I don't ever expect to win a songfight, but I'm gonna put forth my best effort on everything I do. I promise you that you'll never get less. That being said, here's why I love songfight reviews...what was said about "John Kloberdanz" so far today?
John Kloberdanz -- 13/15
C:3, L:2, F:3, P:3 (powerful stuff! Awesome. The distorted guitar is a bit shapeless, sounds more like background noise than anything else. Try slightly harder distortion or a different amp or whatever), M:2 (way too much reverb on the guitar)
Thank you, great advice, much appreciated!
John Kloberdanz - 5/5
Listening to Horse With No Name lately? But vocals are wow. Perfect score. Got my vote.
OMGasp! I hate that song and you're right! I didn't realize it until you said so and once I did it was so obvious! Should have done it a whole note lower, and when I re-record it trying some of the advice given, I'll try that too, as long as it doesn't take away from the soaring chorus too much. That being said, thank you very much for the positive feedback, I will hold it closer than ...
John Kloberdanz - No. Sounds like a case of immature songwriting. At least you've got confidence in vocals, I'll give you that. But no, I don't enjoy this.
Netto, I'll take 2 out of 3 any day on songfight, it's better than my real life!
Reïst wrote:The Weakest Suit - Yes. Man, this always frustrates me about you. I love your songwriting, I like your voice, but your production is so lo fi that there's no way I'd listen to it again. Are you just using these as demos, planning to record it well someday? Because your songs deserve better treatment than this.
thanks for the kind words. i feel the same way about most of the songs i've submitted. this was the fourth of five songs written on the last day of fawm and the only one recorded. it was recorded on my camera as a video for fawm and i just ripped the audio off and added the phase effect for songfight. i really wish i had the opportunity to record it better, but most of my songs need drums as a base and i don't drum or have time to screw with the drum machine programming interface. without drums, most people will ignore it no matter how well it's done so i usually do the minimum and move on to the next one. the video does not have the effect and the song is a bit clearer.
Reïst wrote:Got a question though - if I feel obligated to review when I send in a song, but I have to sort through this much garbage to find a few good tunes, is it wrong for me to stop participating in the review threads? Because there's a lot of crap. And the people submitting obviously know it's crap.
Here's the way I look at it: while the people may know it's crap, they may not know exactly how to improve it -- and that's where you can help! That said, we all have jobs and lives and families and songfights to enter, so there may not be time to do reviews for everyone every time you enter. And I think we all understand that, particularly in these modern uber-fights with a zillion entries.
(This is partly selfish, as you provide quality advice. The Chthock thanks you for your vote, and I wouldn't have thought of the drum thing had you not brought it to our attention.)
bambamoozle wrote:
Cobalt Stomach - so which one came first, this or Chthonic? It was like a sideways deja vu. No vote.
We (Chthonic Chthock) did. I know jast is on the ball with the reviews and wanted to get 'em posted so we didn't get hit with another one of those a L:0 (post your lyrics next time) things.
I guess this is why everyone posts their lyrics after the deadline now... Interestingly, I probably posted 'em 10 or so hours before the fight ended, which means the Stomach works fast.
Phil. Redmon. wrote:
The Curious George movie wouldn't be as good without him.
WTF!?!?!
You must be insane. INSANE I TELLS YOU!!!!!!!!
Your Honour, I present Exhibit A, the far superior theme song to the Curious George television show. To replace this with the sonambulent droning of a balding old waxhead is a CRIME!
Phil. Redmon. wrote:
He records in a 100% solar powered studio.
The man's not afraid to be barefoot.
There's nothing wimpy about being mellow.
Actually, I've got nothing but for respect for a dude that spends all his time surfing in Hawaii or Byron Bay, and letting off the occasional dull, but inoffensive bit of muzak. Good luck to him. And I'm sure that one day when I'm old, I'll enjoy listening to his records too.
Reïst wrote:
But you deny a Jack Johnson influence? This sounds straight off the curious george sountrack.
Aw man - you people are just messin' with my head now.
Hi Gang. First half of the reviews. I'll get the second half up before the next fight. Ujn and I are Chthonic Chthock.
Abominominous.
++ This is a new level of slick and awesome.
-- No real chorus for us to grove out to? Sad face.
