Holiday Competition Featuring Cold Storage (Submissions go here)

Started by .:DJ Droppin:., November 30, 2009, 03:54:30 AM

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.:DJ Droppin:.

#80
Quote from: nakamura on December 16, 2009, 11:58:07 PM
nakamura here with my entry. I have a new track i planned to enter but it just idnt ready and with working 6 days a week and looking after my daughter I just wont have time to complete it. Also been working on a better version of my laast tune and i polished it up a fair bit for this compo.


Here is The Last Goodbye.

Ahhh yes this song.... As I have heard this before I will post the same comment as before, and it's epic as well.  :D

"Oh man... Brilliant!  Shocked Every little subtle nuance, the panning, everything. This is the style of trance I'd like to take a shot at creating. This is like a clone of pillage himself. Maybe you're a Mini-Pillage (But who's Dr. Evil? Bliss? Sure  Cheesy .....) The transition at 3:00 - 3:10 is beyond professional. Your pads and strings blending in/out fading and re-emerging.... Wow. That was beautiful. That was uplifting. That song makes you happy. You really showed your talent on this track. You've raised the bar of excellent to a very high level now. 10/10 rating! Be extremely proud of yourself. I definitely am and I'm glad to have the chance to be able to listen to this."

I feel the same way listening to it all over again.... This song gives my balls goose bumps. I'd high 5 my penis, but sadly no arms.... Just to give you an idea what I think of this song...  :)
Bass is a force that defies the universe of logic, time, and space. http://www.reverbnation.com/djdroppin

CoLD SToRAGE

It's been brought to my attention that SpaceKid's entry that was initially questioned does acutally sit within the rules, i.e. the composition was done in a MUISC/MTV product, so I'll add that to the BandCamp page... which will now have a total of 14 competition entries!

I'll check this page tomorrow morning at around 8am (GMT) and any new tunes will be added. I'll then put a note on this thread saying "no more entries please" and then we'll announce our winners on Monday. :)

All the best!
________________________________________________________________________________________
Keep up to date with the world of CoLD SToRAGE - coldstorage.org.uk

Sacred Virgo


Casper AudioGhost

grebz zapp-who i wish as here again redmistpete rikki stonecold jaydeee
RIP Marna Patterson (1947-2009) i love you mom,my music is for you:)
my net label http://www.archive.org/details/white-trash-poptronica
www.showcaseyourmusic.com/audioghost 57 tracks
www.myspace.com/audioghost
www.jamwave.com/audioghost
www.youtube.com/casperr37
dj on http://chat.paltalk.com/g2/paltalk/1352831106

DJ Ryznup

Was able to barely finish a track for the competition deadline(not quite 100%, but still finished for the most part). Got it recorded and ready at the eleventh hour. Had a hard time finding free time to work on it in my busy schedule, but glad I was able to finish it to enter in the contest. And now that I got it finished and have time, I can finally listen to the other entries, which I look forward to commenting on. I'll post the song in its own individual topic later.

Heres my Entry - 'Season of Solace'



http://www.youtube.com/user/Ryznup

"Limits may hinder us, but they also bring out our creativity."

CoLD SToRAGE

That's it guys!   :)

"No more entries please!" - as I said I'd say, LOL!

OK... the entries are as follows;

DJ Droppin - Christmas Canon Medley
Fear 2 Stop - Slayride
Casper Audioghost - Electro Carol
The Lyricist - Replace the Seal
The Love Bandit - Christmas Chemistry
JCW - Grinch
Sacred Virgo - Angel Whisper (xmas 2009 edit)
Blonde Justice - John's Gone
DJ Omnimaga - Magic Hardcore
Master Dutch - Smoothy
Not a Number - Parabol(a) (demo 1)
J-MACHine - Million
Nakamura - The Last Goodbye (Xmas Club Mix)
Spacekid - Broken Robots Merry Fuxxing Christmas
DJ Ryznup - Season of Solace

I've checked, and that should be everyone. If I've missed anyone shout now!  ;)

I'll announce the results on Monday via this thread and the BandCamp page.

At this point I'd like to put out a massive "Thank You" to all of you who have entered the competition!
It's really great to see that there's still life in the MUSIC/MTV products, and that people are still willing
to put their creative energy into writing fresh and inspiring music. So, no matter what the results of
this competition, you are all winners...

Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year!  ;D
________________________________________________________________________________________
Keep up to date with the world of CoLD SToRAGE - coldstorage.org.uk

Casper AudioGhost

thx tim for designing the software that changed my existence and gave me hope  cheers casper
RIP Marna Patterson (1947-2009) i love you mom,my music is for you:)
my net label http://www.archive.org/details/white-trash-poptronica
www.showcaseyourmusic.com/audioghost 57 tracks
www.myspace.com/audioghost
www.jamwave.com/audioghost
www.youtube.com/casperr37
dj on http://chat.paltalk.com/g2/paltalk/1352831106

.:DJ Droppin:.

