SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC092 April 2025 - Voting until 01-MAY-2025 23:59 UTC+2/CEST

[Mister Fox]

A friendly reminder:
Including today, 07 days left to submit your production.

So far, we have 03 entries and some minimal feedback among participants.

We need 09 participants for a regular sized podium, and more than 15 for an extended one.



Now is the perfect time to post your entry!

If you want to access the extended game mechanics of the Songwriting Competition (asking for feedback during production), please try to release your first edits within the next 3 to 4 days to have enough time to get possible feedback (if wanted/needed) and continue to work on your song.

To those sitting on the fence - please don't feel scared off and think "the bar is set too high, I will never make it" - set yourself a shorter private deadline. Just make music, submit your entry, join the conversation. See where this goes.

By joining, you're already a winner. The rest is bonus.

[toadhjo]

I'm working on a track. It's not coming together as smoothly as I hoped but I'm pretty sure I'll finish it in time to enter. I'm making this post to hold myself publicly accountable.

There will even be vocals -- don't say I didn't warn you!

[Marc Fey]

Here's mine. For this SWC092, I've tried to tell the story of a person whose day begins on the street of a big city.
She already knows that a hellish pace awaits her, not a single break throughout this fast-paced day, no time to breathe (except

► Show Spoiler

at the end of the track, when she realizes that it was a dream, a grim premonition of the day to come).

The provided images immediately inspired me to complete the beginning of a piece I'd put aside some time ago (I didn't know how to develop it).
So thanks Mister Fox for this!

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/r83wcsjl ... ac3ym&dl=0

► Show Spoiler

DAW: Tracktion Waveform Pro 13

Instruments:
Drums: AD2 Black Velvet
Bass: EZbass
Bass Synth: Arturia Acid V
Guitars: Ample Sound and Audiofier Veevum Guitarscapes
Synth and Keys: Arturia Analog Lab
Pads: Arturia Analog Lab and Dawesome Abyss

FX: Melda EQs, Arturia Rev Plate-140, IK MixBox, TDR Kotelnikov GE, TDR SlickEQ M, Venomode Maximal 3

[EsteveCorbera]

Dear challenge companions and Mister Fox.

I present to you my new song that I made for this month's challenge.
First of all I was inspired by the images that Mister Fox sent and, then, I was also inspired by the last concert that I went to hear. On April 2, Tangerine Dream (TD) came to Barcelona and I went to see them. That's where the inspiration came to me and I decided to pay them a little tribute. The music that he has made wants to resemble TD and at the same time wants to express this continuous movement that surrounds us. A feeling that everything is going fast and that we are only spectators of this constant flow.
For this reason, I wanted to base myself on a sequence of notes that are repeated and that from time to time vary but never stop sounding. I tried to make everything reminiscent of TD, which is why I also used a package of Arturia presets that also paid tribute to him.
Well, I hope you like it.

Thank you colleagues.

(translated with google)



Updated 22 april


Equipment:
DAW:
Reason 13.2.1d1 (build 17.4339)

Reason Instruments:
ID8 Songwriter's Toolbox

Reason Effects:
Reason Equalizer
Master Compressor
RV7000 MkII Advanced Reverb
The Echo

Reason Players:
Scales & Chords

Reason Utilities:
Gain Tool

Reason Rack Extension:
BASSGRID Filter X1 (Effect)
Robotic Bean AB Euclidean Rhythms Rhythm Sequencer (Player)

Other instruments outside of Reason:
UJAM Beatmaker CIRCUITS
UVI Workstation
Arturia Analog Lab V
Arturia Jup-8 V4

Presets:
Arturia Soundbank _Tangerine Tribute

Other effects outside of Reason:
HoRNet Plugins HoRNet Harmonics Pro

UVI Library:
UVI Soundbank PX Sunbox

Other tools:
HoRNet Plugins HoRNet HarmoniQ
HoRNet Plugins HoRNet Sleek
iZotope Ozone 9 Standard
Plugin Alliance SPL HawkEye
HoRNet Plugins HoRNet VHS
Mastering The Mix Expose2

[Strange]

Hi @EsteveCorbera ,
that's a beautiful track you've created. Yes, it really reminds me of Tangerine Dream, whose sound I grew up with but didn't listen to very much.
At the beginning, the rushed feeling clearly dominates, but later, I feel the dreamy TD sound pushes itself more and more to the front. At first I thought that the TD idea might not fit the competition theme after all, but then it occurred to me that the song might be setting exactly that idea to music: the search for the tangerine tree in the gray, busy city. A beautiful image, in my opinion.
Formally, I hear that you repeated the chord pattern four times and added a little more dreamy sound each time. You can do it that way and I think it worked quite well, but I would have liked a little more compositional variation, a little unexpected twist, a particularly dreamy chordal turn, a B section or C section, whatever comes to mind. Or you like it exactly as it is. I like it too. Thanks for sharing.

