February Composition Challenge

[lurksalot]

A tie in January between @Leonard Smalls and @upside downer with 2 cracking tunes but the first off the blocks to claim the honour of picture choice, was, the latter. 

 

The latter? is that a new member? did they even enter? Am i losing it? 

 

"Hope this gives our marvellous minstrels plenty of ideas. The light at the end of the tunnel. Just about to exit the south side of Crick Tunnel on our narrowboat."

 

 

✔️ Entries must be <5 minutes and recorded between now and the deadline.

✖️ No illegal samples, copyright infringements or other snide goings-on

✖️ No Bagpipes, can you imagine the reverb in tunnel, a V8 maybe, but bagpipes! . 

✖️ No voting for your own entry. We'll know. And we'll shame you..

 

Deadline-wise, we will go for Midnight on the 22nd , its a short month guys , get stuck in

 

A line or two of blurb as usual for the vote thread will be super smashing. 

 

Good luck, Have fun 

 

 

 

 

 

[Leonard Smalls]

I've managed to do some stuff... But just wondering how strictly we have to stick to some of the rules?

It's not like like I've done something heinous, like pan pipes.

But I've produced a Drum'n'Jazz (or Jazz'n'Bass?) epic which is about 18 seconds over 5 minutes. As it's obviously a great work of art it can't be edited as that would compromise its integrity 😁

What does the Great Hive Mind think? There's lots of fretless bass in it and it goes like the clappers!

[lurksalot]

A couple of BPM quicker should bring it just under 😂

 

it seems a shame to exclude a masterpiece for 18seconds, I’d post it and the voting public can apply there conscience to it 😁

[upside downer]

I won't listen to either the first or last 18 seconds. Just let me know which part you'd like me to ignore 🤪

[lurksalot]

1 hour ago, upside downer said:

I won't listen to either the first or last 18 seconds. Just let me know which part you'd like me to ignore 🤪

To be fair if Dad was about, he’d probably suggest chopping the 5 minutes off and leave the 18 seconds. 😉

[Leonard Smalls]

3 hours ago, lurksalot said:

A couple of BPM quicker should bring it just under

It's only 90bpm, but the bass and backbeat go to 180...

Any faster and the world would explode!

[MoonBassAlpha]

I've just  done mine in record time, just trying to decide if it  needs some birdsong and  duck noises added...

[lurksalot]

28 minutes ago, MoonBassAlpha said:

I've just  done mine in record time, just trying to decide if it  needs some birdsong and  duck noises added...

I could do with a bird singing on mine ,

 

 

 

Pat Benatar or Alanis Morisette  in their prime would work 😁

[ezbass]

That photo gives me the heebie-jeebies, the canal is on the wonk, but the water isn’t pouring off the left side. 😬 Perhaps this is deliberate, in order to promote some edgy compositions?

[Leonard Smalls]

2 minutes ago, ezbass said:

edgy compositions?

 

You rang? 

 

 

[lurksalot]

OK , its a bit early for me , but I'm stuck at home recovering from a wrist operation , so bizarrely, no actual instruments were played on this and I had time to get stuck in.

I guess a MIDI keyboard might count as an instrument , but I played it left handed, so it took plenty of takes!

 

Technical , EZ drummer , VG iron rhythm guitar , basic bass patch , lead guitar ipad garage band. all guitars through a few Waves guitar 3 and the bit you really wanted ... me on vocals 

 

All on Reaper with Ozone 8 polishing it a bit 

 

Lyrics ......not many mind 

 

Spoiler

Nobody knows what you are going through, only me.

I know you think it will come crashing down, easily

You think you're on your own with this , its plain to see,

Keep your hopes afloat and we will navigate this, eventually 

 

 

Edited February 8 by lurksalot

[Leonard Smalls]

Knowing that narrowboating and drum'n'bass go together like Chas'n'Dave I've done some jazzy fretless noodling. Roni Size eat yer heart out! 😁😎🤘

 

 

Lots of C chords on the Johanna (Ableton stock sound), with chromatic noodling on fretless lightwave Sabre bass. Bass is clean, plus 2 tracks through 2 patches of Future Impact. Extra synth is Bloom vocal synth and Iris bass synth with fretless track rendered to midi to trigger 'em. Drums are programmed through Ableton's Phat and Flat and FADL kits. All mixed in Doblys with a good dollop of Raum, Dubstation and Objeq delays then all smeared in Ozone 9 and Neutron 3.