Tim,

Thanks again for the competition, organizing the songs, your website, all of it. It is extremely professionally done. I really like your song it's a very happy, upbeat song. The production is very clean. Note arrangement and panning is superb. Looking forward to the results of the competition. Good luck everyone.


Bass is a force that defies the universe of logic, time, and space. http://www.reverbnation.com/djdroppin

.:DJ Droppin:.

#88
Quote from: DJ Ryznup on December 18, 2009, 05:22:15 AM

Heres my Entry - 'Season of Solace'


Listening...

Intro is so good...
:15 percussion.... Oh wow that melody.... So catchy, so awesome. Maybe one of the best I've ever heard on TIMGUL.

Wow.... Not even sure what part of song to comment on it's so pro sounding.
:57 strings... some synth bass. This is just outstanding.
This beat is ..... FLAWLESS. Best work I think I've ever heard from you.
1:56 new strings.... Wow....
2:50 breakdown.... Strings and fantastic beat.
4:45 what an ending! Wow.... The slowdown and lowered octave.

I love the panning and reverb use.
An amazing hip-hop vibe Christmas song. It is going to be very tough to beat you in the competition.
Bass is a force that defies the universe of logic, time, and space. http://www.reverbnation.com/djdroppin

.:DJ Droppin:.

Tim,

I noticed DJ Rynzup's song isn't posted on the competition site yet. I'm sure it will be soon.... It would be a tragedy to not have his song included.

Edit:  :D There it is! Excellent!  :)
Bass is a force that defies the universe of logic, time, and space. http://www.reverbnation.com/djdroppin

Not a Number

It's been a pleasure to take part.
I'd've got the thing finished last night but I was babysitting. D:
I'll just get the thing finished for YouTube whenever I can. ;)

Season 8

Hey I know I got no chance in hell of winning, but darn it all, I thought "fuck it why not?". At the end of the day it's a great competition and in my opinion, it helps everyones development and there is nothing wrong with that!

DJ Ryznup

Thanks DJ Droppin, really glad you liked it. I've had a chance to listen to all the entries and there are a lot of great tunes in the competition album. The Bandcamp page for the album was put together great. And for those who don't know how to get to the bandcamp page to download the Holiday Competition Album, heres another link: http://timgulxmas2009.bandcamp.com/


Now, on to commenting on the rest of the tracks on the album...

First off, Great theme for the competition that was created by CoLD SToRAGE.  Great holiday tune with great melodies and a has a nice Christmas feel to it that sets up wonderfully for the rest of the album.

Fear2Stop - Slay Ride: Cool track, nice trippy sounds and cool beats. Some truely wicked sounds and effects in this one.

Love Bandit - Christmas Chemistry: Pads are great and has a nice dance beat. Great dance track with cool productions.

JCW - grinch: Great beat like always with JCW's work along with infectious melodies that will make you bob your head. Glad he was able to enter.

DJ Omnimaga- Magic Hardcore: Wonderful melodies and effects. Really like the cheerful sound of this track, and its nice to hear some new work from DJ Omni again, hopefully its not the last.

Master Dutch - smoothy: Very relaxing track. Like the beat and the sampling is well done.

Not a Number - Parabola: Original intro, and then the cool beat and pads kick in and  takes you on a very enjoyable ride. Great melodies and drum arrangments.

J-MACHine - Great vocals awesome beats, lovely pads and melodies as well. Really like the extended version that you have on the album, noticed the one I downloaded here wasn't quite as long.

Nakamura - The Last Goodbye: Great trance song. Wonderful pads throughout it, and I just really enjoyed the carefree sound of this track.

Good luck to all!

http://www.youtube.com/user/Ryznup

"Limits may hinder us, but they also bring out our creativity."

CoLD SToRAGE

Guys... I thought running a competition like this would be pretty easy.

Set a goal, declare the rules, display the prizes, call a halt, pick a winner, job done.

Not on your life!

I spent a couple of hours yesterday listening to the entries as I'd only given them a quick listen through as each one arrived before yesterday.

Choosing a winner became more and more difficult... so I set up a spreadsheet with marks for Melody (or where appropriate song construction), Production (including ingenuity in use of the software), Seasonality (gotta have some points for that as it's a Christmas competition!) and originality (both in terms of overall song construction and style).

I've had another listen through this morning to confirm my thoughts from yesterday, and with fresh ears I've done some minor tweaking. If I tell you that out of a maximum of 40 points the top 5 are separated by only 4 points you'll get an idea of how damn close it was(!)

