Thoughts RE: Riff of the Month

Basher

Must say that I was put off by the 30 second limit. A few months ago I did a slow, sludgy sort of thing and spent longer than the composition and recording time trying to chop bits out and speed it up. This ruined the original feel or made it even worse than it was, depending on your point of view.

I've also grown a bit fed up of the idea of voting. It's great to hear forum members' playing and ideas but I feel that grading them takes the edge off the experience for me. I realise that the competition element is what spurs many on to submit ideas but it started to put me off. I'm sure that's just me though and I've been happy to keep out of it since I felt this way.

Iamnobody

I think RoM or RotM is a great idea. I've never joined in or voted though. I think I'll have a go in Jan and try and participate regularly.

I'm not really fussed about the time limit - my riffs won't be any good! But a good riff (to me) would be short and repetitive, grab the listener quickly and ideally be memorable.

1 minute does seem too long - it's a third of a pop song! But as I haven't contributed or even voted yet then I'm probably not best placed to comment...

Re. Anonymous submissions - if you name the riff and votes are given for the riff name it wouldn't get complicated for voting at all. I wouldn't be bothered about anonymity but I can see why others might be.

Keep up the good work chaps and I'll hopefully join you soon.

thomasross20

I did it once but I just don't have time any more what with the band etc. 

I also used to use Traktion and jamstix and do proper tracks years ago but can't be @rsed with that these days - so my raw guitar parts will never "compete" with properly produced tracks from other members. 

I think 1 min is too long for a riff...

I think anonymous submissions are a good idea. You're voting for the music and not with any emotional/political (for whatever reason) reasoning behind it. 

samzadgan

i personally think its fine the way it is.

its not suppose to be taken too seriously, and the riff doesnt have to be overly produced with backing tracks etc...i always submit raw guitar track recorded with an iphone, im sure thats not the reason that i havent been a winner yet.

extending it to 1 min time limit is cool...for me anyway, but i guess people can submit shorter riffs and thats fine.

as far as being anonymous, i'm not too fussed with that. I dont have any issues with people listening to my riffs knowing its me, i think the people on this forum are cool enough not to look down upon people with lesser skill or want to steal a riff and get rich off it.

at the end of the day, its not a serious competition thats going to further your aspirations as a musician, its just a bit of fun on the forum with a cheeky prize...with that in mind, i say we dont over complicate this and keep it simple.

randomhandclaps

OK, listening to the thread that Tony posted with a link to voting there is one thing that genuinely confuses me.  The competition is 'Riff of the Month' yet some people enter one riff and other enter a progression (perhaps to fill the time slot) so it's difficult to know whether I'm judging  one of the riffs or the collective.  Maybe it could make things more level to ignore time limits and have an entry that is a single riff played 4 or 8 times instead.

samzadgan

randomhandclaps said:

OK, listening to the thread that Tony posted with a link to voting there is one thing that genuinely confuses me.  The competition is 'Riff of the Month' yet some people enter one riff and other enter a progression (perhaps to fill the time slot) so it's difficult to know whether I'm judging  one of the riffs or the collective.  Maybe it could make things more level to ignore time limits and have an entry that is a single riff played 4 or 8 times instead.

the time limit thing is not a bad point...some riffs end up sounding better once repeated a few times...so I agree with that point.

TTony

Re the time;

We've increased the max time to 50 secs, but that doesn't mean that you have to record 50 secs worth of entry.  But it certainly shouldn't exceed 50 secs (whereas we used to allow 35 or 40 odd secs previously).  Keeping it short is really only intended to ensure that it remains a riff rather than develops into a full song.

Re anonymity;

We can certainly make that optional.  If someone doesn't want their name associated with a submission (for whatever reason), then we'll not include the name, just a track title.  All the RotMs to date have been pretty constructive, non-judgemental and have attracted a wide range of entries, but if remaining anonymous encourage more people to enter, that's fine.

randomhandclaps said:

there is one thing that genuinely confuses me.

Re what's a riff;

I'm not even going to try to answer that one!

There are plenty of similar definitions with consistent themes ("a short repeated phrase in popular music and jazz, frequently played over changing chords or harmonies or used as a background to a solo improvisation") but each definition has slightly different definitions, examples,  interpretations or extensions.

Ultimately, this is only supposed to be a bit of fun to encourage people to get actively involved in recording and sharing "stuff".  

If you think that something is a riff, and are happy for it to be listened to as a riff, (and it doesn't exceed our new improved elongated time limit!), submit it to the RotM.

PolarityMan

I think I would like to see more in depth feedback / discussion around the entries. Perhaps have a pro-forma set of questions to answer about each one at entry putting on gear used, influences, a few comments etc. Might help spark more discussion.

If people don;t want to put the effort in then perhaps a mini-spotlight for each winner to talk about their entry?