[Jean-Luc Pickguard]

My entry this month is a poem recited over a repeating chord sequence of | Am | D | Am | Em | F | D | Am | Em | For the bass I thought it was time to make use of Rick-O-Sound on my 4003, so I DI-ed it into my mac via a RTS => 2xTS cable to record each pickup onto its own channel in logic. I used a warm B-15 with compression on the neck pickup in mono, and a B-15 with a wide stereo tremolo effect on the bridge pickup. It is quite subtle, but I like the result.

 

There's building work going on next door including shouting, drilling hammering and a a huge truck with a built-in crane delivering supplies. Today there has been a lot of drilling into the other side of the wall where my desk is (with my mac & recording setup). As I was in a hurry to take advantage of the lack of ambient noise during the builders' lunch break, I quickly set up my USB condenser mic to record my vocal. This mic cost me a grand total of £3.20 delivered from amazon a couple of years ago including stand & pop shield. This is the first time I have actually recorded anything with it and now I have used it, I think it is easily worth every penny.

 

I should be able to get the track mixed and mastered soon. I also have an idea for a quick & easy YouTube video which may or may not work.

 

[MoonBassAlpha]

Early for me too this month. The Blurb:

February 2025 Basschat composition challenge entry.
I'm trying to capture the feeling of a slow, peaceful trip along a canal. Things happen slowly and I've deliberately kept it repetitive and relatively uneventful.
Recorded using a parlour guitar with light gauge strings and employing the internal mics of a Zoom R24. Fretless bass through a Nux Mighty Plug pro modelling an Aguilar amp. That's the lot!
Didn't get around to recording the ducks at the lake...

 

 

 

 

Edited February 13 by MoonBassAlpha

[Jean-Luc Pickguard]

My recording is called 'To The Light' As posted above, this is a poem I wrote based on the pic read over a repeated chord sequence.

 

As outlined above the vocal was recorded using a £3.20 USB condenser mic. I had to record it whilst the builders working on the house next door had downed tools for lunch.

 

The bass is my lovely JetGlo Ric 4003 and was reccorded using the Rick-O-Sound output to send each pickup onto its own channel in logic where each was processed with their own amp & fx sims. The Drums were from logic's acoustic 'Psychedelic Rock' drummer, made extra tight by setting the kick/snare to follow the 4003 bridge pickup track.

 

 

[MoonBassAlpha]

On 04/02/2025 at 12:51, ezbass said:

That photo gives me the heebie-jeebies, the canal is on the wonk, but the water isn’t pouring off the left side. 😬 Perhaps this is deliberate, in order to promote some edgy compositions?

I confess, after reading this, I  rotated the picture to put it "on the level"!

[AndyTravis]

 

 

 

done, well…I did this on about the 9th and really liked it; tried a few other things but came back to this.

 

I think my reservation was that there are 4 or so different parts.

 

I suppose it’s quite like a canal boat trip, various locks, different places and people - some parts are rocky, some calm…etc.

 

Gretsch Baritone Jet, Yamaha acoustic, Danelectro Bass…GarageBand does the rest.

 

 

Edited Wednesday at 15:24 by lurksalot

[kingofthestuntmen]

 I finally got one finished-ish... the title has a double meaning; I'm always happy around and/or in water, though I composed this start to finish on ProTools which is not my preferred DAW.

 

 I'm forcing myself to learn how to use the more advanced features as it's the DAW we use at work, and this was composed using templates as a starting point, utilising plug-ins, Audio & Instrument Tracks, Sends, Folders etc. but not MIDI 'cos, you know...

 

 Anyway, electric and 'acoustic' guitars were played on a Godin LGX with Seymour Duncan & LR Baggs pickups, bass was an OLP MM2 that a previous owner fitted with a Kent Armstrong, drums courtesy of EZDrummer 3. 

 

 All FX etc. were stock, or free, plug-ins.

 

 I'm not 100% happy with the 'lead guitar', but if I were to keep trying I'd be here until the middle of next month.