FIRST PRIZE:
It gives me great pleasure to award the top prize to DJ Omnimaga for his track Magic Hardcore;D ;D ;D
This track represents all I'd want in a winner... it showcases what can be done with the MUSIC products, has a wonderfully catchy melody, some great breaks, tight production and level headed use of effects, clever use of the software and an original and developing song structure that keeps you interested. A great anthem!

SECOND PRIZE:
Given what I've said earlier about how tight the competition was, I wish I had enough prizes to award some joint seconds! But at the last minute 2nd place was pipped by Master Dutch and Smoothy.
I'll be honest about it, when I first heard this track I wasn't at all swayed either way. Then each time I listened to it I felt this smile spread across my face. Even up until last night I saw it creeping up the spreadsheet as I kept changing my mind about it, until finally this morning I tweaked the points here and there and clicked on "sort on TOTAL" and there it was in 2nd place!


HONORABLE MENTIONS IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER:
- DJ Droppin' "Christmas Canon Medley"... I LOVE the start to this. It sums up the expectation and excitement of Christmas from when I was a child. Sent chills down my spine!

- Sacred Virgo "Angel Whisper (xmas 2009 edit)... the level of emotion in this track is extremely high. Those intro chords looping over and over soaked in reverb... just lovely, and then the strings come in. Something Vangelis could have written. Top notch. :)

- Fear2Stop "Slayride"... what can I say? SANTA ON ACID! HAhahahaha... great stuff. ;)

- Nakamura "The Last Goodbye"... tight production, nice closing chords.

- DJ Ryznup "Season of Solace"... nice use of bright top end percussion, and tidy production with use of varying BPM too.

- Casper Audioghost "Electro Carol"... liked the choice of sound here, they all sit really well together - especially liked the bassline.

- Blonde Justice "John's Gone"... Very dramatic and evocative! Liked to vocal stabs.

- J-MACHine "Million"... One of the few to use vocals, but done very tastefully! Nice bassline slides, mellow with a capital "M".

- The Lyricist "Replace the Seal"... put me very much in mind of some Depeche Mode 'B' sides. Lots of S-T-E-R-E-O panning... smoov!

- Not a Number "Parabol(a)"... Probably some of the most complex drum programming in the competition... and liked the piano melody!

-Spacekid "Broken Robots Merry Fuxxing Christmas"... great intro! :D Crazy theme too... nice stereo feel. Love 2'56'' onwards. ;)

- JCW "Grinch"... old skool vibe here. Good choice of hats, and the stabs at 2'33" kick ass!

- The Love Bandit "Christmas Chemistry"... 2'00" love the break here... nice chords, driving and final splash down at 8:19 is one of the best endings. :)

OK, so there you have it!

The judging was gruelling and clearly it would be nice if everyone could win... but suffice to say, I couldn't be a judge on XFactor - it's stressful enough when you don't really know the contestants and you don't have to stand face to face and give a judgement.

As it's Christmas, if ALL the people involved could PM me with a snail mail address I'd like to send you a limited edition ( I'll only be making 15! ) CD, containing some of my music from the past few years as a thank you for taking part. So basically, no-one goes home empty handed... even if you don't like the music you'll have a momento, LOL!

Thanks again guys, and I hope you and yours have a Merry Christmas ( or Holidays ) and a Healthy and Prosperous New Year.  ;D

All the best,
Tim Wright
aka. CoLD SToRAGE.




________________________________________________________________________________________
Keep up to date with the world of CoLD SToRAGE - coldstorage.org.uk

Casper AudioGhost

RIP Marna Patterson (1947-2009) i love you mom,my music is for you:)
my net label http://www.archive.org/details/white-trash-poptronica
www.showcaseyourmusic.com/audioghost 57 tracks
www.myspace.com/audioghost
www.jamwave.com/audioghost
www.youtube.com/casperr37
dj on http://chat.paltalk.com/g2/paltalk/1352831106

Sacred Virgo

congrats to the winners (they really deserve the prize) and to all who entered, and of course thank you tim for taking the time to listen to our songs, for being the judge of this competition (delicate role indeed, i can easily understand how tough it was to pick only 2 songs) and for your genuine interest in our community. i look forward to holding many other contests in the future and having you as a judge (or a competitor maybe, i look forward to it aswell ;)) would be once again an immense honour for all of us.

now that the winners have been proclaimed i'd like to post some of my thoughts about each entry:

cold storage: lovely anthem, it sets perfectly the mood of the contest. so cute, so sweet, adorable.

dj droppin: splendid song, dark and ominous, yet chrismassy nevertheless. as everyone pointed out, simply majestic intro. exceptional pad and strings. hard to find weak points in this song, if i had to i'd say i don't like the kick sample on the FHT section, too punchy for my tastes. apart from that, we are talking about a masterpiece here. one of my fav entries for sure.