Greetings from Germany

[EsteveCorbera]

Thanks for your comments @Strange

Greetings from Catalonia

[JeroenZuiderwijk]

Hi all,

I wrote a song named "ik voel me gehaast" and that means "I feel like I am in a hurry". The lyrics and the song all feel rushed, there is almost no break in the ongoing energy. I wanted it to be a rap song. First I wrote some lines in English but then I realized that I could write a rap song more fluently in my own language. And in just an hour or so I had the lyrics ready.

The song is about me feeling like I am constantly in a hurry, even if I am sitting down I feel like I should be running. And it is about breaking the circle of that feeling.

Lately I was trying out some different DAW's just because I was curious. And then I discovered LMMS. It is free DAW with lots of great synthesizers and a ton of presets and samples. It is modelled after (an older version of) FL Studio. At first it felt a bit cluncky but the more I used it the more it made sense to me and the more possibilities I discovered.

So I started writing the beats and melody in LMMS. Just some really basic synth presets (e-piano, 303 synth, reece etc...). After that I wrote the lyrics.

It was great fun to write this song. And I am very happy with the lyrics I wrote. There was (like Always) not enough time to polish everything and to make a clean well balanced mix. But for me it sounds good enough to upload it anyway.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/asdi4c38 ... pmy1n&dl=0

enjoy!

Cheers,

Jeroen

Lyrics:

► Show Spoiler

de tijd die dreigt, trekt me naar beneden
de gewoonte die leeft en altijd wordt beleden
een cirkel wordt gevormd terug bij het verleden
rechtsaf kun je slaan zoals voorgesneden

is de dag weer voorbij is de tijd bijna om
tijd duwt me naar voren en ik val bijna om
de haast in mijn lijf kan er niet om
heen gaat de tijd.. ...en ik val bijna om

Ik raas door het leven, ik voel me gehaast
al zit ik heel even, ik voel me gehaast
wat heb ik dan nog te geven, ik voel me gehaast
mijn hoofd is aan het zweven, ik voel me gehaast

maar check, een storm, mijn woorden in een flow
zet ik hier de norm, van binnen start de grow
energie zet ik om, ik voel de zekerheid
de munt slaat om, in positiviteit

sterk van verandering, wortels in de grond
vuur steek t aan, de vonk in de lont
in een baan om de zon ik reflecteer als glas
ik snij een diepe wond, weet dat ik hier was

(refr)

nu ik trap op de rem, 9 keer per dag
glijden nog door maar de snelheid neemt af
de wal keert het schip het laatste wat ik zag
is de zon door de wolken die naar mij lacht

de stilstand keert, ik adem nog
voel je nabijheid want je bent er nog
(al is) de dag bijna om de tijd weer voorbij
ik zie het weer helder, en daar blijft het bij.

(refr)

[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.

To make it easier for me to create the collection post, please update your initial post with the appropriate links (final version), or explicitly mark your entry as "final entry". Please also don't forget to make your files accessible to download. Thank you.



We currently have 06 entries so far
In order to get our usual 3-position podium started, we need to reach / exceed 09 active entries. I would love to see 15 entries this month, if not more.

Looking forward to more entries throughout the day.

[juhu]

Hello,

1) Enjoy my track called "Time's Up!":
http://tinkerstate.com/mix-challenge/SW ... imeSUp.wav

2) Documentation below (click "SHOW" to expand):

► Show Spoiler

I suppose this month’s picture theme inspired me into making a cinematic drone track, for lack of a better description. Keeping up with the theme, I truly rushed it as I made my decision to participate half-way into the game time period already running. My documentation will also be as rushed as the theme insists:

Used the following Logic Pro stock Sound Library presets that I further massaged to suit my purpose:

• Alternating between 2 different multi-channel drum kits: “Dirty Jungle+” and “Four on the Floor+”
• The additional percussions are from “Percussion / African Kit”
• The bass drone consists of 3 parts: a highpassed “Vintage Mellotron / GC 3 Brass” + 2 low synth sine waves through some distortion for a stable low end
• The rhythmic ostinato consists of 2 parts: “Piano / Ballad” + “Vintage Mellotron / Boys Choir” pitched down by 2 octaves using MIDI pre transpose
• The stabbing chords are “Vintage Mellotron / Strings & Flute“
• The big choir is “Vintage Mellotron / Mixed Choir“

Notable techniques:

• Wide stereo for “GC 3 Brass” and “Mixed Choir“ was created by panning both towards one side and sending copies of these panned signals to a common effect bus that flips L/R channels and then goes through Modulation Delay effect - I suppose this is similar to the fake double-tracking technique that people used to do in the old days with a manually modulated tape machine

[Rick Finsta]

@JeroenZuiderwijk I really like your use of truncated measures (single measure time signature changes) to feel rushed. I really enjoy throwing in a measure of 2/4 on things like a prechorus as well, as it takes the audience by surprise when it happens. I also like it to bring lyrics in a bit earlier than expected. Great job!

It would be interesting to play with sidechaining a heavy compressor on the kick drum using a time-shifted (moved several mS earlier) track that is otherwise muted for the detection circuit, to get a pumping effect that feels like it is *just* too early.