...anything that can load WAV files as wavetables (e.g.: kv311 Audio SynthMaster, Waves Codex, iZotope Iris 2, Spectrasonics Omnisphere 2, etc)

[A Future in Noise]

There is something wrong with the zipped folder that is supposed to contain the source material. When I unzipped it i got six folders, all of them empty.

[Olli H]

I opened the zip-file with Keka-application, and it worked fine. Each folder has wav-files. But the zip won't open with mac's standard tool.

[A Future in Noise]

I opened the zip-file with Keka-application, and it worked fine. Each folder has wav-files. But the zip won't open with mac's standard tool.

I use PC, Windows 10. What is Keka?

[Olli H]

I use PC, Windows 10. What is Keka?

For some reason these zip-files don't open with every archive-tool. With PC try this one
http://www.7-zip.org/download.html

[A Future in Noise]

For some reason these zip-files don't open with every archive-tool. With PC try this one
http://www.7-zip.org/download.html

It worked! (Är du svensk eller finlandssvensk?)

[Mister Fox]

Hi everyone,


I completely forgot to copy in a paragraph from the last Community Scramble game (in fact, it's the same paragraph for the Mix Challenge games). I've just updated the second post with the relevant information.

I've been using LZMA compression since early 2014. As of this moment, every multitrack or sample ZIP package that has been distributed on the Mix Challenge audio community, has been packed with LZMA v1 compression and 7zip v15 (2015).

Source Files:

SWC029 Source Sound Package - Mirror on the Mix Challenge Homepage (77,93 MB, LZMA compressed, zip)


The provided files were packed as ZIP with LZMA compression.
File size extracted: 132,74 MB, packed 77,93 MB (ZIP, LZMA)
In order to extract the files, we can recommend these programs:

Macintosh:
The Unarchiver - get it here
Keka (open source) - get it here

Windows:
7zip - Installation / Portable

Not only that - keen eyes will spot a difference to the file size.

As of the time stamp of this post (01-JAN-2020, 9:20pm), the sample package has been updated.

You'll notice two more samples in the "Filler Material" folder (now also correctly written). Those being a Finger Cymbal and a Glockenspiel sample. This is to balance out the more mechanical content of the scarce "community provided material". I initially wanted to add a broken and buzzing Metallophone sample to the mix package, but I couldn't find my recordings from August 2019 anymore. So I recorded some quick new ones with a toy Glockenspiel, and added even more to the source package.


Use as many samples from this package as you seem fit, get inspired by the provided sound design example / tricks videos, be creative.
Good luck

[A Future in Noise]

Inside the updated folder, there is a folder named Fillter material, and that one is empty (I'm not talking about the Filler material folder).