fear2stop: incredible variety, there's so much going on. nice structure. my fav part is between 1.58 and 2.20. good perc work, lots of funny oddities according to F2S trademark sound.

casper: this song gets better and better when all the riff come together during the song. i like in particular the blip bloops of the second half and the pads, nice bassline too. the opening and the ending are a bit rough but that's not a major flaw. good song.

the lyricist: i can definitely notice an improvement comparing this song to 'the seal is broken'. those weird effects heve witten 'audacity' all over them, pretty nice. nice beats too. watch out for that popping effect afflicting the bassline. i like the experimental attitude.

the love bandit: it is clear that this song has been made by a skilled and expert producer. not very chrismassy by any means but good.

JCW: very minimal sounding, the attention is focused on the pounding beat. nice retro sound, those oldskool chords samples bring back memories.

sacred virgo: i won't comment on this guy's song since his music sucks way too much.

blonde justice: not exactly the funniest entry but hey, who cares since it's a great song, so emotional and heartfelt. it could be a perfect a perfect theme for a tragic scene in a J-RPG game. lo-fi sounding (i love that), this could be easily included in a FF OST, which is the ultimate compliment in my eyes.

dj omnimaga: so cheerful, funny and chrismassy, i love this song, it keeps growing on me. i'm not exactly a big fan of hardcore music, but this reminds me of eurodance too and that little melody is so catchy i can't help loving it. when i listen to this song i feel like it's 1994 again.

master dutch: words cannot express how impressed i am by this song. i mean, the bells, the strings, the beat, the choirs, the chimes, everything, is stunning. vocal samples are extraordinary. the ending is just crazy, i love it. superior sampling skills, i wonder where did you find all those samples. this might be my fav entry. merry trippy xmas everyone who appreciates this song as much as i do.

NaN: this is probably the most complex song among all the entries. crazy (in a good sense) attempt at remixing such a complex song, only you could try that. well, the rendition of the drums is pretty good, in particular the toms are remarkable. the choral sample replacing the guitar workss nicely, if i were you i would have added synstring c1 and a gritty synth bass like nasty 1, 2 or 3. too bad you ran out of time. this can be a very good song when it's complete.

J-MACHine: very ethereal and dreamy. nice soft sounding kick, hihats and triangle (it is a triangle, isn't it?). fitting vocal sample. good song.

nakamura: as you know this is my fav song from you so this xmas edit obviously makes no exception. simply perfect production, bittersweet melody, those strings are made in heaven. too bad you couldn't complete your 'true' entry, but this is a worthy substitute indeed.

spacekid: broken robots strike back and they're so cool as usual. it would have been a shame not to have this song as an entry for the contest. great external samples, so many different sounds perfectly merged together. this song cries out for a real electric guitar to replace the 'flatt' sample. with an electric guitar this would be excellent.

dj ryznup: while listening to this song i could never imagine you had to rush to post it right on time. great string work at around 2.50. very good beat. i'd love to hear some vocals in here, how about adding them? i mean customised vocals, not premade ones. good song.

DJ Ryznup

Congratulations to the winners DJ Omnimaga and Master Dutch, you guys deserve it.
Everyone did a great job in the competition and it was a pleasure and a lot of fun to take part in it. Big Thanks to CoLD SToRAGE and Sacred Virgo for putting it together, hopefully there will be more competitions to come.
http://www.youtube.com/user/Ryznup

"Limits may hinder us, but they also bring out our creativity."

J-MACHine

I can't say i'm to suprised i didn't take home the gold or the silver, but it was definetly a lot of fun, entering this contest. (In spite of all of the technical issues that damn song bought me. XD) Well done to the winners, and all of the participants, and because i'm in a bit of a rush to get back to posting the backlogged music i've got, i thank every one of you that took the time to not only listen to, but give me feedback on Million. It really does mean a lot, and i'm glad you enjoyed it!
Fabulous Pony Eurotrance™

Not a Number

'Grats to Omni and Dutch for winning this. :)

I'm kinda glad I didn't win, to be fair.. mine was a cover/remix, which I guess meant I was marked down on originality. :P
But, good game, guys.

Also SV: It wasn't just "choral" that I used: I found that when used alongside "alternative", it sounds brilliant... case in point. :P Also, I thought I used a gritty enough synth ("bowow" and "Fuzzy Pop" simultaneously) and I might add some strings to it as well.. it'll make that ending that little extra special. (since I've done something similar in a WIP track I'm doing in Logic)

.:DJ Droppin:.

Congratulations to both and well done everyone too. Tim, thanks for everything you did to organize this.
Bass is a force that defies the universe of logic, time, and space. http://www.reverbnation.com/djdroppin