Basically anything that gets more discussion and active participation. right now there's a few regulars who enter every month and a little discussion around voting time but if that discussion was more in depth and constant I wonder if it would tempt non-contributors to listen and vote or even reel more people in to participating.

spark240

Mm...a riff for me is something shortish, some form of repeat, or can drop in and out of a song easily. I have been heavily influenced by the likes of Thin Lizzy all the way back to Beatles.

Fretwired

PolarityMan said:

I think I would like to see more in depth feedback / discussion around the entries. Perhaps have a pro-forma set of questions to answer about each one at entry putting on gear used, influences, a few comments etc. Might help spark more discussion.

If people don;t want to put the effort in then perhaps a mini-spotlight for each winner to talk about their entry?

Basically anything that gets more discussion and active participation. right now there's a few regulars who enter every month and a little discussion around voting time but if that discussion was more in depth and constant I wonder if it would tempt non-contributors to listen and vote or even reel more people in to participating.

I agree with this .. in my experience it's important to create a community for these tasks to survive as people will dip in and out of tasks as they are busy so you need a large number of followers to make it viable.

imalone

samzadgan said:

i personally think its fine the way it is.

its not suppose to be taken too seriously, and the riff doesnt have to be overly produced with backing tracks etc...i always submit raw guitar track recorded with an iphone, im sure thats not the reason that i havent been a winner yet.

extending it to 1 min time limit is cool...for me anyway, but i guess people can submit shorter riffs and thats fine.

as far as being anonymous, i'm not too fussed with that. I dont have any issues with people listening to my riffs knowing its me, i think the people on this forum are cool enough not to look down upon people with lesser skill or want to steal a riff and get rich off it.

at the end of the day, its not a serious competition thats going to further your aspirations as a musician, its just a bit of fun on the forum with a cheeky prize...with that in mind, i say we dont over complicate this and keep it simple.

Agree with all of this. I actually like the voting aspect, it's my goal to eventually get one.

lloyd

I've not entered one yet-but now have GarageBand and an irig so will keep my eyes peeled for future ones-it's been said before but if go along with it having its own section or being a sticky-Rather than the different discussions ending up all over the place.

TTony

lloyd said:

I've not entered one yet-but now have GarageBand and an irig so will keep my eyes peeled for future ones-it's been said before but if go along with it having its own section or being a sticky-Rather than the different discussions ending up all over the place.

It happens every month - entries open on 1st and close on the 24th of every month.

It effectively does have its own section - you'll always find a RotM or Challenge discussion on the first page of the "Making Music" section.  I've also stickied an announcement and index thread in that section, so you can't really miss it.

Now, get on with recording something ...

lloyd

ill take a look and see what I can come up with

hobbio

I've been put off from submitting because my recording abilities are pretty poor and loads of the others sound so professional. 

I'm going to try to get an entry in for January though.

TTony

hobbio said:

my recording abilities are pretty poor and loads of the others sound so professional. 

that's not stopped me submitting mine 

steamabacus

hobbio said:

I've been put off from submitting because my recording abilities are pretty poor and loads of the others sound so professional. 

I'm going to try to get an entry in for January though.

I can only speak for myself but, while I don't totally discount recording quality, I do listen to the riff and playing itself when it comes to the voting. It's more of a 'gut feeling' thing for me - does it make my ears prick up?

I've listened to LOADS of bootlegs over the years so I'm quite used to listening to less-than-perfect recordings. And I'm not a fan of over-polished production anyway.

spark240

hobbio said:

I've been put off from submitting because my recording abilities are pretty poor and loads of the others sound so professional. 

I'm going to try to get an entry in for January though.

Hey....give it your best shot,part of the process is to learn from the feedback given in both playing technique and recording.

I have taken time to listen to all the ideas posted on FB, and tried to improve what I play and record, and given what some folks can achieve you certainly don't need a mega setup to produce a good idea!

If you need some input, post your setup and lets see if we can do anything for you?

hobbio

It's not so much the gear, it's using it. I can either use iRig into my iPad and use the GarageBand amps and fx, or I can DI into Ableton on the PC, again using onboard amps/fx. I don't have any mics, which is a shame cos I'd rather play through my amp and record that.

I'm clueless with it all though. I'll just have to persevere I suppose, and maybe try to get hold of a mic or two.

steamabacus

hobbio said:

It's not so much the gear, it's using it. I can either use iRig into my iPad and use the GarageBand amps and fx, or I can DI into Ableton on the PC, again using onboard amps/fx. I don't have any mics, which is a shame cos I'd rather play through my amp and record that.

I'm clueless with it all though. I'll just have to persevere I suppose, and maybe try to get hold of a mic or two.

Have you thought about getting a portable digital recorder? I have the Yamaha Pocketrak and have used various Zoom models. They are pretty good thesedays and don't cost an awful lot. Most will link easily with your computer via usb. So much better than trying to record stuff on cassette all those years ago.