Get A Pre-Life

WesDavis · Post by **WesDavis** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 1:48 am

jb wrote:
WesDavis wrote:Alright, so in defiance of my apparent lack of abilty to record vocals that are in time with the beat of the song, I decided, while drunk, to record some bullshit and send that in.
What a dick.

Yeah, jeez, I'm such an asshole. Anyway, I haven't sent the song in yet, and I'm going to do my best to clean it up. The most unfortunate part is that the vocals in the recording are the best I could come up with. I'd just keep the song to myself, but hell, I like it and I wanted to submit it really badly, after all the time I spent with it. With luck, some people will find it, at the very least, entertaining.

Leaf · Post by **Leaf** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 1:50 am

I'm in.

king_arthur · Post by **king_arthur** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 6:59 am

Gawking Urethras are in, featuring real drums by Jolly Roger and the new, improved vocal stylings of Mr. Wages.

Charles (KA)

MC wreckshin · Post by **MC wreckshin** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 7:13 am

emergency pizza party is back with another last minute entry. hope we got it in on time.

order of emmceeeeees:

on chorus:

MC wreckshin & Sir-Up & Betty Rebel

Fanatical & Betty Rebel

Benjamin Bear

Fanatical

on verses:

Fanatical
Sir-Up
mCRT (special guest)
MC wreckshin
Betty Rebel
Benjamin Bear

good luck and good fight!

Caravan Ray · Post by **Caravan Ray** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 7:21 am

I'm in, and I programmed my beats myself - by vigorously slapping the palms of my hands together.

thehipcola · Post by **thehipcola** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 7:24 am

sigh...I'm not in, again. Couldn't find my flow in the scant time I had to rock the mic this week. Oh Time, where art thou?

Post by jb » Mon Feb 12, 2007 7:30 am

WesDavis wrote:
jb wrote:
WesDavis wrote:Alright, so in defiance of my apparent lack of abilty to record vocals that are in time with the beat of the song, I decided, while drunk, to record some bullshit and send that in.
What a dick.
Yeah, jeez, I'm such an asshole. Anyway, I haven't sent the song in yet, and I'm going to do my best to clean it up. The most unfortunate part is that the vocals in the recording are the best I could come up with. I'd just keep the song to myself, but hell, I like it and I wanted to submit it really badly, after all the time I spent with it. With luck, some people will find it, at the very least, entertaining.

One of the times I will call someone a dick is when he or she makes statements to the effect that a) you don't like your song and b) you're sending it in anyway.

If that's not the case, then you're not a dick. Just, y'know, don't submit a song you're not proud of. If you're proud of it but it's not good, we'll let you know. If you KNOW it's not good and you're not even proud of it yourSELF, then you're insulting the people who take the time to listen.

I'm just sayin'.

JB

WesDavis · Post by **WesDavis** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 7:32 am

Well, after some consideration, I decided to COMPLETELY redo the song that I am submitting this week. Thusly my night was OBLITERATED. Now it's 8:30 in the morning, but hey, I accomplished great works.

If anyone is curious still as to how the drunk version of my song went, check it out, <a href="http://www.room203.net/wes/music/Get%20 ... ">here!</a>

It sounds very, very different in the final version that I just submitted.

Ross · Post by **Ross** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 8:30 am

WesDavis wrote:
jb wrote:
WesDavis wrote:blah blah blah
What a dick.
Yeah, jeez, I'm such an asshole.

What concerns me most is your confusion between a dick and an asshole. I hope you get this straightened out before you find yourself in an embarrrassing situation.

Leaf · Post by **Leaf** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 8:41 am

ZING.

jimtyrrell · Post by **jimtyrrell** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 8:54 am

rdurand wrote:What concerns me most is your confusion between a dick and an asshole. I hope you get this straightened out before you find yourself in an embarrrassing situation.

If Dick and asshole seem synonymous, it's probably the fault of politics.

