The Song Fight Bulletin Board

Submit an original song using the following prompts:
Title: "These are the Jokes"
Challenge: don't suck
Non-mandatory Inspiration Prompt: Use a sample from a song written, performed by, and/or produced by Blue Lang for Songfight or related competitions
Due Date: 11:59 pm PT, July 14, 2021 (Bastille Day haha)
Blue Lang Memorial Guest Reviewers: JB, Glenn Case, Evermind
Donor: mo
Prize: Russian Big Muff clone (with mids switch), Getaria wireless transmitter/receiver set for electric instruments, bag of picks.

Submissions should be sent to sonofgearfight@gmail.com
mp3 preferred, of no less than 128kbps, higher quality preferred
Suggested mastering to -13 LUFS. If you don't know about it, we can dig up some reference articles.

The intention is to have reviews in and announce a winner by 8 pm PT, Sunday July 18, 2021. This time may be changed based on the number of entries.

Reminder that the Inspiration Prompt is here to promote creativity and different approaches, and is not mandatory or a criteria for eligibility or ranking.

Contestants worldwide are eligible, if there are problems, issues with fulfillment will be handled to the best of everyone’s ability offline. Subsequent fights may have changes depending on prizing and donor.

The Fightmasters have graciously agreed to host this fight, so it will appear on its own page in the Songfight ecosystem.

Further announcements, corrections, and whatnot for this fight will be made in this thread.

For those of you who don't know/remember (damn we are old), "These are the Jokes" is something Blue used to say a lot back in the days of the IRC channel. I vividly remember a bunch of times groups of us would just be in there shooting the shit and if someone took something too seriously, Blue would say, "yeah but these are teh jokz"

You can imagine the bag of picks

I don't actually know who made this Russian BMP but it's a pretty good example of its type, little less gainy (which is still an overwhelming amount of gain on tap), but also has this mids switch which helps make it actually useable in a band mix, where the BMP will cut through because it puts the mids back in.

These Getaria wireless are rechargeable, I have the cords for that as well, and have pretty good range, so you don't have to deal with the hassle of a cable if you don't want to.

The picks will be an assortment of the picks I have made for various bands I was in in the past, plus whatever else I have.

For those of you who don't know/remember (damn we are old), "These are the Jokes" is something Blue used to say a lot back in the days of the IRC channel. I vividly remember a bunch of times groups of us would just be in there shooting the shit and if someone took something too seriously, Blue would say, "yeah but these are teh jokz"

For context: http://www.songfight.org/unfunny/ ('make your own' no longer functional)

It eventually became a catchphrase shortened to "TATJ", used when someone seems to have missed the fact that you were kidding about whatever obnoxious thing you just wrote.

I still say it all the time.

let's hope some of you have some jokey songs coming in 8 days

mo wrote: ↑

Wed Jun 23, 2021 4:02 pm

Suggested mastering to -13 LUFS. If you don't know about it, we can dig up some reference articles.

This has always been something that has interested me and I am never sure whether I am doing it right or not. My question is are you looking for LUFS integrated or short term? I have aimed for -13 LUFS-I and I think that basically means the perceived loudness of the entire track is -13 but there could be elements of my track that go over or below that scale.

It just so happens that this challenge coincides with a new release of reaper that includes LUFS on the meter and the rendering of the track, how's that for timing.

Spotify's specs say integrated LUFS.

https://artists.spotify.com/help/articl ... malization

Target the loudness level of your master at -14dB integrated LUFS and keep it below -1dB TP (True Peak) max. This is best for lossy formats (Ogg/Vorbis and AAC) and makes sure no extra distortion’s introduced in the transcoding process.
If your master’s louder than -14dB integrated LUFS, make sure it stays below -2dB TP (True Peak) to avoid extra distortion. This is because louder tracks are more susceptible to extra distortion in the transcoding process.

Mine's written, hoping to record it this weekend depending on whether 2nd vaccine knocks me out or not.

Lunkhead wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 09, 2021 2:36 pm

Spotify's specs say integrated LUFS.

https://artists.spotify.com/help/articl ... malization

Target the loudness level of your master at -14dB integrated LUFS and keep it below -1dB TP (True Peak) max. This is best for lossy formats (Ogg/Vorbis and AAC) and makes sure no extra distortion’s introduced in the transcoding process.
If your master’s louder than -14dB integrated LUFS, make sure it stays below -2dB TP (True Peak) to avoid extra distortion. This is because louder tracks are more susceptible to extra distortion in the transcoding process.

Thanks, that makes sense. Looks like I have some tweaking to do.

Just to be clear, the LUFS target is a suggestion, not a requirement, and I'm certainly not going to meter everyone's tracks to check the LUFS. It's more a suggestion to help focus people who maybe have been thinking about thinking about their mastering process, and also hopefully to make a more consistent listening experience for myself and the "official" reviewers. I personally find it distracting when songs are of wildly varying loudnesses because it's not really my bag; I'm interested in thinking about the compositional and artistic/creative craft when I listen to songs, so anything that distracts from that irritates me a little bit. That's just me.

Blue had a major love affair with the BBE Sonic Maximizer when I knew him well, and it was also a minor point of contention that we would discuss--I think that kind of limiting takes away too much dynamics sometimes; he loved it on anything. He'd sonic maximize the cat if he could, you know what I mean.

I tend to use the YouLean Loudness Meter to meter to LUFS, I also usually separately master from the mixing process. I mix to about -18 dB (that's what I have the master bus on Reaper set to) and then master the mixdown (which already has a bunch of different compressions and EQs going on inside it) with a variety of saturators and compressors and EQs, each one just doing a little something specific to address parts of the track. It's basically the same concept as why as a guitar player you might have a multi-amp setup--one amp is there for its bass frequencies, one for lower mids, one for upper mids, one for highs, or some combination thereof. Some compressors I use basically for the EQ of it and not even much for the compression, and it's a little different on every track. So you'll probably find a lot of different "methods" in their specifics but mostly they're the same in principle

I have most of a song written. I will try to finish it by the deadline.

Awesome, I know of like two other entries that are in the making, anyone who has buns in the oven, if you want to sound off here, please do!

If I am not subjected to forced overtime at work tonight, I'll finish mine when I get home.

submitted!

Submissions are already starting to roll in folks, Vom wasn't even first

guys we need cover art! who's got some?

mo wrote: ↑

Tue Jul 13, 2021 11:09 am

guys we need cover art! who's got some?

I’ll do something for you if you like.

that would be awesome!

mo wrote: ↑

Tue Jul 13, 2021 12:04 pm

that would be awesome!