// So while your stuff is always slick and awesome, this appeals to me on a more personal level. Reminds me of The Kills, down to the bleep-bloop. You know how many records they moved last year? I don't. But it's gotta be on the order of 50k. I for one would love to see you work within this formula. Probable vote.
A. Reist.
++ Rockin'-ness. Performance. Solo.
-- As others mentioned, the crunch is pretty crunchy. Also, you doubled the vocals and panned them hard right and left. Listening in headphones this is distracting, as it gives a slapback effect. Remember The Strokes? Ha ha yeah, The Strokes. So their trick was to record into two mics, compress one to hell and leave one fairly uncompressed. This gave the umpf of doubling without the phase issues.
Andy Sucks.
// So at my old apartment, the guy who lived above me started writing this song. The first line was "A is for Acid, B is for Bud." He wanted to do the whole alphabet with drug references... but he never got past B. This was particularly ironic, as he was addcted to crystal meth. So you know, I have high standards for creativity in drug songs. You could have at least done something with absinthe.
Caravan Ray.
++ Everything's solid except the following:
-- To me, the panning on the drums is distracting As is the phaser, if there is indeed a phaser. There's one rhythym instrument that's so buried I can't tell if it's a clav or a funky-played guitar. Which means it's too buried.
Chopped Liver Meat God
++ Kinda cool.
-- Length. Cowbell. On the second listen, seriously, length.
// If you would have gone for death metal vocals and trimmed this to like two minutes I'd be voting for it, cowbell or not.
Cobalt Stomach
++ Lyrics. Haha. General goth feel.
-- Lyric burglin' is not terribly polite.
// While I can't speak for Ujn, I'm not sure if I'm honored or... not. Leaning towards honored. Neat to hear your take on it, though. Possible vote, actually.
Death be not proud
++ Dunne allusion haha. Ambience.
-- The hard pans. Turn those vocals up, turn that rhythm guitar up in the verse, roll off some of its high end.
// Possible vote.
deetak
++ Everything. Shimminy, this is _another_ fantastic frickin song by you. Is there a fan club? Seriously. I will be the president of your fanclub. I would buy a deetak t-shirt in an instant. (Well, if the design was cool.) Seriously. This is the best song of the week. It bears repetition: fantastic.
-- Okay, the clipping on the vocals doesn't work well.
// Clear, obvious VOTE.
E. DiMasi
++ Melody and performance? I guess it's hard for me to pin down what to put in the like category since it's all so solid and well done.
-- Nothin' really in the minus category here.
// So... what was the magazine that inspired this? If there wasn't an actual magazine, what magazine would play the magazine in the filmed biopic of your life? Possible vote.
Fabulous Prunes.
++ Neat sounds.
-- Lack of relevance.
// Curious as to whether that's a free running LFO or you're controlling that somehow.
Fartin' in the Club.
++ Nice choice of reverb.
-- Lack of relevance.
// I guess 15 years has gone by and so dated acid house is back in again?
Gnome Alone.
++ This was cool in a weird, detached, and mellow way.
-- Six frickin' listens and I don't understand it.
// Could you explain it to me? Possible vote.
Howl Down McHatton.
++ Most everything. I'm hoping you guys work together again, because this is terribly awesome.
-- The electronic drums sound odd to me here.
// Are you playing a variax on sitar there at the end? On a personal note, I had to give "my" autoharp back to its owner last year and I'm still sad. I troll craigslist every now and again looking for a cheap one. Vote.
I.A. Jones
OH JESUS GOD YOU HAVE MY ALARM CLOCK!!! I hear that sound and I get nervous and panic-y.
++ Your rapping was good. Your concept, while gross, was good. Your sung interludes were also good.
-- Your beat... was kind of backgroundy. The skit portion was mixed high.
// Yet, overall I am amused. So possible vote. But what's with Square One Signs? I see you're both from Georgia. Is that product placement or do you work there?
I can't imagine telling my co workers about SongFight. Actually, I can. Here's how it would go:
ME: Hey ya Dave, how you doin'? How was your weekend?
DAVE: Pretty good. Jenny and I took the kids to the zoo.
ME: Sweet!
DAVE: Yeah, it was a pretty fun day. What'd you do?
ME: I wrote a song about stalking Quentin Tarantino and then bludgeoning him to death with a golf club. Posted it on the internet for the lulz. Did you see that new baby giraffe at the zoo? Isn't it darling?
