The Song Fight Bulletin Board

It's midnight and again we are at 4 sets of votes. I'm going to bed. If the other set of votes comes in and one of the other judges wants to post up the scores, they can feel free to. If not, I'll do it in the morning.

One consolation is that we're going to give you the next title & challenge before then.

The fake strings just barely audible under the piano interlude add a bit of je ne sais quois to the whole thing

I'm glad you kept the string patch real low (unless my imagination is all celly-belly this week)

I continue to be surprised at how people's brains interpret music. Like round two, where my electric uke got positive "guitar" comments, whereas rounds zero and one (with actual guitar) got "cheap instrument sounds" comments. And now this round, where two people (so far) are hearing a very low (and it turns out nonexistent) string patch in the background. It just blows my mind in a very interesting way.

For those interested: The condenser cardioid mic (above, and in front of, my head) was straight into the DAW with a little reverb and EQ for vocal presence. The electric piano turned up enough to be picked up by the vocal mic, while also feeding a midi patch for a DAW "Mini Grand" plugin. I'm fairly certain I couldn't reproduce the performance again in a hundred tries, but I was determined to do it with no edits/fixes. Hooray for no dog barking/kid shouting noises, by some miracle.

I wonder if the string sound came from the acoustic guitar hung on my wall about a foot from the mic, vibrating against the vocal. Hm.

Could just be an undertone that part of my brain said wtf? to and another part said, "Dude, strings"

RangerDenni wrote:I can hear this in a movie soundtrack of a Wes Anderson (perhaps during the part where someone is chasing someone else up or down the stairs with a fish or a plastic floppy monkey).

This is probably the best thing anyone's said about one of my songs.

Generic wrote:BLT - Steve's trumpet is sweet, but it sounds a little out of place. I think it's more due to the mix than the performance, but I can't put my finger on it. I, for one, refuse to hold the omission of the apostrophe from your interpretation of the title against you. Some of the lyrics are awkward, such as verse 2's "How's an angel immaculately conceive?" sounds particularly clunky when sung, but the later lines "I'm an alien / you're a vegetarian / and Area 51 is our Solarium" are awesome. It sounds mean, but I can't help but feel like this song - and my overall impression of it - wouldn't have changed much if you'd done it solo, without Steve. It gets better when he plays the trumpet over the last verse. Your solo is okay, but unremarkable; I'd have preferred it if you'd used the trumpet, since you had it.

This review is very spot on, except I feel the song is weak without Steve's trumpet. I designed it for his horn, but had tech issues that prevented me from making it the way I envisioned. We've all been there, so I'm not going to whine about it. But just for note, I wasn't able to mix his trumpet down with the other instruments, which have my personal way of compressing and multi band eq love. So he doesn't sound like he's in the same room. It KILLED me to do that to his greatness! It was that or drop out.
The line "how does an angel immaculately conceive" is in reference to me thinking she is so innocent, which is in the first verse. Denial? Naive? It's up to the listener to decide.
Yes, wished I had Steve's solo on the main bridge. I'm in hate with myself for that bad decision. I was trying to balance out my other guest collaber, but he was a no show due to tech issues on a different level. Thanks, Jo Neric.

....I feel like I've been typing for 97 years.

Rabid Garfunkel wrote:JonEric: 4-6 more bpm might've added a little urgency or tension or something to the song

Interesting, 'cause the whole reason there's so much of me on JoEs track is that the original version he sent me was about 10 bpm slower, so much so that I couldn't even stay on the beat on the bass, I kept getting ahead. So I just re-recorded everything at a faster tempo and then sent tracks back to him so he could re-insinuate himself into the song...

King Arthur songs are generally about 4-6 bpm slower than most people want. It's a geezer thing

Thanks to Jon for inviting me to be his guest!

Charles (KA)

And thanks to King Arthur for nailing it. Came out great, Charles!

I just want to say, I was SoOoOoOoO happy to see so many SF musicians as guests in round three. It's probably one of my favorite challenges just for this reason.

It's weird that it's my favorite challenge, and yet, I did such a weak example of it this round. Is that the self destructive thing my shrink keeps yammering aboooot? ...She's Canadian.

plastic floppy monkey

I predict that at least three peeps will try to submit SongFight! entries in the next round under that name.

It rolls off better as "floppy plastic monkey".

Not if you're picturing a little lemur holding a red plastic floppy disk, it doesn't.

