The Song Fight Bulletin Board

That title is practically too long to use as a thread title on its own, let alone in parentheses at the end of a review thread title. It's not the longest though. I think that is still "Rockopolousaninjananophone Eternal -The Vishnu Cycle".

the last review of a song I barely listened to?
the last review of a song I never listened to?
the last review of a song I forgot to listen to?

the last review of a songfighter I only thought I knew

I was sorely tempted to enter a bitter divorce anthem under a pseudonym: 'The Last Afternoon of a Bitch I Only Thought I Knew'.

Big thanks to Paco el Rocko for bass and shredding on this week's sonofsupercar entry.

blue wrote:Big thanks to Paco el Rocko for bass and shredding on this week's sonofsupercar entry.

That goes for us too in the Psychotics project.

edit: well, the shredding part, that is.

On first listen this is (mostly) a very strong bunch of songs. Now back to shaking my moneymaker to bgm's disco classic.

note to bgm: every time I type that my mac want to autocorrect it to 'bum'.

i really really like the album art... possibly the best ive seen in my short time here. props to the artist

I'm contemplating issuing my resignation at work for the sole purpose of getting home to listen to the songs. Argh - anticipation is killing me!

Dj--- has my first vote, nice voice, very professional

BBABM wrote:i really really like the album art... possibly the best ive seen in my short time here. props to the artist

Thank you. I figure if I can't enter a song, I can at least enter some art.

Reviews!

Emperor Gum – I’m guessing the out-of-tune instruments will be charming enough to win some people over, but I think they would sound better as part of this inventive arrangement if they were tuned. The vocal track kills this song.

Son of Supercar – Good to hear you guys again. I like some of the guitar dissonance during the verses. Reminds me a bit of Archers of Loaf or something. The vocals remind me of Jane’s Addiction with an octave lower pitch shifter. I don’t really care for the song very much, but as I said, nice to hear you again.

Mom & Data – I thought this was going to be awesome when you first started singing but it didn’t really go anywhere more interesting than the first few words. It needs a hook badly. Nice organ/guitar combo. Also about a minute too long for what you have.

bgm – This could be good if there were more parts. The disco break is clever, but it’s not enough. Like Mom & Data, this song sorely needs a hook.

Paco del Stinko – Haha, I don’t think “shing” is a word. I really like the section after the second chorus, but I want the bass and guitar to be more in front. Strange ending. Interesting song.

Wicked Cripple – I thought this sucked.

Ripping Hammer – You should make that 80s-style synth at the beginning super-big and loud. It sounds so tiny compared to the drums and I want it to dominate. There’s nothing wrong with this, but it didn’t get me too excited.

Dejected Motives – The vocal track makes this song unlistenable. WHY IS IT SO LOUD? I will not lie to you; I did not make it through all seven minutes.

Billy & The Psychotics – I love that opening guitar riff (at 00:14). More bad vocals. Come on, people—spend some time on those vox! Did I mention I love that opening guitar riff? (Would like to have heard it return to the song—where did it go?)

Dirge – This song suffers from too many maladies to list in a short review. Keep trying—sounds like you have potential.

Klownhole – Good to see some old-timers submitting even if I didn’t like the song.

Life in Decibels – Another song that suffers from a poor vocal performance. I liked the last minute a lot!

Sportswriters – You have a nice voice and you know how to play guitar and piano and some string instrument (viola?). So what’s up with that awkward snare drum in the background? This is such an awkward-sounding song. Just put it in 6/8 and be done with it. Or put two snare hits on 7 & 8 so the meter has some definition. Not a bad song but the rhythm section diminishes it.

Pigfarmer Jr – You know, I’m such a big Pigfarmer Sr. fan, it’s hard to get into the new stuff.

Future Boy – The literal interpretation! Shocking chorus—kind of XTC-ish. I like this. It’s the right length for the subject matter—a musical snapshot. Sounds like an effortless production and I know it wasn’t. Good job.

c. layne – More ghosts of SongFight past! Welcome back, c. layne. I like the blend of sounds in this track and the bass/drum track. It loses a bit of its luster when the guitar comes in—maybe you took out too much too soon? Overall, I like this song a lot.

T.C. Elliott – I know I sound like a broken record, but the vocal tracks have to be better and, in this case, mixed to blend with the instruments. This sounds like bad karaoke at times – out-of-tune vocals way out in front of glossy backing tracks.

Hip Hop Anonymous – I think the music track is a little too slow for the lyric or maybe you need more words at the beginning, because it does improve as the rap gets busier. Not my thing, but I’m sure many will like it.

