Nur Ein VII Round One "Architect"

[frankie big face]

frankie, I think you're overreacting.

Of course I'm overreacting! This is Nur Ein, dammitt!!!!!!!

[Ross]

Hmmm... Is it time for me to activate reviewfight.com?

[Caravan Ray]

I honestly don't see it that way, but hey, maybe I'm wrong. It just says incorporate a round so I did. And I thought I did it in a clever way.

Frankie - a wise man once said (last week to be exact):

if you are going to flaunt the non-optional challenge quite so brazenly each round, you're in for a tough ride. Respect the game, man!

[Rabid Garfunkel]

Reviews, in alphabetical order. And yes, Virginia, I am an asshole

Adam Adamant
Interesting instrument choices. Lopes along steadily.

ADD
Frank Black-y. Not a bad thing. Nice spatial panning in the round. Lullaby-ish.

bgm
Nice! Appreciating the "beat" pauses in the lyrical phrasing.

Boffo Yux Dudes
Good lord, change up the drums! Or push 'em back in the mix or something. Way distracting from the entertaining lyrics.

The Chocolate Chips
Zzzzz… sorry. Guess spatial panning for the round is the way we're playing it.

Chris Cogott
Nice Simon & Garfunkel vibe. Harmony tones/delivery/treatment are more in the "Weird" Al flavor, though.

DJ Ranger Den
Needs a jug to hoot on and a thimble fingered washboard! Heavy handed reverb, there.

Frankie Big Face
Very Beatles "I've Got A Feeling"-ish. Still a quality song, though. Chorus(?) fx on the vocal tracks is a little distressing in headphones.

Genevieve Johnson and the Chiefs
'80s dance party! First earworm I've heard (the main round). I think you've out-WreckdoM-ed WreckdoM.

Gooey Caramel Centaur
Tambourines make me angry

Jo Ann Abbott
Instruments! Yay! Key you're singing in sounds like it's a struggle for you though.

Jon Eric
Drinking song! You'd better have one bitch queen of a chorus though… oh, you went that way instead. No complaints there. Half time solo section seemed more padding than "necessary".

Ligers With Attitude
Drinking song! Bummer the chorus is a weary cliché. Otherwise enjoyed it.

Manhattan Glutton
Killdozer rolls again! That caught me by surprise. Cool.

Merisan
There's the "Row Row Row Your Boat" nod. *smiley face*

Oystercatcher
I hope something changes soon. The difference between the dry(?) guitar (in 3/4 of the song) and the over-reverbed vocals is bleah to the extreme, for the intimate tone and the lyrical content you've got going on. Until the freakout, anyway.

Rabid Garfunkel
What the fuck are you on? Freak, try singing for a change.

Ross Durand
*smiley face*

Sausage
The low frequency energy in your mix is exhausting and painful. Stop it.

Snappy + Floyd
The magic you hear is me hitting skip. 9:53? Of this? You hate the judges, don't you? Exercise restraint. Or in restraints. 3:03, and I'm done.

The Idiot Kings
Vocals kinda weak in the mix. I'll go read 'em in the Lyrics thread, I guess. Nice action movie energy.

WreckdoM
*smiley face**smiley face*

The Worldly Self Assurance
Clean.

[Caravan Ray]

I haven't heard Frankie's song yet (or anyone's), but I do feel compelled to note that, in music, a round is vocal by definition. Its instrumental equivalent is the canon.

Jon, while that is an interesting way of looking at the two terms, it is not correct. The instrumentation has nothing to do with distinguishing whether a composition is a canon or a round. By definition, all rounds are canons, but not all canons are rounds. Rounds are "simple canons" where the imitation is identical and at the same pitch level.

I wish the challenge had have been "must include a cannon". Though I think that has already been used the year that Tchaikovsky won Nur Ein.

[ken]

Nur Ein 1812?

[frankie big face]

Nur Ein 1812?

Oh Ken. Tchaikovsky wasn't born until 1840. Is there no end to my pedantry!

[chocolatechips]

These are in order of my personal preference (how I would vote on the other 22 if I were a judge.) Overall I think the songs are quite a bit better this week than last week (it probably helps that I think that including a round is a much more interesting challenge than shouting.)

1. bgm - Cool atmosphere created by the sparse delayed electric guitar (which has a bit of a Radiohead thing going on) combined with the strumming acoustic guitars. Your outro is really good. Wouldn't be surprised if you guys win this round too.

2. Frankie Big Face - I took points off for sounding so much like John Lennon's part in "I've Got A Feeling" at the beginning of the verses, but not that many. Great song. It has a really cool feel to it. Love the organs and the backing vocals.

