july contest ... GOSSIP

[ugo]

Ugo: This is really good. Surprisingly. But I assume its not sctrictly tarnce.

no its not strictly trance but what exactly its mixed with is a mystery to me. i tend not to strictly follow specific styles too much, i just write what comes out at the time. as a result, styles get mixed and i never know what genre im actually writing in.

though with this one, i did intentionally indulge in the guilty pleasures of several big trance clichés.

Good opening drums. The drums really drive forward. I really like that. The synth sound is a bit too familiar (no biggie). Crashes are spot on, rising arp (always works). Plenty of climaxes. Good work.

thanks, im glad you enjoyed it.

-ugo

[Khepira]

Techbot said: "Khepira: Are these vocals from the same sourse as your previous entry?"

Basically, yes -- from the same loops collection that comes with Magix Music Maker Deluxe. They include a few vocal samples in most of the genre categories.

Thanks for the comments.

[astanine]

Astanine: Halothane: It’s good. I like it. Makes me in a happy mood. Why only 1:35? Grrr..

Astanine 80's tarnce Thats a heavy bass nicely mixed with a cheesy nod to Popcorn.

Thanks for the comments.

[j_T]

ugo wrote

j_T - The Return of Fonk'n'stein
pros: well put together, good effort at trying to get a band sound. (always a difficult task.) guitar fits well in the mix.
conts: im afriad im not feeling the funk. for this style of funk, i would have like to have heard something that gives a deeper, darker, more slippery, greesy kind of feel. the horns feel kind of stiff.

Thanks for the review, ugo

Regards,

Tommy

[chardin]

ugo - Bonfire
I liked everything about this song. Pity the 2 minute limit. The opening drums were impressive. And the tambourine prior to the cymbal crashes was a nice touch.

[Barnadine]

To the end of page three...

Ixox/Un tout dernier tango - The tango master returns. Somehow, the French language seems a natural fit for this kind of romantically charged dance. I like the sound of the Sam trumpet. On the nitpick front: the brushed cymbals seem a bit erratic and out of time in the intro, and I'm not too sure about that snare sound. The violin (Kirk Hunter?) does an admirable job; some of the higher passages bring the artificiality to notice, but it's probably as good as you can expect without a live player. In a perfect world, every home studio would come with a pet string quartet. If you didn't need them for a track, you could have them retile the roof or something. But these are small complaints; this is a proud, confident tango, well arranged. And "my wife (breathing)" on your gear list made me laugh.

freeztar/So Danco Samba - Catchy groove, innit? I really love that grubby, rubbery sound - sorry I can't define it better, but you can probably guess the one I mean. What's making that sound? Curious minds need to know. Some adventurous chord changes here, some more satisfying than others, but better that than predictability. The mix feels overcompressed and distorted in places, and while there might be some award for loudest entry, I'm the kind of person who'd prefer you to sacrifice some loudness for the sake of dynamics. Clipped ending, grr... And oh yeah - um, yo! fo real dis shit be... Nah, sorry, an Aussie just can't pull it off. This shit is nice.

mchlwlsn/Seeker - The mix feels quite narrow and enclosed, perhaps because the main song elements are all too centrally panned, or routed through the same effect. Though it's quite an interesting result, it means I never felt like I was inside the song, more observing it from outside. It'd be nice if those big synths hit like thunderstorms, but they're at a safe distance. And I think the bass could be beefed up a bit. But mix issues aside, there's a nice foreboding atmosphere here. The song alternates well between the two themes; maybe a third contrasting section would help things develop. Solid, straight-up dance.

utm/Feedback and Oscillate (Recursion Mix) - Nice gloopy intro sounds. Driving rhythm. And your usual intricate, detail-filled mix. So why my reservations? At the risk of another scuzzphutian monologue for two, I didn't get as much sense of character from this as I expect from your stuff. The two-note vocal melody fits the mood well enough, but slips right out of my head once the song is done (which supports the theme of the lyrics, I suppose). Your truly excellent Midas's Ears mined the Sprechgesang vein more inventively and melodically, I think. The bass feels a bit underfed, but I've been saying that so much this month that I'm starting to suspect a fault with my speakers. (Why is everyone scared of bass in a dance music month? Crazy.) There are interesting elements, like the downsliding backing vocals, that seem a bit embryonic and underdeveloped. But look, there's nothing really wrong here, it's just lacking that little extra for me. Or maybe I just unconsciously raise the critical bar for kvr's high achievers. (By the way, I had similar feelings about 5ives, which nearly won the comp, so the important lesson here is to disregard anything I say. )

kovacs/What I Want To Do - The vocals are great. First time, you say? Keep 'em coming! You've placed them very upfront, which is brave for a first time singer, and gives a real intimacy, but it does threaten to dominate the mix here. In the verses, the backing music sounds like it's coming from another room. Like that Björk track recorded in a nightclub toilet. The chorus sections are wonderful, and more balanced. The shift from verse into chorus is very well handled, but the shift back from chorus to verse isn't as satisfying. Maybe needs a little bridge section. But this is a revelation, makes me wonder how many other undiscovered singers we've got lurking at kvr. Nice guitar too. Keep singing.