Berkeley Social Scene – Who’s singing this? (Answer: not your best singer.) This sounds like a Glen tune. You know I love Glen, but not all Glen tunes unfortunately. Reminds me of bands like Mike and the Mechanics. A little bit of Ray Davies in the vocal track, though–I like that.

DJ Ranger Den – Hi Ranger! This is so straightforward for you. I’d like to hear the arrangement fleshed out. You have such a powerful voice on this track that it kind overpowers the simplicity of the guitar. A full band would balance it out. Tori Amos (I’m sure you get the comparison frequently) was able to get away with it because the piano can be so big in the lower register—big enough to support the vocal performance.

So, I think I’m going to vote for Future Boy, c. layne and DJ Ranger Den, not necessarily in that order.

Just put it in 6/8 and be done with it.

Ha, what would have been the fun in that? Also, you would be amazed at how much it sounds like 'Streets of Laredo' in 6/8.

Frankie wrote:

Berkeley Social Scene – Who’s singing this? (Answer: not your best singer.) This sounds like a Glen tune. You know I love Glen, but not all Glen tunes unfortunately. Reminds me of bands like Mike and the Mechanics. A little bit of Ray Davies in the vocal track, though–I like that.

Lunkhead is the lead vocalist on this one. Yes, Erin is the best singer and the other 4 of us take our stabs. I really like Lunks voice on this one, it makes me feel better about all the times you told me you didn't like my voice
This composition is pretty much a Lunkhead/ glennny composition. Lunk is the verse pattern and melody, glennny is the chorus pattern and melody, Lunk did the transitions, I wrote the bridge. That's me for the solo, Ken on keys, Lunk on bass and drums! Erin on harmonies (obviously)

"bands like Mike and the Mechanics" , that's mean man, why not say Genesis? That way you can still call me cheesy but I feel like I've been complimented. Or better yet call us GTR, were more like a GTR on this one. A little Ray Davies is a huge compliment, I hope Lunk thinks so too.

Thanks for the review! When's the next Big Face submission?

Reviews! What a great fight. So much variety and some great songs.
I had to check my levels because a bunch of the songs were totally clipping out on me, just screamingly high levels. Then I was worried that I'd been recording really quiet songs for the past year.
But no, my levels are good. You people are loud.

Hip Hop Anonymous
Hmm. Songs about murdering women. Kind of a creepy direction to take but I don't know how much I want to get into it after the 'Bitch' thread in the other fight.
That said, "women smolder and scream in my Rube Goldberg machine" is pretty hilarious.
I like the main piano hook; you've sort of distilled Halloween and Tubular Bells from the Exorcist into a nice little riff that is different but recognizable somehow.
I know you're voice is supposed to be a creepy psychopath or whatever, but it comes across as a more Jerry Lewis kind of thing. Which I guess could be even more creepy, in theory; but it's not.

Future Boy
Absolutely love the Rhodes sound and your playing thereof. Something is off for me about how your vocals were recorded. Either I can hear too much of the room or there's a weird ambience verb on there or something. But the sound of it doesn't match the sonic space of anything else so it's a bit off-putting. Great singing, though, and terrific lyrics. I love all the changes and how it suddenly becomes a Michael Jackson song out of nowhere. The levels are really crazily peaking for me at that part, though. Great job overall.

bgm
Truly an eleventh-hour recording for me, after chucking the previous nights shitty tracks. I'd written the lyrics first, which I pretty much never do.
The whole disco thing was just me trying to make a musical pun and is probably ill-advised but it made me laugh and so I just said fuck it and went for it. Really fun playing that cheesy cliché bassline.
Also, I realize that writing a line about an open door swinging in the wind is almost as unoriginal as "a dog barks in the distance," but I needed a rhyme for "keys."
As usual I wish I had better skill at the whole final mix and master stage, which I detest.

Paco del Stinko
Love the bitcrushy distortion. (You'll probably get comments about there being too much of it...maybe it depends on the listener; for me it works.) The chorus totally went somewhere I wasn't expecting, in a great way...love the harmonies on this. It's weird, I have to keep trying to focus on the vocals, which I can hear if I try to listen, but my ear gets drawn away by everything else that's going on and so I miss the lyrics most of the time. I don't know if it's just a levels/EQ thing or what. Cool song.

