The Song Fight Bulletin Board

Little over 2 days left to sign up. 30+ are in so far.

#heeeeeaaaaattttthhhhhhhheeeeeeeerrrrrrrr...........

http://spintunes.blogspot.com/2012/01/s ... files.html

The profiles of all the competitors have been posted. Sign ups are officially over, but anyone is welcome to shadow rounds.

The first challenge has been posted:

Write a song about a childhood nightmare. Include significant use of rubato. (2 minute minimum) (your submission is due January 29th 11:59PM)

Shadows are always welcome.

Rubato. Egads. I feel like I'm going to have do this effectively "live." My multitracking process fixes tempo to the floor with duct tape, superglue and 2-inch bolts.

... of course, I suppose one could also create a fixed tempo for the accompaniment and just fiddle with the melody over top. Hrm.

Basically, this means that I'm going to have to craft a killer melody. Good thing that's something I wanted to start really working on in my music.

This is an interesting illustration. Very clear, but I'd like the more musically-educated about these parts to chime on its accuracy.

Ah, this makes it seems more feasible :



All you have to do is be Freddie Mercury.

Spintown wrote:The first challenge has been posted:

Write a song about a childhood nightmare. Include significant use of rubato. (2 minute minimum) (your submission is due January 29th 11:59PM)

Shadows are always welcome.

Good Lord, man, shouldn't you be saving the really tricky stuff for the later challenges?

nyjm wrote:Rubato. Egads. I feel like I'm going to have do this effectively "live." My multitracking process fixes tempo to the floor with duct tape, superglue and 2-inch bolts.

I used to have this problem, too. Three suggestions:

1.) For a short fermata (such as in the example you just posted from Vimeo), let a chord ring for like two whole measures, then chop the excess pause out via a rough "cut" action in your DAW. The rest of the piece will be out of sync with the metronome, but if the cutting is the last thing you do, then it won't matter.
2.) For a sustained tempo change, try setting up your song as two (or three) different projects, and then smashing the finished .wav files together before bouncing to .mp3.
3.) If your DAW doesn't support tempo changes, then you should probably start shopping around for a different DAW. Reaper, Cubase, Reason, and most other modern systems support it, so I'm curious as to what you're using.

Oh, I see from your profile that you're using Reaper. I'm almost positive that Reaper's metronome supports shifting tempo. Triple-check your documentation.

For a long time I used an old version of Adobe Audition that didn't support tempo shift, so when I finally upgraded to Cubase and was able to implement dynamic tempo within a song, it was like a whole world had opened up. Songs of mine that use changing tempos which wouldn't have been possible in my previous DAW:

Corporate Conscience
Stranded (dynamic tempo and a few random time sig changes)
Spanish Lessons
Winter Clothes
And of course, from SpinTunes #3... North Dakota

Oh REAPER supports tempo changes; I've done that often before. But, the essence of rubato isn't just a shift in BPM, it's that wonderful swell and slow and pause and accelerate in speed. I suppose with a a plethora of little changes, I could approximate something.

Or... I could take the Jon Eric [TM] approach. Hmm... that's something to chew on.

Still, I was more talking about my recording process less than my DAW, which is:

1) Write the song with an acoustic guitar; find the best chord progress, melody structure, lyrics, etc.
2) Build a drum track.
3) Record guitars
4) Record bass
5) Other stuff (MIDI instruments, some lead parts, backing guits for a chorus, etc.)
6) Vocals
7) Patching, filling, etc. as necessary.

So... the songs you hear are built from the ground up on what basically a complicated click track. It's so anti rubato it isn't funny.

Good Lord, man, shouldn't you be saving the really tricky stuff for the later challenges?

Who says we didn't? Be afraid...very afraid...

#thunder #light-ning-ging #tinysmallkittensWhoMeyowAllThreatening #rowrrr

HAHAHAHA. That just made my day. Thanks, D.

http://spintown.bandcamp.com/album/spintunes-4-round-1

If anyone wants to listen to the songs that were made for round 1...there they be.

The 2nd round challenge has been posted. Just in case anyone decides they want to shadow...

http://spintunes.blogspot.com/2012/02/s ... lenge.html

http://spintown.bandcamp.com/album/spintunes-4-round-2

The songs for round to have been posted. Download, listen & vote for your 5 favorites if you are so inclined.

http://spintunes.blogspot.com/2012/02/s ... otals.html

http://spintunes.blogspot.com/2012/02/s ... lenge.html

http://spintown.bandcamp.com/album/spintunes-4-round-3

The round 3 album is available for free download now. It's pretty awesome.

Spintown wrote:http://spintown.bandcamp.com/album/spintunes-4-round-3

The round 3 album is available for free download now. It's pretty awesome.

The challenge was pretty epic and made for some very interesting solutions including (I think) pretty good songs by steve and I. noah also sent in a "shadow" entry.

I really don't know how you guys did it. I tried to do a shadow entry, and I couldn't finish a song with that restriction.

One guy did a song with only one letter. Yikes.

The final challenge of SpinTunes 4 has been posted. 1 Song Fighter remains.

http://spintunes.blogspot.com/2012/03/s ... lenge.html

I've been really happy with SongFighterPerformance in this thing. I of course expected nothing besides pure, unadulterated excellence - but you can't say that when you are a judge. Not OFFICIALLY, of course. x

And we have our first SpinTunes champion from Song Fight. Congrats Steve!

http://spintunes.blogspot.com/2012/03/s ... urand.html

Here's the final album of the contest:
http://spintown.bandcamp.com/album/spintunes-4-round-4

Yay, Steve!!!!