3. Manhattan Glutton - I wasn't really digging this but then the dubstep break came in and that was pretty damn nice. I've actually been wanting to experiment with dubstep on my entries but haven't figured out how to get it right yet so I've got to give you great credit for making ths work. The church choir like vocals going into the dubstep drop is an awesome idea really well done. By the end of this track I moved it up in my rankings.

4. Merisan - Really pretty song. This may actually be my favorite song of the round even though I don't have it ranked #1. I'm not sure what my reasoning is for that.

5. Ligers with Attitude - Great arrangement. This was so well done that I got over my usual distaste for acapella. It helps that it's short, if you had gone on too long with this it might have got a bit old.

6. Chris Cogott - I like this a lot better than last week's (this seems to be true for most of the songs this week.) I really like the guitar playing, sounds like renaissancey (or probably more accurately 60s folk.) Excellent singing. I love the harmonies.

7. ADD - Really nice production; clean & clear. On the negative side I'm not sold on the inserted spoken bits (like the first "the architect.") On the very positive side; the singing is spot on for this style. Your rounds are good (and I love the lyric "you were a wave in the water.") It's a nice touch to have a backing vocal round come in at the end. At nearly five minutes I'd like to complain about the length but it feels about right for this song.

8. Worldly Self Assurance - I feel like I should like this more than I do. It's good and it *is* my cup of tea... but for some reason it doesn't grab hold of my interest as much as it should. I do think you guys are at a disadvantage with your name being at the bottom of the list, I get a bit burnt out after listening to all of the entries. Next time I should listen from the bottom up.

9. Oystercatcher - This is quite good, but it's a bit subtle in its goodness. I feel like if were to listen to these songs on repeat for a week that this may be towards the top of the list, but I'm only ranking based on one listen so I can't say for sure. I'm hearing an Akron/Family (and Animal Collective) influence on this one too (heard Akron/Family in your entry last week too.)

10. Idiot Kings - Dig the atmosphere of your song. Lots of energy and the vocals are strong. Kind of reminds me of an early Radiohead song, not sure which one (maybe something off of Pablo Honey.)

11. Jon Eric - Big ups for the rocking harmonica solos. Liked the sound of the acoustic guitars a lot, but the electric guitars sounded a bit washed out.

12. Genevieve Johnson and the Chiefs - Reminds me of Leonard Cohen. I dig your round. I usually don't notice lyrics on the first listen, these caught my ear.

13. Adam Adamant - I like this one a lot more than your entry last week (but the judges liked last week's so maybe that's not a good thing?) The sparseness works with this song. Ukuleles plus synths is a nice angle. I like the character of your voice.

14. Ross Durand - This is good but not the type of thing I like. If I was trying to be objective (rather than subjective) I'd probably put this higher because I can almost picture hearing this song on country pop radio (without the round) ... I think I know some people who would think this is the best song in the round. You know, that's what it's all about these days - finding your audience. With the thing I'm doing with The Chocolate Chips I'm very aware of this, there are many people who are never going to like what I'm doing because of the weird voice effect (or because I put them to sleep - just read RG's review)... and there are many people who aren't going to want to listen to Snappy & Floyd because they are doing rap. Whatever, you just do what you do for the people who do like that style. Guess I went off on a bit of a rant there, not sure why your song prompted it.

15. Gooey Caramel Centaur - The guitar solo is probably my favorite part, otherwise the song didn't really grab me.

16. Rabid Garfunkel - I found this pretty enjoyable in a freaky sideshow ("some seriously silly hair") kind of way... where's the round?

17. Sausage - I'm curious as to how you do your mixing? Your songs are generally much better than your production and this is no exception. The bass is thumping and everything else is a fizzy on top. I think you may have got a bit too crazy with the EQ? Unless you are going for a special effect, it's generally a good idea to stop your EQ cuts as soon as you can hear it effecting the music. Great guitar lead as usual. I'm not sold on your round, doesn't really fit together nicely.

18. Jo Ann Abbott - I find this absolutely bizarre. Sounds kind of like church music. I think the round would have worked better with some panning (the voices get jumbled all on top of each other in the center) and some EQ work (to carve out space for each vocal.)

19. DJ Ranger Den - Great vocals and I like the reverb a lot.

20. Boffo Yux Dudes - Much better than last week's. I dig the music bed, it has a sort of weird smooth jazz thing going on.

21. WreckdoM - I think you've got too much panning going on, it can make things a bit too "swimmy" if things are constantly moving back and forth.

22. Snappy & Floyd - I like the attitude but attitude alone isn't enough to make people interested in what you're doing. This massive reverb isn't the best effect on rap vocals. 9+ minutes is a lot to ask of listeners who don't really care. I think you have to make people care first and then you can do the epic rant thing once you've got their attention. The guitar solo "round" at the end (and yes I listened to the entire thing) isn't a bad way to go considering there's no singing on your track to do it the traditional way. If your song had been half as long I'd probably rank it higher but 9+ minutes for people who are not already your fans... I don't think it's a good way to make people want to listen to more of your music.