DAVE: Um...
Thanks for the reviews so far. Note: people who don't post lyrics don't simply get a zero from me. I'm not that mean. Just don't expect full marks for the lyrics if I don't review them. I'll update my post (if possible) with thoughts about the newly posted lyrics (and Caravan Ray's which I apparently missed) when I have time.
John Kloberdanz - 5/5
Listening to Horse With No Name lately? But vocals are wow. Perfect score. Got my vote.
OMGasp! I hate that song and you're right! I didn't realize it until you said so and once I did it was so obvious! Should have done it a whole note lower, and when I re-record it trying some of the advice given, I'll try that too, as long as it doesn't take away from the soaring chorus too much. That being said, thank you very much for the positive feedback, I will hold it closer than ...
Sometimes it happens. Don't feel bad, only the beginning sounds like the song. I hear songs that remind me of my own all the time, and it makes me wonder if I just copied from them subconsciously.
John Kloberdanz - 5/5
Listening to Horse With No Name lately? But vocals are wow. Perfect score. Got my vote.
OMGasp! I hate that song and you're right! I didn't realize it until you said so and once I did it was so obvious! Should have done it a whole note lower, and when I re-record it trying some of the advice given, I'll try that too, as long as it doesn't take away from the soaring chorus too much. That being said, thank you very much for the positive feedback, I will hold it closer than ...
Sometimes it happens. Don't feel bad, only the beginning sounds like the song. I hear songs that remind me of my own all the time, and it makes me wonder if I just copied from them subconsciously.
jast wrote:Note: people who don't post lyrics don't simply get a zero from me. I'm not that mean. Just don't expect full marks for the lyrics if I don't review them. I'll update my post (if possible) with thoughts about the newly posted lyrics (and Caravan Ray's which I apparently missed) when I have time.
Unlike most people, you take the time to actually read the lyrics for every entry. The way I look at it, if we respect the amount of work you're going to in doing these reviews for us, the absolute least we can do is get those lyrics in the designated spot by the time the songs are posted. That's what I was thinking when I said I wanted to avoid the L:0.
The ARS is the best review system I've seen in memory, btw. I think that every week but I don't reckon I've mentioned it thus far.
MC Milk Plus -- 12/15
C:2 (more fun than it should be, almost), L:* (not rated; post your lyrics next time to change that), F:2, P:3 (interesting vocals), M:3 (slight plosives)
reve wrote:Also, you doubled the vocals and panned them hard right and left. Listening in headphones this is distracting, as it gives a slapback effect.
Um, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say ... it's not panned hard in either direction. As I recall from mixing, one's about 10% left and the other's about 15% right. I don't deny there's probably phase issues, but if you're hearing it hard panned, there might be something wrong with your headphones.
Now that we've got a PW on the board, let me give you a couple of tips.
Lyrics go here: http://songfight.net/forums/viewforum.php?f=5
There's a thread for each fight, very convenient. I am glad that you have taken over this role. Jeff used to either email them to me or submit them along with the song. Bad. Bad. You are closer, posting them to the board. Just get them in the right thread.
Also, pick a band name. I cut and paste right from the emails. Is it "The Pathetic Wannabees", or just "Pathetic Wannabees"? You probably aren't familiar, but there is an archive here, ( http://www.songfight.org/artistpage.php ... _wannabees ) and after this fight, you will have entries under both names. Unfortunately, one overwrites the other, and some of your songs won't show up. We won't get into whether that is a good or a bad thing.
Tell Jeff to read this: http://www.songfight.org/faq.html#file_name or this: http://songfight.net/forums/viewtopic.p ... 14#p135014
Those are about how to name your file. Don't call your song Green Eleven.mp3, the server doesn't like spaces in band names, and besides, if everyone did that, everyone's song would overwrite everyone else's song, and we would only have one entry in the fight - whoever entered last. Don't name your file ThePatheticWannabees_GreenEleven.mp3 either. Lose the "The" for alphabetization purposes, and lower case everything. Also, we reduce the songname down to an acronym, as Jeff will read in the above links, so the proper name would be patheticwannabees_ge.mp3. Get it?
Spud wrote:if everyone did that, everyone's song would overwrite everyone else's song, and we would only have one entry in the fight - whoever entered last.
since my song is usually last, i totally support this naming scheme.