Andy/Summer on the Sea - A relaxed, nostalgic vibe. And the song seems like a tribute to those big brown old family organs where you'd press the rhumba button, then hold down a single note, and it would play a jaunty little rhumba pattern. Then you'd hold down another note, and it would play exactly the same thing in a different key. Ah, good times. But the downside of this is that the song doesn't really hold together tonally. It just hops from key to key without any sustained melodic development, and without quite becoming interestingly multitonal. But there's a naive charm here.

MG505/Shake It - Link not working? I'll try again later.


(edit - typo)

[Barnadine]

Thanks for the comments, Ugo.

[You™]

Barnadine, thanks so much for the comments. I like the sprechgesang reference - makes it sound legit (to put this back on the hip hop court.) But you are right, I think I've done this better in other places. And I've been reconsidering my response to Techbot's assessment of "white rap." I reject the idea that anybody should be any worse at entertaining an audience in any medium based solely on factors not germane to their performance. In other words, if people let expectations and assumptions determine their fate, we never would have seen greats like Paul Robeson, Beck, Leontyne Price, Janice Joplin, Charley Pride, Jamiroquai or that guy from Simply Red. (I can't believe I put all those people in the same sentence.) Now you'll never catch me rapping about gats, hos and bling bling - well, not seriously at least and that's the crux of the "white rap" argument: Lawrence Cuthbert Pinchbottom III from Robert E. Lee High School thinks he's all that because his parents bought him an H2 which he tricked out using money from his summer job lifeguarding at the country club. Now he's got a
2400 Watt amp, ground effect lights, spinners and a spoiler so you can't miss him when he's cruising the mall or roaming the hood (a gated community called "Spring Brook"). Just keeping it real, yo. So much rap and what passes as R&B these days is about an unsustainable decadent lifestyle of selfishness and exclusivity. I'm not down with that even though, by this point in time, it's become equal opportunity. ...But I digress.

I penned the lyric to my song and arranged it with an eye to the behavior of someone very close to me who may or may not be touched with a bit of ADHD. This person can't stop humming, fidgeting, bouncing on furniture, dancing or fooling around as long as they are awake. I love this person dearly, but they can be trying at times because everything said must be repeated and or presented in an engaging way or it doesn't register.

As I said before, I wasn't that confident in my entry. I'm glad it's getting as good a response as it has.

[ugo]

ugo - Bonfire
I liked everything about this song. Pity the 2 minute limit. The opening drums were impressive. And the tambourine prior to the cymbal crashes was a nice touch.

thanks!
im glad you dig it.

-ugo

[knockman]

Knockman: Wildchurch. I like it in a weird way.

thanks pheeleep it seems i mostly produce wierd - i don't fight it anymore

regards

[j_T]

j_T The Return of Fonk'n'stein
psychadellic man! groovy goodness

Yeah, thanks for listening and for the review

Regards,

Tommy

[AndreasE]

[AndreasE - Dance of the Animals
very creative and very goofy.

Just saw this in the REVIEW thread. Thanks much, ugo.

[mystahr]

wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

I can concentrate on other projects now

[You™]

I can concentrate on other projects now

When you said, "miniature programming and mixing going on," I knew exactly what you meant. I've taken a lot longer to finish a song, but I doubt I've done as much mixing and tweaking as this month. And of course right after I submit, I think of several things that would have made it a lot better...

Love the (guessing here) detuned chorus pads that froth around in the back near the end of your piece. And the homegrown percussion is cool.

@ Anyone who's reading this: I have a suggestion for a way we could attempt to satisfy some of the competing desires for this contest. If it were possible to devise and post a list of themes for upcoming months in advance then each contestant could manage their time accordingly. That way, if the Polka month was coming up in November and someone really wanted to concentrate on it, they'd have several months to prepare.

Now, you wouldn't have to plot out a whole year of themes. You could just do quarters or half-years. You wouldn't have to assign each month either. You could leave gaps for TBAs or just let those be Free For Alls.

The monthly themes could be picked by a moderator or at random from a list of submissions.

I also think it would be worthwhile to have one competition every 6-12 months that doesn't follow the standard rules - like when we had the longer-format Winter contest. Every now and then we could do deliberate rule-contortions like mono mix, standard MIDI file, 30-second limit, 512K file size limit, or a no-less-than-5-minute composition. Variety is the spice of life and all that.

Just some friendly ideas...

[Markleford]

like when we had the longer-format Winter contest.

So I'm the only person here that still thinks the Winter contest sucked donkey? (apologies to Mr. Tugger)

Looking back at the track list, none of them are standouts to me. Heck, I haven't even had the desire to relisten to any of my top 10 votes. For having two months to work on tunes it was a pathetic, uninspired showing, probably because most people submitted not long after the start of the contest. They didn't even capitalize on the extra track length by developing the work past an ABABAB structure (and some even cried that 4 minutes wasn't nearly enough!).

Bah! BAH, I say!

- m