[BenKrieger]

Oystercatcher
I hope something changes soon. The difference between the dry(?) guitar (in 3/4 of the song) and the over-reverbed vocals is bleah to the extreme, for the intimate tone and the lyrical content you've got going on. Until the freakout, anyway.

One Shure 57, recorded song live. Recorded over first take two more times, gradually trying to make each pass sound less in sync and unhinged as the song progresses until the end when each take splits into the round. Cathedral verb setting on entire mix. It's an ode to Richard Youngs!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Youngs

[Rabid Garfunkel]

16. Rabid Garfunkel - I found this pretty enjoyable in a freaky sideshow ("some seriously silly hair") kind of way... where's the round?

Left hand, piano; bass; vibes. G-A-F progression, 2 measures apart. Freaky sideshow, I like that appellation, thanks!

One Shure 57, recorded song live. Recorded over first take two more times, gradually trying to make each pass sound less in sync and unhinged as the song progresses until the end when each take splits into the round. Cathedral verb setting on entire mix. It's an ode to Richard Youngs!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Youngs

Wow, that guy's a monster! (Good thing.)

[JonPorobil]

Jon Eric
Drinking song! You'd better have one bitch queen of a chorus though… oh, you went that way instead. No complaints there. Half time solo section seemed more padding than "necessary".

Yeah, the half-time section was originally where I was going to put the round. But I didn't like the way it sounded, so some stuff got reshuffled last-minute. If I'd had more time, I'd have cut the first solo and put in a third verse, that way the solo wouldn't have sounded quite so unnecessary. But alas, if I'd had all the time I wanted, this wouldn't have been NUR EIN!

Thanks for the review!

[Manhattan Glutton]

I've actually been wanting to experiment with dubstep on my entries but haven't figured out how to get it right yet so I've got to give you great credit for making ths work.

Haha thanks. It took me a few tries to work it all together. I'm still an experimenting n00b, but that's what the first few rounds are for. I can now check this off my yearly goals.

[supremeedible]

Just downloaded everything and will listen on the way to work, but Snappy + Floyd had better have a very good reason their song is 12.6mb long.

Gooey Caramel Centaur
Tambourines make me angry

Glad I dodged the bullet then :p.

[Rabid Garfunkel]

Gooey Caramel Centaur
Tambourines make me angry

Glad I dodged the bullet then :p.

Ah. What jingle-beast did you employ?

[supremeedible]

Gooey Caramel Centaur
Tambourines make me angry

Glad I dodged the bullet then :p.

Ah. What jingle-beast did you employ?

You're probably right, now that I listen to it. All I did was make the computer make sounds, but I suppose that particular sound was probably meant by whoever prepared it to be a tambourine. Sorry it angered you so. I am just running through a checklist of half-assed percussion solutions .

[Ross]

Ross Durand
*smiley face*

i'm going to take this as a compliment

[j$]

My favorite- "The 'Yeahs' were unnecessary, ps. where was the shouting." GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE! Seriously? Horseshit. Pure and utter horseshit.

My favourite - someone eliding two separate responses to try and win some non-existent arguement, in the wrong thread. I shall now listen without trying to let anyone's "outbursts" influence my opinions. ps. I am probably not as good a person as you. Good luck.

[Jefff]

IS THAT A THREAT

[Rabid Garfunkel]

You're probably right, now that I listen to it. All I did was make the computer make sounds, but I suppose that particular sound was probably meant by whoever prepared it to be a tambourine. Sorry it angered you so. I am just running through a checklist of half-assed percussion solutions .

No worries, yo. A tambourine killed my grandfather, back in the war. And he was a percussionist sympathizer, too. Can't trust those sneaky jingle-beasts. Be wary, they're always watching, waiting...

@Ross: Yup, 'tis. I didn't know there's a 4 smiley limit in posts.

[Tawnee]

What does it matter, that its two different responses. The judges deliberate and develop a consensus, don't they? It's a barrage of contradictory feedback from anonymous strangers that's nearly impossible to process in any meaningful way. I don'w know what kind of person you are but if you're bad you'll keep me in the contest so I can die at my computer for lack of sunlight and air.

[j$]

IS THAT A THREAT

Sadly, no, I am not tuff enuff for that. I just take umbrage at someone unwilling to tell the difference between my opinion and someone else's, especially as there was no judging entrance exam. It's insulting to the other judges to compare them to me. If someone has decided to 'fall on their sword' then better just not to enter than go looking for an unnecessary fight. IMO.

[adamadamant]

I want a Ligers With Attitude tshirt. I think I could be secretary for your fan club.

NUREIN!