Music Challenge - Juxtaposition - W.wolf.T.wolf vs. Watchman

[Disasterpiece512]

Bump - fixing guitar right now.

EDIT - Fixed. Commencing recording.

 

[deepstrasz]

I wanna' see this to the end !

 

[WherewolfTherewolf]

K, I finally got my music setup working properly but it put me back a while
I'm going to request a week extension, I already talked to Watchman about it and he was fine with it

 

[Alkonis]

...dang it, the piece I just finished writing fits this theme perfectly. ;( Oh well.

Looking forward to the end results. Yay for people writing music.

@Wherewolf: why don't you add some reverb to your piece? Verb can make a huuuuuuge difference in how something sounds.

 

[InfinateAnswers]

because nouns are awsomer.

 

[WherewolfTherewolf]

@Wherewolf: why don't you add some reverb to your piece? Verb can make a huuuuuuge difference in how something sounds.

When I get to rendering it with quality instruments
That's just MIDI there

I always compose a MIDI rough draft first and then once I got that sounding good I render it with virtual instruments, it was mainly due to necessity as my old comp ran my DAW pretty inefficiently and my MIDI editor ran pretty well on my comp. With my new comp I should be able to compose directly in my DAW though, but I'll still do MIDI rp first anyway.

 

[Waldbaer]

K, I finally got my music setup working properly but it put me back a while
I'm going to request a week extension, I already talked to Watchman about it and he was fine with it

Hm, so another week? Since nobody submitted any piece, the "deadline" until last night does not work anyways... so the new deadline is now another week away:
January 8th, 2011 0:00 GMT

 

[Disasterpiece512]

My song is finished and recorded, but I'm disappointed with it. I want to rerecord it, so an extension is perfect. But no more than a week. It's a challenge, not a contest.

 

[Disasterpiece512]

bump

I'm going to upload my final submission a bit later. I didn't rerecord it, I'm going to submit it how it is now, because I'm really sick. Can barely get out of bed.

EDIT: Ok, here it is. The contrasts that make up the juxtaposition are pretty obvious, so I'd rather not tell what they are, I don't want to spoil it. All I'll say is that there are contrasts in genre, tempo, time signatures, I've used polyrhythms, and well... the rest, you can figure out yourself.

Waldbaer, if you require or prefer me describing my song more and explaining what I did, tell me and I shall do so. I explained why I didn't do it now.

 

[Waldbaer]

OK guys, countdown is running, only a few hours remaining!

Hopefully nobody will miss the deadline...

@Watchman: For your piece I'm sure it will be fine. And sound quality will be a very minor criteria in judging anyways (as long as I'm able to hear what you do in your music). So just try to upload it in time and get well soon!


@all: See you tomorrow!

 

[WherewolfTherewolf]

Oh wow, the 8th? I can still get mine done in that time

I think you got the time wrong though Wald - or am I mixed up on GMT?
11:55 am (current time GMT) still leaves me 12 hours

 

[Waldbaer]

Errmm... GMT is one hour after my time that makes it 9:20 pm now.
Look it up here.

Well, this does not fix the problem that you are possibly not ready. This is not a problem for me but it is not really fair for Watchman, too. I think he should decide how to go on; as far as I can imagine, there are three possible options:
- give you further time as you need
- decrease your points for a certain amount (he should decide how much)
- you loose because you failed to be ready even in the second deadline

Well, probably he won't be as nasty as choosing the third option, but I think he has a certain right to do so.

@Watchman: Your submission is complete, if you think that your piece explains itself, you don't have to explain it.

 

[WherewolfTherewolf]

Well he said I could take a few more hours, but I promise I'll get it done today as soon as possible. When he said something about it I noticed that the time I was looking at was GMT -4 timezone, so that explains why I thought I had more time.

You can take a few hours extra I guess. I don't think Waldbaer would notice.

If he wants points removed or something like that I'd understand too, I'm horrible with due dates, making me a bit of a pain to work with

 

[Disasterpiece512]

Points removed? Wait, what? No way, nothing like that. I trust he can finish in time, and if he's gonna be late, I don't think he'll be more than 2 or 3 hours late. So yeah. Waldbaer, how fast do you think you can get the judging done? =]

 

[WherewolfTherewolf]

About half-way done with my final mix
I had to switch out my 8-bit sounds with ones I tried to replicate similar sounds though as the thing that rendered them didn't do them in time with the actual tempo for some reason.....

 

[WherewolfTherewolf]

-Bump-

Well I finished my piece and I have to say, this has to be the absolute worst execution of an idea I've ever done (on the final mix at least). I was planning on doing an 8-bit vs. realistic instrument mash up sort of thing, but the 8-bit exporter I messed up the tempo just enough that it sounded like it worked on first preview, but was definitely off-tempo put to the other instruments and too similar to the actual tempo to effectively correct it with time stretching, thus I ended up using analogue style synths EQ'd to sound very shallow with horrendously cheesy sounding drums put to similar EQs.

Regardless, here's my piece - different worlds.

Juxtapositions:
-"8-bit" vs. "realistic" instruments
-meter - it goes from 4 4 time to 7 4 (or repeating 4 4 and 3 4). It then goes to 3 4 with a 7 8 conga polyrhtyhm and then adds a 4 4 polyrythm in the "8-bit" drums over all of that.

 

[Disasterpiece512]

Wow, dude, for something done so fast, your piece is really cool. Very relaxing and it flows smoothly.

Now all there's left is for Waldbaer to do the judging and see who wins . Good luck, Whenwolf!

 

[deepstrasz]

Good stuff I guess.

I see that you both opted for rock styled music.
I liked K's song best.

Have a good day !

 

[Waldbaer]

Nice to see that your piece arrived (nearly) in time, Wherewolf.

