The Song Fight Bulletin Board

Checkered Past
Due: Thursday, 01/02/20 9:59am PST
optional challenge: Confess something
yourbandname_cp.mp3 sent to fightmaster@songfight.org
Subject: Checkered Past
Body: (your band name)

All will be revealed.

I already have a really strong idea for lyrics with this prompt, and boy are they salty.

Oh wow I think I accidentally wrote something!

I am seriously skeptical that I will be getting this in in a timely manner. I've had company almost the entire fight period! But other than getting the vocals recorded almost everything else is pretty much done.

Also: this sure is one quiet prefight!

We're working on an entry. Might have it done tonight. If not then tomorrow night. Not as last minute as it's sounding.

I'm in with my first attempt at electronica. Even though I've had this in mind for a long time, I still almost chickened out and swapped the instruments at the last minute. Apparently trying new things makes people uncomfortable.

In, with a radioactive piano or two. (for this track: reverb impulse response recorded in Medical Unit 126 Concert Hall, level of gamma radiation: 0.71 μSv/h. Piano age: 2009. Not sure I recommend this plugin wholeheartedly tbh, it seems really buggy, but at least it sounds cool if you like the sound of rotting pianos.)

(edit: for this one, since it's piano-based, I actually went to the trouble of hooking up my 61-key Roland that usually lives at my band's practice space and using it as a MIDI controller instead of my little tiny 25-key controller that I normally use, and it's amazing how much easier it is to play with a full-ish sized keyboard, I should really probably get a bigger controller to use all the time...)

Submitted. After much debate about tempo, I’m done.

If I didn’t have a job, a family, and a world strongman competition to watch I would probably have added another 57 guitars.

I'm glad Pigfarmer Jr showed up with a song for me to contribute to. I wrote one that was WAY to personal to ever share. The kind that you write, and then put away and never ever play again b/c it tears your insides out, and then your insides lay there on the floor writhing and pulsing, but then you can examine them, and put them back in correctly. Twas "great"... Needed to get that out though. Much better now.

Adnama17 wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 02, 2020 8:44 am

I wrote one that was WAY to personal to ever share. The kind that you write, and then put away and never ever play again b/c it tears your insides out, and then your insides lay there on the floor writhing and pulsing, but then you can examine them, and put them back in correctly.

I don't know if I'd call my current track TOO personal to share, but it's definitely got at least one foot firmly in that category. There's definitely people who I have zero interest in sharing it with, but...none of you are among them And it's about a false confession, so I suppose it fits the optional challenge to some extent.

I'm in... for the first time.

I'm in. I'm confessing a bunch of things in my song, but not all of it is true. Actually, as with all my songs, I write them from the perspective of a character, though the lines are sometimes obviously blurred. Well, obvious if you knew me.

I know it's late already but I just pulled a gizo and recorded my vocals on the side of the road. I won't let holiday company prevent me from getting this in!!!

Æpplês&vØdkã wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 02, 2020 12:38 pm

I know it's late already but I just pulled a gizo and recorded my vocals on the side of the road. I won't let holiday company prevent me from getting this in!!!

Huzzah! If there's one thing I want to be remembered for, it's singing about pain in the car on the side of the road in an affluent suburb.

Please mark me down has having confessed to submitting.

owl wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 02, 2020 12:35 am

In, with a radioactive piano or two. (for this track: reverb impulse response recorded in Medical Unit 126 Concert Hall, level of gamma radiation: 0.71 μSv/h. Piano age: 2009. Not sure I recommend this plugin wholeheartedly tbh, it seems really buggy, but at least it sounds cool if you like the sound of rotting pianos.)

(edit: for this one, since it's piano-based, I actually went to the trouble of hooking up my 61-key Roland that usually lives at my band's practice space and using it as a MIDI controller instead of my little tiny 25-key controller that I normally use, and it's amazing how much easier it is to play with a full-ish sized keyboard, I should really probably get a bigger controller to use all the time...)

Ooh, I'm excited to hear some of those radioactive pianos. That plugin looked really cool. Also I went through a similar realization about keyboard sized. I had been using just a Akai LPK25, tiny 25-key keyboard for a long time but I eventually got frustrated with that and got a 49-key Korg microKEY Air. I thought it having Bluetooth would be cool but turns out I was dumb and forgot about the horrible latency of Bluetooth which I'd already been burned by before. But even plugged in it's nice to have a still compact lightweight keyboard with more keys, that I can plug/unplug/toss around etc.

Lunkhead wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 02, 2020 3:26 pm

Ooh, I'm excited to hear some of those radioactive pianos. That plugin looked really cool. Also I went through a similar realization about keyboard sized. I had been using just a Akai LPK25, tiny 25-key keyboard for a long time but I eventually got frustrated with that and got a 49-key Korg microKEY Air. I thought it having Bluetooth would be cool but turns out I was dumb and forgot about the horrible latency of Bluetooth which I'd already been burned by before. But even plugged in it's nice to have a still compact lightweight keyboard with more keys, that I can plug/unplug/toss around etc.

So, if you're curious, one of the issues I had with the plugin is that I could only easily change the convolution reverb setting. None of the other settings seemed to work with my mouse (keyboard age aka how shitty/detuned it sounds, lid of piano open/closed, how close it's mic'd, I forget what else but there are a few settings that are controllable in theory). I was able to set it to "learn MIDI CC# automation," which worked with my little Arturia controller but didn't seem to be working with the Roland I wanted to use to actually play. So the "2009" setting is actually somewhat worse than maybe would have been ideal but I had issues changing it back to an earlier year.