On a semi-related note: The Mad Vulgarian's entry this week has some bad language in it.

Jim of Seattle · Post by **Jim of Seattle** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 9:39 am

I'm in.

WesDavis · Post by **WesDavis** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 9:39 am

jb wrote:
WesDavis wrote:
jb wrote: What a dick.
Yeah, jeez, I'm such an asshole. Anyway, I haven't sent the song in yet, and I'm going to do my best to clean it up. The most unfortunate part is that the vocals in the recording are the best I could come up with. I'd just keep the song to myself, but hell, I like it and I wanted to submit it really badly, after all the time I spent with it. With luck, some people will find it, at the very least, entertaining.
One of the times I will call someone a dick is when he or she makes statements to the effect that a) you don't like your song and b) you're sending it in anyway.

If that's not the case, then you're not a dick. Just, y'know, don't submit a song you're not proud of. If you're proud of it but it's not good, we'll let you know. If you KNOW it's not good and you're not even proud of it yourSELF, then you're insulting the people who take the time to listen.

I'm just sayin'.

JB

Oh, I assumed you were being sarcastic. I was thinking it would be funny to turn in a drunk song. However, I came up with a far better solution! Of course, that's in my last post in this thread.

But I do apologize; as much as I appreciate Songfight and what it's done for me in terms of writing songs, there are plenty of times where I don't take it seriously at all. Of course, when that happens and I submit some bullshit, I tend to do very poorly! Imagine that!

I am, for the record, quite proud of what I did with my final recording this week. There's only one thing in hindsight that I wish I'd changed, but them's the breaks.

Jim of Seattle · Post by **Jim of Seattle** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 9:46 am

jb wrote: If you KNOW it's not good and you're not even proud of it yourSELF, then you're insulting the people who take the time to listen.

I'm just sayin'.

JB

Holy hell I couldn't agree with you more. I always figured the people who apologize in advance are expressing severe insecurity around their abilities, which is fine, but actually doing the song and submitting it takes a hefty amount of courage in the first place, so I really don't get it when after that accomplishment people then choose to trade their spine in for Smucker's jam.

medmonk · Post by **medmonk** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 10:18 am

Hello! medavox here.
we're in. The 2 of us. Against EPP, and other giants of internet music.
yipes.
Ah well, we did try, and we're proud of it.
We wrote, recorded and mixed it while we were both hung over, and the other guy (Da_Monk) had fallen down the stairs at the party the night before.
I'm the one who screams on the track, and plays the thrash.
We listened to the comments of last time, so I tried screaming properly, dropped the half-american accent, and we even used Audacity's default compression tool. We'll have to learn how use that better in future.
Peace, all!
oh, and we had to submit a second time later in the day (about 9:30am PDT)
due to one of the vocal tracks being too quiet. I hope the remixed one makes it through instead.

Eidolon · Post by **Eidolon** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 10:48 am

I'm in too!

This is the last fight I can do for a couple weeks as I will be traveling.
Hopefully that lull won't cause me to disappear for another year again..

Can't wait to hear the other entries.

john m · Post by **john m** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 11:34 am

Pending slightly-late-entry approval, I'm back.

obscurity · Post by **obscurity** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 11:51 am

impulse wrote:obscurity - I listened to some of your songs now, like:
http://www.songfight.org/songpage.php?k ... _need_love
http://www.songfight.org/music/elements ... y_teos.mp3

How do you create the paino intro sound and the keyboard sounds on We All Need Love, or the guitar sound (or is it a keyboard sound?) on Elements of Style?

