Nur Ein XIV Round Zero "Message Received"

[Caravan Ray]

bgm did a Song Fight entry so I figured he'd be back for Nur Ein but I don't think he is. I didn't hear Ben Krieger in there but he's a bit of a chameleon so who knows. I think two years ago there were seven returning champions but this year has topped that.

(Is your "x2" meant to indicate folks that have won Nur Ein twice? I think that only applies to Frank and Adam/Puce/etc.)

Yes, you must be correct. I guess I read the artist page at https://nurein.songlander.com/artists.html wrong. It made it look like Caravan Ray won once as himself and once as Tydon Docks.

I prefer Ken’s alternate truth.

[ujnhunter]

Ujn Hunter + Friends - combining the SF and NE challenges feels like it could go horribly wrong in any number of ways, but this is pretty irresistible. The mix is so BIG and I love the vocal sound here (tell me how you did it so that I can steal your secrets!). I came to the same “I think this is probably Thai but I’m not sure” conclusion as the Jerks, but whatever the lyrics mean, I enjoyed this a lot. I think it suits the Song Fight title better than the Nur Ein one but you did a great job including enough to meet both challenges.

Thanks! The mix being BIG, not sure... just some double (w/ another set of doubled harmonies?) tracked guitars hard panned... the vocal sound was just (again) double tracked vocals sometimes more in certain sections... with a bit of reverb. Now they aren't secrets anymore! It is Thai. Hopefully that doesn't ruin the magical spell that some people were under by not knowing what was going on in the song. French, eh? Heh.

Note about using the title in the challenge: It is my understanding (and I've asked Nivs and he agreed with me) that you must either use the title directly (i.e. say it in the lyrics) OR write the song so that it sounds like it should be called the title. I personally think the latter would be an interesting thing to try to do (without actually SAYING the title, make the song so that all the rest of the lyrics add up to the title),but it is risky as the judges might not agree that it sounds like it should be the title. However if you do neither, you will get dinged in the ranking. Sometimes I forgot to do that this round, I will be listening more closely for the title in future rounds.

This. I had a really hard time with "Shock Value". Maybe because I was writing a song for both "Bend the Knee" (Song Fight!) and "Shock Value" (Nur Ein XIV) and didn't want the judges to think I just wrote it for Song Fight! and entered it for Round 1, but I struggled with saying the words "Shock Value" in my song... I almost felt "corny" for saying it, and that it made an otherwise "serious" (is it really though?) song into something that could turn out to be "silly". I think I got away with it... but I almost wish that the "Shock Value" in my song could have just been the shock of not expecting certain parts to occur in the song. Again, might not have been an issue had I not been writing for a dual entry and worried about the judges eviscerating me for it.

Ujn Hunter + Friends - This is a trip. i'm instantly reminded of G.S. I Love You, a compilation of Japanese garage rock bands from the 60s. Catchy AF, the music is great. however big dings for not posting a translation of the Thai lyrics. There's only so much I can make of a song where I don't understand most of the words and even what i can understand (i.e. the English lyrics) doesn't really make much sense. Also a ding for the kiddie voice sample at the end. I hate that kind of thing.

My apologies for not posting translated lyrics... but I felt it may lose that "power" of not knowing exactly what was going on in the song if you knew I was just saying that "I love you the most" throughout the song. Also... it was just a test to see if the message was really received or not... which I guess it wasn't in this particular case. Which then is also why I'm wondering "was the message received" in the English lyrics. Hope that makes more sense now. I went into greater detail about the "kiddie" sample at the end in the "What To Say And How To Say It" reviews... but basically I couldn't not put that into the ending as the entire song was written and recorded because of that "kiddo". Forgive me.

[FisherAndDiaz]

Fisher and Diaz - Fisher & Diaz always crack me up. I just like their sense of humor. even the way the guy says "Diaz" in the beginning makes me laugh. And the rapping is not bad! The lyrics are funny. "dinosaur, dinosaur", ha. The Message in A Bottle homage was awesome, I was like “what does this sound like” and then they said it and I was v. amused. Pitchy backing vocals and a somewhat abrupt ending moved it down my list, but I liked it.

Fun fact, all the "Message in a Bottle" tracks by the Police (or trying to sound like the Police) we could find sounded too much like Message in a Bottle, so we ended up using a youtube video called "John Mayer - Message In A Bottle (Backing Track)", which is I guess what a John Mayer song sounds like without any John Mayer on it? It's weird, there doesn't seem to be any version of John Mayer playing Message in a Bottle that actually sounds anything like "John Mayer - Message In A Bottle (Backing Track)". Mysterious. Thanks for enjoying our song!

[arby]

Fun fact, all the "Message in a Bottle" tracks by the Police (or trying to sound like the Police) we could find sounded too much like Message in a Bottle, so we ended up using a youtube video called "John Mayer - Message In A Bottle (Backing Track)", which is I guess what a John Mayer song sounds like without any John Mayer on it? It's weird, there doesn't seem to be any version of John Mayer playing Message in a Bottle that actually sounds anything like "John Mayer - Message In A Bottle (Backing Track)". Mysterious. Thanks for enjoying our song!

Ha! That's hilarious. for some reason I thought you played that part yourself and I imagined you trying to play something and it accidentally sounding like Message In A Bottle, so that inspired the call-out. This is much funnier.

[arby]

PS Sorry to see you didn't make the deadline this week, I was very much looking forward to more F&D in this contest.

[FisherAndDiaz]

PS Sorry to see you didn't make the deadline this week, I was very much looking forward to more F&D in this contest.

hooboy, our song for Shock Value was coming along rather nicely, but then I realized there was no way I was going to be able to both 1) meet a work deadline and 2) meet a song contest deadline, unfortunately

[arby]

PS Sorry to see you didn't make the deadline this week, I was very much looking forward to more F&D in this contest.

hooboy, our song for Shock Value was coming along rather nicely, but then I realized there was no way I was going to be able to both 1) meet a work deadline and 2) meet a song contest deadline, unfortunately

Can you submit it as a shadow? (Do we have shadows in Nur Ein?)

[Niveous]

There are shadows in Nur Ein. Post your shadows in the Ohne Ruhm thread.

[FisherAndDiaz]

Ha, if we get it completed, I'll share it here.

[BoffoYux]

Ha, if we get it completed, I'll share it here.

Give me a heads up when you do - I play shadows for the LP whenever they get posted, but i can miss when they go up.

[iVeg]

I think I've written more songs in Ohne Ruhm than in the main competition. It's a good learning experience, and there's less pressure, so you can experiment more, take a little more time. So please keep shadowing

[Pigfarmer Jr]

If you use Audacity this can be pretty easy. I found an oddly specific video on YouTube that explains how to use the free maximizer and LUFS metering plugins mentioned earlier in this thread with Audacity. Hope this helps!

Oddly specific, indeed!
I was using the TT dynamic Range Meter and going in around 11-12 on things I bothered to meter (which usually isn't songfight entries, for some reason.) It's interesting that the Youlean DR meter doesn't line up with the TT (although not unexpected) but it seems that -14 LUFS is a similar level to what I was using before.

re: .5 db headroom - If you play things on the radio you need at least .5 (from what I've read.) I can attest that -.3 will cause the radio stations limiting/attenuation to make it pump in very bad ways. I was thinking of going even a bit lower. Anybody have thoughts? This might not be the forum post to have this conversation, now that I think about it.