Also, the "Snapshots" don't work for me. The plugin seems to be looking to load them from a folder location on one of the developer's local drives And there's a constant script error message at the bottom of the screen in Kontakt. At some point, I'm going to email them to complain about all this, the interface looks nice but a bunch of these functionality things just seem kind of unprofessional. I'm pretty new to the NI ecosystem so maybe I'm overlooking something but I am pretty sure "script error" isn't a user error thing...

oh and I guess this might be normal but maybe I haven't bought enough big plugins to know... the download was in the form of a 2-part Zip and didn't come with directions about that or how to install it, I had to ask the developers, and they sent me instructions. I'm used to dealing with multi-part RAR files, but not multi-part Zip files, and as it turns out, I had to install WinRAR to extract it, my version of 7zip was apparently insufficient...

Anyway I think it sounds cool, I would love to be able to take the impulse recordings out of the plugin to use as general reverb on other stuff, but I couldn't figure out how to do that or if it's even possible--tried opening with TotalCommander + plugin, and resaving the plugin with samples elsewhere, but it extracted all the keyboard samples but none of the reverb samples.

How are the pitch/mod wheels on the Korg, are they the kind that goes back to center?

Snuck into the bathroom for a bit with the laptop, transferred my vox from my 4 track, mixed it down quickly, and submitted.

Christmas gifts featured: new drumheads and a steel tongue drum solo!

owl wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 02, 2020 12:35 am

In, with a radioactive piano or two. (for this track: reverb impulse response recorded in Medical Unit 126 Concert Hall, level of gamma radiation: 0.71 μSv/h. Piano age: 2009. Not sure I recommend this plugin wholeheartedly tbh, it seems really buggy, but at least it sounds cool if you like the sound of rotting pianos.)

(edit: for this one, since it's piano-based, I actually went to the trouble of hooking up my 61-key Roland that usually lives at my band's practice space and using it as a MIDI controller instead of my little tiny 25-key controller that I normally use, and it's amazing how much easier it is to play with a full-ish sized keyboard, I should really probably get a bigger controller to use all the time...)

Well... We used my 100+ year old upright acoustic piano for ours, and I suck at piano, so that was fun. There will be no comparison I'm sure. It's f***ing hard to record a real piano!

Adnama17 wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 03, 2020 9:09 pm

Well... We used my 100+ year old upright acoustic piano for ours, and I suck at piano, so that was fun. There will be no comparison I'm sure. It's f***ing hard to record a real piano!

I've never even tried! Mine's around the same age, inherited indirectly from my uncle's ex-mother-in-law. My piano is located in probably the most noisy part of the house, but maybe once my youngest is in school I'll give it a go.

Don't you just love the sound of super old pianos though?

Adnama17 wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 03, 2020 9:09 pm

owl wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 02, 2020 12:35 am

In, with a radioactive piano or two. (for this track: reverb impulse response recorded in Medical Unit 126 Concert Hall, level of gamma radiation: 0.71 μSv/h. Piano age: 2009. Not sure I recommend this plugin wholeheartedly tbh, it seems really buggy, but at least it sounds cool if you like the sound of rotting pianos.)

(edit: for this one, since it's piano-based, I actually went to the trouble of hooking up my 61-key Roland that usually lives at my band's practice space and using it as a MIDI controller instead of my little tiny 25-key controller that I normally use, and it's amazing how much easier it is to play with a full-ish sized keyboard, I should really probably get a bigger controller to use all the time...)

Well... We used my 100+ year old upright acoustic piano for ours, and I suck at piano, so that was fun. There will be no comparison I'm sure. It's f***ing hard to record a real piano!

I'm excited to hear your Real Piano in action! I've never tried recording a real one. How did you mic it? Sometimes for FAWM I've recorded our digital piano + vox with a mic in the room but I seem to always get a lot of extra key/pedal noise, though granted I wasn't really experimenting with mic placement or type.

(ps I just listened back to my track and realized I mixed the vocals way too high and dry, but since I'm avoiding trying to resubmit, everyone gets to have a super uncomfortable detailed tour of my vocal tract for this song, oops. I should probably not submit songs at 2 am anymore, even if it seems done at the time. please just consider it a purposeful part of the "unpleasant vibes")

owl wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 04, 2020 1:07 pm

Adnama17 wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 03, 2020 9:09 pm

owl wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 02, 2020 12:35 am

In, with a radioactive piano or two. (for this track: reverb impulse response recorded in Medical Unit 126 Concert Hall, level of gamma radiation: 0.71 μSv/h. Piano age: 2009. Not sure I recommend this plugin wholeheartedly tbh, it seems really buggy, but at least it sounds cool if you like the sound of rotting pianos.)

(edit: for this one, since it's piano-based, I actually went to the trouble of hooking up my 61-key Roland that usually lives at my band's practice space and using it as a MIDI controller instead of my little tiny 25-key controller that I normally use, and it's amazing how much easier it is to play with a full-ish sized keyboard, I should really probably get a bigger controller to use all the time...)

Well... We used my 100+ year old upright acoustic piano for ours, and I suck at piano, so that was fun. There will be no comparison I'm sure. It's f***ing hard to record a real piano!

I'm excited to hear your Real Piano in action! I've never tried recording a real one. How did you mic it? Sometimes for FAWM I've recorded our digital piano + vox with a mic in the room but I seem to always get a lot of extra key/pedal noise, though granted I wasn't really experimenting with mic placement or type.

Previously, I had just popped my condenser mic next to me where I sat and went to town. Never really like the results, but I'm lazy and never did anything else. This time, I got more ambitious and aimed the mic down by the pedals. Less reverb-y, but still on the boomy side, as PFJ described it. Next, I am going to try opening up the top and/or the front and see how that sounds. Might fit the "something's wrong" prompt nicely, eh? Hahahahaha!