Dammit! I can't remember what I was going to say! grrr..
...but had to do with floppy monkeys! FUUUuuu! :face_palm:

Once I can understand. Twice maybe. But three weeks in a row is getting pretty ridiculous.

Yeah, but what can be done. It's not like you can take punitive action on a judge, nor can you tie the offender up and force him to get the rankings done before he goes to sleep on Tuesdsay...

Heck, at this point, we're not even sure if it's the same judge all three times.

Generic wrote:Yeah, but what can be done. It's not like you can take punitive action on a judge, nor can you tie the offender up and force him to get the rankings done before he goes to sleep on Tuesdsay...

Heck, at this point, we're not even sure if it's the same judge all three times.

The lameness factor changes by half a point based on what is said. That means, it's still pretty lame.

I don't mind so much -- I'm just happy to have the new title already, whether I'm in or not -- but if the delay goes much longer, every one of us is going to submit a "Not In This Lifetime" song about the judging process.

(sung to the sample) Holy fucking shit I wish the judges would com/plete the judging process but they always drag their/feet on their responses and and it's really getting/old I wish the judges would just do what they are/told

Wages wrote:

Generic wrote:Yeah, but what can be done. It's not like you can take punitive action on a judge, nor can you tie the offender up and force him to get the rankings done before he goes to sleep on Tuesdsay...

Heck, at this point, we're not even sure if it's the same judge all three times.

The lameness factor changes by half a point based on what is said. That means, it's still pretty lame.

Oh, absolutely, I'm not trying to convince anyone that the situation doesn't suck. Just that it's beyond the control of anyone besides the one (?) offending juror, and that juror is apparently unrepentant and has no interest in changing this behavior.

*shrug*

I feel more or less confident that I'm not getting eliminated this round, but if this happens again, then by this time next week I'll probably be sweating bullets.

Generic wrote:

Wages wrote:

Generic wrote:Yeah, but what can be done. It's not like you can take punitive action on a judge, nor can you tie the offender up and force him to get the rankings done before he goes to sleep on Tuesdsay...

Heck, at this point, we're not even sure if it's the same judge all three times.

The lameness factor changes by half a point based on what is said. That means, it's still pretty lame.

Oh, absolutely, I'm not trying to convince anyone that the situation doesn't suck. Just that it's beyond the control of anyone besides the one (?) offending juror, and that juror is apparently unrepentant and has no interest in changing this behavior.

It's the same judge and they are repentant. They've just been having some personal issues that have knocked them for a loop. I know the waiting game sucks and we're sorry about leaving you all hanging.

Generic wrote: WhF - I like the looseness of the pots and pans setting up the beat in the intro. If I ever do a rap song (again), you're the first person I'm asking to do the beat. The chorus confuses me; "gravestones" implies that it's a serious accident and people died (as does the rap that comes in later), but "fender bender" sounds so innocuous and non-threatening. It really takes the gravity out of the subject matter. The flow in the rap is pretty good, but it's hard to tell because the drums and synths are doing their best to derail the song during that section. It's really jarring and makes it unpleasant to listen to. I wish you'd stuck with something a little more standard and non-disruptive during that section.

The idea about fender bender was that, driving a land rover, his car basically came out okay. I was planning for like 4 days to write a second part of the chorus, from the perspective of the victims, which used another more devastating term for 'crash,' butttttt I got caught up. That middle section is supposed to sound a bit drunk. Very apathetic. kinda an "aw, shit happens... but it happens all the time" shaking of the head "i'm disappointed in you..." sorta.

But thanks!

I think the judges owe the contestants a song. An exhibition track. I mean what a killer band: JB, FBF, Spud, NIv and Ross.

Niveous wrote:It's the same judge and they are repentant. They've just been having some personal issues that have knocked them for a loop. I know the waiting game sucks and we're sorry about leaving you all hanging.

Thanks, Niv, it's nice to have some kind of info about what's going on. Sorry to hear about the judge's personal issues.

I think the judges owe the contestants a song. An exhibition track. I mean what a killer band: JB, FBF, Spud, NIv and Ross.

The four judges who don't have personal issues should write and record a song for the fifth judge, as a get-well (or whatever's appropriate for the personal issues involved.) Meanwhile, whatever the issues are, I hope they get resolved quickly and pleasantly and with no lasting ill effects -- hang in there, whoever you are.