Sportswriters
Wow, very nice. Who knew you could play piano so well? I'm really enjoying your singing lately.
The drums are a bit off in a few parts, probably because of you and your wacky time signatures, which are less forgiving in that area, I would imagine. You know, there's no sin in going in and chopping up your drums tracks and shifting parts of them to hit your beats better, if you've recorded to a click. This was a revelation to me when I realized it.
A great production of a great song. Vote.

Dejected Motives
The Autotune is just too much, sorry. It's really not helping you here at all. Your vocal levels are crazy loud and clipping, between that and the Autotune I really couldn't understand much of the lyrics. The guitar line sounds like it could be kind of cool. But then you have that kind of whiny horn that sounds like it's playing in an entirely different key. Sorry man, I had to bail about halfway.

Dirge
Vocals need to be way louder, but you probably know that. Has a nice feel to it. Guitars sound great.
Apropos of your name, it's rather a dirge, isn't it? I like dirges. I'd say that the guitar solo is a bit too long and bordering on wanky.
Heh, wasn't expecting the change at the end.

Ripping Hammer
Beats are awesome. Love the harmonies. Wow, really enjoying this. Bit of a crazy hum or buzz on the electric guitar track, but man this was great; really interesting. Vote for sure.

Berkeley Social Scene
Reminds me of something but I can't put my finger on it. I like the keyboard. The mix is really appealing on this one. Oh I know what it reminds me of, but you might not see it: in the chorus, something about the melody and structure there makes me think of Stereolab in great way, or that freaky song that's playing when they go to the psychedelic party in Midnight Cowboy. Love it.
Took me a while to get into this song in the first verse or so but I really liked the chorus so you sucked me in for the rest of it.

Emperor Gum
Oh man. Totally gorgeous horns at the beginning. Love that.
I'm not crazy about the harp-like thing, sounds synthetic like a really effected guitar or a virtual instrument..
Really nice arrangement. The horns and strings are wonderful.
Your vocals sort of stand out unfortunately, because of the mic or how you've EQ'd it; it's thin and slightly piercing in contrast to the rest.
Very interesting song.

Klownhole
I do like your vocal track, you can clearly sing. The rest of the track sounds a bit Spinal Tap-ish, the timing is just a bit off and some of the guitars are kind of sloppy.

Mom&Data
Is that a Garageband organ? I think I recognize it.
I like the arrangement in this one also. Really lush and layered. Guitars are perfect and everything just builds really nicely.
A little bit repetitive but "no one cares," right? There's a lot of hiss when your vocals come in so you might want to cut out that track when you're not singing and maybe filter that shit outta there. Nice job though. Great sound.

sonofsupercar
This one is really peaking for me also, super loud.
I like the feel of it. The best elements of some 90's alterna-powerpop without the boring pretentiousness. Love the guitar hook after the verses.
The wailing guitar solo is WAY too loud in the mix...my right monitor channel is solid red. This song could be really great with a good mix.

T.C. Elliott
Ya, I don't know. I'm not feeling the whole mixed-genre thing. I think the canned hip-hop beat is dragging the song down in a big way. It just doesn't work with the guitars and vocals. I think it would be interesting to hear this song totally re-done with acoustic guitars and no drums and just one voice, one harmony.

DJ Ranger Den
Really quiet! Crank it up a bit!
Your voice reminds me a little of Jewel. I wonder if you've heard that before? Just an observation, not a judgement in any way.
Nice song. I can appreciate the spareness of the recording and the intimacy you were going for, but I'd love a little something to flesh it out a bit more, even just some bass and a harmony. Or piano would be really nice.

c.layne
Really cool. Love the loop at the beginning. Is it a laugh or part of a word? Made me chuckle.
Your production skills are impeccable. Great harmonies, great vox, nice guitar tone. The high chirpy keyboard on the right side hurt my ear a bit, but that's probably my bad ears.
Just a grab bag of nice feelings on this one; I love how you keep throwing in new things as the song progresses. Well done. Vote.

Billy and the Psychotics
Ha! Pow! Great intro.
Bass rocks and what a great guitar line. Awesome energy. Totally fun. Wouldn't change a thing.
Probably my favourite of the fight. Voted and going to listen to more of your stuff.

Life in Decibels
Made me think of someone on life support at the beginning, which was cool. I found the lengthy instrumental breaks after each verse bothered me a bit because I wanted to hear more of the story. A good effort but it seemed unfocused for me, maybe a bit of a heavy message for dance music. Also, man, that's a lot of silence at the end there.

Pigfarmer Jr.
I like the deadpan delivery. Successfully in the vein of Dead Milkmen's Instant Club Hit "you'll dance to anything by..." or The Normal's Warm Leatherette.
Great lyrics. Your cadence or rhythm is a bit off in parts which betrays the robotic deadpan slightly. Nice, though.

