Vote for the Sep/Oct 2016 "Originals" festival

[64Guitars]

It's time to vote for our next two festivals which will run from September 1 to October 31. Voting starts now and runs for 5 days. You can change your vote any time until the closing of the poll on August 31. To do so, click "Remove vote" to cancel your previous vote, then vote again.

This poll is for the "Originals" festival. There is a separate poll for the "Covers" festival. Please vote in both polls.

Remember, "Covers" is covers only, and "Originals" is originals preferred but covers welcome unless otherwise stated in the festival's description.

• SoftwareFest - Songs created entirely with software on a computer, tablet, or smartphone.
  
  
• TearFest - Songs about crying or tears.
  
  
• Live in the Living Room 2 - Songs recorded live at home without multitracking.
  
  
• DuetFest - write and record an original song for a duet to sing (male/female)
  
  
• Ringtone Fest - Really short pieces (5 - 20 seconds) that can loop seamlessly as ringtones, alarms, and other notification sounds used by phones.
  
  
• F*ck the man songs - See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man.
  
  
• One Chord Songs - Write a song using just one chord.
  
  
• Screw-up fest - Songs about screwing up.

[ODH]

Is it intended that the software fest be instrumentals only or is singing allowed?

[64Guitars]

Singing is allowed. However, all other sounds in the recording should come from software. No traditional instruments can be used, although you can use a MIDI keyboard or other MIDI controller (MIDI-guitar, MIDI-drums, etc.) to trigger the sounds in the software.

The actual recording doesn't necessarily have to be done in software, though it probably makes sense in most cases. For example, you could run a cable from the Line Out of your computer's sound card to the Line In of your BR, Zoom, or whatever and record some beeps and squawks from your computer to your hardware recorder. But it would probably be a lot easier just to record them in Audacity, GarageBand, or whatever on the computer.

Although MIDI controllers are allowed, I think the idea of this fest is to get away from traditional instruments as much as possible. So if you can generate your sounds completely from the software, that would be more in the spirit of the fest. For example, you could use the iKaossilator app. And lots of other music apps use non-traditional methods for note entry too.

You can also use Web Audio Apps to make the sounds for your recording. Here are some good ones:

https://alexgibson.github.io/wavepad/

http://luketeaford.com/apps/tanguy/

http://www.g200kg.com/websequencer/

http://middleearmedia.com/kalimba/

http://middleearmedia.com/hang/

https://webaudiodemos.appspot.com/Vocoder/index.html

http://webaudiodemos.appspot.com/MIDIDrums/index.html

http://middleearmedia.com/webaudioloopmixer/

http://middleearmedia.com/warmachine/

http://noisehack.com/monotron/

http://patternsketch.com/

http://www.taktech.org/takm/WebFMSynth/

http://websynths.com

http://juno-106.js.org/

http://audiocrawl.co/crawl/sampulator-7476

http://www.synthogram.com

http://nicroto.github.io/viktor/


There are many more available. However, a lot of them seem to require a MIDI keyboard for input, which only works in current versions of Chrome, Opera, and Android. Web MIDI is not yet supported by Firefox, Safari, Edge, etc.

http://caniuse.com/#search=web%20midi%20api

[Hook]

Come on...it can't be that myself and only 1 other member are screw-ups!

[Hook]

Litlr2lutlr2 Litlr2lutlr2 Litlr2lutlr2 Litlr2lutlr2 Litlr2lutlr2 Litlr2lutlr2 Litlr2lutlr2

[Hook]

I am glad to see there was at least 2 other screw ups though.

[Hook]

Are we excepting cars?

[danieldesete]

We all know your car is like a second living room for you.

[64Guitars]

Are we excepting cars?

Took me a while to decipher that. At first, I mistakenly read it as "Are we expecting cars?" and I had no idea what you meant. Then I saw Daniel's post and realised that you must have meant "Are we accepting cars?" - ie; songs recorded Live in your Car rather than your living room. I guess you probably used some kind of iPhone dictation app to create that message?

Anyway, yes, the Live in the Living Room fest would include cars, sheds, bathrooms, backyards, or wherever. The only requirements are that there's no multitracking and that it's not a live gig or prepared performance before an audience. The idea is that it's just you at home (or in your car/shed/whatever) recording like you normally would except that you can't add more tracks. You just press the Record button, then simultaneously sing and play. Then you're basically done. If you make a mistake, then start again. There's no editing of the recording except for the usual trimming/fading, normalizing levels, and exporting to MP3.

I guess those of us who don't sing won't be able to participate in this one (not that I've got time to participate anyway). I mean, it would be hard to play anything interesting on just one instrument without multitracking or vocals unless you're incredibly skilled on your instrument. Although, I guess we could play a kazoo or something while strumming the guitar, and strap some cymbals on our knees.  

[alfstone]

Since:

"Live in the Living Room 2 - Songs recorded live at home without multitracking."

...are looping machines allowed? 

Alfredo