I downloaded your pieces and will take a closer look at them tomorrow, probably. Expect the results being posted during the next few days.

 

[Devine]

I'm really excited about hearing both tracks.
I don't really have the time to do so now but I will listen in a few hours and I'll try to write some feedback too, after waldbaer posted the judging.

 

[WherewolfTherewolf]

Well I'm not too excited about people listening to my track, man that turned out horrible.... lol

 

[Waldbaer]

OK guys, you've been waiting long enough, I think; it was not easy since your pieces are very different. I'm not an objective godlike thing, but I hope my judging is more or less fair anyways. And if not I want to remind you that you wanted me to judge your challenge, so you have to take it how it is!
Nevertheless I hope you mostly agree to it... enough talk here it is:

Watchman
Repercussions of Evil

Theme	Your piece fits the theme very well, you take multiple styles especially from rock and metal genres and put your materials besides each other mainly with cuts, your "random breakdown" is simply the theme presented in an extreme way, very fitting approach, I think.	15/15
Creativity/Originality	You change styles very sudden. This is a way to realize a juxtaposition, but it's not the most original one, too, I think. Your instrumental and vocal parts (including the text) are very varied, though and always know to present something new, especially concerning your solos you succeed in giving each one a special and original character.	9/10
Dynamic/Tonation	Sometimes you just ignore the chords you have, which does not need to be bad, but in case of your piece, does not always work for me. Especially the clear vocals often have a melodic line which is not understandable for me (vocal lines from 0:19 and 3:00 on I don't understand where you want to go). You don't have much dynamics in it, but this is due to the style you chose (for your final mix, you might nevertheless consider to turn the intro before the solo a little down, it sounds louder than the metal part at the moment). In the very most parts, your piece flows well (the hard cuts are again the theme and wanted, I suppose, as well as mostly persuading, so no negative factor, too).	8/10
Composition	I really like your overall concept with a long calm rock introduction (very nice guitar solo there, congrats!) opposed to a metal main part with many changes in itself carrying the challenge's theme to the extreme in the (as you call it) "random breakdown". All your parts are in a logical order and your piece really fills its seven minutes with structure, not unnecessary repititions. Also the text is kinda weird but very fitting, I think. There are just some details, that I don't like that much, e.g. the echo on the piano in the beginning is completely outside the meter and therefore too loud (maybe this is a postproduction issue, but it's too obvious to be ignored, I think). The "random breakdown" is fitting the theme in itself but I don't understand its connection to the piece and the text.	13/15
Conclusion	A very interesting crazy collage in rock/metal style knowing to entertain and structure its whole 7 minutes of length.	45/50

Wherewolf
Different Worlds (The OMG this is so bad Edition)

Theme	Your song fits the theme mainly through the different sounds you use. In your piece, things are flowing very well, but this is also because the contrasts are not as big as they could have been. The characters of the different layers and parts of your piece are not too different (except the sound), e.g. the changes in meter don't feel like a big contrast, since the musical character itself does change only slightly. Since the theme was "a very sharp contrast" I cannot give you full points here.	13/15
Creativity/Originality	Your approach to the juxtaposition is not the first I would think of and working with different sounds and rythmical patterns while maintaining the tempo is interesting and a challenge in itself, if you still want to express a sharp difference. Your patterns fit well to each other, but the variation in the musical material could have been bigger and the motives themselves are often not that strong for me, too.	9/10
Dynamic/Tonation	Really nothing to complain here, your piece flows perfectly in every moment	10/10
Composition	Your piece is a round thing formally. The transition to the 7/4 meter is persuading, but the change out of it not that much in my opinion. The problem is that somehow there is just rarely something that really attracts the listener and takes him with it. Most of your piece is a good background, but not very interesting if you listen to it separately. By the way, what do you do with your first motif? It seems to have no development; when it comes again in the 7/4 part, it even sounds somehow out of place and in the end it is alone, nearly exactly as in the beginning. The polyrythmical passage again is not really recognized, it's simply too short to impress and appears to be just another thing that begins and is new and has nothing to do with the parts before, but is not developed, too. So all in all consequence is missing. Probably this is also why you yourself named it "the OMG this is so bad Edition" although it definitely has some nice aspects: e.g. I like especially the beginning and the 7/4 patterns until the motif from the beginning again joins. One just notices because of these inconsequencies that you did it in a hurry in the end.	12/15
Conclusion	A mostly relaxing instrumental rock piece playing with many different sounds.	44/50

So in my opinion
Watchman is the Winner
slightly before Wherewolf. BTW, Watchman, your record/mix really has some flaws (which was not part of this challenge if I understood it correctly), so I'll look forward to hear your rerecorded version independently from this challenge soon!

 

[Disasterpiece512]

OH HOLY SHIT I WON!

I know I have some flaws in my recording, but that's mostly because of my bad equipment. My ambition was to make my piece using real instruments. I also suck at EQ and postproduction.

Anyway, thanks Waldbaer for judging, thanks Wherewolf for the worthy competition, and what the heck, to everyone that said I could win.

We're still friends, right, Wherewolf? =] Hehe.

 

[InfinateAnswers]

by 1 point... lol

 

[WherewolfTherewolf]

I WILL DESTROY YOU!

Nah it's fine, I waited until the last minute and my piece reflected that

 

[Waldbaer]

by 1 point... lol

Yes, I know this looks a little artificial. But this is what was the result of the part scores which were not the same between the pieces; well it fitted quite well in the end.

 

[InfinateAnswers]

if you think about it, it makes sense. They are both very good, but like wwtw said, he did it last minute so that 1 point mattered alot. Everything else they were equal it was just that 1 area.

 

[deepstrasz]

Congrats ! brothers of the sound .

 

[Pyritie]

prizes distributed