Composition Challenge #41

thecolourbox

Some nice sounds there and on your other thread Petepassion. Reckon I could put a vocal tune to the Sayonara one as it is, if you fancy that? 

Sporky

I like the first one particularly - puts me in mind of trying something a bit Tycho or Trifonic inspired. 

TTony

stratman3142 said:

Petepassion said:

No click, but my thought was if anyone wanted to put rhythm/drums/percussion down then we could use that first then re-do the guitar afterwards…as my timing isn’t the best  .
   Plus, there are far better guitarists on here who could do a better job anyway…my playing is a bit sloppy.

 I'm not exactly sure how we make this work. Are we going to exchange tracks and add parts etc? Any thoughts and suggestions are welcome.

Not too sure either - maybe some shared cloud storage which any of "us" (ie whoever want to be involved in this) can upload / download stuff in an agreed format - wav probably?

Adding a BPM to the name of anything uploaded would be helpful.  And we either upload tracks individually (Drums, Bass, Lead1, Lead2, Lead3, Leadn, etc) so others can pick'n'mix, or our own part compositions for others to work on, or our "completed" tracks.

?

Petepassion

I'm clueless when it comes to tech, I use Reaper. I'm guessing whatever someone adds to the track would share the raw files(I believe they're called 'stems'). Whatever the foundation, be it drums, strings, etc we need that first then sent to anyone who fancies contributing, then a volunteer to produce it.
   No reason why we can't have several mixes with different musicians if we had too many bass, guitar ideas etc put forward.
 And yes, by all means add vocals, tear it apart, add a middle eight, all suggestions welcome. 

Petepassion

If no one up for producing, I have a good friend who would probably do it, he's pretty good.

IMC1980

Petepassion said:

If no one up for producing, I have a good friend who would probably do it, he's pretty good.

I'll have a crack at mixing 

stratman3142

One from @AlbertC in the playlist, with lyrics below:

Out of the wings she came alive
So unforeseen
Took to the stage and made it hers
She stole the scene

Its too late now
The music’s stopped
The moment’s gone
I missed my cue
The curtain’s dropped
On my black swan

I must admit to being wise
After the fact
I failed her long before I watched
The final act

I miss her now
The crowd’s applause
The funeral song
We’ve reached the end
The curtain falls
On my black swan

thecolourbox

I was playing a piano wedding gig on Saturday and something I played made me realise the first line of the chorus to the song I've been going over in my head to try and settle on a tune is in fact the hook to Taylor Swift's Enchanted. I'd changed one word, but otherwise lyrically and melodically the same. 

FFS, back to the drawing board. 

Weirdly for me it's one where I have the guitar riff and chords but can't put a tune to it that I like, that isn't just a generic ramble around the notes of the chords/scale. Normally I have the tune before the chords/riff

TTony

thecolourbox said:

I was playing a piano wedding gig on Saturday and something I played made me realise the first line of the chorus to the song I've been going over in my head to try and settle on a tune is in fact the hook to Taylor Swift's Enchanted. I'd changed one word, but otherwise lyrically and melodically the same. 

You mean, she nicked it from you???

(Check the guest list from past events you've played at ...)

thecolourbox

TTony said:

thecolourbox said:

I was playing a piano wedding gig on Saturday and something I played made me realise the first line of the chorus to the song I've been going over in my head to try and settle on a tune is in fact the hook to Taylor Swift's Enchanted. I'd changed one word, but otherwise lyrically and melodically the same. 

You mean, she nicked it from you???

(Check the guest list from past events you've played at ...)

Haha sadly I've looked the song up on Google and it was released in 2010, so predates my "idea" for this song by 14 years and to be fair, predates me singing and writing by about 5 years as well, so I think she's got the stronger case on this one. 

monquixote

Sporky said:

I've submitted mine. It started off as an attempt at a cover of No More Heroes, and rapidly turned into something quite different, and is now the main theme for Castle Despair.

FL Studio with Kontakt 7, NS Kit 7, Helix Native, Boo Bass, and some of the synths built into FLS. I'm quite pleased with the shreddy keyboard solo with the death-metal-inspired triple kick-drum bit.

I'm not sure how to make my next submission more frantic, but I'll give it a good go.

Absolutely bloody love this one!

Petepassion

monquixote said:

Sporky said:

I've submitted mine. It started off as an attempt at a cover of No More Heroes, and rapidly turned into something quite different, and is now the main theme for Castle Despair.

FL Studio with Kontakt 7, NS Kit 7, Helix Native, Boo Bass, and some of the synths built into FLS. I'm quite pleased with the shreddy keyboard solo with the death-metal-inspired triple kick-drum bit.

I'm not sure how to make my next submission more frantic, but I'll give it a good go.

Absolutely bloody love this one!