 

 Once I've submitted this, I'll give the other entries a listen... Good Luck..!

[lurksalot]

Oh my, some fine work so far, fair play all 

[upside downer]

Here we go, February folk.

 

A slow, meandering, folky acoustic saunter through the musical tunnel towards a jaunty exit.

 

 

12 string Eko acoustic guitar in open D tuning, Ibanez acoustic bass, 6 string acoustic balalaika and a looped beat from Looperman. Apogee+ mic, Wavepad and Audacity for recording.

[Baloney Balderdash]

"Dud Bottomfeeder - Revenge of the Noodles IV - The Final Stand (an avant-garde epilogue)" from the album "Live at The Noodle Factory - There's Light at the End of the Tunnel, and I Think I Am Going to Die"

 

5 string 28.6" scale Ibanez GSRM25 Mikro Bass (strung with Elixir Nanoweb guitar strings, of the gauges .080 - .062 - .046 - .036 - .026, tuned in G# standard tuning, that is one half step bellow the upper 5 strings of a 7 string bass in regular B standard tuning) ->

 

->> XVive Undulator (tremolo pedal, but never actually engaged and used exclusively for its great buffer) ->> EHX Black Finger (tube driven optical compressor, with 2 preamp tubes operating at proper high 300V plate voltage, primarily functioning as a tube preamp stage, driven to just at the edge of the tubes's breakup point, but with some very subtle compression dialed in as well) ->> TC Electronic Sub'N'Up Mini (for adding a 1 octave up, mimicking an effect somewhat similar to that of an 8 string bass, using a custom made Toneprint) ->> DigiTech FreqOut (feedback generator) ->> Boss LS-2 [A+B Mix <-> Bypass] (parallel effect loops mixer/switch) ={ [Loop A Send] ->> Mosky Black Rat (RAT clone, in Turbo RAT, LED diode clipping, mode, quite raunchy, high gain distortion, always used blended with clean signal from parallel effects [Loop B]) ->> [Loop A Return] ->|+|<- [Loop B Send] ->>  [Loop A] (clean blend) ->> [Loop B Return] ([Loop A] + [Loop B] mixed at an approximate 70/30 ratio) => [LS-2 Output] }=>->> Boss LS-2 [A+B Mix <-> Bypass] (parallel effect loops mixer/switch) ={ [Loop A Send] ->> Joyo Oxford Sound (clone of the Tech 21 Oxford, which is an all analog emulation of an Orange Amp type preamp, dialed in to deliver a high gain overdrive, always used blended with "clean" signal from parallel effects [Loop B]) ->> [Loop A Return] ->|+|<- [Loop B Send] ->> ([Loops B] empty, used to blend in "clean" signal) ->> [Loop B Return] ([Loop A] + [Loop B] mixed at an approximate 50/50 ratio) => [LS-2 Output] }=>->> Zoom B1Xon (used predominantly as reverb and delay unit, including my always on {very subtle Plate Reverb -> subtle Spring Reverb} subtle reverb patch) ->> Mosky XP Booster (Xotic EP Booster V.1 clone) ->> NUX Tape Core Deluxe (amazing digital emulation of the legendary Roland RE-201 Space Echo tape delay, most of the time dialed in to deliver a lush reverb like effect) ->> NUX (NBP-5) Melvin Lee Davis Bass Preamp + DI  (loaded with a digitally emulated Aguilar Tone Hammer amp, and an Ampeg SVT-212AV IR cab simulation, with HPF @40Hz, LPF @14kHz, and a subtle low gain overdrive blended in at a 50/50 clean/drive ratio) ->

 

->> ART Tube MP Project Series (tube preamp and DI, with build in HPF, fixed @40Hz, engaged, tube driven to just on the verge of breakup point) 

 

-> Zoom H4n (handheld recorder)

 

 

Rat is not on at the very start of the composition, and the FreqOut only comes on towards the end briefly, otherwise are all units in this signal chain always on (bar the tremolo pedal first in the chain, that is used exclusively as buffer)

 

 

Kind of a Sonny Sharrock inspired piece.

 

Edited yesterday at 14:43 by Baloney Balderdash
Changed track image, included note about BassChat Composition Challenge to track description, and included signal chain