Those (and all other) sounds are creating using VSTs (in particular, Realguitar & Virtual Guitarist for the guitar parts in TEOS, and Kontakt the piano & other stuff in WANL). None of it was played, instead I programmed the notes in by hand using the piano roll editor within Cubase (which is the sequencer that I use). Not only did I not play them, but in the case of TEOS at least, I'm certain that I couldn't play them if I tried.

impulse wrote:If you are not playing any instruments (I consider playing the electronic keyboard an instrument), then you are pretty talented to have created that music. But, that being said, many people make beats from scratch. I am not saying it can't be done. But, for somebody who plays no instruments (even virtual ones) like me, it is hard. I have tried Fruity Loops, but unless you have sophisticated technical skills, it is hard to make a song on it from scratch unless you piece together the premade loops they give you.

Well, it's kind of you to say that, but really I don't think using a sequencer to create backing music takes any more talent than doing it with an actual isnstrument. I'm still waiting for you to explain why it's so much harder to do for hiphop than for other genres - can you please answer this point?

impulse wrote:Anyhow, I agree with Billy's Little Trip's point about how if I use a "professional" sounding premade beat, it is not the same as building my own beat using layers of loops, so what I do is unfair in that way. But, I still don't see how all of this is any different than if I were the lead singer in a band and I wrote all the songs and I just had my band create the music for me to match my songs.

Well, firstly, in the vocalist-with-band scenario, the music will be written for the title in question. For me this is pretty fundamental. The rules are that the song should be written for the title. In your case that's only true for half of it (the lyrics & vocal melody).

Secondly, there's the unfair competition aspect. The guy doing your background music can spend as long as he wants polishing his mix. You can audition any number of different background tracks and pick the one that you feel best suits the lyrics you've written. In the vocalist-with-band scenario, the vocalist is going to have to live with whatever the band can come up with in the timescales available. That's rarely gonna be more than a couple of different backing tracks to choose from, and they're hardly ever gonna have time to polish the mix 'till they're completely satisfied. You should bear in mind that real bands with real people have to limit their writing/recording time to when they can all get together, which may only be for 3 or 4 hours each week.

Thirdly, there's the matter of credit. By submitting someone else's work under your own name, you're claiming credit for something you haven't done. In the vocalst-with-band scenario, the song would be submitted under the band's name, not just the name of the vocalist.

Finally, there's the fact that every time I read youi refer to backing music dismissively as 'beats', I want to punch you in the face. OK, so perhaps this last point isn't as rational as the others, but it's still true.

impulse wrote: If Songfight is a competition for musicians, than I suppose I would not qualify. But, if it is about creating new songs based on whatever title is given, then that is what I do.

No, you only do half of it. You rely on "here's-one-we-prepared-earlier" unconstrained music for the other half. To me, that's cheating.

Meatwad · Post by **Meatwad** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 11:54 am

jb wrote:
WesDavis wrote:
jb wrote: What a dick.
Yeah, jeez, I'm such an asshole. Anyway, I haven't sent the song in yet, and I'm going to do my best to clean it up. The most unfortunate part is that the vocals in the recording are the best I could come up with. I'd just keep the song to myself, but hell, I like it and I wanted to submit it really badly, after all the time I spent with it. With luck, some people will find it, at the very least, entertaining.
One of the times I will call someone a dick is when he or she makes statements to the effect that a) you don't like your song and b) you're sending it in anyway.

If that's not the case, then you're not a dick. Just, y'know, don't submit a song you're not proud of. If you're proud of it but it's not good, we'll let you know. If you KNOW it's not good and you're not even proud of it yourSELF, then you're insulting the people who take the time to listen.

I'm just sayin'.

JB

My rules for calling someone a dick are much simpler. Dick.

Billy's Little Trip · Mon Feb 12, 2007 12:02 pm

I got my "Get A Life" tune in with a minute to spare.

....but I haven't gotten a confirmation yet.

Post by **Spud** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 12:14 pm

Why wait for a confirmation when your song is already up, dude?

obscurity · Post by **obscurity** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 12:18 pm

Spud wrote:Why wait for a confirmation when your song is already up, dude?

<accent=irish>To be sure, to be sure.</accent>

Get A Pre-Life

Re: re: beats