Wicked Cripple feat. dont reply
I get that it's COMEDY MUSIC! but I'd love to hear the vox up a bit higher so I could hear the jokes better.
I do like the "asshole" hook, it was quite well done, in a musical sense, and catchy.
However the whole thing sort of feels like another SNL DIGITAL SHORT haha Andy Samberg funny nerdy hiphop thing .

Thanks for the review, bgm!

I'm probably pretty guilty of trying to push the loud bits as loud as possible. I think it's probably because my internal reference level is really loud electronic dance music. I don't recall hearing anything weird in the background of the vocal track, but for the verses the mic was pretty hot, so if the volume level you're listening at makes the loud bits of the songs uncomfortable, then I'm not surprised you can hear noise from the big living room I was recording in. Also, all the vocals are pretty heavily compressed, which brings up the quiet background stuff pretty significantly.

frankie big face wrote:bgm – This could be good if there were more parts. The disco break is clever, but it’s not enough. Like Mom & Data, this song sorely needs a hook.

Totally agree. Thanks!

Future Boy wrote:I don't recall hearing anything weird in the background of the vocal track, but for the verses the mic was pretty hot, so if the volume level you're listening at makes the loud bits of the songs uncomfortable, then I'm not surprised you can hear noise from the big living room I was recording in.

There wasn't anything strange in the background; it was more that I could hear the room a lot in the vocals whereas the other tracks were so pristine and clear so it stood out a bit. I'm a huge fan of "hearing the room" in recordings; I find it so interesting when you can hear where someone records something as it becomes part of the song and the feeling, but in this case it was a bit jarring because I guess nothing else was mic'd so it seemed like a bit of an anomaly.
BTW, is that a real Fender Rhodes you're playing?

I strongly recommend using Bob Katz's K14 system for setting your volume levels. It's really easy to master stuff too loud, using compressors and limiters and such. K14 gets beyond that. Lots of DAWs have K14 meters on them now - use them! It's pretty much industry standard now, but home recordists are late to the party and still mashing everything like it was 1999.

Basically, download a $5 SPL program for your iPhone or similar, set up a pink noise generator (most DAWs have them or you can download a pink noise WAV) to peak at 0dB, then adjust your monitoring volume to peak at 83dB on the SPL. Now never touch your volume knob again. You are now set to basically the same standard they use in movie theaters and if you master stuff at this volume you will never be too loud or too soft or crush things too far in the maximizer. It was a total revelation to me.

Long story short -- peak meters like the ones on DAWs are TERRIBLE for judging loudness. Just because it isn't clipping doesn't mean it isn't too loud.

Long story long:
http://www.digido.com/level-practices-p ... ystem.html

edit: here's a free SPL meter for iPhone -- I've got this and it works well
http://www.studiosixdigital.com/spl_meter.html

the same folk have a $20 app with a full feature set including pink noise generator etc
http://www.studiosixdigital.com/audiotools.html

bgm wrote:There wasn't anything strange in the background; it was more that I could hear the room a lot in the vocals whereas the other tracks were so pristine and clear so it stood out a bit. I'm a huge fan of "hearing the room" in recordings; I find it so interesting when you can hear where someone records something as it becomes part of the song and the feeling, but in this case it was a bit jarring because I guess nothing else was mic'd so it seemed like a bit of an anomaly.
BTW, is that a real Fender Rhodes you're playing?

Gotcha, that makes sense, it's true that nothing else is mic'd. I run the rhodes direct. I've got a Rhodes Mark I Stage Piano. I believe it's the 1970 73 key model. Compression and reverb are added in the DAW.

Future Boy wrote:I've got a Rhodes Mark I Stage Piano. I believe it's the 1970 73 key model.

Wow, that's completely awesome. I've always loved the sound and you play it really well. So impressed.

This BSS track is unusual for us. Martin is not on the track at all. Ken wrote the lyrics but isn't on the recording, and didn't mix the song. Glen and I wrote the music. Everything was tracked individually. Normally we track the drums, bass, and guitars live. I played drums! I also played synth and sang and mixed. Anyway, if you don't like something in our song this week it's a safe bet you can blame me for it. That means you, frankie.

I really liked a lot of songs in this fight. I want to actually write reviews for a change, we'll see.

Oh, whoever liked the synth in our song, that was my Roland SH-101. I love it!

http://www.vintagesynth.com/roland/sh101.php