A pair of TRex on skateboards holding multi coloured iced creams…I’ve done some drugs in my time…but clearly not enough

Sporky

monquixote said:

Absolutely bloody love this one!

Thanks!

I'm going to try this approach again, I think - start off making a cover, give up, and spin it off into something New. 

monquixote

I've just banged one in

It's called "A Link to Lydia" it's a tribute to the music from the Legend of Zelda informed by 8 Bit Music Theory's YT video about how Zelda music has a characteristic Lydian feel. 

It was made in Bitwig using the U-He synths Diva, Hive and Repro.

stratman3142

monquixote said:

I've just banged one in...

It's in the playlist.

stratman3142

One from @thecolourbox in the playlist.

That makes a total of 7 entries.

thecolourbox

I've sent one in, not actually the one I've been working on (or any of the others that are unfinished and needing work), but one which has come to me over the last few days and was more or less complete with tune, harmony and lyrics so I thought I might as well go for it.

"Dear Me" liner notes - it's a mopey self indulgent moan about the usual stuff I moan self indulgently about. I've been trying to get good acoustic sounds of late so put in quite a bit of fiddling and chopping and changing to try and get things sounding acceptable. I did record this one with guitar and vocals separate though so I was able to use more of the mic sound than the pickup, and also able to punch in to piece together a better overall compilation which I don't normally do - I did the guide track and subsequent takes of the finger picking sounds playing in E with capo on 4th, only when I came to doing the more strummy sound to beef it up did it occur to me to instead play in G with capo on 1st which was much easier (I hate jumping to c# minor barre!). It did help though to have two different voicings of the same chords so it's ok I think. I'll tell you what though, my timing is bloody awful, rhythms were all over the place between the guitar parts, and they still are a bit but I've managed to get it mostly under control. Oh I forgot, the acoustic currently has electric guitar strings on, and i think it sounds better than normal to be honest, but we all like different things I suppose

Style wise, I was kind of going for a Laura Marling type sound

So, guitar recorded simultaneously through soundhole pickup and Marantz condenser mic, some compression added and an IR on the pickup signal to blend the mic and pickup sounds together. Vocals through the same mic. I bought a bundle of Universal Audio plugins and I have to say they've sounded generally more adequate more quickly than the stuff i've used before, but that might just be the "new stuff" effect i suppose. There's some Space Echo on vocals and drums, tape machine on the master output, and the mic channel strip on vocals and guitar. 

stratman3142

Just to note that I'm going to have intermittent access to the internet, so there might be delays in uploading entries.

monquixote

thecolourbox said:

I've sent one in, not actually the one I've been working on (or any of the others that are unfinished and needing work), but one which has come to me over the last few days and was more or less complete with tune, harmony and lyrics so I thought I might as well go for it.

"Dear Me" liner notes - it's a mopey self indulgent moan about the usual stuff I moan self indulgently about. I've been trying to get good acoustic sounds of late so put in quite a bit of fiddling and chopping and changing to try and get things sounding acceptable. I did record this one with guitar and vocals separate though so I was able to use more of the mic sound than the pickup, and also able to punch in to piece together a better overall compilation which I don't normally do - I did the guide track and subsequent takes of the finger picking sounds playing in E with capo on 4th, only when I came to doing the more strummy sound to beef it up did it occur to me to instead play in G with capo on 1st which was much easier (I hate jumping to c# minor barre!). It did help though to have two different voicings of the same chords so it's ok I think. I'll tell you what though, my timing is bloody awful, rhythms were all over the place between the guitar parts, and they still are a bit but I've managed to get it mostly under control. Oh I forgot, the acoustic currently has electric guitar strings on, and i think it sounds better than normal to be honest, but we all like different things I suppose

Style wise, I was kind of going for a Laura Marling type sound

So, guitar recorded simultaneously through soundhole pickup and Marantz condenser mic, some compression added and an IR on the pickup signal to blend the mic and pickup sounds together. Vocals through the same mic. I bought a bundle of Universal Audio plugins and I have to say they've sounded generally more adequate more quickly than the stuff i've used before, but that might just be the "new stuff" effect i suppose. There's some Space Echo on vocals and drums, tape machine on the master output, and the mic channel strip on vocals and guitar. 

Really nice work. Kind of halfway between Eliot Smith and Nick Drake.

thecolourbox

Thanks Monq, I do get Elliot Smith mentioned quite a lot, as I do with Nick Drake to be fair, but while I've managed to really get into Drake I've never really liked Elliot Smith when I've tried to get into it. But I kind of get the vibe and the comparisons based on that I guess.

Also this is probably over sharing, but the teacher who is the subject of my second verse actually passed away last week (my piano teacher). I was due to go and see her as she was unwell but she died in the early hours of the morning on the day I was going, which was tough to take as you can imagine